y'all not to doxx myself too hard but irl i have spent some time in my life in mental health recovery, and i am here to tell anyone who needs to hear it that people with multiples & schizophrenia & psychosis & BPD are fun and interesting and lovable people and my friends

i knew somebody in recovery who had a system of 12 personalities that he drew out in a nested chart for me. they did not remember each other's experiences. and it was cool! i could talk with one alter and then catch up another alter later about what we talked about! it was fun!

i knew a girl with psychosis who heard voices in static and running water but didn't want to get rid of them cause they never said anything distressing and they were familiar and comfortable. that's awesome! how cool is the variance of human experience??

bringing this back for disabled pride month. invisible disabilities count too. if you don't fuck with the mad community i don't fuck with you

Since July is Disability Pride Month

(as opposed to every other month when we're all demure about disability rights /gentle sarcasm)

I wanted to highlight one of my favorite artists: Liberal Jane.

The World Of Becca Blake

Art by Dan Schkade

"July is gay wrath month" actually its disability pride month and we tell you this every year and yet

A short comic I made about my experiences as a seasonal worker, and the way places change you.

you get used to it, but it's tiring, because they need you to understand your own life as a series of goalposts. what college are you going to, what's your major going to be, whatcha gonna do with that, oh where will you settle down, when can i expect grandkids.

for the longest time my goals have been so blurry that they track into each other, their undefined edges slipping quietly back into the soft night. today i want to be a writer; tomorrow i will want to be a doctor, later i will wish i took that law school free ride. how the fuck do people just know what they want to do with their life?

where do you want to be in five years? i want to be alive; which is a huge step for me. ten years ago i would have said i want to be asleep and meant i hope that i'm dead by then.

but i want a yellow kitchen and a standup mixer. i want a garden and a fruit tree (cherry, if i can make that happen) and a big yard for my dogs to play in. i want to come home and read poetry out loud to someone and have them close their eyes to listen. i want a summer watergun fight. i want to make snowmen. i want to be the house to go to for halloween. i want my life to settle around me in a softness, for it to lay down gently. if i am very, very, very lucky, i want to travel; finally go someplace overseas.

of course i don't know what i want to be doing professionally. what i actually want to be doing is curling up beside my dog, settling in to read. i want to be making myself a cup of good coffee.

i can't answer the other questions. whenever people asked me what do you want to be when you grow up, i used to say i hope i'm happy.

i hope i'm still kind, five years from now. i hope i never get jaded and mean. i hope i have stayed in therapy. what do you picture yourself doing? when will you actually be an adult about this? why are you so afraid of being ambitious?

am i not ambitious? the other day i rearranged my furniture which doesn't quite fit into my apartment. i watered my plants. i'm going to try to propagate a cherry seed. my five year goal is to spend more time laughing. to lie down in a patch of sunwarm moss. to relax for a minute. to close my eyes and think oh thank god. this is why i stayed. this is finally it.

self love is a process where you reduce the amount of separation you have to experience to be able to look at yourself with compassion

like first you can look at a baby picture. that’s an infant. she is innocent. then you allow yourself to smile when you see yourself in a photo album, at say, age seven. the hard bit is to stop cringing at you, ten years ago. then you might be able to forgive you, five years ago. maybe you can understand then, where you, four years and two months ago, was coming from. sure, you don’t agree with your sixteen-year-old self, but you get it. you start wanting to hug her instead of yell at her. you, nine months ago, was actually doing her best. you from half a year ago was doing all she knew how. you, last month, made a mistake. and she’s sorry, and last week she felt joy and it wasn’t embarrassing. you from five days ago ate lunch on the grass. the you from the mirror this morning is that seven year old child. you are soft and new and it is good that you exist and you can still be soft and new and it is still good that you exist. give your baby photos a kiss

the impossible return

I went out with 3 of my friends today. I found a place that claimed to have wheelchair accessible walks, and we went off the path, and my wheelchair got stuck a thousand times.

We laughed so hard, and they pushed me (I can't propel myself very far) and we took photos and we laughed more and we went through mud and fine sand and thistles, and then we ate croissants at a café and when we got back to the car we had ice cream and

I wish I could go back to my child self and show them this day. I wish I could say, One day you'll be part of things and people will be glad to have you around, and they won't complain about pushing you up a steep grade or through a bog, and they will want to hear your shitty jokes and when you gasp and say LOOK A BABY BUNNY they will stop to look and it will be exactly as magical as you're imagining now.

