This document is intended to serve as a resource to white people and parents to deepen our anti-racism work. If you haven’t engaged in anti-racism work in the past, start now. Feel free to circulate this document on social media. To take immediate action to fight for Breonna Taylor, please v...
Black activists on Twitter have been sending this link around today. It’s a long document with anti-racism resources geared toward white people who want to effectively help their Black neighbors in the fight against white supremacy.
Note: I did NOT compile these resources, I am simply sharing them.
doing my damnedest to free myself of the “just gotta get through this week” “only x more days til the weekend” mindset & learn to appreciate each day for whatever it is lest i be driven to madness
so what if tomorrows monday i have leftovers & maybe this week i will make soup. maybe ill see a cat. maybe each day will show me something worthwhile even if im tired & maybe i can enjoy it
if u are negative on this post im blocking u ! some of us are trying to get better
This isn’t realistic for adults. I’m sorry it’s just not.
Don’t fall into believing that, “if they’re a true friend they’ll drop everything and run to be by your side!” crap.
As a responsible adult there will be times that your friends are hurting and you won’t be able to go to them.
There are times that you will have to go to work, or take your sick kid to the doctor, or do many other things that will prevent you from being there for your friend.
When your friend calls you and they’re falling apart and it’s ten minutes until you have to leave for work, you’re not a bad friend for saying, “Look, I love you. I’m sorry this is happening, but I have to go. I’ll call you back tonight when the kids are asleep.” Or “I’m so sorry this is happening. I love you and I want to be here for you but I’ve got to get to work. I’ll call and check on you during my lunch.”
Adult life is hectic and busy with important things all the time and unfortunately it’s also full of shitty things happening to people we love.
Do your best to be there for the people you love and ask for support when you need it but be understanding when being a responsible adult comes before helping you.
The idea that people need to be there any time you need them is really damaging and unhealthy, too. You can’t place value on a person or a relationship based solely on whether or not they’re available, no questions asked, whenever you need them.
In addition to the above: sometimes, someone simply does not have the energy to help. Maybe they’re coming out of a rough patch themself, maybe they have been busy all day,maybe a chronic illness is flaring up. There are a myriad of reasons someone may not be able to be there.
Obviously, if someone is taking you for granted, and never seems to care how you’re doing, that’s an issue. But to write someone off because their life and your life didn’t line up quite right at a given point in time, or maybe even on more than one occasion, is not a healthy way to handle things.
This is so important
someone’s presence is not “useless”. People don’t need to be useful to you. what an awful thing to say.
not to be rude but some of y'all need to look on the bright side sometimes. like, yeah sure the world is fucked and people suck and we all die whatever, sure, but like. go outside.
ok i phrased this poorly, hang on.
i’m not saying the cure for depression is touching grass. however, if you surround yourself with sad things and talk about how terrible life is and how much you’re suffering and never take a breath and remember it’s not all bad, you’ll end up making yourself worse.
kids remind me, often, of the things i’ve taught myself out of.
i have a big dog. he looks like a deer. he is taller than most young children. while we were on a trail the other day, a boy coming our direction saw us and froze. he took a step back and said: “i’m feeling nervous. your - your dog is kind of big.”
goblin and i both stopped walking immediately. “he is kind of a big dog,” i admitted. “he’s called a greyhound. they are gentle but they are pretty tall, which is kind of scary, you’re right. their legs are so long because they are made for running fast. i am sorry we scared you. would you like us to stand still while you move past us, or would you feel more safe in your body if we move and you stay still?’
"oh. i didn’t know that about - greyhounds. i think i … i want to stay still,” he said. at this point, his adult had caught up to us. “i’m nervous about the dog,” he told her, “so i’m - i’m gonna stay still.” she didn’t argue. she didn’t make fun of him. she just smiled at him and at me and held his hand while goblin and i, with as wide of a berth as we could make, crept our way through.
behind us, i heard him exhale a deep breath and kind of laugh - “he was really big, huh? she said it’s because greyhounds have to go fast.”
“he was big,” she said. “i understand why that could have made you a little scared.”
