Someone wrote that as a response to this situation I described: 10th day of bronchitis, no one around to help, can barely walk, struggling to eat or use the toilet, steam is a trigger, felt self-conscious about EMTs dealing with my dirty house and gross self.

"get up and shower"

-

I had asthma since I was very little. Everyone ignored it. I was scolded when I complained about breathing problems. The adults who raised me were unsafe. The kind of people who would push harder if you said you were in pain, who hear someone say "allergy" and take it as a challenge.

Sports and dance teachers were cold and unsympathetic. Oh you're struggling? IDC pick up the pace, hit your mark, stay on beat, keep those lines clean.

Over and over again, throughout my life, this message was reinforced: no matter how tired, burned out, injured, sick, incapacitated to the point of life-threatening....it's not an excuse. Perform, produce, keep it together. Standards, results, expectations do not soften just because someone got a booboo.

I was a recession youth, and scraping a living was brutal. Forget paid leave, I would lose work if I called off sick. I've literally been collapsed on the bathroom floor, sweating and doubled over from food poisoning, and my laptop open trying to push a deliverable out before deadline. I remember ignoring an oozing ear infection because I had 2 weeks to land work or start preparing for homelessness.

I still have nightmares, about urgently needing to accomplish some task but being hobbled from doing so. And the presence of other people, indifferent to my pain and obstacles, harassing me to get that thing done, digging their fingers into my open wounds, impatient with my failure to perform even as they push my head further underwater.

-

The number of times I've said "I can't breath" only to be met with responses that made me feel less like a human being and more like fish dinner flopping on the cutting board...

“We are preparing for the next war that is coming,” said Jonathan Cowan, the president of Third Way, a leading centrist Democratic group, revealing to The New York Times a new $15 million effort between now and 2028 to discredit democratic socialism.

-

Stay woke y'all--another wave of shady libshit just got commissioned.

The concept of "Treatment Burden" does not exist in professional Mental Healthcare discourse

A systematic literature review looking for the definition of treatment burden

" Treatment burden refers to the personal workload of healthcare, including treatment and self-management of chronic health conditions, and the impact of this workload on patient functioning and well-being. Workload identifies the activities that patients are asked or required to do in order to care for their health (e.g., taking medications, maintaining medical appointments, monitoring health status, engaging in physical therapy). Impact refers to a patient's perception of the effect of the workload on role, social, physical, and psychological functioning. Financial challenges, confusion about medical information, and challenges with the healthcare system may add to the weight of the burden that is felt by the patient. " (Eton et al., 2016)

-

Trauma Exploitation and College Essays

“Your story has to be sad enough to gain sympathy but not so sad that it makes you seem beyond help. Just critical enough to inspire change, but not so much that it actually criticizes systemic structures. Just honest enough to seem real, but not so unfiltered that it creates discomfort.”

(trigger warning, obviously)

The Rise of the "Trauma Essay" in College Applications | Tina Yong | TED

-

ABLEISM AND PTSD

They tell people that you can't ask for accommodations for triggers. They tell people that it's wrong to avoid things that trigger you. They tell people that unlike other disabilities, people with CPTSD and PTSD can and must fully recover and they have a responsibility to "heal".

I see this in professional literature, in PTSD and CPTSD support spaces, neurodiversity discourse, pro-therapy subs

are people who use wheelchairs even though they can technically walk a little bit under the right conditions also suffering from "learned helplessness"? If someone's epileptic condition is medicated and stable, are they suffering from "an external locus of control" for continuing to avoid flashing lights? If someone gets a debilitating head injury from a car accident, are they a "burden" if they never bounce back to 100% and it also affects the lives of the people around them?

"hurt people hurt people". "violent crime comes from mental illness".

First it's every day people who engage in abusive behaviors. Entitlement, wielding power in a rigid social hierarchy, tacit enablement and active excuse making by bystanders, the dehumanization of certain classes of people (children, women, spouses, old folks, etc.)? No, It's "trauma" from being deprived of a safe upbringing.

First there's the violent crimes you see on the news. Patriarchal masculinity, white supremacy, wealth inequality, entitlement, shitty gun culture and access to easy weapons, the normalization of cruelty under a colonial imperialist fascist-lite pedo-run state? Nah, it's clinically adjudicated "insanity".

