Person without ADHD:
I know ADHD is not a real disorder because I read an edgy article about it online. The only symptoms of ADHD are hyperactivity, distractability, and forgetfulness, which everyone deals with.
Me:
*constant pacing and bouncing, no concept of time, often forgets to eat and sleep, poor impulse control, loses everything, has panic attacks because of sensory overload, unpredictable mood swings, strong urge to touch everything I see, forgets topic of conversation mid-sentence, gets so invested in trivial things that I literally cannot hear people talking to me, sometimes physically cannot stop talking, etc*
Same person:
WHAT THE FCUK IS WRONG WITH YOU
Me:
I have ADHD
Same person:
..about it online. The only symptoms of ADHD are hyperactivity, distractability, and forgetfulness, which everyone deals with.
I know many of you artists - whether you draw, write, or compose - are frustrated that your original work, especially your dream projects, aren’t getting the responses you were hoping for.
I feel the same way.
But some of you express your frustrations completely destructively and blame the world for not giving you the spotlight.
When you do that, you’re blaming your problems for existing rather than adjusting and compromising to solve them. You’re making excuses for your mistakes. You’re demanding the world to change but you are not willing to change with it.
This is the perfect mindset to NEVER succeed in anything, ever.
You need to accept some basic truths of art before you can go any further:
Your art should teach you as much as or more than it teaches others: If you claim your art opens horizons and widens minds, yours should be the first priority. You cannot speak without listening. You are not a righteous prophet enlightening the heathens with the true word. You are one humble person and your art is one humble person’s story.
There are no new stories, but there are always new storytellers. That amazing idea you have that nobody’s ever thought of before? Someone has. But nobody has told the story your way, or drawn the character your way, or sung the song your way. Art is not about being new. It is about being you.
Popular art is all about the beholder. All these shows and games with so much fan art? They got to that level because they command a personal investment from and serve the viewer - they have worlds their fans want to be part of, and your canon will be swept aside along the way. You the artist are not a god or a wise sage. You are a guide and a footman. To be an artist is to be humanity’s servant, not its lord - and there’s no shame in that.
Most of your fans are not artists or art critics. While there will be a good number of them in your fanbase, the vast majority are not going to be super-open-minded creative thinkers who value every single opinion, outlook, and story just because it’s done technically well. They will be ordinary people with ordinary, selfish interests, and they will care about your content more than your talent. You have to balance what you want to draw with what everyone wants to see.
But the most important part of being an artist or really a person at all is to understand this:
Nobody owes you success.
Nobody is under any obligation to pay anything you produce a second glance or support or promote it in any way.
Nobody is spiting or robbing you by not giving you a like or a reblog or a follow.
Every single gesture of appreciation you receive from someone is a courtesy - a gift that you earn, not a right you’re entitled to.
It is not the job of your audience to love your work. It is your job to make it lovable. And just because you are working really hard does not mean you are working in the right direction.
I know that thousands upon thousands of artists put hours or months or years into a project and feel like they get nothing in return. Sometimes it is not how hard you’re working but what you’re working for that is the problem.
Sometimes you need to slow down and think, “Do I have to have this just so? What would the kind of person interested in my work be looking for, and where can I address it? Am I maybe taking myself and my work a little too seriously?”
And a lot of artists don’t realize that as an amateur, you are the sole proprietor - you are your art. Whether people like you determines whether they like your art.
And that’s why when you blame everybody else and post ungrateful, catty garbage like this:
… you don’t subsequently become the next Toby Fox.
The simple fact is that people will pay you attention if they think your offering + your hassle are worth their attention.
You need to create a world that someone other than you will have fun in and you need to be a good host to everyone who visits.
You need a world that will welcome your fans with open arms.
You need to build a world people can live & play in.
And you and your world need to appreciate your fans just for showing up.
Because this is exactly what the big fish do.
because they spread your work around to more people without shanking you on credit and who gets the likes
because they make your work show up sooner & more often on searches and are simply a nice gesture
because they take time out and pay good money to listen to your story and make you from a pauper into a prince
because if you appreciate no one, no one will appreciate you, nor should they
This resonates with me in a big way. I used to get really fucked up when I spent 10 hours on something and a dumbass sketch I did in 15 minutes outstripped it in exposure but… you know what I grew up… that’s cool
I appreciate the likes
I appreciate the reblogs
I appreciate you just hanging out here with me having a cool time
Like, do I sometimes wish that my original writing got more attention? Sure, everyone does. But like, shit, I got 200 notes on a Star Trek AU, those are still people liking my writing, it’s fine if my original stuff gets six notes, I appreciate all of y’all who leave me nice comments in the tags and shit.