You can find a place where you're appreciated and loved and supported. You can. I believe it.

I went to a carnival with my friends the other day, and even though my shoulder was dislocated all of them were willing to push me wherever we went, and when they went on the rides I couldn't go on, I sat and took pictures of them so we could all remember the day. I bought cheesy dinosaur shirts and we all found matching cow shirts. We went through the fair and found little Lego sets that we all loved, and when I got overwhelmed all of them were willing to find a quiet spot to sit and relax in. Even when I started having a tic attack, we left very quickly and got pizza.

I really needed this post to remind me that it's easiest to feel like you're a burden when people treat you like a burden. But I promise you're not, you'll find people who want you around.

I bought a house with my partner. I am allowed to paint the walls exactly the way I want them painted, in exactly the order I want them painted. I put up the painter's tape myself and I pull it down (so satisfying). I decide if the walls need another coat or if a spot needs touching up, and I am not shamed or berated for my "pickiness". In fact, my partner walks in and says "wow, it looks amazing in here. Great job, handsome." He does not touch me when I am sweaty and sore, but waits until I have had my shower and come back to myself.

The food in our cupboards is food I will eat - or at least our cupboards contain nothing I hate and am expected to eat anyway. There is always something to snack on for when food is Bad and eating is Hard. There are no doors on the cupboards, the better to remember that food exists and can be accessed easily.

There are soft things everywhere. The lights are kept low and soon we will put up fairy lights for supplemental lighting. My sensory needs are met and respected, and I am safe.

My partner puts my walker in his car and drives me places - and does not object when I would rather be the one driving, relinquishes control as easily as breathing. He checks to make sure I am okay, that I am not pushing too hard; he believes me when I say I can or cannot do something. He slows down to keep pace when I am tired or in pain, and never, ever rushes me.

You will build a home some day, and it will be just as beautiful and safe as mine.

I now live in a place where there is no screaming or yelling. I no longer walk on eggshells by simply existing in my own home. There is no more pressure on me to sacrifice my limited energy to do more because there is no desperate need for me to escape.

The dishes are allowed to stay in the sink overnight and the world does not explode if the bathroom is not cleaned top-to-bottom weekly before Sunday evening. My roommate and partner believes me when I say I cannot do something, and I feel safe and comfortable to ask for help when I need it.

I am unlearning the involuntary hesitation of inviting people to my home, and learning that it's okay to let people in even if their time in my life is only temporary.

I never would have been able to imagine this as a teenager, or even through college. It does get better. It's worth hanging around for.

I have the job I’ve wanted since I was 15 supporting queer and questioning young people with the organisation that was my lifeline when I was younger. I am treated as a person not just someone who can do a job: when I call off sick my boss tells me to make sure I rest up well and don’t come back too soon.

They’re installing a hoist and changing table so I don’t have to go across town in all weathers to use the toilet. In general at work my experience of disability is valued and when I point out that something isn’t accessible I’m thanked for my insight rather than treated like a problem or asking too much.

And after years of missing out on school trips, days out with friends, family holidays and university social events, I’m now surround by people who care about me so much that the idea of leaving me behind and and not inviting me is unthinkable. My boss is even trying really hard to figure out a way for me to go camping like I used to when I’m a child – from finding a tent that’s accessible and big enough for a bed, tilt in space commode/ shower chair and a mobile hoist to making sure there’s electricity to charge my chair and equipment.

I am loved and part of the wider community and supported to live a life I love.

I go on hikes with my friends and there’s no objections when I need to use my chair vs my crutches (which increasingly is the case). We go off roading with my chair and I fall and I get stuck and my partner pushes me carefully to make sure they don’t damage my backrest (I have no push handles). We laugh and I get bruised but in the fun mountain biking way. I get to be adventurous AND me, I don’t have to choose. My friends offer to help set up and breakdown my chair out of my car and research accessible paths. We get muddy and dirty and talk about TTRPGs and my dream of being a professional GM and tattoo artist gets closer and closer.

My friends help me brainstorm ways of tattooing while using my manual wheelchair — keeping everything sanitary is the hardest part. My fellow artists and friends ask how they can make our studio more accessible, and my knowledge and opinions and experience as a multiply disabled person are valued and appreciated.

My friend has expressed interest numerous times in going to a skate park with me so he can practice roller skating and I can practice tricks in my chair. I am loved and appreciated for the whole disabled freak that I am and I’m not afraid of being with my friends, being abandoned, or my life exploding at home. If only my 15 year old self could see — some things got worse, but better things got better.

