her own small widgeon cries

euclase:

things we are trying to do all the time:

1. be safe

things we can’t help but do all the time:

1. second-guess ourselves
2. behave impulsively and reactively
3. take everything personally
4. worry
5. worry
6. worry
7. have difficulty accepting compliments
8. have difficulty reciprocating friendly gestures
9. have difficulty finding the courage to respond
10. have difficulty not being suspicious of others’ intentions
11. make a huge deal out of the smallest thing

things you should keep in mind:

1. we’re scared of everything
2. pretty much all of the time
3. it’s an actual disorder
4. it manifests as impulsive behavior
5. you can’t fix us with words
6. telling us “worrying is silly” won’t make us stop worrying
7. it’ll only make us feel silly
8. and then we’ll worry even more
9. “oh god, am i worrying too much? what if she calls me silly again?”
10. like that
11. also, we wear a lot of armor
12. cold, heavy, affection-proof armor with spikes
13. we constructed this armor as children
14. we’re fairly certain you will never be able to pry it apart
15. but there is a nice person under there, we promise

things you can do for a friend with an anxiety disorder:

1. stick around
2. ask her if she’s comfortable in a place or situation
3. be willing to change the place or situation if not
4. activities that help her take her mind off of things are good!
5. talk to her even when she might not talk back
6. (she’s probably too afraid to say the wrong thing)
7. try not to take her reactions (or lack thereof) personally
8. (the way she expresses herself is distorted and bent because of her constant fear)
9. (and she knows this)
10. give her time to respond to you
11. she will obsess over how she is being interpreted
12. she will anticipate being judged
13. it took me four hours just to type this much
14. even though i sound casual
15. that’s because i have an anxiety disorder

things you shouldn’t do:

1. tell us not to worry
2. tell us we’ll be fine
3. mistake praise for comfort
4. ask us if we are “getting help”
5. force us to be social
6. force us to do things that trigger us
7. “face your fears” doesn’t always work
8. because—remember—scared of everything
9. in fact, it would be more accurate to say we are scared of the fear itself

emergency action procedure for panic attacks:

1. be calm
2. be patient
3. don’t be condescending
4. remind us that we’re not crazy
5. sit with us
6. ask us to tighten and relax our muscles one by one
7. remind us that we are breathing
8. engage us in a discussion (if we can talk, then we can breathe)
9. if we are having trouble breathing, try getting us to exhale slowly
10. or breathe through our nose
11. or have us put our hands on our stomach to feel each breath
12. ask us what needs to change in our environment in order for us to feel safe
13. help us change it
14. usually, just knowing that we have someone on our side willing to fight our scary monsters with us is enough to calm us down

if you have an anxiety disorder:

1. it’s okay.
2. even if you worry that it’s not okay.
3. it’s still okay. it’s okay to be scared. it’s okay to be scared of being scared.
4. you are not crazy. you are not a freak.
5. i know there’s a person under all that armor.
6. and i know you feel isolated because of it.
7. i won’t make you take it off.
8. but know that you are not alone.

♥

brigidfitzgeraldreading:

Reblogging disclaimer: I trust and respect the original poster, but I also acknowledge that this information is now third-hand and I am not in a position to be able to confirm it. However, I am familiar with Smith’s history of creating unwritten, unofficial policy regarding trans and gender non-conforming students. I believe that this update is worth passing on in part because it is not officially confirmed and is unlikely to be confirmed or denied unless we discuss it.

thisgenderedlife:

[All information included is from an individual who was present at the meeting, during which the policy was announced by administrators to the small handful of students.  I have intentionally not included the individual’s name.]

Tonight I found out that Smith College is planning to invoke a new, unofficial policy that will affect the entire student body.  No one is talking about it, because no one is being told about it.

Male-identified students will be asked to opt out of hosting prospective students.  They will be asked to act in the spirit of the Honor Code, and opt out of hosting.  Because of their identity.

This poses a series of problems.

Read More

animalstalkinginallcaps:

THANK YOU FOR YOUR OPINION REGARDING MY EYELINER, BUT LET ME EXPLAIN A COUPLE THINGS TO YOU:

1. I DON’T WEAR IT FOR YOU, NOR DO I PICK OUT MY OUTFITS BASED ON WHAT I THINK MEN WILL LIKE. YOUR CONSTANT OGLING HAS NO BEARING ON MY DECISION TO FLATTER MY FIGURE OR ENHANCE MY NATURAL FEATURES WITH BEAUTY PRODUCTS. THAT IS YOUR GENDER’S CONSTANT MISGUIDED PERCEPTION.

i think saying ogling has no bearing on women’s sartorial decisions is pretty patently false. sometimes it makes us dress in more concealing clothing than we otherwise would! sometimes we are, actually, looking to be admired, at least by our partners! sometimes we’re choosing to rise above it! but i for one am always aware of it—i can’t help being.

also, i’m pretty uncomfortable with the generalization that ‘men believe women dress to please them.’ yes, some men do believe that! and so do some women! generalizations about relatively empowered groups may not be as pernicious as generalizations about the marginalized, but they’re still cheap, lazy rhetoric; no group is a monolith, and it’s rarely productive to discuss them as one.

