wheeliewifee:

sehnsuchttraum:

• You don’t have to achieve great things by the time you’re 25
• You have intrinsic value above and beyond your perceived utility to other people and society at large. 
• You don’t have to have sex, or have sex in any way that you find uncomfortable or unpleasant, to keep anyone’s love or good opinion of you. They didn’t love you or think very well of you to start with if they demand it. 
• You don’t have to stay with someone who isn’t meeting your emotional or sexual needs because they need you, or you’ve been with them for awhile, or you need to be in a relationship. You need you. Your time is your own and it is finite. 
• It’s ok to work at a job you enjoy that doesn’t make you miserable even if it’s not a career and it won’t “lead to anything.” 
• Your life is not a narrative. It is not leading to anything, there is no overarching thesis, it does not have themes beyond the usual shared cultural experiences of your time and place. This is ok. It does not mean that your life is without purpose or meaning. 
• It’s ok not to like or get along with the vast majority of people you encounter, so long as you afford them the same respect, courtesy and dignity that they afford you. 
• Expensive is not always better. 
• Failure is temporary if you’re still alive. 
• People are both much better and much worse than you’d suspect, but usually not all at once. 
• Stop thinking of your future self as a different person and it will be easier to prevent money and health problems. 
• Let people help you, lean on them when you need to, and be available to help, but don’t swing too far in either direction. Try to carry your half of the life basket as evenly as you can. 
• Set boundaries, and do not be afraid to kick people out of your life who disregard them. You will not end up alone and unloved. People who love you will be ok with your boundaries. 
• Your power does not come from money or beauty, but from seeing life steadily and wholly, from a curious and thoughtful mind, and from your ability to say no when you want to, and yes when you want to, and I don’t know when you don’t know. 
• There will be bad times, maybe lots of bad times, but not only bad times. 
• Love will not heal the wounds in your soul, but love can give you the impetus to begin the work of healing yourself. 
• Life might be a long series of starting over, and that’s alright. 
• You’re really cool, you’re really beautiful, you’re really special. Really. Not to everyone, but to a lot of someones sometimes. 

This made me cry…

Thank you, OP. 

wheeliewifee:

imjustsarahcate:

My PSA for the day:

I’ve seen this come up a few times in my follow list today from rants and blogs and notes.

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When you go to the Doctor, you have the right to not be weighed.

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There was a time in my life when knowing what the numbers on the scale said would have sent me into an absolute spiral of loathing, self-injury and suicidality.  And that was even if they were “good.”  I finally got to the  point where if I knew my weight had stayed relatively static, I refused to be weighed when seeing the Doctor. 

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If you have not gone to the Doctor specifically for a weight-related issue (ED treatment or other related problem that they consider to be tied to the scale), you are under no obligation to be weighed. 

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It took me a long time to figure that out.  But once I did?  I never let some know-it-all nurse shove me on the scale.  I have only once ever had one even give me push back about it.

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Generally my answer was, “My weight has not changed significantly since I was last here so I would prefer not to be weighed.”

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The only time I had to say more than that was with one bitch nurse who said, “Well, if you don’t want to see you can just step on backwards and I won’t tell you the number.”

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To which I replied, “I have a severe anxiety and depressive disorder.  I have major body issues.  If you TAKE my weight, I HAVE to see it.  If I see it, whether it is what I expect or not, I will leave here, obsess about it, and ultimately- end up doing myself a great deal of physical and emotional harm because of that number.  If you won’t let me see the Doctor without being weighed, I’m leaving.”

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Your emotional and psychological health and well being are JUST as important as what the medical profession considers your physical health to be.  You are a far better judge of your own health and how your emotional state plays into that than some nurse who’s never had a single second of genuine worry about what those number say about her.

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Outside of being a marker for ED and recovery (which I can’t speak to very well because admittedly my ED issues were always overeating related), or a drastic change in weight which can affect dosage recommendations on SOME medications, your weight is not a diagnostic tool of any kind unless there has been a sudden or drastic change in a short period of time- which quite frankly, is usually obvious WITHOUT a scale to tell them so.

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Don’t feel obligated to put your emotional and mental health aside because someone in scrubs has asked you to step on a scale.

Important info!

If you are in ED recovery you can be weighed backwards, but besides that you have the right to say “Np, thanks!”

After i went into treatment for my ED, i had to start being weighed each time i went to the doctors, so I would stand backwards. But yes, all good info! No reason to be weighed if you don’t want to be!

