We Produce Too Much Of The Wrong Stuff.

in case you haven't thought about switching to firefox yet, here's an extension that will...

Notify you if a website you're on has employees that are on strike

Bypass paywalls for major news outlets like the New York Times

Change the browser theme based on the time of day

Directly install third party non-extension scripts

Save individual browser sessions to be reopened at any time

Use the TV format of YouTube in-browser

Make all chrome extensions compatible with Firefox

Turn YouTube dislikes back on

Fix Twitter and make it way less fucked up

Automatically remove trackers from URLs

And many more!

Feel free to add any other firefox extensions you think are slept on.

Intrafamilial Parent/Child SA

An informational post on what it is, and advice on how to leave

CW: Incest, paedophilia, childhood sexual abuse, rape, manipulation, gaslighting,

Being a parental incest survivor is incredibly isolating, so I wrote this.

I wrote this with the intention that people currently experiencing this abuse will be able to read it. I took pains to keep the material factual to the ways we are/were manipulated and controlled. I don't discuss specific acts of sexual abuse because these are immaterial to this discussion and individual to the survivor.

Intrafamilial Sexual Assault is the most common form of CSA, Parents are the most common perpetrators of intrafamilial sexual abuse and also the most common perpetrators of childhood sexual abuse, and the next most common being an older sibling. Discretion advised in reading linked criminology paper.

Educational material below the cut.... Please reblog, lack of discussion/knowledge is both isolating and dangerous.

I can't believe I have to say this but I didn't write this for your fandom discourse, I'm not interested in being involved

Parental Incest is an unsettlingly common form of child abuse

Cases of parental incest are far more common than people generally believe. At least 15% of people have experienced a sexual contact of some kind by a parent during their life time, with a significant portion of us being subjected to sexual penetration or attempted penetration. This isn't something you need to feel isolated in as a survivor, don't be silent.

Tell People! Don't keep secrets... But make sure you prepared your safe exit.

Preferably the person you disclose to first is someone who is not connected to your parent/abuser, and is also a person who can help you to leave the abusive situation permanently. If you are a minor you can also make contact with child services (which I encourage if you are below the legal age of independence or there are other children in the house).

Abusers groom their character witnesses as deeply as they groom you. Whatever chips in the wall led you to question your parent/abuser, the people close to them haven't experienced and they have likely groomed the people around you to see you as a "story teller", "attention seeking", or "trouble".

You are likely to be accused of many things, and called many unpleasant names by members of your family and people close to you that you expected to treat you better or protect you, it will hurt.... But you are likely not the only person your parent/abuser has hurt/is hurting.

The reason for telling a person outside of your abusers influence first is that they can reassure you that you are right to act against your abuser if the people you love try to convince you that you're doing the wrong thing.

Why do survivors of parental incest feel obligated to protect our abusers?

Adult perpetrators of Incest act with predictable and repeated behaviours to instill a sense of complicity in their victims/children.

Introducing sexual ideas and behaviours through play.

"Love bombing" making the child feel especially important above other relationships in the parents life.

The parent makes great pains to reinforce to the child how "mature" and "trustworthy" they are.

The parent initiates sexual behaviours, typically followed by emotional reinforcement and statements of the child's responsibility for secrecy.

The narrative of the story is often changed to say that the child initiated the sexual relationship, "you were precocious" or "this was never meant to happen, but I'm glad it did".

If the child questions the relationship the parent explains it away, saying that the world doesn't understand relationships like theirs.

The experience doesn't need to match exactly, but it is likely to follow this closely.

We also feel conflict because beyond the grooming, the experience is paradoxical. You still experience sexual responses, arousal, pleasure and orgasm being subjected to intrafamilial sexual assault. It's traumatic and deeply confusing all on its own.

Abuse usually continues into adulthood.

The continuing abuse isn't necessarily sexual, though it often is, exiting any association with the parent/abuser is important because Incest is a particularly insidious vector of control.

The parent/abuser can leverage both the years of grooming, and also the embarrassment of an adult victim with their associated anxiety (with their generally undiagnosed c-PTSD) to exert control over the survivor/victim. Maintaining their silence, subservience and obedience. Allowing the parent/abuser to extract labour, financial support, and near anything else.

There are no excuses anybody can give for protecting your abuser!!!

There are no excuses, and you should not give any credence to anybody's argument in defence of them... You should not protect them but also you are not required to pursue prosecution of your parent/abuser. We survivors often struggle with significant trauma and have limited support networks. Your safety is paramount and always comes first.

When confronted perpetrators and those close to them will often obfuscate the abuses and their severity.

"it was a lapse in judgement", "I made a mistake", "it won't happen again"...

Or reasons why they can't be reported, such as they are too important to the family's finances, or if they go to prison they will be in danger....