What about a Star Trek AU, but with Les Mis characters
Aaaaaay, hell yeah, I fucking live for Star Trek AU’s.
All right, so I’m
going to take this to mean that one AU where the fair ship Revolution is out on her five-year mission under the command of Captain
Lamarque, a steely-eyed woman with a reputation for even-handed care of her crew
whether they support her or not. Her
first officer, Commander Enjolras is a communications specialist, beyond his
command training, and everyone who knew him before his commission jokes that he
chose it because he always wore bright red anyway. Those jokes are mostly made by his two
closest friends from the Academy, both of whom went out of their way to get
assigned to the same ship—Combeferre, the youngest out of the three doctors on
board (and half-Betazoid who will cut you
if you ask about his species’ “sensuous nature”), and Courfeyrac, the ship’s
counselor (technically a non-com, but still part of the crew).
when i was a freshman in college i was so nervous about the first day of school and i got to all of my classes half an hour early but now it’s my first day as a senior and i didn’t know when my first class was until an hour after i got to campus and i also wore my shirt inside out all day without noticing and i think that says a lot about the person college has made me
Just wait until grad school. I’ve showed up at the library still drunk and still in my pajamas like at least twice this year.
okay so i think i’ve told you guys this before but my coworker is a lesbian ex nun and for some reason i never asked how she met her wife but today is one of my last days so i asked her and holy shit you guys it’s like a fanfic they met in the convent and decided to escape together im screaming
okay sorry for the wait we were gushing about our fun home tickets like gay nerds but okay so they were ROOMMATES IN THE CONVENT!! what kind of fanfic shit… but anyway so it’s like a dorm room and a curtain is down the middle that separates the roommates from each other. and also i guess in the convent once you’re in your room you’re not allowed to talk? so they would pass each other notes under the curtain and like when lights-out happened at night and the head nun lady went to bed they would sit at the curtain with a spiral notebook and have conversations by just passing the notebook back and forth. so they did this for a few months but they were miserable in the convent and decided that enough is enough so they ran away together and my coworker’s now-wife like left first and then my coworker waited a day and snuck out and they met up at the closest gas station and then a month later they moved in together and they’ve been together ever since like 22 years and honestly if there is a better example of ‘it gets better’ idk what it is
“if you want to adopt kids at an older age, that’s just lazy and you’ll miss the important developmental years. you won’t be able to connect.” okay but consider this:
1. I will not be able to handle a baby, but I will definitely be able to manage and guide an older child
2. no diapers. hallelujah
3. As a foster child gets older, their chance of adoption plummets. Adopting an older child gives a late break to someone who would have otherwise had to age out of the system
4. my plans for adoption are none of your concern
Holy shit people actually say that? Inviting a kid in need to be part of your family is ‘lazy’?
Being there for the ‘developmental years’ is so important not having it is a dealbreaker?
‘You won’t be able to connect’ with another human being unless you’re there for their formative years, imprinting on them?
…people who make that argument should probably do a LOT of soulsearching before they consider getting a toy baby adopting a younger child.
I had a sociology professor once and both he and his wife were registered social workers (in addition to him teaching), and after a couple of years married, they started talking about adopting a child. They’d seen the system up close, they knew how hard it was for some kids to get adopted. So when they sat down to start the fostering process, they told the agency to give them their toughest, most difficult case. If anyone could handle a kid who’d been labeled a “problem child”, it was these two people.
The agency paired them up with a 12 year old girl – the oldest they had, far, far too old to be considered for adoption typically. This girl’s birth parents had had drug problems, she’d been in and out of a couple dozen foster homes, no one able to handle her, she ran away frequently and had diagnosed behavioral problems, she was surly and defiant. When she first met them, she was clammed up tight, snarky, unwilling to trust them or anyone – and really, who could blame her?
But these two adults poured every bit of their compassion and training into this one child, into getting to know her, earning her trust by listening to her and treating her like a person who mattered. And slowly, slowly, she came around. Slowly, they built a relationship with her, and she came out of her shell. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but having these two adults who were utterly unwilling to give up on her, or see her as the problem, let them work through each issue as it arose, and slowly they started to see this other side of her personality emerge. She joked around, she grinned often, she got excited about sports games and yelled at the tv with her foster father, she was making friends at her new school and doing better in her studies.