I think its super important to remember that for anything with your doctors, you have every right to say ‘no’.

my-journey-my-thoughts:

SO! You want a traditional style tattoo? Old school flash style. And you want to get a pin-up style head/pin-up done? GREAT! I think that’s awesome! HOWEVER, in the spirit of “Think before you ink”, here’s an easy guide to help you choose a tattoo that will not only be beautiful, but won’t label you as a racist/cultural appropriator/offensive, culturally insensitive asshole.

Some examples of tattoos that are okay to get:

Here we have traditional pin-ups. My god, look at those beautiful faces, practically begging to be tattooed on you!

And look at this! Another non-offensive, beautiful pin-up girl!

And my, look at this! Yet another non-offensive tattoo!

The above examples are the type of tattoo you should stick to: Generic pin-ups with no ties to cultures whatsoever.

Now these next examples are tattoos you should NEVER, EVER FUCKING GET UNDER ANY FUCKING CIRCUMSTANCES, unless you want to be branded as a racist, appropriative ass for the rest of your life:

“The gypsy head”. First off, gypsy is a slur against Roma/etc and is offensive in and of itself. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, on to the tattoo.

This tattoo is offensive in several ways. First, many Roma/etc were beheaded, making a disembodied head of a stereotypical “gypsy” woman something that calls up antizignanism. Second, it’s a stereotype that was created to strip the many different cultures that fall under the slur “gypsy” of their unique way of life and make them appear as a monolithic culture (similar to the word “gypsy”). This same stereotype (the mythical/spellworking gypsy) has been used historically as an excuse to murder and drive Roma out of the areas they attempt to settle in. Third, it presents a sexualized version of Roma women that contributes to the idea that “All gypsy women are whores”. Lastly, not your culture, not yours to get inked on you.

If you still think it’s okay to get one after this, you’re an asshole, and you may as well stop reading now.

Ah, the sugar skull girl. Yeah, this is fucking appropriative as hell. It takes a part of a culture that, unless you are a part of it, you have no right to. It takes something with deep cultural significance and completely strips it of that meaning. Sugar skulls  are part of the Latin American (primarily celebrated in Mexico) holiday Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Calavera have complex meaning in Mexican and Latin@ cultures. If you give a shit about respecting others cultures, don’t get this shit done. (If I’ve fucked anything up here, I apologize. I’m working off of research I’ve been doing on here and on google, so it may be flawed). Once again, if it’s not your culture, don’t get it done.

Now this one…I’m just gonna refer you to this passage:

• Headdresses promote stereotyping of Native cultures.
The image of a warbonnet and warpaint wearing Indian is one that has been created and perpetuated by Hollywood  and only bears minimal resemblance to traditional regalia of Plains tribes. It furthers the stereotype that Native peoples are one monolithic culture, when in fact there are 500+ distinct tribes with their own cultures. It also places Native people in the historic past, as something that cannot exist in modern society. We don’t walk around in ceremonial attire everyday, but we still exist and are still Native.

• Headdresses, feathers, and warbonnets have deep spiritual significance.
  The wearing of feathers and warbonnets in Native communities is not a fashion choice. Eagle feathers are presented as symbols of honor and respect and have to be earned. Some communities give them to children when they become adults through special ceremonies, others present the feathers as a way of commemorating an act or event of deep significance. Warbonnets especially are reserved for respected figures of power. The other issue is that warbonnets are reserved formenin Native communities, and nearly all of these pictures show women sporting the headdresses. I can’t read it as an act of feminism or subverting the patriarchal society, it’s an act of utter disrespect for the origins of the practice. (see mypost on sweatlodgesfor more on the misinterpretation of the role of women). This is just as bad as running around in a pope hat and a bikini, or a Sikh turban cause it’s “cute”.  

• It’s just like wearing blackface.
  “Playing Indian” has a long history in the United States, all the way back to those original tea partiers in Boston, and in no way is it better than minstral shows or dressing up in blackface. You are pretending to be a race that you are not, and are drawing upon stereotypes to do so. Like my first point said, you’re collapsing distinct cultures, and in doing so, you’re asserting your power over them. Which leads me to the next issue.
   