Keep records, if you can do so safely.

This is the hardest part of it all.

If you have records (text messages, emails, letters, photos) keep them. You may not want to pursue prosecution now, but you may one day.

If you have soiled fabrics, put them in a PAPER bag somewhere dry and later seal them in zip lock bags with those silica gel packets if you can. DRY IS GOOD.

If you have not yet been able to leave your situation, diarise events (date/time, brief description). If it is safe to do so.

This will aid any future legal proceedings... Whether you are seeking prosecution or not.

----

(Note: statistically intrafamilial sexual abusers are exclusively intrafamilial abusers, and generally do not have an inclination to abuse children that share no familial ties and may not clinically be paedophiles despite engaging in sexual abuse of children).

----

This post does not discuss sibling incest perpetrators and survivors for these reasons.

Primarily my reason is that Intrafamilial Sexual Assault by a Sibling isn't within my experience

My second reason is that perpetrators behave differently at different ages and if I am going to write about Intrafamilial Sexual Assault by Siblings I will dedicate a post to it.

Third, parents are more common as perpetrators than siblings, while siblings are more likely to be prosecuted and less likely to successfully appeal (despite the overall rate of prosecution being low across the board) discussion bridging the two would need to address the failures in justice and the complexity of this is beyond the scope of this post.

412+413 (reminders for myself)

My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.

I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”

next specialist to refuse testing or blame my maladies on my anxiety or weight despite me asking (begging, at this point) for further testing/a differential diagnosis is getting hit with the "document your refusal in my chart." no i am not "taking it one step at a time" no i am not accepting "you're just anxious" or "you're just overweight" as an answer. you are going to be a FUCKING DOCTOR and treat me. fuck you.

this is ok to reblog btw, i Encourage people in similar situations to express their anger. you deserve better we all fucking deserve better. no more being afraid of making them upset or angry. THEY make us suffer and want to die with their negligence. whatever discomfort we bring them by demanding documentation doesnt mean SHIT compared to what we go through.

rise up my disabled siblings, we have nothing to lose but a shitty fucking doctor.

Learning to knit turned out to be an early step in remembering my own small powers.

No good sweater options? I'll knit my own. Pants don't fit quite right? I'll alter them. Hole worn in my favorite pajamas? I'll patch it. Shoes don't match my clothes? I'll dye them. Cabinet not exactly what I hoped for? Paint.

As much as these are small things, I think it's genuinely transformative to take ownership of your space and your things in this way.

Maybe next I can work to transform my relationships, my gatherings, my communities.

Truth is you will never go back to your old self, life is about redefining and relearning to live with all versions of yourself

beep beep sometimes when you have been in survival mode for a long time the parts of you dedicated to Wanting Things atrophy and you forget how to envision a future that feels rewarding because you are busy with the business of staying alive, and it can seem like your life must be pointless because you can’t imagine any long term goals. sometimes even when you leave survival mode you can’t remember how to Want Things. that doesn’t mean you need to give up on having a good and fulfilling life, it just means that Wanting Things is a muscle you need to gradually strengthen. the part of you that has dreams and aspirations is still there, it just fell asleep, but if you wiggle it enough it can and will regain feeling. it’s okay to start small

bell hooks mentioned going through a time in her life where she was severely depressed and suicidal and how the only way she got through it was through changing her environment: She surrounded her home with buddhas of all colors, Audre Lorde’s A Litany for Survival facing her as she wakes up, and filling the space she saw everyday with reinforcing objects and meaningful books. She asks herself each day, “What are you going to do today to resist domination?” I also really liked it when she said that in order to move from pain to power, it is crucial to engage in “an active rewriting of our lives.”

Google Docs

National Clean Your Home Month

Welcome to NATIONAL CLEAN YOUR HOME MONTH The Manifesto Our motto: “If you can’t do a great thing, do a something.” What is it? Sam creat

National Clean Your Home Month, aka NaClYoHo or "Salty Pirates" month, is soon to be upon us!

Each November, I "host" NaClYoHo, where participants work to make their living spaces more comfortable and pleasant. The full manifesto is at the link, but the basic premise is that each day in November you put on a podcast, tv show, playlist, or other media, and clean or organize some aspect of your home.

It's meant to be a low-stress way to both do a yearly cleaning and also participate in an intensive project like National Novel Writing Month without having to write a novel. I'll be posting about it again before November kicks off, but I thought I'd link to the manifesto well ahead of time, so people could brace themselves. :D

This year my big goals are to figure out how to keep my floors truly clean, replace at least one rug, and clear out the storage nook where I have a bunch of stuff that needs sorting through. I am also going to try to dedicate some time to researching those "bathroom refresh" companies that basically just put a shell over your existing shower/tub/walls and see if it's feasible for my bathroom, which desperately needs it.