AuDHD psych major :)

the thing is like. i get that it's scary and makes people who do desire to get pregnant uncomfortable when we talk about the brutality and violence of pregnancy and the damage that pregnancy can do to your body

but you deserve to give informed consent to that process.

the lies around pregnancy - that it's inherently safe, that it doesn't do you permanent damage, that it's only extremely rare for people to die of pregnancy complications, etc like

all of these are lies constructed so that more people will get pregnant w/o knowing all that

there needs to be more talk about the impact of miscarriages and how common they are, how different abortion processes are and how accessible they are

but also like. talking about how pregnancy fucks your body up should not be taboo

this is a process that permanently changes most people's bodies, and that's even if the pregnancy doesn't do them like. severe illness or injury

and i just think everybody should have a right to KNOW that

bc to live in a society that intentionally obscures and hides facts about a completely optional and dangerous process does so for a reason, and that reason is based in a very sinister ideology that does not value bodily autonomy or informed consent

the number of people who are pregnant and don't know about what induced labour entails and what post partum bleeding is horrifies me

Here is a story about the depths to which pregnant people are seen as a vessel for a baby, and the importance of finding prenatal care that assumes you are a human and not a baby holder:

When I was pregnant I was in a million forums for pregnant people because (cough adhd hyperfixation) and I had something called SPD (Symphysis pubis dysfunction) (not Sensory Processing Disorder though I also have that) which is where your pubic bones separate early (more or less) because they get all loosey goosey as your body gets ready to crank that baby out.

Except my pubic bone got confused and got misaligned at like 3 months pregnant. I could barely walk. I couldn't roll over in bed. Doing something that required me to shift my weight from one foot to another like opening a door knob was like an excruciatingly painful knife being stabbed into my pubic bone, I can't express how intense and blinding it was.

So I am in one million baby forums like "am I dying what is happening why is there a knife in my pubic bone" and all these people are like "I have that too! my doctor says it's normal and not to worry because it doesn't hurt the baby. I just deal with it by laying in bed for months in excruciating pain and think about how lucky I am to be having a little miracle growing in my body."

So lol nope. I went to my midwife and they are like, "Oh squeeze a can between your knees look up a physical therapy youtube on SPD" and I did that can-squeeze thing and it CURED THE PROBLEM in ONE DAY. I had been SUFFERING, y'all, it felt miraculous.

And I was so full of rage (flames, flames on the side of my face) that people are being told "Oh, it's NORMAL just deal with it" "It doesn't hurt the baby." Like, look, yes it's NORMAL but it's 100% treatable!!! SPD (again, not Sensory processing disorder) affects 1 in 5 pregnant people.

I was lucky to have amazing midwives (need a gender neutral term for that profession, but they see pregnant men and women)(side note highly recommend midwives if you are gender nonconfirming/a man/etc) and I have DOZENS of examples of shit like this.

(Another example is post partum friends being like "oh I am peeing my pants 900x day after giving birth" and my doctor says it's NORMAL so I just dealt with it for decades. My midwives were like "Oh that's normal and also physical therapy cures that in like 2 sessions")

When my sister was looking to get pregnant she was given the best advice. She was told that being pregnant is an experience akin to being in a moderate sized car crash, in terms of risk and lasting injury.

Some people in moderate car crashes are very lucky, and walk away with zero injury. Some are very unlucky, and die. But most people fall into the third category, where they'll be injured at the time, then heal, and then for the rest of their life they have some minor and liveable complication from the injury. Like a knee that lets you know when the rain is coming, or a back that doesn't like seats without lumbar support, or a shoulder that never quite gets its full range of motion back.

The vast majority of people survive and thrive, like. But their body is never the same again. And people should know that when they make the choice of whether to put their body through that or not

You deserve to be informed!

How (and Why) to Take Back Reproductive Rights: On Pulling Weeds and Fighting Back 

How To Get an Abortion 

You CANNOT lose a month's progress in an hour. If you fall back or you do something you're not proud of, that does not undo all your hard work.

You've formed habits, you've made changes, and one mistake will not erase that.

Beating yourself up for falling back into old habits won't undo anything. All you can do is continue forward toward your goal.

Remind yourself of everything you did that you were proud of. Remember the progress you made. Acknowledge your power.