-

Then it becomes anyone who was beat as a child, who picks fight over flight in self-defense, who is outspoken and angry, becomes suspect of abuse they've not committed. In fact, some would go to say that even being angry in the presence of others is a form of abuse. Some would even say, not being fully "healed" (i.e. needing accomodations, becoming disabled) is a form of harm against others.

Then it becomes anyone who deviates too far from the status quo, people talking to the demons their head, any behavior that feels erratic to someone who considers themselves "normal"(normative), becomes suspect of crimes they have not committed. In fact, many would look at the lost and abandoned living rough on the streets, and would argue that itself is a kind of criminal behavior.

-

And the mental health machine is held up as a not only as the cure, but a preventative. If you don't submit yourself to the mental heatlthcare machine after being marked out as "broken" or "deviant", you must be on the path to dangerousness. If you are on the path to dangerousness, the mental healthcare machine has a right to snatch you off the street and lock you in a cage for the future safety of others.

And in this world built on the "profit incentive", society has built a machine of ableism that generates even more incapacity under a debilitating social model, built a machine of criminalization that generates more and more categories of wrongness to p*lice.

-

^(and the fact that as a survivor of p*lice brutality, I have to spell shit stupid, to dodge the censor machine to speak on our violent oppression. ACAB including the thought cops, I don't care that people find this offensive,) ^(I) ^(have been assaulted by both the thugs in blue and the thugs in white and) ^(I) ^(say they are the same. ACAB to the hall monitors who feed their "loved" ones and neighbors to the beast and pat themselves on the back for being good people.)

^(what destructive actions did I take to deserve this? even dumber reasons than the one I listed above. I spoke to a social worker about unemployment. I took a walk in a neighborhood full of rich white people. I told trusted adults that I needed someone to hear and acknowledge my material reality. I asked for help. What a crazy dangerous erratic psycho.)

I'm tired of privileged people perpetuating this myth of "help", just get help, failure to access help is only caused by too much of pride or not enough savvy in looking for resources.

I won't call it gaslighting because willful ignorance is not technically motivated by wanting to make someone doubt their perception of reality.

(Qualifier - I am in America, therefore this post is about America.)

(Qualifier 2 - I've had my fill of smug Europeans telling me my country is a shithole. I am aware.)

The burden of treatment to access therapy is too high. Ghost networks of false information litter the healthcare landscape. Even if someone has insurance, coverage is often a joke. Ethical oversight is abhorrently lax.

Eating disorder treatment is fucked. Trauma treatment is fucked. Racism, sexism, and homophobia are rampant. Support for sexual assault survivors is super extra fucked.

Pharma is distributed liberally with little consistency or respect for informed consent or even basic FDA guidelines.

In this country, you will be billed for forced treatment.

The solution to everything is cops. Autistic meltdown? Cops. Suicide risk? Cops. Substance dependency? Cops. Homelessness? Cops.

And while we are on that topic, I'm fucking sick of hearing goddamn Democrat politicians say housing first failed as a strategy. Housing first never happened. I don't live in red country, but I'm pretty sure people there are sick of every social service getting pawned off to churches. I don't know which is worse, gatekeeping material assistance behind the theology that runs so-called mental healthcare or the moral absolutism that dictates so-called Christian institutions.

Down on your luck? Are you really going to move back in with your parents you loser? Oh you can't rely on having parents, then stay with a friend. You do have friends, right, loser? Good job having people who care about you. You have two weeks to get off their couch and back on your feet--any longer is bad etiquette. Never mind that it takes 5 months to find a job these days. You wouldn't want to sour longstanding relationships with your loved ones and community by depending on them.

-

Foster care is a toxic, corrupt system that practically hates children. No one gives one iota of a fuck about elder abuse in nursing homes.

Domestic violence shelters are stretched thin. Want to see a social worker? LOL. They fail women all the time. They especially fail childless women. In many areas, they are increasingly unsafe for queer women. They make male victims feel like a joke. They don't even think about youth from violent homes. (If someone is being sexually assaulted by a parent, do they technically then qualify through an Intimate Partner Violence loophole?)