“yeah. next time i - next time do you think i could maybe ask to touch him? when - i mean, next time, maybe, if i’m not nervous.”
later, going to a work event, in the big city, i stood outside, trembling. my social anxiety as a caught bird in my chest. i took a deep breath and turned to my coworker. she’s not even really my friend yet. i told her: “i feel nervous about this. i am not used to meeting new people, ever since covid.”
she laughed, but not in a mean way. she said she was nervous too. she reached her hand out and held mine, and we both took another deep breath and walked in like that, interlinked. a few people asked us - together? - and i told the truth: i feel nervous, and she’s helping. over and over i watched people relax too, admitting i feel really kind of shy lately actually, thank you for saying that.
the next time i go to an event, and i feel a little scared, i ask right away: wanna hold hands? this feels a little dangerous. i hesitate less. i don’t hide it as much. i watch for other people who are also nervous and say - it’s kinda hard, huh?
i know, logically, i’m not good at asking for help. but i am also not good at noticing when i need help. i’ve trained myself out of asking completely, but i’ve also trained myself to never accept my own fears or excuses. i have trained myself to tamp down every anxiety and just-push-through. i don’t know what i’m protecting myself from - just that i never think to admit it to anyone.
but every person on earth occasionally needs comfort. every person on earth occasionally needs connection. many of us were taught independence is the same thing as never needing anything.
each of us should have had an adult who heard - i feel nervous and held our hand and asked us how we could be helped to feel safe. no judgement, and no chiding. many of us did not. many of us were punished for the ways that we seemed “weak”.
but here is something: i am an adult now. and i get nervous a lot, actually. and if you are an adult and you are feeling a little nervous - come talk to me. we can hold hands and figure out what will help us feel safe in our bodies. and maybe, next time, if we’re brave, we can pet the dog that’s passing.
concept: a few years from now, you’re living your best life. you have your dream job. you’ve evolved into the greatest version of yourself. you’re happy. you’re content.
btw if you live in the midwest (a region where a lot of the states are going to have trigger laws or ban abortion completely it looks like) and if it’s possible that you can leave ur state, get to illinois. Illinois isn’t just a state where abortion is permitted, in illinois abortion is strictly a protected right. illinois’ right to abortion is permanent and isn’t going to be changed anytime soon. in illinois your abortion rights are completely confidential. illinois is one of the easiest states to access abortion in and the process is fairly simple, and it’s going to always be legal to do so even as the right to abortion is overturned in other states. it’s very much a safe haven to anyone who needs to flee their state right now. if anyone can provide any resources and links that would be greatly appreciated.
it’s extremely in depth and shares a lot of very valuable info if coming here is in your best interest.
Just to mention it, as I’m sure others have, as of 6/1/2022 all minors can get an abortion in Illinois without parental consent or parental notification (previously, you had to get a court order to skip the notification). Also, Midwest Access Coalition is a group dedicated to providing funds to those who need to travel here to get an abortion. Please do pass this info on to anyone who may need it.
something like 80% of the chicago abortion fund’s funds were used for people coming in from out of state.
that’s not a bad thing at all, it’s necessary medical work. please do come here. we’d love to have you in.
The latest estimates are that an additional 20,000-30,000 people will be coming to Illinois to access abortion care from surrounding states now that roe’s been overturned. Every penny going to the organizations the people above mentioned is so, so needed.
i dont understand people’s perception of friendship anymore. do you only want to get to know people on a surface level? just for cute instagrammable moments?
do you not care deeply about them and understand that they are complex human beings who experience a range of emotions?
your friend being vulnerable with you is not trauma dumping. you don’t have to be a grief counselor to be there for your friend while they cry about a loved one dying. or just a rough time they’re having.
i mean, do you only have deep discussions with a therapist and not friends or family? if so, that’s weird tbfh and not utilizing therapy properly.
it’s all so incredibly bizarre to me. everyone’s always talking about yearning and loneliness, but if a friend starts to cry about their dying grandma it’s like, “oop, girly i dont have the Headspace for that. here’s my discount code for betterhelp.com” weirdo shit tbh
“Please don’t talk to me about your diet, diet culture is not good for me.”
“If you continue to make comments about my body, I’m going to walk away.”
“I know you’re trying to be helpful, but hearing about your diet tips is not good for me. I am stating a boundary.”
“I know you meant it as a compliment, but please don’t focus on my body so much. It makes me feel self-conscious.”