One day they sat her down and told her they loved her and they wanted her to legally, officially be part of their family. But they thought she deserved a say, too. If she just wanted to be fostered for the next five, six years, they could do that too. But they wanted to adopt her, they wanted to keep her for always. Did she want them? Yes, she said. Yes, I want to keep you, too.
My professor came into class one day with a grin that just would not go away, bouncing on his toes. We all wanted to know what was up. The adoption was finalized today, he told us. Today I have a daughter! And he showed us pictures of his brand new 12 year old daughter hugged between he and his wife, the three of them grinning at the camera. I’ve been her dad for awhile, he told us, but today it’s official, today we’re finally really a family.
I heard that story in the spring of 2001, when I was 20. This girl just 8 years younger than me, the age of my younger siblings, this girl who everyone had given up on. But these two people, they knew they had enough love and training to handle whatever was thrown their way, these people stayed true to the commitment of being parents, didn’t give up when the going got tough, proved slowly and methodically that they loved her, that she could trust them.
That girl must be in her late 20s now. She’s had parents for more than a decade and a half. She hasn’t had to face this scary century alone. She has parents who went with her to her freshman orientation for college, I’m certain of it. If she’s gotten married, I know her father walked her down the aisle, that same grin splitting his face, the same grin as when he announced that he had a daughter, the same grin he wore every time he talked about her. If she’s had kids, her kids have the best grandparents.
They are a family of choice built on commitment and trust and love. You can’t tell me that isn’t bonding, you cannot tell me that it’s lazy, that that was somehow easier or less worthwhile than diapers.
It’s the sixth grade. Somehow, I had come across a catalogue for the store they bought all the school store crap from. You know, the smelly erasers and dumb keychains that they sell for like a buck apiece. So I somehow got this catalogue, and little old entrepreneur me was like “I should buy something from this and sell it at school for an absurdly high price to gain basically pure profit.” As sixth graders do. So I bought two huge tubs full of these keychains called Jellybears. This is what they look like.
So I bought a metric fuckton of these assholes for about 20 cents a piece. I start selling them at school for a buck fifty. Like I said, pure profit. 6th grade me was brilliant. I broke even in like eight seconds of me whippin these bad boys out at school. Saying these are were a hit is an understatement. They were like a home run triple, or some other sports metaphor. People are buying this shit at lunch time, between classes. Shit, one girl even admitted to selling the ones she bought off me around her neighborhood for like five bucks. I was happy to be the middleman, but I digress. The point is, not only did I gain entrepreneurial skills, I also made a pretty penny. However, a month into my brilliant business, I get a call down to the office.
I had never been called to the office before. I was such a goody two-shoes you wouldn’t believe. This was in a school that boasted like two fights per week. The ratio of cops and administrators to students was like 1:3. And there were 1700 people at this school. That’s a whole lot of authority figures for a whole lot of miscreants and ne’er-do-wells. And here I was, reading large pretentious books and wearing polo shirts, with a gigantic backpack and in an advanced math class. I was, and still am, a lame weeny. Just wanted to put that in perspective.
Anyway, I was called down to the office that day. Literally shaking in the huge chair they had for me, facing down the terrifying vice-principal, she pulled out a Jellybear.
It was the DIVA one, if I’m not mistaken. I was then given a good lecture about how I’m not allowed to sell things on campus without explicit permission, yadda yadda, the whole spiel. Except I felt there was something fishy about the whole thing. Maybe it was how she held the Jellybear in her hand, perhaps it was the way she confiscated the rest of them.
After asking around with the intense gossip network of middle school, I discovered the real reason the administration confiscated the Jellybears.
They had reason to suspect I was filling them with vodka.
They had reason to suspect that I, the tiny, stupid haired, braces-clad sixth grader who played a tuba bigger than she was was the head of a sophisticated alcohol distributing cartel in which I punctured and drained the goop from cute keychains, refilled them with straight vodka with a syringe, sealed them off with no trace, and sold them around school.