Please don't punish yourself for that moment when you lost control. You weren't weak, you aren't a failure, and everything you worked for is not ruined.

look like I don't want to derail this like "this doesn't apply to me" "then you're not one of the people I'm talking to" I get it but I learned something about ADHD people and habits last year that I did not know -- it takes us many times as long to form habits as neurotypical people because the mechanic of ADHD in many ways is a memory recording problem -- and I want to write a version of this for people who may legitimately feel that forgetting to do the thing for one day is a huge setback and undoes the attempt to form the habit.

So if you have ADHD and you find that a) it takes a lot longer than a month to form a habit and b) if you skip it one day you suddenly can't remember it the next day to save your life:

It was still important that you tried, and meaningful for the days you did do it. Like say it's brushing your teeth: you still have the benefit if a month of dental hygiene. Say it's practicing art: I bet your technique did improve if you practiced every day for a month! Say it's exercise: I bet you have better endurance than you did a month ago.

So what you gotta do to get back on the horse and keep working on forming that habit is figure out what interrupted you and how to get around that. Do you need to set a reminder on your phone? Were you relying on a schedule imposed from outside that changed? Do you need to make set up for your activity separate from the activity itself so it doesn't overwhelm you? Do you need to change where you put your toothbrush or your paintbrush or whatever so it catches your eye?

It was important enough for you to try for a month, it's important enough for you to sit down and figure out how to get your brain to engage with this new habit again. You can figure it out. I believe in you.

Don't feel bad for having a hard time starting up again after a break -- there is a legitimate physiological issue here! And punishing yourself doesn't help. (if it did it would've worked by now, right? because many of us have been struggling with feeling like we didn't try hard enough for a long time.) Be kind to yourself. Figure out how to reward yourself for doing the thing, rather than punishing yourself for not doing it.

I'm working on this myself right now. I need to build up a habit of studying so I can get through some exams. I used to have a system that worked, and the thing that derailed me was long covid and not having enough energy and being unable to clear the brain fog. So I've spent nearly a year working on recovery, working on allowing myself to rest, working on going to doctors and seeking out treatments to get over the fatigue and brain fog. I think I'm finally back, but of course all my study habits have deteriorated. Probably even someone who didn't have ADHD would have problems slipping back into habits after a year's interruption for health reasons. And I have other things I'm trying to rebuild habits for that lapsed for the same reasons, like my step goals and walking daily; and cooking for me and my spouse a few times per week. But studying is the one I'm having the worst trouble with. And I think it's because walking and cooking I inherently enjoy when I'm not too exhausted, but studying -- I want the end result, to pass the exams; I don't terribly love studying for its own sake. It might be different if it were a new topic rather than a review topic for me, but here we are.

So how do I make studying fun for myself again? I can't berate myself into this, it doesn't work. I gotta use the carrot, not the stick.

But this is possible. I'll figure out a way. And you can too.

I have found a lot of success in points based systems rather than the old “must do this every day or else” idea became it builds in the idea that you can fail and still recover. Usually the must do everyday goes really well up until the point when you get sick or miss a day or something, then it falls apart and there is no getting started again because you already failed. However, with a points based system you can recover.

Say I want to brush my teeth everyday. Toothbrushing gets 1 point, and I wan’t seven points by the end of the week. But flossing is 2 points, because it is harder. Now if I miss a day, I can recover by brushing twice or by flossing. When 7 points becomes easy, I up my goal to 9 points and so on.

For some people, recording their points is rewarding enough. For others, meeting their goal should merit some type of reward (candy or tv time for example).

as a certified bitter cripple I think there is a collection of users on this site who are just blatantly aggressive and dismissive towards neurodivergent people and justify it with advocacy for physical disability. and i think its extremely gross! please do not let these people bully you. i have been pretty firm that physical illness/disability deserve a better stage to talk about that experience and advocate for our needs (so many spaces are inaccessible to wheelchair users its ridiculous), but once people start talking about who has it worse and patronize the accessibility needs of neurodivergent people I think they’ve lost the plot. I don’t think you should harass them or argue with them, they are clearly angry at the world and they have good reason to be. but if you feel like your conditions are being belittled by someone like this, i am giving you permission to block them. it does not make you a bad disability advocate.

spiritually nourished by listening in to the admin meeting and hearing that work is having trouble recruiting staff for their understaffed, very part-time afterschool positions. the peace that passeth understanding, etc.

their first two suggestions for improving staff morale and mental health were "have everyone attend a mandatory mental health seminar" and "ask the staff how things are going" bro at least have a pizza party...