You know, I thought Ylfa was tragic and sad like all the Neverafter characters are in their own way, but I think I'm wrong.

Hear me out.

Ylfa's story diverges from the canon of Little Red Riding Hood when the Woodsman doesn't come by. But he doesn't just not come by that day, he doesn't come by for weeks. Unheard of. He visits all the time, brings wood and forage for the Grandmother, she'd freeze to death at night if he doesn't come by, it's part of his job or just a dude being kind to an elderly woman, enjoying the sweets or soup she makes him as thanks. But he doesn't come by. For weeks he doesn't stop by. And we don't know why, maybe he was hurt or sick, but we know he wasn't dead because the Second Story Ylfa goes and kills the woodsman. Can't kill what's dead. So he's alive, presumably doing fine and healthy, but he doesn't come by. The one person in the story that's supposed to protect Little Red and presumably the village people from wolves just doesn't do that. The one Ylfa is told will always protect her if she finds trouble doesn't protect her.

She waits for weeks for a man that never comes. A hero that won't save her because he's too busy doing something else. And while she waits, the Wolf waits with her. He doesn't chastise her, doesn't provoke and antagonize her, doesn't jeer or make fun of her for waiting for someone he knows isn't coming. He kindly waits in silence, watching over her in that tiny cottage. He's honest when she asks what happened to her grandmother, tells her gently but firmly it was the old womans time to die, but not Ylfas. Death looks this little girl in the face and gently tells her it's not her time to die, even as she yells at him that the woodsmand will come and cut him open, he's gentle and kind with her. When she demands he kills her already, since no one is going to save her from him, he refuses. Death refuses to take Ylfa, even as she waits for it, even as she demands it take her, Death will not do it. What's more, he tells her how to save herself, offers her his own strength, provides a way for her to be her own hero in this story. Hunger and despair eventually drives her to obey, and later she is horrified of what she's done.

Ylfa then runs home, sobbing, terrified, crying out for her mother, her siblings, her grandmother, anyone at all to help her. She's drenched in Wolfs blood, body trying to transform against her will. And what does she find at her home when she gets there? Besides a rightfully terrified mother and siblings hiding in the dark home? Because we know, in the story, that the wolf can take someones shape and trick people into coming close so he can eat them too, of course they'd be afraid of Ylfa, their presumably dead Little Red Riding Hood, showing up drenched in blood begging to come inside and dragging jagged claws along the windows and door. How are they to know it's really her? No one ever survives the Wolf. No one. Let alone one sweet little girl or her elderly grandmother. So what does her terrified family do? they try to kill the Wolf.

What's worse than all that? What's worse than them being understandably afraid of the Wolf at their door? The fact that they didn't have a funeral for their beloved Little Red. That they didn't acknowledge her death at all. They removed her place from the table, didn't make her a place of rest, didn't go looking for her or her grandmother. Little Red didn't come home, they assumed she died and they moved on immediately.

Something terrible and traumatic happened to Ylfa, something that effected her for the rest of her life, something that completely altered her. She searched for someone to save her, but no one would. She reached out for help and understanding from her family that supposedly loved her and they forgot her, attacked her, ran away from her in fear and disgust. Something changed Ylfa forever, and everyone she ever loved left her behind for it. Everyone, except Death. Death which did this to her, which whispered her name, gently caressed her soul, and refused to claim her. Death that told her she would be all the stronger for it, that being monstrous isn't evil or bad. That she can use his gifts, his curse, to defy him, fight him, maybe even stop him.

"I'm the Big Bad Wolf," Death says calmly, his hot breath warming her as he speaks.

"I'm Big and Bad now too, though," Ylfa whispers back, lips still trembling and face damp with tears.

"Then you just may be able to stop me, Ylfa," Death smiles, eyes crinkling at the edges "I encourage you to try."

Death wanted Ylfa to live. When everyone was fine with her dying, or preferred she be dead to what she became, Death wished for her to live. When even Ylfa has wanted to die or stay dead, Death lead her home to life, comforted her, encouraged her, forgave her for wanting to die before her time. Death was so kind and gentle with this sweet little girl, so honest in his answers, so soothing to her grief. He empathized with her confusion and pain, told her it was normal to feel the way she does, not just for the loss of her grandmother, or the abandonment of her family, but for what she's become. Because Ylfa is grieving herself as well. What she had been, what she could have grown up to be had the Wolf not come. Ylfa mourns for herself as much as she mourns her Grandmother.