I’m not sure if I’m flattered that they assumed me capable of that sort of espionage, or insulted that they thought me dumb enough to sell middle schoolers straight vodka for A BUCK FIFTY.
really who did they think i was i was in advanced math for petes sake.
people talkin like “I thought this was supposed to be the future where are my flying cars”
yall do know that surgeons recently 3D printed a new skull for a woman and that we have machines who learn and recognize themselves in mirrors and recently we found a galaxy that SHOULDN’T EXIST
like
fuck flying cars, guys
forreal tho, people barely seem to use their turn signals or give way at intersections. can you imagine that shit in the goddamn sky? the human race would be extinct in a month.
harley being with a man, a black man, is not oppressing anybody, it does not erase her being bi/pan, it does not erase her relationship with ivy (who was not even in suicide squad;the 2016 movie) you having a problem with people shipping her with a black man,
when there’s clear build up to a romantic thing between them in the movie,
is you trying to erase him, not us erasing her attraction to multiple genders.
also, as a white LGBT person i’m telling other white LGBT people this: don’t forget that interracial couples are just as important for representation as LGBT ones. even the ones that aren’t LGBT. it may not be benefiting us specifically, but it’s benefiting someone, it’s making someone feel like they matter, like their love is important and not out of the ordinary, and we need to not only respect that, but endorse it.
on one hand i hate this site and the “culture” of it so much but on the other hand no other site lets me amass all my bizarre interests in one place then stream them straight to my skull at a speed that breaks the sound barrier.
those people who sit with you and help you rationalize all your negative thoughts and never yell or get tired and just stay with you until you feel less sad are the real angels of this world omg
the best part about stranger things is that they can’t solve anything until they put the three groups together because each group is acting within a separate genre
mike, lucas, dustin, and el are in a weird sci-fi coming of age story where the group of plucky misfit kids solve the mystery and test their friendship along the way
nancy and jonathan are in a horror movie where the teenagers have to kill the monster set against a backdrop of high school drama and romance
joyce and hopper are in a conspiracy thriller where the adults have to figure out what shady stuff the government is up to while also dealing with the difficulties of their personal lives
they all approach the issue within the confines of their genre, but none of those approaches work because none of them are seeing the whole picture. it’s only when all the threads start to converge that they can actually get anything done.
goonies/E.T., nightmare on elm street, and close encounters of the third kind all in 1
RIGHT,
so I got Third Eye by Florence + the Machine (also I super love this meme and
more people should do it.) I ain’t even a little sorry. Canon era, motherfuckers, because I can.
Grantaire was arguing
with him again. Most of Enjolras’ mind
was occupied with ripping down the other man’s case, almost enjoying the
familiar pattern, but that quiet part at the base of his skull, the part that
had been getting louder of late, was distracted. It was discomfiting and foreign, as if he no
longer quite knew himself. It did little
to inhibit his argument—they were second nature by now, he could spare that
scrap of attention—but he was bothered by its persistence. Just when Enjolras believed he had shaken off
the strange abstraction, Grantaire would tip his head back and laugh at something
Joly had said, his wild curls falling back from the line of his throat, and it
would return with a vengeance.
He’s
brilliant, the
quiet voice noted now. It was true,
something Enjolras had noticed before.
For all that he dulled its edge with wine and other, stronger spirits,
Grantaire’s mind was as keen as the edge of broken glass, quick and incisive,
and he soaked up information as effortlessly as he did liquor. Grantaire claimed to know nothing—nothing but love and liberty, he had
said—but he could hold his ground against Enjolras, and quote Greek and Roman
writings without so much as a pause to recall.
He spoke rapidly, as if the thoughts piled up behind his tongue and
pressed to be first through his lips, and was prone to winding, tangential
thinking, but his points were good and clear and glittering.
A NYC grad student working on food stamps for her thesis has released a free cookbook for those living on $4/day.
SIG NAL BOO OO OO OOOST
hello
oooooh this is so nice!
I believe it’s important to eat well, even when you’re strapped for cash. It’s good for your health and energy! This cookbook is full of delicious and healthy recipes, the ingredients of which are fairly inexpensive.
I ACKNOWLEDGE THIS WOMAN AS A FELLOW WARRIOR AND A FANTASTIC HUMAN BEING.
Boost so hard. Feeding yourself well is a challenge when you”ve got little income
I HAVE BEEN USING THIS COOKBOOK FOR MONTHS AND IT’S AMAZING 100/10 RECOMMENDING EVERYWHERE
(just to give you an idea, my food budget is 30 euro/week at most [about $38] and I have to maintain a healthy diet due to weird medication side-effects and yeah, basically this book is a lifesaver if you’re broke but need to watch what you’re eating)
Reblog to save a life. Because it’s easy to find food for $4/day, but most of it tends to be garden variety junkfood
honestly i respect religious lgbtq ppl so much? cause in all honestly, it’s fucking hard when both ppl who are and aren’t part of your religion are constantly questioning and attacking you. there are ppl who might ask you how it’s possible to be trans/gay and religious at the same time. there are ppl who tell you that you’re gna be punished for who you are, but that’s all bullshit. religion is a deeply personal thing, no one can dictate it for you. you’re not contradicting it by being trans and/or attracted to the same gender. yall are some of the bravest ppl out there, and your faith is just as valid as anyone’s. your god(s) accept you. fuck everyone who says otherwise
RIGHT,
so I got Third Eye by Florence + the Machine (also I super love this meme and
more people should do it.) I ain’t even a little sorry. Canon era, motherfuckers, because I can.