• There is a history of genocide and colonialism involved that continues today.
  By the sheer fact that you live in the United States you are benefiting from the history of genocide and continued colonialism of Native peoples. That land you’re standing on? Indian land. Taken illegally so your ancestor who came to the US could buy it and live off it, gaining valuable capital (both monetary and cultural) that passed down through the generations to you. Have I benefited as well, given I was raised in a white, suburban community? yes. absolutely. but by dismissing and minimizing the continued subordination and oppression of Natives in the US by donning your headdress, you are contributing to the culture of power that continues the cycle today.

from this website.

So there you go. A short (and incomplete) guide to how to get a non-offensive tattoo. Bottom line: IF YOU DO NOT BELONG TO THAT CULTURE, IF YOU DID NOT GROW UP IN IT OR HAVE NO TIES TO IT OR KNOWLEDGE OF IT, DON’T FUCKING GET IT TATTOOED ON YOU!

For further reading, google “Cultural appropriation tattoos”.

(via commie-femme)

dobbaaa:

10 Things I’d Say to the Anti-Choice Fanatics Trying to End Access to Abortion

1) Most abortions take place early in pregnancy. Anti-abortion propaganda tends to focus on late term fetuses and even pictures of babies and small children, falsely implying that what’s evacuated during your typical abortion is basically the same as a baby. They shouldn’t be able to get away with this, but instead should acknowledge that nine out of ten abortions take place in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Additionally, the growth of medical abortion means a much larger percentage of abortions—-62% overall—-take place before the 9th week of pregnancy. In fact, in most abortions, the term “fetus” is incorrect, as doctors classify it as an embryo until the 11th week of pregnancy. At 8 weeks, and embryo is about ½ an inch long, and at 12 weeks, the fetus is a little over 2 inches long. In contrast, a full-term baby is an average 20 inches long, a full 40 times larger than the size of the average embryo during an abortion. The response to the bloody fetus pictures anti-choicers love should be pictures showing how small ½ an inch really is.

2) If not for anti-choicers, even more women would get abortions much earlier in their pregnancies. Most women want to terminate unwanted pregnancies as soon as possible, but there are some women who wait until 12 or 16 or even 20 weeks to terminate a pregnancy for elective reasons. Why do about 10% of women having abortions wait until early in their second trimester? It’s not because they’re stupid or indifferent to the growing fetus inside them. Research indicates that women delay having abortions because they have trouble deciding, they struggle to come up with the funds, and because they may have to travel and overcome legal obstacles to get an abortion. When anti-choicers focus on abortions that happen at 14 or 16 weeks, they should be asked what they’re doing to make sure women are getting abortions earlier: Do they support Medicaid funding? Do they want to help make sure there’s an easy to access provider in every county? If abortions after an embryo turns to a fetus bother you so much, you should be making sure women who want abortions can get them earlier in their pregnancies.

3) Doctors perform late term abortions because of medical indications, often on women who desperately wanted the baby. Anti-choicers like to lump all abortions together, implying that women wait until they’re 20 weeks pregnant or more to terminate a pregnancy because it somehow just occurred to them that they didn’t want to have a baby. But the rule of thumb with abortion is, “The later the termination, the higher the odds that the woman needed it for medical reasons.” Indeed, doctors who perform abortions after 24 usually require, as a matter of practice and of law, that the women have medical necessity reasons for abortion. Before he died, Dr. George Tiller had to have a second doctor confirm every diagnosis of a medical condition allowing post-24 week abortions. When he was accused of fudging these records to allow for elective abortions, the court found that Dr. Tiller innocent of all the charges.

Anti-choicers should be asked if they really can look a woman in the face whose fetus has defects incompatible with life or whose blood pressure is rising so high that it will kill her, and tell that woman that she shouldn’t be able to save herself or her family because later term abortions gross them out.

4) Women who get abortions aren’t afraid of being mothers. Anti-choice protesters like to shout at women going into clinics about how they would really like motherhood if they tried it out. In reality, women who have abortions are fully cognizant of the joys and pains of motherhood; 61% of women having abortion are already mothers. Anti-choicers who wax poetic about motherhood should be asked to explain why women who are already mothers would therefore choose abortion.

5) Abortion is physically safe. Anti-choice propaganda dwells on calling abortion clinics “abortion mills” and even going so far to call, as Michele Bachmann did, abortion an “act of violence” committed against the woman getting it. The truth is that abortion is a simple outpatient procedure that’s on the high end of safety for a medical procedure. The vast majority of abortions have no complications at all, and abortion is considered many times safer than childbirth. There are no long term health effects of abortion; anti-choice claims that it’s correlated to breast cancer have been repeatedly shown to be false. When anti-choicers get hysterical about how abortion is “violence”, they should be made to answer for the statistics that show it’s much safer than childbirth.