You don't like it kid? Grow up, get a job, and move out. You don't have transportation? tough shit. Your parents steal your money? tough shit. You can't make enough money to cover moving and living expenses? teenage jobs aren't supposed to pay a living wage.

Join Jobs Corps. Your abusers make too much money? tough shit. Waiting lists too long? tough shit. Join the military then. Perfect for people who were raised under violence: you're already halfway groomed to be a tool of imperial force. You're a woman, queer, and/or hold political objections to the military industrial complex? Suck it up, buttercup. Morality and physical safety are luxuries you can't afford.

Disabled? Go disappear into a hole please.

-

Apply for medicaid. Apply for welfare. Apply for food stamps. You will be drowned paperwork to make you prove really are poor enough to really want it. You will be told you are stealing from the government. Who's going to believe that the nice selfless workers at the aid office tried to bully and shame you out of taking publicly funded social assistance?

Can't afford rent? Food pantry. Unemployed? Food pantry. Medical debt? food pantry. No childcare assistance? food pantry. Unreliable public transportation? Food pantry. The food pantries are wonderful and underutilized. Nobody starves (to death) in America. How can you complain about literally anything if you aren't even starving (to death)?

You want to use your medicaid? You need a psych evaluation. Chronic pain? psych eval. Need Counseling? psych eval. You wouldn't be on assistance if your brain was functioning properly. But if you truly report anxiety or depression, you might get fobbed off as a drug seeker. Keep you guessing: too much drugs you don't need or not enough drugs you do need, depending on what the liability factors are, depending on the political landscape and the mercurial preferences of your assigned psych doctor. You want a different doctor for a second opinion? Get off medicaid you leech.

-

Just be homeless then. Sleep under the stars. It's all in your mindset, baby.

It's so romantic to train hop and hitchhike dangerously across the country to somewhere you won't freeze in winter. It's so romantic to be threatened by people dumping nasty illegal trash where you live, because you'll be blamed for it. To have your encampments targeted by arsonists. To be solicited for sex work. It's so romantic to search endlessly for a square meter of un-privatized ground to rest on where you won't be subject to the pointy end of hostile architecture or police harassment.

To be blamed for being mentally ill. To be told you wouldn't be homeless if you were taking the right drugs. To be told you are homeless because you're taking the wrong drugs. even when the first wrong drugs you took were prescribed by a doctor who told you they were the right drugs.

Whether or not you are mentally ill, whether you are on the right or wrong drugs, whether any of this might actually be caused by being homeless in the first place.

-

Seek help. but not from your parents. Seek help, but not from your partner. Seek help, but not from your friends. But not from your community. Not from social services. Not from this particular type of counselor. Help is available, help is out there, just not here.

No one owes you a job. Society doesn't owe you shit. Your family doesn't owe you. Healthcare isn't a free lunch. Are you truly the kind of person who deserves a piece of earth to call home? Shape up. Earn your place.

Take some responsibility.

Seek help.

-

IT'S A GODDAMN POTEMKIN VILLAGE OUT HERE.

What I went through was a clear cut, black and white case of malpractice. I had my vaccines withheld. I was ignored when I said no. I was not referred to a specialist. The doctor was not competent at performing the procedure and under-educated on the topic.

Every person I know who works in healthcare (doctors, nurse, cnas, techs, admin) has gaslit me with the "liability" spiel.

So I went to therapy. I chose carefully. I laid the groundwork for many sessions. I mentioned Ivan Illich. she reacted with familiarity to his work. We talked about iatrogenic harm in medicine.

I told her what happened.

She told me "What did you expect".

