- ED trigger warning -

Being skinny ruined my life. If you’re thin and think to yourself, “why don’t fat people just lose weight?” Please read this

I was the “ideal fat” in the sense that I did everything skinny people wanted me to do. I tried every diet in the book. I exercised regularly. I worked with doctors and dietitians to figure out the best way to lose weight. But nothing worked. I did everything “right” to lose weight, and my weight stayed the same

But the thin people in my life kept telling me that I wouldn’t be happy, attractive, healthy, etc. until I lost weight. So, heartbroken, I came to the conclusion that anorexia was the only option left. It felt safer than bariatric surgery, and was obviously much more affordable

I became the perfect anorexic. 700 cal a day or less, except once a week I allowed myself 1400 cal. For reference, my body required at least 2800 to maintain weight, and at least 1800 to keep my organs and stuff fully functioning. Still, 700 a day, I persisted because everyone in my life told me weight loss was all that mattered. If dieting didn’t work, anorexia had to

And it did. My weight dropped all the way down to 110 pounds. I was skinny - underweight, even - in all sense of the word. The people in my life saw it as a miracle. The ultimate success story. My mother, my “friends,” my doctors, they all congratulated me on my accomplishment

When I confessed my eating disorder to my doctor, he told me, “that’s not the best way to go about it, but I’m glad you lost the weight.” My mother took pictures of me and sent them to relatives to brag

Okay, great. I was skinny. I did what I set out to do. But there were severe consequences

The most obvious was my joint pain doubled, maybe even tripled, to the point that I couldn’t leave the house without a wheelchair

I also developed several health complications, including fatty liver disease and extremely painful GERD. I had to see a handful of specialists and get an endoscopy because of severe stomach pain

My partner, who was the only person who saw my weight loss for what it was (a horrible thing that only happened because of an eating disorder), convinced me to enter a recovery program

For nearly a year, I relearned how to feed myself. I ate everything I was told to eat, nothing more and nothing less. My diet was 100% in the hands of somebody else

And I gained back every pound I has lost. All of the work to become thin went right out the window. It was proven to me that thinness and health were incompatible with my body. If I wanted to be thin, I had to forgo my physical and mental well-being. And vise-versa

Prior to the anorexia, I never once struggled with binge eating. I was naturally an intuitive eater, and I did a good job of having a well rounded diet. After the anorexia, after recovery, I developed a binge eating disorder. I had spent so long starving myself, that my brain and body got stuck in survival mode, desperate to consume any and all calories out of fear that I might starve again. To this day I struggle with binge eating

I did everything thin people wanted of me. I dieted. I exercised. And when all else failed, I starved myself. Now I have liver disease, stomach issues, and BED. Not to mention the loads of mental issues that accumulated as a result of my weight loss journey. During the throes of my anorexia, I had to be hospitalized for suicidal ideation

When you tell fat people to “just lose weight” you are suggesting they give themselves illnesses for which treatments are not always effective. You are asking fat people to destroy their stomachs and livers. When a fat person loses so much weight that they become skinny, they are likely giving up so much of their health in efforts to be treated like a human being

If you’re thin, do your part. Treat fat people like people before we tear our bodies apart

I never had to go into recovery, but I was close. I realized that my family and friends were cheering my ED on, with the exception of my mom, who was shocked at my visible spine and ribs. I was not going to find help outside of myself, just more shame and degradation and fear of being fat and being treated as worthless again. I knew I was going to die if I kept on what I was doing (at the time, eating one meal every three days).

Then I read Gina Kolata's Rethinking Thin, stumbled across the Fatosphere (Shapely Prose and Junkfood Science...anyone remember those blogs?), and I stopped dieting for good. I bounced up back to my old weight in 18 months and have stayed there ever since. My body really, really wants to be fat. I didn't want to battle it, anymore. I wasn't going to win, and I had better things to accomplish with my time and effort.

I lost a lot of thin privilege, a shocking amount, in an incredibly short period of time. You can't ever convince me there isn't thin privilege. I was treated like a completely different person practically overnight. It made me--still makes me--incredibly sad. Fat people are the same people they'd be if they were thin.

Thin people, you would be the same, if you were fat. Do you think you'd deserve the derision you pile on fat people if you woke up fat, tomorrow? You might. Side effects of medications, post-pregnancy body changes, accidents that reduce mobility, illness, and aging can all result in weight gain. Wouldn't you like to be treated like a human being worthy of good medical care, professional respect, romantic value, and basic dignity?

Treat fat people well: because we deserve it, because you might be in our place someday, and because it might save a life.

-ArteToLife

it obviously makes sense, but one of my friend’s kids is going into swim class, and all the parents got an email today going, “when little ones are scared, they cling on to instructors. PLEASE trim their nails.” 

i don’t know why that’s so funny to me, but just. the idea of this poor, scratched swim instructor having to make sure to email before each class as a reminder to please declaw the children SENT me. 

When I taught swim lessons I remember trying to delicately ask parents not to cover their child in shea/coconut/olive oil before lessons.

