(Source: otatma, via bonehandledknife)
THIS. THIS is what we need, America. THIS.
Seven year olds can properly name the genitilia that they have, as well as the genitles others have.
Eleven year olds know that girls can like girls and boys can like boys and that its even okay to like neither, or both, or multiple.
Thirteen year olds know what a condom is and how to say no when someone wants to kiss but you don’t.
This is AMAZING. I want THIS! I would LOVE to have this education and openess in my life.
Telling a group of teenagers to wait until they’re married is:
a) not going to do /shit/, did you really think they were going to listen to you
and
b) none of your FUCKING business, I’m gonna have a post coming up about this so stay tuned.
This is what sexual education is about. This is what it needs to consist of. This is what I wish I had learned.Take note, America, because you’re doing a really shitty job.
(W)Not to mention that this method has been proven to reduce the amount of childhood sexual abuse that occurs. By teaching children what consent means, that no one has the right to touch you without permission, children are more likely to report sexual abuse and to recognize it.
(Source: itsnotjustpms, via yea-lets-do-this-shit)
hello! I don’t know if anyone has already made a post about this before, but I just stumbled upon this app made specifically for when you’ve gone into a nonverbal anxiety attack!!!
it was made by Jeroen De Busser who is an autistic computer science student.
the app is really easy to use! all you do is open it and hand your phone to someone you need to communicate with during an attack but physically cannot, and it shows this cool little alert for the person to read, and then it takes them to an easy to use chat (that looks a lot like texting! except both of you are communicating using the same device).
the alert message is completely customizable and you can have it say whatever you need!
the app is called Emergency Chat and it’s available in the Apple Store and google play store.
I highly recommend it to anyone who might need it :)
OH MY GOD?!?!?? BOOST
That’s so bootiful!
(Source: carriefiisher, via yea-lets-do-this-shit)
Seven Years Later PSA
This is a blog that I repost every year, because it is something that is, for obvious reasons, very important to me to educate and inform people about. Since posting about my experience with an ectopic pregnancy and talking about it, several women have told me that knowing the symptoms was what got them to the hospital in time. Please read it. Please tell others about it.
As always, this hurts to think about. My heart goes out to anyone who may be struggling with fertility issues or loss. You are not alone. I wish you peace and joy in the life that you have, even if it is not the life you’d imagined for yourself, and I wish you all the strength and support you need to find that peace and joy. (And I also want you to know it’s okay to not be okay now, and it’s okay to not be okay sometimes even after you are okay.)
First and foremost, I’m glad I’m not dead.
Seriously. I’m really, really glad I’m not dead. That would have sucked. And, thanks to the fact that I recognized warning symptoms and had some emergency surgery seven years ago today, I get to be alive to appreciate being alive. I’m a big fan.
So in honor of my not-dying anniversary, I’m doing a PSA about ectopic pregnancy. Even if you never plan on having children, these are important symptoms to know because you could very well save the life of someone you love. Or your own. (Unless you do not have female reproductive organs, in which case your risk of ectopic pregnancy = non-existent. Still, you like people who do, right?)
An ectopic pregnancy is a pregnancy in which a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterus. This is a bad thing. Usually the egg implants in the fallopian tube; occasionally it implants other places. 2% of all pregnancies are ectopic. That’s 1 in 50. Certain factors increase your risks–tubal scarring, abdominal surgery, endometriosis, fertility treatments, IUDs–but it can happen to anyone. I had no real risk factors.
An even scarier statistic than the one-in-fifty? Ectopic pregnancies are the number one cause of pregnancy-related death. Part of the problem is that many women with ectopic pregnancies don’t even know they’re pregnant. Because your body doesn’t produce as many hormones, you might continue having periods like normal, ignore the sudden pain, go to bed because you’re feeling tired and dizzy, and never wake up.
I know that sounds terrible and scary. It is. It happens. So even if you don’t think you’re pregnant, or if you think you are just having a standard miscarriage (which was what I thought), always, ALWAYS call the doctor if you have any of the following symptoms:
- Sharp pain on one side of your lower abdomen. When you press down on it, it will be a stabbing pain that you will feel reflected in the other side, but one side will be more tender. Once your tube actually bursts the pain will lessen considerably–DO NOT IGNORE THAT. All it means is that you are now bleeding internally.
- Feeling dizzy and lightheaded when you aren’t lying down. This would be because of the internal bleeding. Also, difficulty and discomfort breathing.
- And finally, the key symptom: when you lie down, you have a sharp, stabbing pain in your shoulder. This is called referred pain, and is caused by the blood filling up your abdomen and pushing on your lungs. (This is also a symptom of a burst appendix and often happens after abdominal surgery, in case you were interested.) If you EVER have abdominal pain that is reflected in your shoulder when you lie down, go to the hospital immediately. And have someone else drive you.
Like I said, you may not think you are pregnant, but if there is any chance whatsoever you could be and you have these symptoms, have someone drive you to the hospital immediately or call 911. If I had ignored my symptoms and let my husband go to work that day, I probably would have fallen asleep on the couch and never woken up again. I was in surgery within two or three hours of the pain starting, and at that point I had lost so much blood I nearly needed a transfusion.
But, because I am obsessive and had researched every pregnancy-related topic under the sun, I knew something was wrong. And I’m not dead. And that’s a good thing.