I was pressured by school. I was pressured by parents. I was pressured by doctors. I was pressured by other women. No adult in my life had a healthy grasp on the concept of consent. I had to teach myself. No resource in my immediate environment went against the drumbeat of screen screen screen or else. I had to get competent at doing research, I had the educational privilege of knowing how to go about it (contrary to dominant belief that there is no such thing as a layman who can navigate medical literature)

no competency can overcome the freeze-state I went into immediately after the incident, and couldn't psychically confront what happen until years later, forget documenting and follow-up. no amount of consent self-education prepared me for how to stick to my NO after a doctor starts dangling essential medicine behind pap smear compliance. No amount of literacy or communications skills on my end will overcome Doctors' lack of reading comprehension leading to treating me like an "anti-vaxxer" when I tell them i had my vaccines withheld. (only one doctor didn't do this. She was black. hmmmmm)

According to official medical guidelines, I was still outside the age guidelines for screening. Many years after the incident, an major public health institution funded a meta-analysis proving the epidemic of over screening. Based on the area I was in and the time window of this study, I was almost certainly part of the data set.

the therapist victim blamed me for not knowing better.

from "this never happens/it didn't happen like you said/this is normal procedure actually", to "of course that happened you should have known better than to put yourself in that situation". psychic whiplash, i tell you.

So I know better now. I know now: "what did I expect" going to therapy, when the psych industries serve as handmaiden to medical misogyny on a routine, systemic basis

I know better than to think I can realistically hold any of them to any reasonable standard of professional conduct or common humanity. Decent people are unicorns in those fields.

Then they pillage my religion for "therapeutic techniques".

in the language I inherited along with my religion, the word for mental health translates to "within the heart". In this ignorant culture I inherited, there is a verb for "de-centering yourself in service of providing social support". We don't accuse people of cognitive distortions, we ask "is this a stirring of the wind, or stirring within your heart?"

but of course this kind of thing wouldn't show up when research lumps everyone from an entire continent into one basket, when researchers and funding are extremely motivated to create MULTIPLE data sets pointing fingers at the failures of culture and community (conveniently leaving out comparison sets for other racialized categories)

yet can't collect the institutional willpower to track basic metrics like rate of participation in mental health services

We say we view psych problems on a continuum with social problems and see little distinction, and they interpret that as: these people view mental struggles as a matter of personal failing. When we struggle under rigidly hierarchical familial relations that hyperindividualize suffering, they insist that our communities are "collectivistic" (whatever the fuck that means) and pretend like there's no dysfunctional deference to authority among their own society.

And then there's everyone whose culture, communities, norms, and individual experiences fall entirely outside this archetype in the first place.

-

I will never receive a PTSD diagnosis from this western hegemony whose academics gleefully recite racist resilience propaganda about how the survivors of the Cambodian massacre weren't actually traumatized because they didn't fit into the framework Western doctors tried to impose.

I can be accused of being schizo, schizoid, psychotic, personality disordered, neurotic, "socially awkward", sexually repressed, prejudiced against western medicine, superstitious, irrational, a danger to myself (and therefore others?!?!), brainwashed by culture, cowed by the opinions of my elders, anti-science...but I cannot be traumatized.

That therapist wasn't racist, I'm just too ignorant to understand how therapy works, or why their version of my spiritual practices are more "correct" than what I grew up on.

The Orient: incoherently stupid yet mysteriously wise.

If I look up PTSD due to misogyny, the vast majority of conversations consist of both men and women using trauma as the reason for why they're misogynistic.

If I look up PTSD due to psychiatric violence, after I've sifted out everything for psych workers talking about violent patients, I am left with a deluge of content victim-blaming all survivors as feces-flinging schizos.

Searching for PTSD resources for war victims...veterans veterans veterans veterans. Half of all casualties of war are civilians. Now imagine the ratio for survivors

school shootings

police brutality

wtf.

ditching me at age 2 to be fostered by family members who were known to be abusive and hated me for being born without a penis. family members who were barely 1 generation removed from the active practice of infant femicide

chosen family let their white male friend degrade me in front of everyone at dinner. Everyone talking about the politics of unions, and when I -- the one actually in the process of fighting to unionize my industry -- opened my mouth to contribute a single opinion on the subject, and this paper white man told me I'd better "be careful and watch my mouth". And they all laughed like it's a funny joke. All of them with big social justice related careers, completely comfortable with the optics of the only fully non-white person, the only child of immigrants, the income-unstable recession youth, being told I don't get a voice at this table.

