If You’re An Introvert,  follow Introvertunites.

“Hold the fuck up.” I say. I am the fuck up. Please hold me.

Anxiety attacks aren’t always hyperventilating and rocking back and forth

Anxiety attacks can take different forms, such as:

Unpredictable bouts of rage or irritability

Nit-pickiness (obsessive behavior, which may be a part of OCD), and even a hypersensitivity to disarray, chaos, or any sort of change

Fast-talking, stuttering, stumbling over words

Not talking at all

Sitting rigid, staring into space, almost seeming “zoned out”

Understanding the way our or other’s anxiety works can help to decrease the stigma and help to calm a person faster and get them out of that state. These are just a few, but it gives an idea of the range in which attacks can come.

Today is World AIDS Day, and we’ve still got a lot of work to do. 

A stat that gets me every time: “If current diagnosis rates continue, 1 in 6 gay and bisexual men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime, including 1 in 2 black/African American gay and bisexual men, 1 in 4 Hispanic/Latino gay and bisexual men, and 1 in 11 white gay and bisexual men.”

One of the most important things you can do is get tested and know your status; here’s a tool that can help you find a nearby testing site. Note that the option for selecting your gender isn’t quite right, but the wealth of testing locations in their database is still helpful. 

If you’re in a donating mood, you can also support the work of some organizations doing excellent things for those affected by HIV/AIDS, including GMHC, AIDS United, Planned Parenthood, Lambda Legal and amfAR. (And please add your favorites; there are so many!)

We’ve been fighting this fight for upwards of 30 years. We’re not stopping now.

Mental Illness Recovery Series Book Campaign

Together we can spread the word about the true struggles behind behind mental illnesses. Help us make a difference with your donation Psych2go will be able to publish the Mental Illness Recovery Series Book covering 100 true life stories of recovery.

Psych2go Giveaway Contest: We will be giving away our recovery book to one lucky winner. To enter go to our Mental Illness Recovery Series Book Campaign and donate 1$ to our cause. The funds will go to cover all the expenses of publishing a book.

[chokes back tears] oh god

[patreon] [read self care zine]

One of the best examples of abled people taking it upon themselves to advocate for the disabled community while simultaneously ignoring the voices of people with disabilities until they’ve made things worse is the “new” international symbol of access.

The original, established, symbol is on the left and the “new” symbol is on the right.

So what’s the problem?

Well, the biggest problem is that the newest symbol wasn’t designed by someone in a wheelchair. It was designed by two artists who don’t use wheelchairs who thought that they could speak on behalf of people who do.

Who cares, it’s a good symbol, right?

Nope.

See the original symbol, the one that’s been around for decades and has been embraced by the disabled community, works for both people in manual wheelchairs and people in electric wheelchairs. The second one is obviously someone in a manual chair, excluding those who use electric ones.

There’s also ironically an ableist message behind their reasoning that the person on the right symbolizes an active member of society, whereas the non-moving person on the right can be depicted as lazy. This reasoning is extremely ableist and ignorant, artsy for the sake of being artsy without giving thought to what they’re actually implying.

The real kicker?

My college has the new signs everywhere. New York State as a whole adopted these new signs. A ton of different buildings around the nation are putting up these new signs because people are just sort of assuming that everyone with a disability approves, even though most people in wheelchairs are objecting to it and the people who are advocating for it aren’t in wheelchairs in the first place.

And guess whose voices are the ones being heard?

And guess whose voices are the ones being ignored?