He promised to take her one day, but only when it was her time, not a second before or after. In that way, she would never die alone, because Death would be there with her. The Wolf would always be with her now, forever and always. He would never find her monstrous or evil, he would never run from her in fear, never curl a lip at her in disgust. And Death, too, would never be alone as a result. Some of him is always with Ylfa, in some way.

I think some of us need this specific kind of comfort. Some of us need Death to look us in the face and say "No, not yet little one, try again, you can do it... Here, let me help you."

Some of us need someone, even Death, too look at how monstrous we've become because of what's happened to us, or how we were made, and be kind, and gentle, and meet us with such patient love as to refuse to let us go, even when we want to let go, even when everyone else has.

Ylfa met Death, and he wanted her to live. Death was dying, and Ylfa saved him.

Death met Death, and together they decided to Live.

Hey you can cry OK? I am taking my pocket knife and I'm cutting my peach in half and handing you the bigger half. The world is full of things that are worth crying over and it can be exhausting trying to listen to everyone saying don't cry. And it can be worse trying not to cry because you don't want bad things to win. Sometimes you gotta just let yourself cry while eating a peach half someone wanted to give you because it was sweet and those things are also in the world too.

I feel like we always see parents who are 100% super supportive allies, or parents who are horrible and cruel.  At least in media or in the most popular stories.  But I feel like that ignores just how many people have parents where you just have no idea?  And even if you think they’ll accept you on a surface level, you don’t know if they have a breaking point.  Especially if you need to go on hrt, or request they change the way they think about and refer to you.  Sure they’re liberal and all, or centrists, or “tolerant”, but how far does that stretch?

I think most closeted LGBT+ kids live like this, wading around in the grey area.  I’d like it of more of us knew that was normal, I’d like if we talked about it more.

We really, really don’t acknowledge the banal, disappointing reactions, and what those can do. When my husband came out to my MIL, her reaction was “Can I take some time to think about this?” and then she never, ever spoke about it again.

My MIL is not an awful person. She’s a loving mother who carries emotional scars from having been in an abusive relationship with her minister husband for a long time, which has left her with a disabling preoccupation with “What might the neighbours say” in her life, and that often means she makes poor choices without realising it. She loves my husband no less; she didn’t withdraw love and affection from him, didn’t cut him off.

But she chose to pretend it wasn’t happening, and that sent him into a hefty shame spiral we had to work through. A few months later, a stand up routine he did about being bisexual was doing the rounds on Facebook, and despite normally sharing every single routine of his, she rang him to tell him she wouldn’t be sharing that one because “Your brother’s wedding is coming up, and I don’t want it overshadowed by people talking about you and your news.”

And again, this is not because she rejects him. That’s an easy narrative, and certainly the one you’d assume from the outside. But that, in her own way, was her attempt to protect both her children from negative scrutiny - she truly thought that people would care, and would care enough to make a scene at the wedding, and that would hurt the two of them.

Everyone already knew. He’s a celebrity in his culture. No one cared. But, that was my MIL’s fear.

And the message it sent, intentionally or not, was “This is something shameful.”

She’s come to terms with it now. But she totally missed her “I love and support you no matter who you are” chance, and left him with a lingering issue. And that’s the sort of story we never see in queer media.

WOW.

I could write a whole essay, a whole book about this experience in my family, but I won’t. It feels ungrateful to criticize the actions of people who still say they love you, and have never hurt you and will never hurt you in the big dramatic ways we see in the media. But in my case, and I think in many, it isn’t a clean, decisive cut. 

It’s a love that feels lesser. An acceptance with strings attached. And that hurts in a quieter way, but it still leaves marks.

To a homophobe, even the most chaste kiss on the cheek between gay people is exactly as disgusting and degenerate as a hardcore BDSM orgy hosted in the town square, so you may as well ally with the BDSM orgy enthusiasts to throw bricks at the cops who are going to try and arrest all of you together anyway.

I once held hands with my husband at an event where my wife was also present, and a concerned parent lectured me about how she didn't want us to "influence" her son. Our icky gay polyam hand holding was such a threat to this woman that she made a point to corner me away from my partners and get me on my own to lecture me about being "indecent." If she had been inclined toward violence, I would have been fucked.

Hand holding. That's all it fucking took.

So catch me at Pride in a leather harness and holding a bat, because if hand holding is all it takes, we owe it to each other to stand together.

We're here. We're queer. Get fucking used to it.

