this makes me think of a convo with a friend the other night about seeking validation that harm occurred from the one(s) who harmed you (in this case i was talking about my relationship with my parents, mostly my mother.)
“seeking validation that harm occurred from the one(s) who harmed you.”
I’m watching an older season of Hell’s Kitchen and there’s a bit with a guy who had a shitty abusive childhood getting triggered (and like, nobody uses the word “trigger” but it’s pretty obvious: his eyes glaze over, he becomes spacey and disoriented, he bursts into tears at inopportune moments) by Gordon Ramsey calling him by a nickname he associates with his abusive father, and like, he explains this to Ramsey, and Ramsey is like “I totally understand and I’m sorry, I only wish you had told me about this sooner so we could have avoided this issue compromising your performance in the kitchen” and it’s like… there’s all these ridiculous anti-sj types who are like “TRIGGERS R DUM, NO TRIGGER WARNINGS IN REAL LIFE!!!!!!!!” and meanwhile Gordon fucking Ramsey, the guy whose JOB it is to berate people until they break down on television, understands the validity of trauma-based triggers and is willing to work around them? like come on
• making yourself sleep deprived • making yourself cold (not wearing warm clothes in the winter, sleeping without a blanket etc) • not eating • not drinking • eating too much • not looking before crossing the street • scratching • letting your skin be dry & break easily • picking at skin • over-exercising • substance abuse • over-working yourself • making yourself go out and do things even though you’re exhausted • putting yourself in anxiety-inducing situations (even if you have a choice to stay out of them) • triggering yourself • purposefully angering someone who you know will yell at you • entering relationships you don’t want to be in/being around people you don’t want to be around • having sex when you don’t want to • setting yourself punishments • not giving yourself time • not letting yourself spend time with the people you love & know will be good to you
stop assuming that self-harm is visible and easy to notice.
Oh my goodness I actually didn’t know that a lot of things on this list counted as self harm. Like I will do a lot of those when I’m upset or angry at myself, but I’ll just frame it in my head as “not doing nice stuff for myself because I don’t deserve it” instead of “not doing really important things like eating because I’m angry/sad/scared and want to be self-destructive”
Thanks very much for this, this is something I need to remember when I’m struggling.
“Welcome,” she said. “Welcome, and thank you for agreeing to be a volunteer with Multnomah County Libraries. We are so grateful for you and your commitment to our community. For the next hour, we’re going to go over some important information that you need to know as a volunteer, no matter what role you play.”
I expected that we were going to learn about things like policies for canceling our shifts, or maybe where to find first aid kits. We probably did talk about those things. But the part that I remember most vividly is the first thing she talked about.
“We’re going to start with the Library Bill of Rights from the American Library Association,” she said, and she projected the text of the document onto the screen. “Everyone who works for libraries, including volunteers, helps to support and uphold the Library Bill of Rights.”
This was new to me. I’d been a regular patron at my local public library for years, graduating from Dr. Seuss to The Babysitters Club series to, most recently, my fixation on books about neo-paganism and queer sex. No one had mentioned this whole Bill of Rights thing. It was a short document with just a few bullet points.
“Libraries support free access to information,” Bess explained. “One of our core values is intellectual freedom. This impacts all of you because when you’re volunteering for the library, we expect you to support the rights of library users to find and read whatever they want, even if you don’t agree with what they’re looking for.”
She continued, “For example, let’s say that a small child came up to you and asked where to find the Stephen King books. You might think those books are too scary for someone that age, or that he shouldn’t be reading that kind of stuff. But that doesn’t matter. No matter what, we help people find the information they want, and we don’t censor their interests. Does that make sense?”
Heads around the room nodded, and I leaned back into the wall, letting her words sink in. It was absolutely, positively the most radical, punk rock thing I had ever heard in my life.
I can read whatever I want. No one can stop me.
I can help other people read what they want. And no one can stop them.
“This is core,” Bess added, “to a functioning democracy. We believe that fighting censorship and providing free, unrestricted access is key to helping citizens participate in the world. And, most importantly, we keep everyone’s information strictly confidential. So, even if you know what books your neighbor is checking out or what they’re looking at on the computer, you don’t share that with anyone.”
