The person who was coming, wo makes me feel unsafe, migt be staying somewhere else. But I’ll believe it when it actually happens, and not a moment before. In the mean time, I’ll be over here, struggling not to dissociate, chewing my nails down, and walking 6kms a day to deal with the mental health bullshit this stirred up.
Oh, yeah, I’m walking again, because i need to, and because it’s finally starting to cool down. Gosh I miss walking in Hill End. Walking in Sydney is the worst.
I’m from the position where I didn’t grow up in Provo or a town like it, I grew up in Australia, where Mormons are a Christian minority, but that separateness still dictates everything. Everything is about us and them and the line between. I don’t think I had a single teacher that my mother didn’t make me give Books of Mormon to. Every friend that visited my home, my mother pressured me to bring to church. LDS members buy from other members, hire other members, socialise with other members, and glory in that isolation. But at the same time, there’s the incredibly toxic fishbowl of church culture. If your parents separate, for example, shunning is a very real thing. I had mothers refuse to let me touch their babies, as though family dysfunction was catching. And I was a child at the time.
Nothing was secret, either. I was abused, and all my school teachers were quietly informed, so that I was given an easier time of things. All but one. Why? He was a church member, and my mother knew that if he knew, his wife knew, and if his wife knew, the ward and even the stake knew. Anything told to the bishop was told to his wife and circulated through the congregation. Women, in particular, were ruthlessly policed, not only by the men but by each other. Anyone who couldn’t keep up with church callings, work, home and family while keeping a permanent smile pasted in place was obviously sinning somehow. All you had to do was trust in God, and that was easy, right? I read somewhere that Mormon states in the US have the highest per capita anti-depressant use. I don’t know how legit it is, but I believe it. I was medicated by sixteen, and no matter how hard I tried, I was never enough. We had one pregnancy in my high school in my age group, out of 150 kids. Our young women’s group, 25 girls aged 12-18, had about a 50% teen pregnancy rate. Hypocrites and liars and smile, smile, always smile.
And that isn’t even touching on the unspoken spectre of what would happen if you were anything but cishet/straight. In Australia, there wasn’t Evergreen, but there was always the understanding that kids who were wrong went somewhere to be fixed. I read Saving Alex last year, and all I could think was that this was what the new face of cure culture was. I knew someone online years ago who’d been through Evergreen. Out of the dozen or so who were there at the same time, he was the only one who hadn’t yet killed himself.
“For me, though, it all came down to the people I met with–the actual human beings who were coming to my office. They would come and sit down with me, and they would tell me their stories. These were good people, former pastors, youth leaders, relief society presidents, missionaries, bishops, Elder’s Quorum presidents, and they were … there’s no other way to say this. They were dying. They were dying before my eyes. And they would weep in desperation—after years, decades, of trying to do just as they had been instructed: be obedient, live in faith, have hope. They would weep with me, and ask where the Lord was. They would sob. They would wonder where joy was. As a practitioner, it became increasingly obvious: the way the church handled this issue was not just inconvenient. It didn’t make things hard for LGBTQIA people. It became more and more clear to me that it was actually hurting them. It was killing them.”
And yes, that’s what Church policy is meant to do, it’s what it’s always been meant to do. It’s meant to kill us. If we die, then we’re a sad story, designed to spread a message. We were weak, God meant for it to be, and isn’t it better this way?
The only way to win is to stay alive. Eat your anger and let it burn in your belly. Stand in that field without walls and scream long and loud, and don’t smile for anyone else’s comfort. Wear rainbows like armour and love like you’re throwing grenades. Survive, and seek happiness, and prove the bastards wrong. And that, that is why this book is so important. It’s a story so normal, so sweet and simple, about two people finding love and finding themselves, and the happy ending isn’t the one the church says is the only way. There are many roads to happiness. You might have to look long and hard to find them, but it isn’t one-size-fits-all. It isn’t predetermined. It’s individual, and unique, and beautifully, wonderfully average. That’s what the church doesn’t want queer kids to know. That’s what this book reveals, so beautifully. And I’m just so blown away that it exists, in my lifetime, and that I got to read it. It’s wonderful.
Is it an autism thing to panic whenever someone yells (due to aggression)? Or is that just a conditioned response?
This seems to be really common amongst autistic people.
I think it may be due to difficulties reading people. We often don’t notice signs that a person is getting angry until they start yelling which can set off sensory sensitivities as well.