2. YOU DON’T LIKE “WOMEN WHO DON’T WEAR MAKEUP.” YOU LIKE WOMEN WHO ARE WEARING CONCEALER AND BARE ESSENTIALS FOUNDATION CAREFULLY BLENDED INTO THEIR NECKLINE, CHEEKS TINTED LIGHTLY WITH SOFT ROSY CREAM BLUSH, EYESHADOW ONE SHADE DARKER THAN THEIR FOUNDATION, EYELASHES DOTTED WITH GREY PENCIL AND LIPS THAT HAVE BEEN ENHANCED WITH A LIGHT BERRY GLOSS.

uh, actually some people are attracted to women who don’t wear makeup. i’m one of them—one of both groups, actually.

THAT’S PROBABLY $200 WORTH OF CREAMS AND POWDERS AND TAKES MORE TIME TO APPLY THAN YOUR ENTIRE ‘SHIT, SHOWER AND SHAVE’ ROUTINE, ALL SO ASSHOLES LIKE YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ‘NATURAL BEAUTY’ WHILE WE’RE WAITING FOR A DAMNED BUS

3. EVEN IF I HONESTLY CARED ABOUT YOUR AMATEUR MAKEUP CRITIQUES I WOULDN’T IN A MILLION YEARS GO OUT WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE AN IGNORANT, BALDING FASHION CASUALTY WITH NOODLE ARMS AND A BEER GUT WHO CAN’T KEEP HIS EYES OR OPINIONS TO HIMSELF. 

‘you’re too ugly to be this shallow’? really? i don’t get how everyone is overlooking the enormous irony here. if a random stranger’s opinion of your appearance isn’t relevant to you, why is yours relevant to him?

IF YOU KEEP TALKING TO ME I’M GOING TO SHOVE YOUR SANDALS UP YOUR ASS AND YOU CAN WADDLE HOME IN YOUR SOCKS.

in conclusion: i understand the anger behind the original post, and have no quarrel with that whatsoever, but i wish people would unpick some of the problematic elements a little better.

I always assumed you were somewhere in the world,
And that someday we’d find each other again
And tell our adventures, like happy heroes
Reunited after years of wandering.

Hard to believe it’s been a dozen years
Since we slogged together through the Iliad,
Longer than the whole of the Trojan War,
Or the wanderings of Odysseus afterward.

When your mother told me you were dead,
All I could think about was our favorite verb,
Μέλλω, our rueful shorthand for regret,
To be about to do, but leave undone.

“I meant,” you’d say, “to study Greek last night,”
And I’d reply, “I too, O Agathon,
Intended to accomplish many things
Before the light of rosy-fingered dawn.”

And now it’s seven years that you’ve been gone.
While I was living my ordinary life,
And carelessly, fondly imagining you in yours,
(Losing, in one of my many moves, the funny,

Wonderful letters you wrote me from Mexico),
I never dreamed that you would not grow old,
That time had stopped for you as suddenly
As for the daughters of weeping Hekabe

In burning Troy—the unremembered ones
You summoned from the ashes in the fall
Of 1983, when you were asked
To translate the catalogue of Priam’s sons.

Hard to believe that you will not return
And tell your adventures in the other world,
No matter how tenderly I brush the dead
Leaves from your sleeping face, and call your name.

novazembla:

I want this to be totally clear: I think and say more than my share of shitty, thoughtless things. My ongoing job as a human being is to identify and cut down on that so that I don’t hurt people who have enough problems already, so that I don’t add — with my stupid joke or selfish manifestation of white guilt or whatever — to the incredible amount of bullshit that can weigh down on them and make the simplest tasks sad and exhausting. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.

Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There’s something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate—
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can’t come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

You do not come dramatically, with dragons
That rear up with my life between their paws
And dash me butchered down beside the wagons,
The horses panicking; nor as a clause
Clearly set out to warn what can be lost,
What out-of-pocket charges must be borne,
Expenses met; nor as a draughty ghost
That’s seen, some mornings, running down a lawn.

It is these sunless afternoons, I find,
Install you at my elbow like a bore.
The chestnut trees are caked with silence. I’m
Aware the days pass quicker than before,
Smell staler too. And once they fall behind
They look like ruin. You have been here some time.

chennnie:

((Click here for more details.))

On October 3rd, 2011, 19 year old Pvt. Danny Chen was found dead in his barracks from a gunshot wound to the head while stationed in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. He died supporting Operation Enduring freedom, but the circumstances of his death are still under investigation and the truth has not been released by the U.S. Army. In other words, the circumstances of his death are being covered up.