“I understand your skincare regimen and wanting to protect their tender baby flesh from the pool chemicals, but COULD YOU NOT OIL YOUR CHILD LIKE A GREASED PIG before tossing them in the POOL? Thanks EVER so much!”

@nakimochiku i CACKLED

So I was scrolling and saw this image in an article about the European heat wave,

And was like, uh, are you missing something there, buddy? Like all that red in northern Africa? Because that's a lot of red.

And I was going to give them the benefit of doubt, since I don't know much about the climate in Northern Africa, aside from Morroco and Egypt, which seem like really hot places, so you know, maybe it's normal there?

But nope, that's not the case:

Some selections from the article:

"The region has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.

“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”

"The Sahel, for instance, has been heating at a faster pace than the global average despite being hot already. Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if the world continues on its current trajectory, a UK university study found. Its people are especially vulnerable due to shrinking resources, such as water, and poor amenities, and a dearth of trees and parks means there are few options for places to cool off."

Remember that the right person will never get tired of you even in the worst times

No, they will! But they'll work through it, or walk away for a bit (i'm talking minutes to hours) and then come back.

People can love you and still need to get away from you for a bit. And there is nothing toxic about that — it's good, in fact. It helps remind everyone involved that everyone has boundaries, and everyone needs time to themselves.

It's okay. Calm down before you talk about something that made you angry while your loved one is sick. Be sure of what made you mad so you can discuss it together.

Love isn't a one-way street, and it's something that takes work. Part of that work is knowing when you need to step away.

hang on I’m trying to see something

don’t tell me the name of your pet, just tell me in the tags the name you call them that’s got nothing to do with their actual name

discovered an intriguing network of pornbots which appear to be repeatedly reblogging this picture of butter between themselves

I love all of these

remembering that time I explained on Twitter that Jews are 0.2% of the world’s population and control like 1.2% of its wealth

while Christians are 30-something percent of the world’s population and control 55% of its wealth

so, like, there IS a minority of the world’s population controlling the majority of its wealth

Christians.

and of course a bunch of utter walnuts were like “SEE??? this proves that Jews ARE disproportionately wealthy!!!”

which, like, sure

sure

we have $1.20 to Christians’ $55

but sure, individually we average out to having a bit more pocket change than the world’s average

a couple of things, though:

-those are AVERAGES—it doesn’t mean that every Jew you meet is wealthy, especially because…

-we are such a small population that the existence of *one Jewish billionaire* would skew the average, learn what an average is ffs, if there are 10 of us and 1 is a billionaire and the rest of us have $0 dollars, on average we each have $100,000,000 but in reality 9 of us still have $0 dollars

-y’all killed off a LOT of our poor people less than a century ago which also tends to skew the average

The minority group (in the sense of being less than half the population; they’re still the largest religion) controlling the majority of the world’s wealth is Christians. Sorry about your favorite conspiracy theory.

i want to print that out and staple it to ppl's foreheads. a lot of the jews who fled extreme violence, genocide, and ethnic cleansing were only able to do so because they had the funds. those who couldn't afford to leave were killed. and those who were barely able to scrape by enough to escape usually were forced into assimilation wherever they immigrated because poverty doesn't give you much of a choice.

still so fucking weird to go from real life, where a cis man being flamboyant/effeminate/camp is judged like 70+% by how he speaks and carries himself, to online queer communities, which often seem to have no concept of male gender non-conformity that doesn’t involve wearing a skirt

i promise you, a man can be fem to the point of being in danger while wearing literally exactly the same thing as a hypermasculine guy. a boring basic black suit. a t shirt and jeans. a UNIFORM. gender conformity is not only about what you wear

None of you have watched that heartbreaking scene in The Birdcage where Albert gives up wearing everything he likes to try and blend in for their son’s conservative prospective in-laws and is so awkward and uncomfortable that no one says much until finally he says, defeated, “I know what you’re thinking - dressed like this, I’m even more obvious, aren’t I?” and it shows.

Here, have your queer heart broken:

This is what I’m talking about. This is still literally how it is in most places in the Midwest if you’re trying to “pass” for straight/cis/whatever.

I cannot begin to describe how hard I cried when I saw this scene the first time and how confused my conservative family was as to why I was crying.

It’s so funny how literally the way a man holds his wrists is an indication of femininity but also people think it’s all about makeup and clothing. But we’re also at a point that if you have a suit that is any color other than black, dark grey, or navy, it’s flamboyant.

Men’s sartorial stylings are so rigidly controlled it’s painful. Tim Gunn here is at the very absolute bleeding edge of “acceptably masculine” here for most cishet men, just for some noticible stripes, patterns, and purple, and that’s before he even moves. This is how restricted it is.

But Trixie Mattel (out of drag here) wearing standard masculine garb is could still be deemed unacceptably feminine for body language alone.

