you know i think i’ve come to the conclusion that the answer to “but what if a cis woman is traumatized by men/male presenting people/whatever?” irt safe spaces is this: if you can’t be in the same room with someone you assume to be male or a man without feeling triggered, it probably means you have a lot more solo therapy and healing to do before relying on group therapy or other communal healing.

because how do you decide who gets to stay and who gets kicked out based on a cis woman’s trauma response? is it based on appearance? should intersex women with facial hair not be allowed because beards are triggering? should butches and studs not be allowed because masculinity is triggering? should tall broad shouldered trans women who don’t want to voice train not be allowed because low voices are triggering? is it based on identity? should a pre transition trans man who came out two days ago not be allowed because he’s a man? is a nonbinary person with a full beard and deep voice allowed because they are not a man?

because if you base your entire set of rules for who’s not allowed in the safe space on what makes cis women uncomfortable or triggers them, you’ve just made that space unsafe for trans people. and you need to decide if you’re ready to own that.

to the "what if a cis woman is traumatized by men/male presenting people" thing: well, then she needs a fuckton of therapy to work through that, because demanding a space that's free of an appearance or identity that bothers you is not realistic and it's not only counterproductive to your healing but makes you a danger to others. right after I'd been diagnosed with ptsd, i got put in two mixed-gender therapy groups. one was a dbt group, the other one was an actual for-credit class on the physiology of ptsd. at the time i was still identifying as mostly a girl, although kinda-sorta starting to question it.

i really really didn't want to be in mixed gender groups. i was in a state of extreme hypervigilance like 99% of the time. i was having flashbacks and panic attacks at the drop of a hat. and you know what my therapist said when i asked if i could be in groups without men?

she said no, and that it would be a crucial point in my healing process to learn that men aren't inherently dangerous. i was petrified, because i was twenty years old and in the worst mental health of my life, but i showed up to the groups and did the homework and sat next to the men i was scared of, and you know what? my therapist was absolutely right! getting to know those men in my groups was one of the most healing experiences i could've had, because i was forced to stop seeing them as a monolithic boogeyman and start seeing them as individual human beings! not to mention quite a few of them were also rape/sa survivors and therefore made up a safer and more understanding space than any of the non-survivor social groups i frequented.

i distinctly remember having an anxiety attack having to sit next to a guy i didn't know in dbt group. i remember apologizing, because i did want him to know he didn't personally do anything. he had vaguely similar features to my ex and in the state i was in at the time, that was a trigger. he told me it was okay, he totally understood because he was the same way with guys who looked like his dad, and then seat swapped me so i could have my back to the wall instead of the open room. just like that.

my ptsd physiology class was me and a bunch of big burly ex-military guys. i was feeling brave one day and piped up about how if someone touched me, i could feel it for hours after and felt like i needed 50 showers. this big bearded guy in a muscle shirt snapped his fingers and went, 'dude, EXACTLY!!' it led to a very educational discussion on dysregulation in individuals with ptsd and how your startle response just Doesn't Wear Off, as well as all of us sharing/brainstorming ways to cope with that when it happened. we all learned a lot and me and that guy both learned we weren't alone.

all that to say: you're responsible for learning to manage your triggers. someone's appearance or identity being a trigger for you means you are gravely, critically ill, and need a lot of help to work toward being okay and being able to function as a person. if you can't handle being around anyone you read as a man or as remotely masculine, there's a very strong chance you're sick enough you shouldn't be in groups at all until you have enough of a handle on your shit to not pose a danger to yourself and others.

"you're responsible for learning to manage your triggers. someone's appearance or identity being a trigger for you means you are gravely, critically ill, and need a lot of help to work toward being okay and being able to function as a person"

louder for the people in the back

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if the phrase "self care" doesn't resonate with you, try calling it "system maintenance" and see if that clicks.

Reblogging to add amazing tags from @meta-theory

#this both makes things more fun and also is a really good analogy#because there are four types of system maintenance and that makes the term much more exact than the nebulous ''self-care''#and therefore much more helpful to those of us who uhhh struggle with nebulosity#for anyone curious the four types are:#1. corrective (to fix current problems)#2. preventative (to avoid future problems)#3. adaptative (to re-adjust to any changes)#4. perfective (to work towards a better system)#I really like this idea I'm gonna make a checklist

I began creating my "moonpaintings" in 2020, back when I often felt intense physical pain each month. I’ve always felt compelled to make art, though it’s rarely easy to explain why. Often, it feels like I’m driven by pure curiosity—or maybe even a touch of madness. When I started, I didn’t fully understand what this process meant to me. Sometimes we think we know why we’re drawn to something, only to realize it reflects something deeper or unexpected within us. Painting with my own blood became a raw way to explore emotions I couldn’t easily put into words.

Looking back, I realize this art was also a response to emotions I didn’t know how to handle. I carried a quiet sadness, though I never wanted to be defined or judged for it. People often think depression means you don’t enjoy life, but that’s not the case for me. I feel deeply connected to life—I laugh, I feel moved by beauty, I’m grateful. But I also carry grief and a kind of sorrow I can’t always explain. Maybe it’s about the world, personal losses, or just the heaviness that comes without reason. I’ve even had people assume my interests—like vulture culture and themes around mortality—stem solely from depression or past traumas. While my experiences have certainly influenced my art, my curiosity reaches far beyond them. I’m fascinated by life in its many forms, by the mysteries of nature, by cycles of renewal and decay, by everything that exists beneath the surface of what we think we know.