He was the only Asian-American assigned to his base. The Army has released information that Danny was subject to racially charged bullying and abuse by his fellow soldiers and his superior officers before his death. Whether this is murder or suicide, (And knowing Danny personally, I can tell you it’s not. He was happy to be in the army, it was his dream. And he never gives up half way.) his story is not getting the attention it deserves. His family, friends, and all the people who’s lives he’s touched deserve the truth.

Please, reblog and help spread awareness. Having a kind heart will not make your blog ugly. 

sententiola:

ohumyes:

sententiola replied to your photo: [image is a screenshot of an empty text document,…

TITLE!

THE TITLE IS STILL “TITLE!”

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE GODDAMN FUCK I’M DOING

JAMIE COME WRITE MY PAPER

I like the style you’ve started it in.  I’ll have a go at continuing in the same style.  Here it goes:

· • ·

TITLE!

Introductory section leading to what follows…

Explanation of significant terms and their usage.⁽¹⁾

Heavily — and, of course, formally — punctuated passage of analysis with, it may be suggested, a hint of argument; important and reputable propositions.

Fig. 1: illustrative diagram

More adventurous phase: a certain stylistic flourish, allusive and alliterative, accompanying more radical arguments.  Unconventional syntax?

Punchy conclusion!

_____

⁽¹⁾ Footnote.

this is UTTERLY GLORIOUS. *_______________*

Tell me what’s the difference
between hope and waiting
because my heart doesn’t know
It constantly cuts itself on the glass of waiting
It constantly gets lost in the fog of hope

torayot:

tahlalaliaaa:

socialistscum:

thefuror:

Socialistscum is a creepy brogressive fuckwad and I am definitely not following anyone who reblogged that from me even after I pointed out that it is SUPER FUCKING MISOGYNISTIC AND AWFUL to think it’s cute to watch women have mental meltdowns. 

Please, if you think that kind of misogyny makes someone a “great person”, get the fuck away from my blog. This is incredibly triggering and I think you are all disgusting human beings. 

What post are you talking about? 

Seriously though, you should probably take your problems with someone up with them before you make an offensive post about me.

Brogressive?

OKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Carry on.

Admit that romanticising mental illness is problematic and deal with your call out more gracefully bro. 

I mean like there’s a difference between finding shy girls cute and then having a penchant for watching girls crack under the stress of their social anxieties.

I dunno, I just see where this person is coming from. I mean like, I wish more than anything I could get over my various anxieties and be able to express the intelligent things going on in my head and it would be really frustrating to be told that my struggling was cute, especially when women have a harder time being taken seriously anyway.

I want a dude to say “hey I can see you’re having trouble talking in this way, do you want to talk in a different setting/another time/online instead” because he is genuinely interested in my opinions not being all “watching you on the edge of a panic attack is really cute”

Also seeing this person’s blog and their reaction to having to call out guy (one with a lot of followers who would instantly take his side) reminds me why I should give them some support, it’s hard and scary to stand up to people in this way because you never now what their reaction might be or the reaction of their defensive friends.

So thats my input.

Yeah, the image of the adorable, slightly awkward klutz is what people think of when people imagine a woman with social anxiety. She is a bit clumsy, and she’s a little shy, and she’s just so cute when she gets flustered! Oh, the delicate womanly temperament!

Except that people don’t seem to be able to tell the difference between that, and someone who’s struggling to hold back a huge amount of distress that’s welling up, ready to burst forth because they’ve been triggered by pressure, overstimulation, shame, guilt, etc. It’s frustrating when you’re suddenly not cute anymore when you go into complete lockdown, and people tell you to get over it. It is also frustrating when people chuck your distress under the chin. As if your problems are for the (in)convenience of other people. And suddenly you’re “hysterical”. That “female temperament” again.

It’s all sorts of wrong.

all of this.

bears-choice-ass:

“I would like to be friends with this person” I say as I continue to not talk to them but instead like every single one of their posts.

#the tragic truth

nuditea:

redheadbouquet replied to your post: most of the time i roll my eyes at people who say…

i’ve been feeling kind of this way too lately? and then there’s the complication that usually when i have in-person people around i get really psychically claustrophobic and just want them to leave again for a while? but that’s a whole other story.

yeaaaaaaah

i mean

kinda tangenty i guess

but

i think my similar issues are why a part of me, deep down inside, is genuinely a little bit offended when people make fun of cats for being like “let me in! well now i want out! but now i want back in! ok now let me out! UGH NOW THAT I’M OUT THE ONLY PLACE I WANT TO BE IS INNN”

..or whatever

just like

you realise that is essentially the entirety of my internal monologue re: my relationship with you right??

and then i feel like a terrible person and want to punch myself in the face but that’s how i feel literally all of the time when i’m sober so it’s not a huge deal really

oh god yes. when i haven’t got company, i generally wish i did; when i do, unless it’s someone very close, i often wish i didn’t. /o\