This is why we talk about “toxic masculinity” – the idea that any expression of emotion besides anger or even wearing colorful clothes is non-masculine and therefore restricted is horrifying. It sucks! Men should be allowed to express themselves outside of a tiny box of acceptable behavior, because they’re, y'know, people, and people have a wide range of expression in the way they like to look and move and act. I honestly feel like it’s gotten worse over the last couple decades, too. If you look at men’s fashions from the 70s and even into the 80s, there’s a lot of style choices that look pretty cringe to us, but…. you also see a lot more color and pattern in suits than you do now. I’m not sure when this started to shift, or if it’s tied in to the increasing lack of color in all consumer products, but it sucks.

THIS SHOW IS SO PURE!

It’s worth noting that Kenneth spent the entire episode making the game (and the subsequent fight) as inclusive as possible for JJ and his disabled friends (all of whom were played by disabled actors/actresses).

BONUS:

Bonus #2

Of course I had to show the best part:

One common experience of disability all across the board - relating to everything from learning/intellectual disability to neurodiversity to physical impairment to chronic illness - is the way that “one little thing” can make everything - work performance, school performance, ability to communicate etc - go right off the rails and collapse.

This is an issue I frequently see abled doctors, therapists, psychologists, teachers, social workers etc speaking about in terms of “poor flexibility”, “need to teach resilience” etc etc, focusing on this as an issue *with the disabled person.*

And that illustrates absolutely *perfectly* why a) disabled people are the experts in disability, not abled “specialists”, and b) why the social model of disability *needs* to be taught and centred.

The issue in such circumstances is not some sort of “innate preference for rigidity” (you may laugh, but that’s a phrase I sadly *still* see used about autistic folks far too often) or even “innate widespread lack of capacity” in the disabled person. It is a symptom of a system - in this case, a disabled person’s *life* - that is under immense strain and operating without spare capacity available to be used to respond to unforeseen circumstances.

Disabled people are, almost universally, *master* adapters. Incredibly adept at adaptive thought; incredibly resilient and incredibly dogged. We are that way because we *need to be* to survive in a world that is incredibly ill-adapted for our needs. The reason we are *perceived* as “inflexible”, “rigid”, “fragile”, “incapable” etc etc is because we are, very very frequently, *already* operating at the limits of our capacity just to survive in a world that is incredibly hostile to our needs and to our existence.

The medical model of disability judges all people to exist in the same world under the same circumstances, and thus judges the disabled person to be “lacking” when we struggle. Thus the onus is put on *us* to “correct” this “lack”. “You need to build resilience”.

It is the exact same mindset that blames people living in poverty for their lack of available resources, and suggests “budgeting classes” or “stopping spending money on avocado toast and Netflix” instead of recognising the need to raise wages to liveable levels in low-paid work and provide genuinely affordable housing. Focusing on, and *blaming*, the individual rather than recognising the systemic injustice and the desperate need for systemic change.

“Resilience” as long-term quality more or less means “having the resources to put into dealing with unexpected difficulty while still maintaining other functions.” Whether those resources are time, energy, money, family or community support - if a person does not have access to enough of them, the system - in this case, their life - *will* become overstretched, and they *will* fail on one, or, very often, on multiple points.

That does not represent a personal or moral failure. It represents having access to insufficient resources to meet needs. It is genuinely that simple. And that is what needs to be addressed for disabled people to live and thrive.

ALT

(thread)

Yeah I'm not letting this stay in the tags. Your thoughts are on my blog now

Today I learned that we were gonna maybe get Walupeach but she was scrapped bc she "would be just like Doronjo" so I had to do a Doronjo-esque take on Walupeach

also "ough life-saving essential medical equipment uses so much plastic" in this country you can purchase an artificial ballsack for your pickup truck

"ough watching a show uses so much electricity" on road sides there are giant electrified billboards that do nothing but show you ads

deepleffen's tweets have done irreparable damage to my vocabulary, but this one is engraved especially deep in my brain

coming in Stardew Valley 1.6...

-new festival

-new items

-more dialogues

-secrets

-???

my brother started calling our cat "doobie brother" which he then lengthened to "dubious brother" and has since morphed into "brother dubious" like he's some sort of fucked up little monk

brother dubious

Listen, if you’re craving sugar to the point where it feels like a “drug addiction” (and even drug addiction is complex & widely misunderstood), then you’re too hungry. You’re too hungry!

The pleasurability of sugar and the reward that sugar creates in the brain is much more pronounced in what the literature calls “restrained eaters” than it is in intuitive eaters. Sugar is usually pleasurable for most people, but in non-restrained eaters its appeal will be highest at our hungriest and decrease significantly with satiety. Restrictive eaters don’t experience satiety, because they constantly maintain an energy deficit, and that’s why sugar feels like a “drug.” Dietary sugar is fast, efficient energy for a deprived body, and our smart bodies drive us to it powerfully for that reason, to rectify the energy deficit.

Dietary sugar is great. It’s not a threat. It doesn’t cause disease. It’s not a drug. It’s a healthy part of a pleasurable diet. But if it feels to you like you’re completely out of control around it because of the intensity of its pleasurability, you need to be eating more calories, period.