6) Abortion is mentally safe. In order to dissuade women from abortion, anti-choicers claim it will invoke depression and possibly even post-traumatic stress disorder. But repeated studies show not only that abortion doesn’t cause depression, but that giving birth can. In fact, mental illness can be a medical indicator for abortion; for women for whom giving birth can aggravate mental health problems, an abortion is often necessary to prevent further degradation of their mental health. Andrea Yates is good evidence against the contention that childbirth is a panacea, but anti-choicers should explain why they think they know better than the American Psychological Association when it comes to the mental health effects of abortion.

7) Women who get abortions take responsibility for their decision. Much anti-choice propaganda and legislation portrays women getting abortions as too stupid or cowed to understand the gravity of their decision. Supporters of mandatory ultrasounds argue that once women realize there’s an embryo in there, they’ll dash out of the clinic, an argument that assumes women must think they’re growing puppies or lemons in there and have to be set straight. The truth is that women who get abortions know that they’re terminating a pregnancy and are determined to do it long before they set foot in the doctor’s office. When dealing with supports of ultrasound laws, I recommend referencing this study of women who looked at ultrasound images before an abortion. The research showed that none of the women who did so changed their minds, and a substantial majority found that the images didn’t have much of an effect on their feelings at all.

8) Abortion providers are responsible medical professionals who work to make sure their patients are healthy and avoid future unintended pregnancies. Anti-choicers refuse to acknowledge that abortion providers are medical professionals who put their patients first, instead using terms such as “abortion industry” and claiming that abortion providers are trying to increase the abortion rate to make more money. First of all, abortion prices are relatively low compared to other medical procedures. Your average abortion costs around $500. The average cost of childbirth is 17 times as much. Ask an anti-choicer why a doctor who is just in it for the money wouldn’t go for the more lucrative profession of delivering babies.

When the words “abortion industry” come up, it’s fun to ask anti-choicers if they know what the term “non-profit” means, as the nation’s single largest provider of abortions, Planned Parenthood, is a non-profit. Additionally, Planned Parenthood works tirelessly to reduce the abortion rate by promoting sex education and contraception, the very tools necessary to prevent unintended pregnancy and therefore abortion. Contraception counseling to prevent future abortions is a regular feature in abortion care.

9) Women get abortions because they’re being responsible. Abortion is often characterized, even by some pro-choicers, as the result of women’s irresponsibility. Women are assumed to get pregnant because they were being irresponsible, and all too often, abortion is characterized as the “easy way out”. The truth is more complex. More than half of women getting abortions were trying to prevent pregnancy by using a contraception method the month they got pregnant. Moreover, it’s not like abortion is all cake and roses, but in fact it’s an unpleasant medical procedure that resembles all those other ones you get when you’re being responsible for your health. Most women getting abortions cite their personal responsibilities as a reason to get an abortion: responsibilities to actual children, financial responsibilities, work and school responsibilities. An honest society would view waiting to have children until you’re prepared for them as a sign that someone is responsible, instead of evidence that she’s irresponsible.

10) Conservative policies cause the abortion rate to be higher than it needs to be. No one wants an abortion. Women aren’t getting pregnant on purpose so they can enjoy an expensive suctioning of their uterine lining. So why are there 1.2 million abortions a year in America? Part of it is just bad luck; sometimes contraception fails and unwanted pregnancies happen. That will always be with us.

However, 46% of women who get abortions weren’t using a contraceptive method the month they got pregnant, indicating that conservative policies that discourage regular contraception use—-everything from abstinence-only education to objecting to any measures that make contraception cheaper and easier to obtain—-have been effective in keeping women from using contraception as regularly as they should. In addition, abortion rates are much higher for women living in poverty, and three quarters of women getting abortions say they can’t afford a child. If anti-choicers start moaning about the high rate of abortions, ask them what they intend to do about it. Do they want to make birth control free for all women? What about expansive social welfare that makes it easier for pregnant women living in poverty to say yes to having this baby? Most anti-choicers are generally conservative, and most will get really angry really quick if you start to mention concrete solutions to lower the abortion rate.

(via commie-femme)