bro I have been in therapy for years, if you make me sit thru a PowerPoint about journaling and taking time for myself when my top two stressors are 1) you and 2) also you but in a different way, I will shit my pants during the seminar, god bless <3

just remembered my all-time-fave tweet:

thinking that mr. brightside, a usamerican song by a usamerican band which is one of the most popular songs of the last 30 years, is something that is only popular among brits is funny enough on its own but to say sweet caroline, a song by usamerican icon neil diamond about *caroline kennedy* which is a mainstay of boston sports specifically and usamerican events across the country generally, is also a song only brits know is just hysterical you’ll have to drag me off the internet by my fucking toenails i love it here

book: Disaster Inc by Caimh McDonnell

I NEED THAT ONE FIC PLEASE

Once one of the most powerful politicians in Ohio, Householder is now a convicted felon, guilty of racketeering conspiracy and breaking the public's trust. He was immediately taken into custody.

In one of the largest corruption cases in Ohio history, former state House Speaker Larry Householder was sentenced Thursday to the maximum 20 years in prison for orchestrating a nearly $60 million illegal bribery scheme that fueled his return to political power.

Once one of the most powerful politicians in Ohio, Householder is now a convicted felon, guilty of racketeering conspiracy and breaking the public's trust.

“Beyond financial greed, I think you just liked power," U.S. District Judge Timothy Black said before sentencing Householder. "You weren't serving the people. You were serving yourself."

Black denied a request that Householder be allowed to report to prison. Instead, two U.S. Marshals handcuffed Householder behind his back and escorted him out of court with his family watching from the front row.

Householder, former Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges and three other men were charged with participating in a pay-to-play scheme that helped Householder win control of the Ohio House of Representatives in 2018, pass a $1.3 billion bailout for two nuclear plants in House Bill 6 and defend that law against a ballot initiative to block it.

He's a Republican, raise your hand if you're surprised.

I guess he's not holding the House anymore, is he?

The man whose inquiry about a gay wedding website formed part of a pivotal Supreme Court case might have been largely fake, a new report alleges. In the case 303 Creative v. Elenis, which is set to be ruled on this week, Colorado web designer Lorie Smith argued that anti-discrimination laws can’t compel her to make a website for a gay couple. To make that argument, Smith and her lawyers from the Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom referenced Stewart, a man described in court filings as one half of a gay couple who inquired about a website for their wedding. The only problem? According to his own account shared with The New Republic, Stewart is straight, married, and never made that request. “I’m married, I have a child—I’m not really sure where that came from? But somebody’s using false information in a Supreme Court filing document,” Stewart, whose name and contact information are listed in the filings, said, according to the magazine. The forthcoming ruling on 303 Creative v. Elenis is expected to become a landmark decision on LGBTQ discrimination.

Everyone- eat the rich! everyone on the Titan was a self entitled rich person (except that poor kid rip)! They shouldn’t have exploited the victims of the Titanic!

News sources everywhere-

Why do I keep seeing James Cameron all over my news (I know these are both Insider, but I have been seeing James Cameron in the news for days from several different outlets, I’m just lazy) Listen, I know he did the time and made the movie but how is he any different? Rich white guy? Profited off of the exploitation of the tragedy of the Titanic? Self entitled expert? Bleh I’m over seeing his crusty wannabe Saruman face all over my phone. Go back to the Avatar movies and think about what you’ve done.

Image descriptions- two news articles, one titled “James Cameron estimates he’s spent more time with the Titanic than the ship’s actual captain after 33 voyages to the wreckage” and “The Titan sub was likely trying to surface and the passengers probably knew the hull was starting to crack before it imploded, James Cameron says.”

A news article titled James Cameron on Titanic Submarine Loss: “Struck by the Similarity of the Titanic Disaster Itself” and a lovely hands rubbing meme with the text “James Cameron eyeballing the opportunity he never thought would come: Titanic 2”

...I'm writing this under the assumption that you don't know any better, because hoo boy is this a bad take

James Cameron legitimately numbers among the small handful of people most qualified to talk about the Titan disaster. The reason why is because being a filmmaker is almost a side project compared to his very real contributions to submersible design, oceanography, and undersea exploration. Cameron has spent decades in the field of undersea science and submarine engineering. He co-designed a submersible called Deepsea Challenger which he personally took to the Challenger Deep, the lowest point of the Marianas Trench and the lowest point on Earth, alone; the first and to date only person to have ever done so solo. His hyperfixation is not the Titanic, it's submersible engineering and undersea exploration in general. Here's him being presented the Nierenberg Prize (for contributions to oceanography) in 2013:

Note that in the above interview he literally says that he made Titanic essentially just to get the funding to go to the wreck site (and to have the funding to continue to do so decades onward). He's made 33 dives to the wreck of the Titanic.