“Please don’t make comments about what I eat. It makes me feel extremely self-conscious. If you continue to do this, I will not have meals with you in the future.”
“You’re not my therapist/doctor/nutritionist, so your advice is not relevant or helpful to me.”
I might post more as they come to me. Feel free to use these freely and don’t worry about offending others. Your health is your priority!
Imagine if you met someone who can’t eat watermelon. Not that they’re allergic or unable somehow, but they just haven’t figured out how to do that. So you’re like “what the hell do you mean? it works just like eating anything else, you open your mouth, sink your teeth in, take a bite and chew. If you can bite, chew and swallow, you should be able to eat a watermelon.”
And they agree that yes, they do know how to eat, in theory. The problem is the watermelon. Surely, if they figured out where to start, they’d figure out how to do it, but they have no clue how to get started with it.
This goes back and forth. No, it’s not an emotional issue, they’re not afraid of the watermelon. They can eat any other fruit, other sweet things, and other watery things (“it’s watery?” they ask you). Is it the colour? Do they have a problem eating things that are green on the outside and red on the inside?
“It’s red on the inside?”
Wait, they’ve never seen the inside? At this point you have to ask them how, exactly, they eat the watermelon. So to demonstrate, they take a whole, round, uncut watermelon, and try to bite straight into it. Even if they could bite through the crust, there’s no way to get human jaws around it.
“Oh, you’re supposed to cut it first. You cut the crust open and only chew through the insides.”
And they had no idea. All their life this person has had no idea how to eat a watermelon, despite of being told again and again and again that it’s easy, it’s ridiculous to struggle with something so simple, there’s no way that someone just can’t eat a watermelon, how can you even mange to be bad at something as fucking simple as eating watermelon.
If someone can’t do something after being repeatedly told to “just do it”, there might be some key component missing that one side has no idea about, and the other side assumed was so obvious it goes without mention.
Yep.
https://drmaciver.substack.com/p/how-to-do-everything had a nice list of additional examples like this, with (non-)obvious major insights with regard to opening stitched bags, cleaning your bathroom floor, using a search engine, catching a ball, pinging somebody, proving a theorem, playing sudoku, passing as “normal”, improving your writing, generating novel ideas, and solving your problem.
If you’d asked me six months ago how to get better at something, I’d probably have pointed you to how to do hard things. I still think this is a good approach and you should do it, but I now think it’s the wrong starting point and I’ve been undervaluing small insights. […]
I think my revised belief is that if you are stuck at how to get better at something, spend a little while assuming there’s just some trick to it you’ve missed. You can try to generate the trick yourself, but it’s probably easier to learn it by observing someone else being good at the thing, asking them some questions, and seeing if you have any lightbulb moment.
My fiance played the clarinet when he was in school. When he was first learning to play, he rented an instrument from the school to learn on. He was the last chair clarinet, had been for years, because he could not make notes that required the register key. For years, they kept making him do embrature exercises and he started to get a few notes, with lots of effort. Eventually he had to get private lessons to stay in band.
Every time he tells me this story, his frustration by this point in the story, years later, is evident. He still sounds frustrated by it, despite all the time that passed. Teachers had been giving him crap for years because he hadn’t been making much progress with the instrument.
When he got to the private instructor, she acknowledged his frustration, and asked him to try to play for her. He did, and she saw all he was doing. She then did something no one else had done before. She asked him to put his mouthpiece on a different clarinet and try to play the same notes. Like magic, it worked. She looked at the clarinet he had been using and found that the school’s clarinet needed it’s pads replaced.
He went from last chair to first chair nearly overnight, having been taught far more techniques than typically taught at that age just to overcome the broken instrument preventing him from making noise.
Sometimes you don’t need to brute force a problem. Sometimes your clarinet is just broken.
Not quite sure why the clarinet addition got me crying, but here you go people: just in case, let’s get you some new pads.
psa: continue creating even if you think its corny or unworthy. i promise you its not. we all start from somewhere, and you can only grow if you keep trying
My home will be a home with no loud anger, no explosive rage, no slamming doors or breaking glass, no name calling, shaming or blackmail. My home will be gentle, it will be warm. It will keep my loved ones safe. No fear, no hurt and no worries.