As someone who kept carefully guarded notebooks full of very personal thoughts, I was especially excited by the library’s emphasis on privacy. All of this sounded great. I wanted more. I wanted in. I wanted to be a crazy, wild, counterculture librarian-witch who would help anyone read anything from The Anarchist’s Cookbook to Mein Kampf. I would be a bold freedom fighter in the face of censorship. I would defend unfiltered Internet access and anatomically correct picture books. Maybe I was only in the eighth grade, but I was ready to stand up to anyone who tried to threaten the ideal of intellectual freedom. Fuck blink-182. Libraries were the real punk rock.
“listen… harry’s in trouble, and we could tell mum and dad, but I reckon we should just steal the flying car and go kidnap him in his muggle neighborhood, even though I’m 12 and you’re both 14 and this is a crime and the three of us cant drive”
“excellent”
This is bullshit.
Nobody in Harry’s life – no ADULT – ever did anything about the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Dursleys. Nobody did anything when they were told he was being starved, that there were bars on the windows, that they. Albus Fucking Dumbledore didn’t do anything about it.
Nobody in canon, or JKR herself in interviews or on Pottermore, even uses the word “abuse”. It’s all about how “the Durlseys treated him badly”. Nobody says abuse.
What Ron, Fred, and George did was nothing short of heroic. That they needed to do it is an indictment of every adult in Harry’s life, magical and non-magical alike.
@deadcatwithaflamethrower Need some back-up here because I’m hitting that point of “I want to set something on fire.”
I thought you did a pretty good job, actually. Even when adults are told about the conditions Harry was found in (literally IMPRISONED: remember, folks, the Dursleys were not going to let him go back to Hogwarts in book 2) nobody does anything. Nobody acts on the fact that a family literally imprisoned a child.
Someone I used to follow on LJ/DW was literally imprisoned by their parent. Nobody ever did anything. No one would believe them when they told other adults. No one wanted to believe it.
This shit happens and adults do nothing because it might interfere with their worldview that everything is just fuckin’ peachy…or someone in *power* that they respect/fear has told them not to interfere for the good of some cause/reason or another. That is one of the most terrifyingly realistic aspects of JKR’s books, but it’s glossed over by everyone who doesn’t believe that could ever possibly happen in real life.
And hey: there is more than one way to imprison someone.
(Aside from the fact that my mother locked the door and literally stood in front of it in an attempt to keep me from leaving the house once. Afterwards she pretended it had never happened.)
JK is actually on record (a radio interview, I think, but don’t quote me) as saying she doesn’t think the way Harry was treated by the Dursley’s was abuse.
That was the moment I lost all respect for her.
I do not care that she donated millions to charity, I care that she clearly thinks starvation and swinging a frying pan at a child’s head is an okay thing to do. That it’s okay to put bars on a child’s window to keep them in, and bolts the door shut.
@jabberwockypie Now I feel like setting something on fire too. *passes the chocolate and marshmallows*
Just … *SCREAMING* So. Much. Screaming and FIRE.
See, when I learn things like this, I also become somewhat Concerned about the person’s children. (Jude Watson has a daughter and considering the Jedi Apprentice stuff, I’m ALSO worried there.)
Do I think JKR would lock her kids in their rooms with bars on the window? Probably not, but if you’re not willing to admit that withholding food and is abuse, if you’re not willing to address emotional abuse and gaslighting AT ALL, trying to make a child hate themselves (like with what the Dursleys do with magic). I’m extremely concerned about what you think appropriate parenting looks like.
Frankly I also think it’s extremely irresponsible when your intended audience consists of children and teenagers. At some point somebody needs to say “This thing that happened to this character was wrong”. Because children who are being abused? we don’t KNOW. Or we don’t necessarily process it that way. It’s “not that bad” or it’s “It’s not like they’re beating me.” and every time it gets worse (the time my mother gave me a black eye), you move the goalposts of Not That Bad “It’s not like it’s ALL THE TIME”.
As an abuse survivour, let me tell you, this information got me through. Seriously. I knew this, and I knew if I survived my teenage years, my body would be new. Untouched. Mine and only mine.