The reason why he appears in the news is not because he wants to talk about the disaster. It's got little to nothing to do with him having made Titanic (though that is tangentially related). It's because everyone knows that he is an actual, legitimate expert on the issue of submersible engineering (as well as both diving and diving to the Titanic wreck in particular), and so they bombarded him with interview requests and requests for comment. He specifically did not respond to any such requests until after the deaths of the passengers had been confirmed, because he knew that the sub had imploded and they were all dead, and he didn't want to be insensitive and drown everyone's hopes by telling everyone that the search and rescue was pointless. Here's him on ABC News next to his friend and associate Dr. Bob Ballad, the man who discovered the wreck of the Titanic, who is probably the only other person more qualified than Cameron to talk about the recent disaster:

TL;DR: James Cameron is not being interviewed because "he made Titanic"; he's being interviewed because he's a well-known and verifiable submersible engineering and undersea expert.

So let's talk about this for a minute.

First of all, how do you think Pride events fund themselves and stay free for attendees? O.o Vendor fees aren't all of it - a lot of money comes from sponsors - but like... we paid $1300 to vend at Seattle Pride this year. That's the money that pays the people who work to make Pride happen. That is not free. Pride as an event does not just magically happen. A lot of people work really hard to make Pride happen and to clean up after it.

We're a small trans-owned company and 100% of our employees are trans & queer. We jokingly refer to Pride as "Gay Christmas". The money we make during Pride means we stay open, Pride events get vendor fees, and our employees get paid for the rest of the year. This company does not exist without Pride events. The only reason we survived as a company during COVID is because my wife has a stable, good IT job.

This shit isn't free to do. It does not just magically happen. Performers need to get paid. Tech crew needs to get paid. Equipment needs to be rented for performers. Stages need to be rented. Electrical services need to be paid for so food can happen. Ice and water cost money. Trash pickup costs money.

A lot of people volunteer and donate, but festivals and big community events? They cost money, and the money we pay to be able to vend is part of how Pride events happen. Without that, small queer businesses like @nerdykeppie don't survive and the only people putting their money in to make this happen, AND MONEY NEEDS TO CHANGE HANDS FOR EVENTS TO HAPPEN, are Smirnoff and fucking Wells Fargo.

For fuck's sake. Y'all want small queer businesses, but you really don't want us to actually survive, do you?

I think that commenter is confused about what rainbow capitalism actually is.

Rainbow capitalism is when uncaring corporations blast rainbow things on their products to get queers to buy them, while not actually doing anything to help queer people. Rich cishets getting millions of off a minority group.

Meanwhile, in regards to nerdykeppie? A small business owned by queer people, that makes products for the queer community that the people involved are a part of. Buying their stuff is supporting the queer community, which is a GOOD thing to happen during pride month.

And for fuck's sake, where else are we supposed to find things that help us proclaim who we are if not by buying them from independent queer-run businesses? I mean, I've got a shirt that tells people I'm a genderqueer bisexual Star Trek nerd, and I promise you Target isn't going to sell that- but when I emailed NerdyKeppie about the possibility of getting one of their designs done for that, I literally got an email back an hour later saying "Here you go, it's up on the website to buy it." Shouting down people making a living by giving the community what it wants and needs is just not a helpful way to do anything.

Yo for real on Sunday night when I was guarding our stuff during load out so Evie and Emet could go get the van and all, I sat on one of the benches at Seattle Center & watched a flock of seagulls and a murder of crows flutter down and start picking through the drifts of trash left behind for stray French fries and bits of bread and other food. There was so much trash scattered across the ground.

And that's not... like... an indictment of queers in specific (though, truly, clean up after yourself) but that's just what happens when there are thousands of people in one place. People drop things and don't realize it, drop a piece of paper or food and then go "ew, it's gross now, I don't want to pick it up" or just don't give a fuck.

Someone has to clean that up. That costs money, because the someones cleaning that up deserve to be paid.

We're planning on going to a smallish Pride event in September in coastal WA. We'll pay $30 in vendor fees but we'll probably also drop a couple hundred bucks on sponsorship, bc that's us giving back to the community that supports us.

Y'all have GOT to learn how to separate "rainbow capitalism" from "intracommunity support." If your money isn't going back into the community, it's going out of the community.

