Know The Difference

You're doing really great for all the stuff you have to deal with. You might feel like a failure right now, but when circumstances aren't going great, your feelings tend to side with the negative. You aren't doing as terrible as you think. Look at you putting one foot in front of the other and taking on another day! Yayyy, go you! You are doing soooo well! Take the time to do a little dance and sing a song and have a celebration! Whoo! You're doing such a Good Job! You're so strong and you have such a big heart. Keep going! You are doing amazing things with every little lovely thing you do! :D

okay look. i get a few asks every now and again about age gaps in relationships and i know that there are exceptions to every rule but.

i know three girls my age, twenty four, who are stuck in relationships that they shouldn’t be in because an older guy groomed them when they were young teens.

one was thirteen when a seventeen year old boy started flirting with her. she was flattered. she started lying to her parents and sneaking around with him. she fell in love with him. he says he loves her back, and maybe he thinks he does, but he doesn’t act like it. he quit his job without telling her when she was pregnant with their second child, almost singlehandedly raising their first, because he just felt like it. no regard for the family. and she laughed about it when she told me, like it was the funniest thing, like he hadn’t endangered all of them on a whim. because he’s done so much little shit over the years that she’s accustomed to it. he always gets his way and she cleans up his mess because she loves him.

another girl works a full time job and then comes home to cook and clean because her unemployed boyfriend refuses to. she was fourteen and he was eighteen when they started dating and she is still convinced he’s going to change. he quit smoking when she threatened to leave but literally weeks later, as soon as he’d cowed her back into submission, he took it up again, and then tried to paint her as a villain for ‘trying to take away his joy’.

all three girls become completely different people when their partners are around. quieter, smaller.

when it’s just us they laugh as they tell me about the men losing their tempers over something small, like knocking over chairs is a rational response to her asking if she can go away with her friends for a weekend.

they’ve been with these men since they were so young they cannot imagine their lives without them. their entire identities are forged around these uneven relationships.

and that’s the key - they’re uneven. i don’t doubt that two fifteen year olds can get together and stay together happily, because they both had the opportunity to grow up within the relationship, at the same pace. if it’s a fifteen year old and a nineteen year old, though, one has already done so much more growing than the other. they’re at completely different stages of development, they’re psychologically unable to have an equal balance of power in the relationship.

basically, please don’t be flattered by older people showing an interest in you. instead, consider why they don’t want to date someone their own age, who is far more likely to stand up to them when they get controlling. all relationships should have equal shares, but age gaps between early and late teens, or teens and adults, don’t allow that. please don’t take a chance on you being the exception to the rule.

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Accidentally annoying someone doesn't make you a horrible person and you don't have to spend your whole life censoring yourself to prevent it from ever happening.

Hiya everyone. I hope everyone is holding to hope today. Depression takes away our joys by bringing a lot of us into this survival mode where we focus on the basics like work, eat, and sleep and activities that distract us from the chaos happening in our minds. It should seem good enough to stay in survival mode but our mental health continues to decline simply because our brains were never meant to just survive. The brain performs a variety of higher functions that arent needed for basic survival. We dont need to know how to bake cakes, or build amusement parks or be an interior designer or make glitter or create different dance moves or even have such an extensive vocabulary with words that have the same meanings. We didnt have to dive so deep or reach to the stars, but humanity did and we do everyday by just daydreaming of creating and discovering new ideas and places. The truth is our brains Survive to Thrive. Depression brings us to a place where we feel the burden of keeping on but cant access the memories of what for. We dont remember our passions or hope or really who we are at times and if we do they seem numbed in ice and the connection to our identity is weakened. I think for the most part we dont want to die, I think we forget how much we truly want to live. Under all the supression and burden that is depression we forget how to thrive and then we forget that we want to thrive at all. Its not easy to thrive because with depression our brains are wired to perserve oursevles, our emotions, our focus, our energy, our actions as a way to cope. Dont hate yourself because your brain is trying to protect you from breaking even more. Depression biggest weapon is turning you against yourself. Love yourself, your cells are cheering you on, I'm cheering you on, people in the world who know of people like you are hurting are cheering you on, and somewhere your very being is waiting for permission to cheer yourself on. Love yourself even on the days you dont consider yourself so great because you are always of great worth either way. Even if you didnt like who you were yesterday make the choice on what person you will be today and then tomorrow, one day at a time, theres more things that change than things that stay still. We are welcome to grow along too. And we can grow into another way and the true way of thinking. Our little cells make us a force to be reckoned with so our little acts to support our goal of thriving can do the same. When I think of thriving, I think of being joyfully 'unecessary'. Add a different spice to the same meal. Make your own little dance, color in a coloring book, your brain thinks it wants to die? no it wants to DYE, paint on that paper then, color the world with your creative ideas, sleep on the other side of your bed tonight, add a little to your life like flavor powder adds color and a different taste to the water. Humm to yourself, write a short story, mismatch your socks, talk into the fan, make shadow puppets, make your own joke to tell people, make that bopping noise with your mouth, thrive not by doing hundreds of 'unnecessary' things in a day but by allowing yourself to be the more you already are little by little. Jesus bless you all.

For the weary

You're in pain at the moment and so your perspective has narrowed for the time being. I will give you a helpful thought since your brain is hurting just trying to think of one good thing. Depression devalues a treasure and highly values trash. Right now Depression is telling you that your moment of pain matters more than anything else. It sells that lie saying this moment of pain is going to become your every moment. Every moment of your life has a different value. Do not put worth to your moment of pain so much so you decide this moment of pain, this moment of pure suffering, should decide that the value of any moment more is worthless. Don't let this dark moment determine the end of every moment. Let the moment of pain have its say, hear it out and allow yourself to not be okay. The moment of pain is worth that much. However, you must move on to another moment and when a moment gives you an opportunity for hope, also give that moment its say and then take those words of hope and use them to help yourself heal in life.

No, a lot of people don't understand giving up when they haven't faced your enemy. But what I think is most important is people learning their inner strength and finally creating a turning point in this terrible war against mental illness.

As always, God bless, and I wish you well and fierce with the battles that rage on.

It’s alright if you are having a bad day, or if you are having a lot of bad days in a row. It’s okay if you feel defeated. You were made to take the fall so you can rise back up and eventually take the victory. 

Heard some important information on Twitter today, and thought I’d post it here for anyone who may not have heard it. This is actually a thing, devised by human rights organisation called Karma Nirvana.

Reblog to save a life?

A YouTuber that I follow posted this from her IG… PLEASE READ IF YOU OWN A CAT AND LIVE IN THE UK. This is terrifying… This is real- the youtuber that I follow researched it, and went to the official site. Apparently it’s for certain dates and certain bar codes, so please take this seriously. 

Date Posted: Saturday, June 26, 2021