So My Sister Wants To Start Sewing More, Because

Unbelievably annoyed with the protesting advice I see from the most out of touch lefties on here. "You always need to show up in all black and you ALWAYS have to leave your phone at home." 1 there are different kind of protests and you need to know what it will look like/what groups are organizing it and 2 you are going to get people fucking killed

a big lesson for me was learning that most things are not as fragile as I’d believed. missing a class, or turning in a bad assignment, won’t instantly destroy your professor’s opinion of you. accidentally saying something harsh won’t make your friend want to end the friendship. it takes work to repair these things - it takes effort and research and sometimes a sincere apology - but you can do that because they’re not irreparably broken. what you’ve worked to build, in academia and in relationships and in life, is stronger and more enduring that your mind may teach you to believe. don’t let imagined fragility lead you to giving up

Abusers are generally great at something called “manufacturing insecurity”. It means, even if you’ve never been insecure about something, abuser will create an insecurity about it, solely for the purpose of emotionally manipulating you. Meaning, when you’re not doing, saying, or thinking what they want, they have a go at your “insecurity”, triggering your pain, fear, guilt, shame, everything they taught you to feel, as a way to teach you that this pain is what you’re going to get if you fail to obey them.

It’s not exactly hard to manufacture an insecurity (provided you are cruel and vicious), all you have to do is take a social norm and convince a person they aren’t good enough in one or all departments. You convince a person they’re too loud, too fat, too ugly, slow, naive, gullible, stupid, lazy, selfish, sexual, provocative, demanding, and that this is the reason why they will always fail, it’s a reason why they keep getting hurt, it’s a reason why nobody will ever love or care for them. It’s utterly cruel, and an absolute lie. Deviating from the “norm” in any way is not a reason of any of those things, if you’re getting hurt it’s because people are hurting you, if you’re unloved it’s because people around you refuse to show affection and care. These things cannot be the individual’s fault, it’s always the environment setting person up for pain. And abusers already know this. But they make a step to convince a victim it’s all their fault, everything others do to them, their fault. And even worse, that they deserved being hurt.

This kind of nonsense blaming everything on unrelated trait of individual can lead to a person getting terrified they could have somehow caused horrible things just by being themselves, that it’s impossible to even predict what might happen to them just because they’re “this way” or another. It creates an atmosphere of panic and confusion, and they find themselves seeing no way forward but to accept guidance from abuser. Abuser then pretends to know what victim is to do in order to avoid pain and failure - of course, only up to the point when abuser decides to inflict pain on purpose, to control and manipulate.

You’re not stupid if you fall for this kind of trap, it’s designed to work on people who are self-aware, who work on getting themselves better, who are trying their hardest. You don’t even have to lack confidence, abusers will take a confident person and eat their confidence away. And once caught in this situation, it might be hard to believe that someone would stoop that that kind of cruelty and lie to you while knowing perfectly well that you are good, that there’s no reason on earth to criticize your traits, that you have nothing to be ashamed of. That you haven’t deserved any of it.

terrifying your own child into submission makes you an abuser.

watching your child cry and screaming at them to stop and invalidating their pain and reasons for crying makes you an abuser.

staring at your child in disgust and contempt after they displease you makes you an abuser.

threatening to your child to take away their basic resources if they don’t give you exactly what you want makes you an abuser.

forcing your child to feel ashamed for not living up to your ideals makes you an abuser.

using slurs, hateful names and insults on your own child without any regard to what it does to their mental health makes you an abuser.

forcing your child to chase impossible expectations and making them feel like they’re worthless for not achieving them makes you an abuser.

acting like your child is a burden and a waste of space and blaming their illness/disability/depression on it makes you an abuser.

behaving like your child will never amount to anything and isn’t worth any resources and nurturing makes you an abuser.

making your child feel like they’re never good enough makes you an abuser.

if your child’s heart is hurting because they know no matter what they do and how hard they try they will always be a failure in your eyes, you are an abuser.

if your child can’t look at themselves without self hatred because they had to look at themselves from your perspective and all they saw is disgust and hatred, you’re an abuser.

If your child is struggling to believe they have the right to live and to be cared and loved, if they can’t stop hearing your hateful voice putting them down and using their every action to prove they’re worthless, you’re an abuser.

If you watched your child in pain and assured them they deserved it, you’re an abuser.

If your child can’t love themselves from how badly you hated them, you’re an abuser.

I have trouble taking care of my teeth because everything that involves doing that is a sensory nightmare. I decide to do some research to see if there's anything I can do about this. The results?

"How to make your autistic child brush their teeth"

"Autistic Children and Sensory issues relating to tooth brushing"

"How to get your little shit to brush his fucking teeth"

Like, yeah Google, thanks, that really helps. And like, even if I was a child, some of the advice seemed... unhelpful. Like, doing a dance and singing a song while brushing your teeth? Even for a kid, I don't think that would help distract from a sensory experience as intense as brushing your teeth. Like, the extremely intense and unpleasant flavor, the intense feeling of the brush against your teeth scraping across it, even mouthwash has such an intense and disgusting flavor that I have difficulty keeping it in my mouth for more than a few seconds. I wish there was SOMETHING that could be done.

"wasted potential" you are still living!!! your potential is still here, you can carry on

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.

eat delicious things in every sense. savor novels that unravel slowly, like decadent meals for the mind. let sunlight kiss ur skin, bask in its warmth like an endless summer. hold close the people who make you feel alive, kiss them tenderly, love them fiercely. laugh at bad jokes, the kind that make you roll ur eyes but secretly smile. plant basil on your windowsill, water it with care, breathe in its fragrance as you stir it into your meals. be unafraid to indulge in beauty, to notice it everywhere and to consume it greedily. there is no virtue in starving yourself of joy, no wisdom in rationing delight.