Glad this is being talked about. Our local trans pride org did not get city council funding this year. They will go ahead and run events, but they're having to fund-raise and clearly there'll be significant limits to what they can do.

I think people don't always realise how tenuous the public funding and even corporate sponsorship for these things can be, especially in a climate of redoubled transphobia. We've already seen some big brands climb down or be ambivalent in promoting their own Pride collections this year.

Also, re: artists and makers and service providers: there is a ton of disability, neurodivergence and mental ill health across our community. It's not cheap being disabled, and yet contrary to the media stereotypes of well-heeled gay people, most community members I personally know are just getting by.

I know a lot of queer and trans folks who have jobs making stuff not just for the love of it, but because they can't rely on stable employment from organisations (and not just the obviously capitalistic ones - it's also the universities, and the health sector, for example) that may turn their logos rainbow in June, but maintain ableist hiring, disciplinary and firing policies year-round. I am seeing this dichotomy at work very painfully in the lives of loved ones at the moment.

Supporting disabled queer and trans artists and makers to pay their bills isn't rainbow capitalism, it's praxis, AND you get cool things to wear to Pride, which from what I've seen online this year, are often a lot more interesting from a design point of view, and more representative of intersectional identities, than the big brands' Pride gear.

They're also often where you will find subtle Pride stuff if safety is a big consideration (I think that's true for a lot of us) and you want to be visible only to the right people. That's not a thing I've seen in the chain store Pride collections...

This bit, but also - even if you're not immediately part of a community, it's worth exploring ways to make money go into it.

Certain words can change your brain forever and ever so you do have to be very careful about it.

making friends as an adult is the worst, I just want to know people already. no meet only know

this person said "become a brain witch" like I'm supposed to know what that is

help I'm being dragged by the brain witch community

Judaism is also the only religion (with a large enough sample size) that have are majority supportive of nonbinary people and respecting they/them or neopronouns.

This also happened in the 90's/00's, progressive/reform Jewish organizations were some of the first to come out in favor of gay rights while Christian groups supported not just continued but enhanced homophobic oppression.

To clarify, Elon musk has had years where his net worth increased by around $121B (such as 2020 and 2021, a time when a lot of people were suffering) but he did not pay income on this increase because an overwhelming majority of it was not reported as income.

If Elon Musk were paying regular income tax on this increase in net worth, he would be in the top bracket paying 37%, which would be about $44.4 billion. Instead, he's paying about 1/4th that. Why? Because he's able to benefit from loopholes and legal tax avoidance schemes, such as borrowing at a very low rate against unrealized capital gains, that most taxpayers are not able to benefit from.

A large part of why there is such a massive disparity in wealth between the rich and poor in our society is that we allow people who already have a ton of wealth to concentrate wealth very easily while avoiding tax, like this. Closing these loopholes is important to ensuring equality of opportunity and also avoiding the extreme concentration of power in the hands of a tiny number of people.

And we see the negative effect on the world of allowing Elon Musk to have such wealth and thus power.

Please, support closing these tax loopholes. At a bare minimum I want him to pay some sort of base level of tax on the increase in his net worth. But I also would prefer that the top tax bracket was much higher. 37% is much lower than it was historically. Not that long ago it was even as high as 90%. Having it that high is a strong disincentive or deterrent to people getting the sort of compensation that leads to people becoming super wealthy. But it's probably more important to fix the loopholes because if you just raise the rate but still allow legal tax avoidance, people will just avoid paying tax.

tbh the submarine thing is the perfect demonstration of the thing a load of studies have borne out, where the more wealth someone has, the more likely they are to DRASTICALLY overestimate their competence in basically any field.

plus, tho I don't personally know of any studies into this, I also think it's pretty clear that wealth creates what I think of as the 'Nothing Bad Ever Happens To The Kennedys!!' mindset, where wealth insulates some people from consequences so much that it also makes them drastically overestimate their ability to survive danger.

saw some videos of the late Oceangate CEO bragging how he'd 'broken the rules' when it game to the construction of the Titan and in hindsight it's painfully apparent that the phenomenon I talk about above was heavily in play.

The guy essentially had actual submarine experts screaming 'MATE WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA' at him and he clearly took this to mean he was a fearless iconoclast and not an idiot about to doom himself and four other people to maybe the worst possible way to die a human being can experience.

Mio Hashimoto ( contemporary Japanese sculptor, b. 1980)

Perfection. The softness. In its eyes.