BIPOC gay friends putting me in social situations where I'm stuck listening to some white gay STEMLORD tell me in excruciating detail how every female he has ever known was stupid, vapid, unskilled, can't cook, codes badly, is romantically pathetic, etc. Like sis, your buddy isn't gay because he likes men, he's gay because he hates women. Back when I was often in predominantly gay male space, this dynamic would happen at least once a year. and only ONE person ever apologized for exposing me to his shitty ex-friend.

"progressive" white women and their "politically mysterious" white male partners. The kind of men that are actively dangerous for me to be in the same room with. Danger like, cops, satanic panic, accusations of sexual degeneracy, smear campaigns, unhinged shit. I've met TWO white boyfriends who were regular people and not terrifying chaos bombs.

e-v-e-r-y-body trying to pimp me off to various "good guys" who "deserve a chance". I don't care how gorgeous and tall he is. I don't care that we're already friends and all the other girls wish they had my kind of access. I don't care about his career. A great personality? I don't fucking care. I. AM. NOT. ATTRACTED. TO. MEN. and y'all are not entitled to know what's in my closet, you disrespectful pushy creeper fuckwits.

So many more situations like these, but I've run out of steam to type.

-

Everyone outside of my family of origin, I'm responsible for choosing. I chose carefully. People who demonstrate genuine kindness, sweet conscientious people, socially sensitive folks, people who make effort to stay politically aware.

Yet all that goodness and consideration still evaporates when it comes to my safety or my feelings about it. No support, barely a whisper of acknowledgment, oftentimes not even that. So many "loved ones" who loved every aspect of me except the parts that contain my experience of personhood. A valued resource, a cherished tool, everyone's favorite instrument.

but not quite fully human

I'm letting go of the sense of responsibility to try and salvage "imperfect" community. I have no more room inside me to give people opportunity to "learn and grow". All the space I have is reserved for my dignity and people who don't fucking suck bigot dick.

The orthodox fundie clinging to ancient texts like dogma as if no other Buddhism exists beyond the one true original school, throwing his weight around like he was appointed an authority to enforce this. Whitesplaining, manspreading, wagging his finger at the minorities priorizing political resistance over the eightfold path.

"just another puthujjana" he called me. Puthujjana means anyone who hasn't yet achieved any level of enlightenment, including monks. Who does he think he is? no literally did this white man actually imply he's mastered the dharma and entered the stream? While lecturing against the spiritual dangers of revolution?

and that's not even the worse

There are the ones who have latched onto the social justice movements we call Engaged Buddhism. Developed by oppressed minorities to meet the times we live in, refuting the old ways that advise to release our anger and turn away from the world in favor of endless spiritual navel gazing.

These white men say all the right words, collect degrees and credentials, study around the world....years and years and years of their life devoted to earning the cred to use the term Engaged Buddhism as branding for their AI start up.

Years I've been sounding the alarm about "effective altruism", to stop feeding the techno-capitalist wolves who have weaseled their way into this faith. Now LLM slop is coming to infest the political activism space.

I HATE THEM. SO. MUCH. COLONIZING HOARDING THIEVING WORMS

this is the one that breaks me. A lifetime of watching all this shit unfold. A lifetime of micro and macro aggressions. spiritually adultified while semi-fostered under temple. debilitating, lifelong asthma from sleeping and living and choking near burning incense for years and scolded for complaining about breathing problems. getting pestered by white people to try their "yoga", or McMindful wellness, or unseasoned "Pan-Asian" plant-based restaurants and so many of them not taking no for an answer, the fucking psychos. Buddha heads as decor. Sam Harris. The zen center cabal of old rich white male power brokers. Christian skinfolk expecting to be treated like the default and dominant norm. Stuck in a society that doesn't recognize or respect actual lived Buddhist cultivation, and getting discriminated for my values in ways that I struggle to explain to outsiders.

I've felt neutral, annoyed, offended, pissed off, worn down. This one is different. This one cut deeper. I'm not okay.

Much love and solidarity to everyone who stayed 🏳️‍🌈 after🤰

The worse they act, the bigger of a monster they need to create for the story behind their actions.