I’ve often felt like I had to control my emotions to be accepted, but not only for others’ comfort. Growing up in a home where emotions sometimes felt unstable and the atmosphere unpredictable, I learned to keep myself in check, to be “small” and steady even when I felt anything but. That need for control became a habit, a way to feel safe—but as I kept it up, it also became stifling. The more I tried to manage or conceal my intensity, the more isolated and disconnected I felt, and the heavier my emotions became.

I’ve sometimes worried that sharing these parts of myself might lead people to feel sorry for me, to try to “analyze” or “fix” me, even while I feel they may hide similar parts of themselves. It’s complicated, wanting to be open without being seen as fragile, and hoping others would feel safe to be open too.

Over time, though, I’m beginning to accept these parts of myself, and my moonpaintings have been a big part of that. Through them, I’m learning to embrace everything I am—light and dark, joy and sorrow. I’m still working on releasing the shame around my sadness and intensity, allowing myself to see these emotions as valid and worthy. I’m not fully there yet, but with each piece, I feel closer to showing up as my whole self, without needing to hide or “fix” anything.

This journey isn’t about being completely healed or “done”—it’s about letting all parts of me exist without judgment, about finding a kind of peace in the messiness. And maybe that’s the real beauty of this work: it gives me a place to honor where I am right now, embracing all the parts of me that are still growing, still struggling, still becoming.

hey friendly psa/reminder that with the seasons changing right now, a lot of people with mood disorders (and even people without them) can get all messed up and wonky from that so try to go a little easy on yourself if you find yourself spiraling or getting emotional a lot lately okay? youre doin your best. love u

Harrison Wood Hsiang

load-bearing

Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.

(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)

I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.

It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice - they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”

When you know what’s important to you, you can fight for it, or at least be equipped to notice right away if it goes and some of your ability to thrive goes with it. When you don’t, or when you’re thinking of all these things as ‘nice things about my life’ rather than ‘load-bearing bits of my flourishing as a person’, you’re not likely to notice the strain created when they vanish until you’re really, really hurting. 

ive also come to the conclusion that "laziness" is probably the stupidest, most hurtful, least useful, deliberately cruel concept in the world

I don't think I've ever seen anyone benefit from being called lazy but I've seen hundreds of people destroying their bodies and minds trying to avoid being called lazy because at some point someone decided that if someone wasn't miserable then that means they're a bad person

If you have achieved something, please remember to observe a mandatory period of basking in the warm glow of your achievement like a lizard on a stone, lest you teach your brain that effort is futile, actually, because it didn't get to enjoy its happy chemicals, so, naturally, nothing good ever comes of trying. (And no, avoiding punishment is not a reward!)

I recommend, like, 5% of basking time in relation to whatever time you invested into achieving the thing minimum. And if you can't make your own bask, friend-brought is fine (= tell your friends!).

therapy is wild like you talk to somebody for 45 mins about how your dad was shitty but you think you're pretty normal and fine about it and then with 2 minutes on the clock you hear yourself say "I don't know, I just wish I'd hurt him when I had the chance"

and your therapist is like "sounds normal and fine to me for sure for sure, hold that thought I'll see you next week"

the thing is, if your younger self was a bigot or an abuser, u can't make people forgive you. but you still gotta forgive yourself, like that's non-negotiable, dude. that happens before u can even ask the question of earning forgiveness from anyone lese

oops, in your attempt to martyr yourself out of respect for your victims you accidentally sabotaged your own ability to conceptualize yourself as anything but a perpetual evildoer who is always one bad day away from hurting everyone you love, all but guaranteeing history to repeat itself. rookie mistake

im gonna try explaining myself, cus im a gambling addict and im waiting for the day that it actually works.

"forgiveness" is personal, that's why I said in the post that you might inflict harm on people for which they can never forgive you, but that's their quest. if you abuse someone, you can't go no-contact with yourself. you actually keep living in your own head indefinitely, and ultimately you need to learn to live with yourself in order to continue living a full life without further harm. this is not necessarily an anti-carceral thought, although i am generally anti-carceral myself. I simply want people to like, fix their heart and atone for real with measured accountability & self love instead of dissociating, self-marking themselves forever and guaranteeing their recidivism.

You and a remorseful abuser would both think I'm giving the easy, coddling path. It's actually the tough pragmatic path in disguise.

Ok. I see where you going, but I strongly disagree. The one person who can't be allowed to forgive ones crimes is oneself.

Even if everyone else has forgiven you for the abuse you did, you must never allow yourself to let what you did be forgiven. Once you've done that, you've gotten to the point where you might do it again.

Never let up. Always strive towards improvement. Never let yourself live down the horrors of the past. Only by comparing ourselves to who we were can we grow.

this is called OCD

It’s so fucking frustrating to argue about this on tumblr.com. Because people might pay lip service to the idea of criminal justice reform or even prison abolition. But deep down they always come back to the Calvinism of it all: there are good people (victims) and bad people (abusers) and once someone has revealed themselves to be an abuser they can never be forgiven, never be part of society again.

And if you believe the world works like that one other thing also has to be true: You know you are a ‘good person’, so nothing you ever do could be truly abusive. You could never truly harm another person. And if you did they must have deserved it. Because you are a good person.

And wow, does that not just sound like something abusers usually say, when confronted with their own behavior?

I would leave the rest up to the reader but because we are on the piss on the poor reading comprehension site here, I’m going to spell it out: get comfortable with your own fallibility. Acknowledge that you could indeed severely harm someone else. And that means that you NEED to learn to forgive yourself.

Shop , Patreon , Books and Cards , Mailing List

Shop , Patreon , Books and Cards , Mailing List

“I don’t know what my goals are, no. Thanks for asking.”

pinkie pie therapy momence :0)

Shop , Patreon , Books and Cards , Mailing List