Grantaire was arguing
with him again. Most of Enjolras’ mind
was occupied with ripping down the other man’s case, almost enjoying the
familiar pattern, but that quiet part at the base of his skull, the part that
had been getting louder of late, was distracted. It was discomfiting and foreign, as if he no
longer quite knew himself. It did little
to inhibit his argument—they were second nature by now, he could spare that
scrap of attention—but he was bothered by its persistence. Just when Enjolras believed he had shaken off
the strange abstraction, Grantaire would tip his head back and laugh at something
Joly had said, his wild curls falling back from the line of his throat, and it
would return with a vengeance.
He’s
brilliant, the
quiet voice noted now. It was true,
something Enjolras had noticed before.
For all that he dulled its edge with wine and other, stronger spirits,
Grantaire’s mind was as keen as the edge of broken glass, quick and incisive,
and he soaked up information as effortlessly as he did liquor. Grantaire claimed to know nothing—nothing but love and liberty, he had
said—but he could hold his ground against Enjolras, and quote Greek and Roman
writings without so much as a pause to recall.
He spoke rapidly, as if the thoughts piled up behind his tongue and
pressed to be first through his lips, and was prone to winding, tangential
thinking, but his points were good and clear and glittering.
People keep saying, “what if men did what you did to ghostbusters but the other way around!!!!!” but 1) You can’t. There isn’t one major blockbuster from the past 30 years with enough girls to do that with, and 2) Don’t assume that I wouldn’t completely support an all male cheetah girls reboot
Um. All Male Josie and the Pussycats. Can you imagine?
All-male Charlie’s Angels including the slow sexy upward pans of the camera, pointlessly open shirts, and skintight catsuits. Our heroes must pose as masseuses, belly dancers, and more to seduce female CEOs, senators, and heads of security while constantly proving their loyalty to Charlie who is voiced by Lucy Liu.
Yes to all of these.
all-male Mean Girls with absolutely no plot deviance. Just a big muscley guy explaining that on Wednesdays, they wear pink.
I would pay to see all of them.
All male Pride & Prejudice.
Miss Darcy and her ten thousand a year! The innocent Master James Bennett and his headstrong brother, Master Ezra Bennett!
The notorious gamester, Miss Wickham, and her improper courtship of Master Lewis Bennett!
I recently saw a post where someone commented that the incredibly charged issue they were arguing about followed them home, and they couldn’t escape it. And it reminded me why this pattern I see of people (especially young people) where the majority of their downtime is spent on tumblr, and their tumblr is mostly some form of activism, from thought out long posts to clicking reblog on a petition, is so worrying to me.
Various forms of oppression are background noise to a lot of people’s lives. Fixing that is not likely to occur within your generation. It might get better, but the chances of it completely vanishing are minuscule. Some activists go home after dealing with bigotry all day at work, and talk about oppression on tumblr. And if they sit down and watch a TV show, they think about how it’s bigoted. If they have a musician they love, they feel obliged to think about how they’re problematic.
This is awful for you, your metal health, and the people around you. You burn out, you start blowing up at people for tiny things because you’re so tired of it. It makes you miserable and unpersuasive, it’s emotionally exhausting.
And this isn’t just me saying this. When my grandpa was training to do work with the labour party, he was told that you had to have a hobby to be good at it. Because otherwise it destroys you. You have to have something in your life that is totally disconnected from the horrific things you are seeing everyday.
If you can’t find TV shows to watch because you can’t switch off the social justice analysis part of your brain, do something else your activism can’t creep into. Take up knitting. Build shit out of cans. Play the recorder. Lock yourself in your bedroom and play minecraft. Whatever you do, please, please don’t let activism and fighting oppression take over every aspect of your life.
Have a separate activism tumblr and a cat pics/memes tumblr. Or blacklist activist things on your tumblr. Set aside some time where you don’t think about how shit the world is.
You have a right and an obligation to look after yourself. Please don’t drive yourself into the ground for the sake of social justice. You can’t fight all the time, and you’ll be no good at it if you can’t take a break.