At different points in my life, I have been: A demon child with malevolent eyes and murder in my heart. A drugged up maniac with superhuman strength. A shit-flinging schizo divorced from reality. A psycho bitch terrorizing innocent men with "bad energy".

I was an average kid with a tame idea of fun. As an adult, I use weed and booze in comically small doses, and touch nothing else. I don't even take my prescribed pain meds. I am a short featherweight who never reached my goal of benching 100lbs. I have a perfect record of pooping responsibly my whole grown life. My primary professional skills involve accurately documenting what I observe with my eyes and ears. I don't practice baneful magic, I don't know any witchcraft at all, I am stingy about wasting energy on men in general. (The absurdity of being confronted with a social context where I have to assert any of this)

They can't deny the scale of violence they commit, so they must deny my humanity in equal proportion to balance the scales. They must paint a portrait as suggestive of danger as possible absent any tangible violence they can latch onto as narrative fodder.

Silver lining, I am freed of the social obligation to extend that humanity they claim I lack. The complete absence of remorse or apology spares me the struggle of grappling with forgiveness.

They tell people that you can't ask for accommodations for triggers. They tell people that it's wrong to avoid things that trigger you. They tell people that unlike other disabilities, people with CPTSD and PTSD can and must fully recover and they have a responsibility to "heal".

I see this in professional literature, in PTSD and CPTSD support spaces, neurodiversity discourse, pro-therapy subs

are people who use wheelchairs even though they can technically walk a little bit under the right conditions also suffering from "learned helplessness"? If someone's epileptic condition is medicated and stable, are they suffering from "an external locus of control" for continuing to avoid flashing lights? If someone gets a debilitating head injury from a car accident, are they a "burden" if they never bounce back to 100% and it also affects the lives of the people around them?

I have such low opinion of people who use this line. Especially in response to extreme cases of abusive psych or analysis on how systemic these problems are.

-

imagine telling survivors of sexual assault in university that they're discouraging people from getting an education.

-

I've definitely heard people say this in response to conversations about P*lice Br*tality. Which further cements my worldview that psych is c0p work, and society implicitly treats it like c0p work, even if they get offended and claim otherwise when this quiet part is said out loud.

This line is also thrown at people reporting abuses by social services. C0p work.

I've also heard church people say this about reporting abuses within religious systems. Which also reflects how the structures of the psych complex mirror the shape of religious organization.

Authoritarian insitutions are unfit to serve the needs they claim as their purpose. They are waste baskets for boxing up disruptions to the status quo and weaponized as tools for surveillance and control. Unchecked power imbalances are a feature not a bug.

(reddit is fucking flagging me now for even mentioning the pigs, I guess I'll just use the slur from now on since y'all don't like us using the civil terms)

The Aptness of Anger [Full Text]

The misogynist dismisses a woman’s anger by calling her shrill or strident; the racist dismisses the black person’s anger by calling him a thug or an animal. These are not mere insults. These are rhetorical strategies that shift the explanatory context for the subject’s anger from the space of reasons to the space of causes...And so the bigot says: she is only angry because she’s a shrill bitch; he’s only angry because he’s a thug. Thus the bigot obscures the possibility that the woman or black person’s anger is apt.

- Amia Srinivasan

idk anything about this person, if you have tea be nice to me k

Some guy ordered me to move a car for construction, in a impatient, demanding tone of voice. Like it should have already happened, like I was given notice earlier and he was having to ask again. Scowling, sour.

It wasn't my car. I told him I'd text the owner. He gave an exasperated sigh.

At this point, I didn't think any of it. Some people have RBF. Some people just have an overly gruff demeanor. Maybe he wasn't having a good day.

The owner of the car, a man, shows up. The same guy who spoke down at me like I was shit on his shoe, was suddenly bright, friendly, accommodating, ingratiating. Smiles and laughter.

I've gone through this dynamic so many times. I'm having a hard time shaking it off and not letting it ruin my day. The other crew last week were chill, it's not all men like this. But every man goes quiet when I call shit out. And that's why I quit pursuing the trades. Because the nice ones never had my back when I stood up for myself.

I'm not the one to smash ceilings and break barriers. I don't have it in me to be the tip of the spear. I don't know where to put this anger. Fuck.