u/LilGidGid

IMHO the version of "suicide prevention" that social media and therapists like to promote only really exists to put a very weak bandaid on the problem and make non-suicidal people feel better. I feel like every September people wanna share these tasteful infographs with hotline numbers to their stories and on reddit, with everyone stressing "You're not alone! Please reach out!!! The world is so much better with you in it :)", but the moment you actually wanna have a real conversation about the actual factors that underpin suicide it's all crickets.

We have so much research that poor economic factors, previous exposure to traumatic events and social isolation all contribute to suicide but that research gets ignored in favour of shoving people off to private psychologists that charge them through the nose for a 1hr session and tell them to get over their trauma or bad financial situation using breathing exercises or some shit. And if you dare mention you have any thoughts of suicide in these sessions, you run the risk of being sectioned, where you're essentially forced into a hospital psych ward against your will and monitored around the clock until they've determined you're not a "danger" to yourself. I've been detained in a hospital before for suicidal ideation years ago and I mean it when I say it did not suddenly encourage me to have a come to Jesus moment where I realise that life was worth living all along. Quite the opposite in fact, I felt I wasn't listened to, my pain belittled and ignored, I was forced to strip naked (while on my period mind you) to check for weapons which left me feeling humiliated, and at the end of all that I was discharged with no help offered other than a ward psychologist who I had to regurgitate my entire life story to all for her to respond with "It sounds like you're going through a lot" without offering any help or solutions.

REAL suicide prevention looks like housing affordability, better social safety nets and welfare, third spaces that allow people to connect with one another without the expectation to spend money, food security, emphasis on community engagement and belonging, acceptance of people who identify as LGBT+, better PTO and workplace/school cultures that don't reward burnout, and most of all, the actual willingness to do some bare minimum emotional labour for your loved ones instead of of accusing them of "trauma dumping" because they wanted some support over their pet dying.

I wish the culture around discussing suicide would change so that it's not heavily coated in shaming language (eg: "Everyone will be so sad if you die!") and pivoted towards discussing how to hold space for someone in your life going through something difficult and addressing the broader societal ills that end up encourage mental harm and suicide, but the cynic in me feels like nothing is ever going to change in this regard, because that would require people having an ounce of empathy or social awareness and that seems to be in short supply in the modern culture.

The Moonspell Magic dolls have been out here for a few weeks now, and I've managed to find at least one of every doll in the line EXCEPT for Carina Song. I've hit up 6 different stores repeatedly for the past three weeks and nowhere ever seems to stock her, even though she appears alongside the rest in the Kmart and Big W listings online. I've seen some people say that she's going to be a Myer exclusive here but if so why list her with the other dolls on the website for these other stores? Any other Aussie fans had luck with tracking down a Carina doll, are all the stores near me just stocked really poorly?

I turned 25 a few months ago, and about a week before my birthday I went to see a GP for a stubborn yeast infection that over-the-counter medicine wasn't getting rid of. Of course, since I was there for that, my doctor predictably started her spiel about cervical screening. I was prepared for this and said that I was fine to do a swab, but that I wouldn't consent to having a speculum placed inside me (I don't have any history of sexual abuse/trauma, I just literally feel so uncomfortable with the idea of having a metal device pry me open and having any part of my cervix scraped or prodded). She agreed with that, did the HPV swab alongside one checking for vaginal yeast growth, gave me a script for some meds to help with the yeast infection, and I thought that would be that.

I got called back to do a follow-up appointment, which already made me nervous since I was aware that if the HPV result came back positive that I'd be pushed to do a pap, and I was prepared to have to argue about my right not to do one. So I go talk to her, she says I also have concurrent BV infection alongside the yeast infection (yippee) and also said that the HPV test came back positive for a non-high risk strain. She then gave me the option of doing a smear test right there or waiting another 12 months to do another swab to see if the infection clears up on its own. I took the latter option, got yet another script for some stuff to treat the BV, and left.

Since then, I've accessed the pathology documents uploaded online of the swab test and saw it specifically recommended a colposcopy to my doctor. After doing some further research into what that actually is, I feel more hesitant to do another swab in a years time since I don't want to get into further arguments trying to coerce me into getting any invasive tests and I don't feel my personal risk is that high for any further complications (asymptomatic, got the HPV vaccine at 14, have only one male partner and don't plan to have sex with any other men). I also took myself off my country's national screening register since I don't want to be harassed about it.

What I didn't realise is that my GP's office would start sending me annoying emails about "the importance of cervical screenings" anyway. I got one this morning that was droning on and on about how important and life-saving it is, and my eyes rolled so far back into my head. Cervical cancer isn't even in the top 10 leading causes of death in women in my country, much less my age group, like are we being so for real right now. I immediately unsubscribed from all their marketing emails but its left me feeling pretty shitty. Is this what life is just gonna be now that I'm 25? Just dodging constant pushes for people to shove cold metal torture devices into my vagina in the name of preventative healthcare? Literally, fuck being a woman sometimes.

Wondering how common of an experience this is. I've had to change doctors a fair bit for a couple of different reasons the past 8 years, and every new doctor I go see has tried to convince me to get an IUD inserted. It starts off with them asking if I'm on any birth control, to which I say yes, I take the pill and it's been working well for me. Almost always it then segues into them trying to convince me to get an IUD instead.

When I try and explain that I don't feel comfortable with having something like that inside my body for the long term, they then start proselytising about how it's "so much easier" than remembering to take a pill, how much more effective it is, etc. When I say I've heard insertion is very painful, all these doctors start straight up lying to me and insisting that it isn't, completely dismissing the experiences of other women I've spoken to who have had IUD's placed.

It's always been so frustrating to me, because why can't they just leave it at "no"? Why do I have to explain my reasons for not wanting an IUD to them, only for them to ignore them and continue to aggressively try and push me to get one? The most baffling thing as well is that I've never experienced any negative side effects from taking birth control pills. If one method of contraception is already working fine for me, why have such a push to try another?

Thankfully, the aggressive IUD pushing has largely stopped in the past two years ever since I got my bisalp surgery, but it still frustrates me how pushy doctors were when I was in my late teens and early twenties about this. The discussion should've just ended at "sorry, no thank you" every single time instead of being brought up over and over for years on end.