Activists (irl activists) are told to clearly separate their two main tasks which are providing help and making demands. You cannot help anyone in an environment where you are also making demands. You cannot help anyone in an environment where you are also complaining about systematic oppression or asking for change.
Tumblr completely conflates the two. The result of this is:
> Tumblr transgender activists, for instance, tell transgender people they are valid and important, then in the same breath, in the same post and on the same blogs, remind transgender people that they are unloved and unwelcome by society, along with factual proof of transphobic violence.
This is incredibly destructive. I don’t think I even need to explain why. It’s the best way to crush transgender people’s self-esteem, bar none. The message it carries is, “even those on your side know the whole world hates you”. It’s just plain dangerous.
> In so-called LGBT safe spaces on tumblr, for instance, there is near-constant bickering about straight passing privilege versus monosexual privilege versus allosexual privilege. It often escalates to absurd levels of aggressiveness (because it’s the internet, duh) and occurs nearly everywhere, making safe spaces unsafe. The solution tumblr found is to build tiny, microscopic safe spaces for each minority within the LGBT.
Because segregation fixes everything. Spoiler alert: it only makes people more afraid of each other and breeds wariness, misunderstanding and conflict.
When you want to help a marginalized community, you either provide help to individuals, OR you raise awareness about their struggles and make demands for social change. You can have a blog for each, and if you do irl activism you most likely have a separate schedule for each.
The most basic rule for helping minorities is that shelters, help lines and safe spaces should never host debates. The most basic rule of safe spaces is: everyone fitting the requirements to enter is equally welcome, no questions asked, no debate allowed on anyone’s legitimacy or identity or privilege.
Safe spaces, shelters and help lines must be happy, uplifting places where people feel welcome, loved, and important. Otherwise they’re unsafe and toxic. If you can’t provide acceptance and compassion for all members in equal measure regardless of their background, privilege or opinion, you’re not fit for the job, stay away from administrating safe spaces.
Raising awareness and making demands is something tumblr does very well an OP explains well how compassion fatigue works and how destructive activism can be, so I’m not going to dwell on it.
Just remember that not everyone has the emotional strength for it, including those in the community you’re trying to help. Most men who have sex with men, for instance, don’t want to hear about how their community makes up 40% of the french population tested positive for aids. We know, and we also know that nearly 20% of that population has aids, but we also need to think about something less dreadful from time to time. It’s a matter of survival. Also, when you’re staring at your or someone else’s misery 24/7, you become so bitter you lose the ability to help anyone. Self-preservation makes us more useful, as activists.
(Apparently a lot of tumblr activists missed the point of OP’s post, which was compassion fatigue, by a few hundred miles; and assimilated it with something like “hahaha I’m so privileged I can afford not to think about discrimination evar”. I’m not surprised.)
Great posts. I really liked the discussion of safe spaces by the second poster, since there’s an LGBTQ muslim group that I go to and recently we had a facilitator who was very debatey, and at one point cited an academic paper in response to someone’s story.
And it was weird.
Because while I definitely agree that some debate is required (especially behind the scenes) in order to make safe spaces safer for everybody, the way it was done made me feel like I was constantly being tested for how problematic I was, and that the facilitator was assuming I was problematic until proven otherwise—in part because of the contrast between their gentleness with the friends they’d invited to the space (and whose opinions they therefore already knew) and their manner with the rest of us.
Which—I’m happy to question and rethink my assumptions, but I don’t want to go to a safe space and feel like the facilitator is automatically assuming bad faith or unkindness on my part, or that I need to be carefully watched so that I don’t make the space unsafe for other participants. I mean, I’m a woman-liking-woman who wears the hijab; people make those assumptions about me (that I’m a danger to other LGBT people) all the time, even when they know my orientation. I don’t want to also face that in a safe space that’s supposed to be specifically for people like me.
This made me think a lot about safe spaces, communities like tumblr, and the sheer fact that we are all human and aren’t always going to get it rght first time round.
I just drove my uncle and myself to the hardware store, and he said to me “Molly, I want you to know that being Catholic doesn’t change anything. If you someday get married, your wife will be welcome in this family. Don’t ever think otherwise.”
That is really nice, but I am not gay???
I’M LAUGHING SO HARD. SPOILER ALERT 2012 ME; YOU’RE SUPER FRICKING GAY.
Me: *trips over table* *jumps through window* *crashes through door* *heavy breathing* dO YOU HAVE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JILLIAN HOLTZMANN