I’d also like to add that a high percentage of autistics have been physically, verbally, emotionally and/or sexually abused, and have PTSD that can be triggered badly by people shouting or getting in their space or moving in a way that brings back those memories. Our bodies have a warning system highly tuned to recognise when a situation is flipping from ‘weird & uncomfortable’ to ‘last time this happened I got whipped with a belt so hard I bruised’. Given a lot of us also have memories that are different from the norm, sometimes photographic or eidetic, you can see why we might react poorly to highly charged situations.
Kay so it’s a hard PTSD day because social media. I love you guys, tho, and you should post whatever you like, whatever makes you happy, because that’s what social media should be about. PTSD is a minefield, and what sets me off surprises me sometimes, and I’ve been living with it for 36 years. What set me off was something that probably seemed jokey to most people, but as a neurodivergent child abuse survivor was horrifying. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have reacted like I did. My reaction was perfectly rational for someone with my perspective. It might have seemed extreme to someone else, someone not-me, but it was rational. What I don’t want is for someone to think I’m angry at them personally for posting or reblogging something that they found funny that I did not. Our perspectives are different. The world is a different place to each of us based on who we are and the experiences we went through. A joke that might be funny to some, might trigger horrible emotional turmoil in someone who’s been abused, been raped, been discriminated against or attacked because of their race, their gender, their sexuality. That doesn’t make them wrong, too sensitive, or without humour. That makes them a human, a squishy being with a different experience to yours. Please remember, please be kind, and please adjust your world-view if needed. Thanks.
this is such a bad product. you might have temporary control over your tot but youre just going to make it stronger. whats worse than an uncontrollable baby? an uncontrollable baby who has never missed leg day and could kill you with one kick
Also, those leg weight things aren’t even recommended by a lot of people for adults. I’ve worn then to work out, and they cause a lot of joint pain and unnatural movement. Just imagine what that does, physiologically, to a toddler, who is still growing their bones. You’re essentially putting shackles on your baby. Just use the freaking leash and flip the bird to anyone who judges you for using it. And use the backpack/harness ones, for bob’s sake. The wrist-strap ones can dislocate their shoulder if they run and fall over when it’s at full stretch.
Holy shit i just read the weights on those, the pair on their own is 5lb PER WEIGHT the ones ON THE KID are 10 POUNDS EACH. For those in metric countries, 5lb = 2.25kg. EACH. Or 4.5 kg each for the 10lb ones. (For scale, sacks of potatoes often come in 5kg or 10kg bags.) WHY DON’T YOU JUST CEMENT YOUR KID TO THE FLOOR. My hand weights I use while walking are 1kg each, and they are HEAVY after I’ve held them for longer than about ten minutes. And I’m an ablebodied adult who can drop them completely if I want to or need to. You’re strapping weights many times heavier than that to your baby’s body.
If a kid falls wearing those, not only are they going to be unable to stand, their legs are going to break on either side of those things like dry twigs. You’re gonna have a baby in full leg casts, maybe with a permanent injury if it damages the growth plates. All because you didn’t want to be stared at. Jesus fucking Christ.
Okay, yeah, it’s a joke, but except for how it’s not, because cruelty to kids is real and if these existed, people would buy them. I’m allowed to be upset that this product is plausible, because that’s the kind of world we live in.
Go The Fuck To Sleep is a joke. As we live in a world where kids, especially neurodiverse kids, are regularly, routinely, and ACCEPTABLY restrained and secluded in special and mainstream educational settings and institutions, never mind their own homes, THIS IS NOT A JOKE. It’s a horror story with a Pleasantville, Stepford Wives aesthetic. It’s a joke, unless it’s your body, your bones, your bruises, your PTSD.
I’ll keep reblogging this until people stop defending rape jokes
Not to be “that guy” but everyone who jokes about rape is ugly
Tbh this is the one time I’ll support the “it’s not just men” because everyone needs to cut this tf out
I’d like to caveat this with there being forms of survivor humour that are crucial to processing and healing trauma, particularly between two people who have been through the same kind of shit, so don’t police that if you don’t know what it’s fucking like. And even then, if one person is triggered by it, the other should be sensitive of that. But that’s between survivors, so unless you’re a survivor of rape or sexual assault, you don’t get to joke about that kind of experience.
knitting in the dark 