I’ll take this one since I’m the blog’s resident Jew. Oy vey, where do I start…
SJ community loves to police Jewish identity and silence actual Jews when they talk about their own identities. This usually happens in context of either “Are Jews White?” or “Jewishness is just a religion” conversations. In reality, Jews are an ethnoreligious group that ethnically originated in the middle east, and while some ethnic Jews have light skin, it’s actually due to centuries of forced assimilation in European and Slavic countries through rape, which is a big reason why Jewishness is matrilineal. Furthermore, there exist Jews who do not look white at all. There are black, brown, and asian Jews who are all ethnically Jewish, and these conversations erase them.
“Jewish privilege”. Fact: It’s not a thing. It’s actually a very common anti-semitic trope that says that Jews run everything so they are not oppressed. Jews are oppressed, and face anti-semitic violence.
“Anti-semitism is not just about Jews, there are other semitic people.” While yea, there are other semitic people, the term “anti-semitism” was created by Germans in the 19th century to refer specifically to the hatred of Jews because it sounded more scientific.
Blaming anti-semitic violence in Europe on the actions of Israel. I see this literally every single day on this site, and it’s very upsetting. Jews that live in the diaspora are not responsible for Israel’s actions, and especially should not be suffering at the hands of white people in Europe under the guise of anti-zionism.
Finally, and this is a big pet peeve of mine. The only people I ever see reblogging posts about anti-semitism are other Jews. Even a lot of my non-Jewish followers will reblog posts about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. but ignore posts about anti-semitism, and that as a Jew makes me feel unsafe.
That’s enough for now. If you’re interested in learning more about Jewish identity and anti-semitism, you are welcome to check out my personal blog: yochevedke. I discuss that stuff a lot.
-Yeva
Another Jew reblogging about anti-semitism. I’ve seen some increase in concern about this from goyim, but it’s been slow going. Hopefully we’ll pick up a big head of steam soon.
“The only people I ever see reblogging posts about anti-semitism are other Jews. Even a lot of my non-Jewish followers will reblog posts about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. but ignore posts about anti-semitism, and that as a Jew makes me feel unsafe.”
the amount with which this point in particular resonates with me is unreal
The bold is especially important.
I don’t think I suffer a lot from anti-Semitism, and I certainly don’t face anything close to the degree of oppression that many of my peers have to face because of their gender and sexual identity and the color of their skin. That being said, The previous posters are absolutely right on all counts.
Again, The only people I ever see reblogging posts about anti-Semitism are other Jews, while many blogs I follow reblog every post under the sun relating to racism, sexism, and homophobia. This issue has on occasion made me feel pretty isolated, because I have seen a lot of people reblogging posts related to recents events in Gaza that reflected extremely anti-Israel points of view. There’s nothing wrong with that, people have every right to hold those opinions, and I even share some of them. However, as the original poster said, a lot of recent anti-Semitic violence in Europe stems from the the willingness of anti-Israel Europeans to hold Jews in the Diaspora responsible for the actions of the state of Israel. This is not ok. This is anti-Semitism, and this is part of what American Jews are seeing as anti-Semitic in what tumblr users say and do.
The average American Jew on tumblr doesn’t think “I support what Israel is doing in Gaza, and the horrible things people say about Israel are anti-Semitic attacks”.
The average American Jew on tumblr thinks “I don’t support what Israel is doing in Gaza, and even though there wasn’t a single popular protest in Europe over civilian deaths in Syria, Libya, or elsewhere in the Middle East caused government violence, but as soon as Israel did it Europe was outraged, and tumblr exploded with anti-Israel posts covering the protests and Israel’s actions.”
Fantastic points. Bravo everyone.
I, as a non-Jewish person, probably don’t reblog enough about anti-semitism, so here’s a great post from Jewish tumblr peeps with some excellent points about anti-semitism and systematic opression of Jewish folks, so, read up, folks.
What I found absolutely impressive and stunning about this comic is the way the artist explained the identification and elimination of the confounding factors in the Rat Park study. This is one of the hardest parts of experiments to explain to the public, and I think it was just brilliantly done.
knitting in the dark 