Here’s hoping you never have to recognize the symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy. But now you can, and that’s the important thing.
This year’s side note: The fact that ectopic, fallopian, and endometriosis are all unrecognized by spellcheck pisses me off. Women’s health matters. Our bodies matter, even though they are consistently given less medical attention and education than they deserve. That’s part of why I do this.
If you have a uterus and you’re having sex with a sperm-producing person, this could happen to you. Know the signs to watch for, especially since you may not even know you’re pregnant.
(via starklyjd)
A friend of mine posted this. Reblog to save a life!
goodrx.com will find the cheapest pharmacies in your area for your prescriptions and offers a discount program at no cost for some pharmacies (some don’t require the prescription to be cheaper at that pharmacy, it will provide a link to the discount card if it’s needed to get the cheaper price).
obviously not applicable to here but reblogging for americans because your health care system gives me second hand anxiety for all of you
Interesting
(Source: inmediasras, via academicfeminist)
no offense but this is literally the most neurotypical thing i have ever seen
Uhhhh… no. This is what they teach you in therapy to deal with BPD and general depression. When I got out of the hospital after hurting myself a second time, I got put into intensive outpatient program for people being released from mental hospitals as a way to monitor and help transition them into getting them efficient long-term care. This is something they stressed, especially for people with general depression. When you want to stay at home and hide in your bed, forcing yourself to do the opposite is what is helpful. For me, who struggles with self harm- “I want to really slice my arm up. The opposite would be to put lotion on my skin (or whatever would be better, like drawing on my skin) the opposite is the better decision.” It doesn’t always work because of course mental health isn’t that easy, but this is part of what’s called mindfulness (they say this all the time in therapy)
Being mindful of these is what puts you on the path to recovery. If you’re mindful, you are able to live in that moment and try your best to remember these better options.
I swear to god, I don’t get why some people on this website straight up reject good recovery help like this because either they a)have never been in therapy so don’t understand in context how to use these coping tactics. Or b)want to insist that all therapists and psych doctors are neurotypical and have zero idea what they are talking about. (Just so ya know, they teach this in DBT, the therapy used to help BPD. The psychologist who came up with DBT actually had BPD, so….a neurotypical women didn’t come up with this.)
I have clinical OCD and for me, exposure therapy–a version of “do the opposite”–has been fundamental. I’ve had huge improvement in the last year, but I’m 100% clear that if I hadn’t done my best to follow this protocol I’d be fucked. I have a lot of empathy for that moment when you’re just too tired to fight and you check the stove or you wash your hands or go back to the office at midnight to make sure the door is locked. But the kind of therapeutic approach outlined above has been crucial for me.
It’s hard to do. I’ve weathered panic attacks trying to follow this protocol. But I’ve gotten remarkable results. I was afraid to touch the surfaces in my house, okay? I was afraid to touch my own feet, afraid to touch my parrot–deliberately exposing myself to “contamination” has helped me heal. I can’t speak for people with other issues, but this has helped my anxiety and OCD.
I feel that tumblr, in an effort to be accepting of mental illness, has become anti-recovery. Having a mental illness does not make you a bad person. There is nothing morally wrong with having a mental illness anymore than more than there’s something morally wrong with having the flu. However, if you’re “ill” physically or mentally, something is wrong in the sense that you are unwell and to alleviate that you should try to get better. While there is not “cure” for mental illness, there are ways to get better.
There was a post on tumblr where someone with ADHD posted about how much you can get done when you focus and was attacked for posting about being “nuerotypical” - when she was posting about the relief she got from being on an medication to treat her illness.
I saw another post going around tumblr that said something along the line of “you control your thoughts, why not choose to have happy thoughts” which again was shot down as “nuerotypical” but while you don’t have control over what thoughts come into your mind, you absolutely can and should choose to have happy thoughts. In DBT we call this “positive self talk”.
I’m in DBT to help treat PTSD stemming from child abuse. The abuse and abandonment I experienced destroyed my self esteem and created a lot of anxiety over upsetting other people. DBT has taught me to recognize when my thoughts are distorting realty ‘no one likes you’ and answer back ‘plenty of people like you, you don’t need everyone to like you, especially if the relationship doesn’t make you happy’, to respond to the thought ‘I’m so worthless’ with ‘you’re really great and have accomplished something’
And it’s not easy to challenge your thoughts, it’s a skill that’s learned and it’s hard to force yourself to think something that doesn’t seem authentic or even seems wrong to think - it’s hard to be encouraging towards yourself when you hate yourself - but you force yourself to be aware of your thoughts and push back when you fall into unhealthy patterns
That isn’t “so neurotypical” that’s recovery.
Not shaming mental illness doesn’t mean shaming RECOVERY.
Pro-Recovery isn’t anti-disability.
Do not shame healthy behaviors as “neurotypical”.
Learning healthy behaviors and taking steps to treat mental illness and disorders including taking medication if that’s what works for you is important. You shouldn’t be ashamed if you have mental illness, but you shouldn’t say ‘well I’m not neurotypical therefor I can’t do anything to get better’ - while there is no cure for mental illness, there is a lot you can do to get better, to function better, to manage your mental illness and be safer, happier, and healthier for it.
(Source: dbttiger, via cthulhu-with-a-fez)