The sheer number of LGBT people who have called me a "degenerate" and a "pedophile" and an "abuse apologist" and a "homophobe" and a "woman-beater" over this post, in the less than 24 hours since I have posted it, is proof that it needs to be said.

Call me a degenerate if you want. I don't care. It has always been the degenerates protecting each other when the cops raid our bars and inspect our clothing and haul us away for being cross-dressing, family-destroying, society-polluting, tranny dyke faggot freaks.

I know who I'd rather have on my side, and it's not the self-loathing pieces of shit who would rather destroy their own people than dismantle systems of oppression.

You will never be wholesome and pure enough for the bigots, no matter how much you distance yourself from the kinksters. Once they've killed all us degenerates, they're coming for you next. And we won't be here to fight for you anymore.

Never a bad time to point to the bomb @vaspider essay, Pete Buttigieg Is Just A Faggot.

You can conform as much as you want. You can be the perfect respectable middle-class white-picket-fence suit-wearing works-for-Neoliberal-consulting-firms kind of gay. You can throw everyone even slightly more weird or queer under the bus. You can be the perfect little model minority. All of that won't change the fact that, to the homophobes and bigots, you will still just be a faggot who deserves neither respect nor basic human rights. It doesn't matter how presentable you are - they don't want us to exist.

pioneering something called "gritted teeth optimism" where everything is gonna turn out okay even if i have to bite and claw and gnash my way through it

I think a surprising amount of writers don’t realize that tragedies are supposed to be cathartic. They’re intended to result in a purging of emotion, a luxurious cry; the sorrow caused by a great tragedy is akin to fear caused by a good horror movie – it’s a “safe” sorrow, one that is actually satisfying to the audience. It can still be beautiful! It’s isn’t supposed to just be salting the earth so nothing can grow.

But that’s how you get grimdark: writers who don’t realize that they’re supposed to be doing something with the audience instead of to the audience.

#i once heard a lecture where someone said that the great appeal of tragedy is to see terrible things happen to people you’re supposed to#empathize with and see yourself in#and that the catharsis comes from seeing someone’s life go horribly wrong and still have the author hold your hand and tell you#‘this story mattered. even though it had a sad ending it still mattered. even if you don’t succeed your attempts matter’#grimdark tells you that the world sucks and nothing you do matters#well-written tragedy tells you that sometimes the world sucks but everything you do matters so so much#your story is still worth telling even if you never achieve that happy ending#or if you lose it along the way#people have inherent value and their stories deserve to be told no matter if they turn out okay or not#and in a reality that has no concept of ‘fair’ that shit just hits good man!!! feels good!!!!! it’s COMFORTING

I am a mosaic of everyone I have ever known and loved and touched and I find fragments of them in my playlists and how I make my tea. we may not know each other any more but we will stay connected like this. I hope a fragment of me is with you too.

“do it for the vine” = allow yourself to live life in the moment instead of maintaining a facade of normalcy for the enjoyment of not only yourself but of those around you

“commit to the bit” = adhere to the guidelines of an event that will in retrospect be nothing but a minuscule footnote, but continue to execute it for the complex web of happiness it brings you and your collective now

“fuck it we ball” = get the most you can out of life by putting the very thrill of being alive first and everyday occurrences and responsibilities last

listen. aging into your thirties rocks. yes your joints get a little creaky. yes you can’t sleep in a pretzel on the floor anymore after a concert or a convention. and you lose some friends. but the thing is that you sort out who your real friends are and you sort out who you really are. and you get to see your friends settling into careers they like, and adopt new dogs and cats, and you find a job you can stand, and get really good at arts and crafts, and maybe that book you loved as a kid gets a movie deal and it doesn’t suck, and you learn to like new food and bake your own bread, and you realize that the great portfolio of self harm scars you all used to curate are going white with age and not updated, and half your friends are a different gender now and so much happier and maybe you are too, and you know who you are, and that it’s a journey and not a revelation. it’s a direction you’re headed, and you’re enjoying the trip.

reaching your 30′s rocks. and i’m hearing good things about what comes next, too.

i am looking into your eyes, i am holding your hand. i absolutely promise.

if you can just live long enough, your soul will build your body into a home. you will live there and you will find a way to be at peace. it’s worth the time and it’s worth the work. i promise.

Your soul will build your body into a home.

when you see someone from high school and they don’t recognize you that’s the exact opposite of the mortifying ordeal of being known. the gratifying relief of being forgotten