Life doesn't always turn out like you hope.

This person is now crying to everyone ages later, wondering why some people don't like him.

This person did this to me, purely because, when I was 13 (9 years ago), I broke up with him for being an emotionally abusive asshole. This was something I noticed late, because at the time I was being emotionally abused almost every day by the house mistress at my boarding school. He knew that. He used that to get what he wanted, then treated me poorly afterwards.

I'm not censoring his name, because he is now part of the cosplay and LARP community, and I feel they should know what he does to people who he doesn't need anymore.

I'm sick of this, and I don't believe you changed. You didn't change for the next 3 years afterwards, when I still saw you regularly, I doubt you changed in the 6 years after that.

So our shitty ass government decided to put pregablin and gabapentin (Lyrica, Neurontin, etc.) on a controlled drug schedule with very little consultation from us. This starts in April.

What this means is that you can only get a one month supply of this at a time and it can only be prescribed in writing (on a green prescription not a white one that gets sent electronically to your pharmacy). I’ve seen almost no advice or announcements regarding this and worry that people will get caught out. These drugs are generally used for chronic pain, seizures, and migraines but they have other medical uses as well.

Contact your doctor and pharmacist to find out how they’re handling this change. All different GPs and specialists are handling this in different ways. The most important thing is not to panic. These changes don’t go into effect until April 1st.

The first thing we do is sit Shiva. Shiva is very intense mourning for those closest to the deceased (usually relatives but I would argue if you are close enough to the person it will hit just as hard). It lasts 7 days, where those closest to the deceased do not leave the house, and do not cook or clean. Instead the community brings over food and takes care of the normal day chores, as well as sit with the mourners to support them physically and emotionally. (For more religious folks there are prayers throughout the day at the house). We wear specific clothes for this week as well. It is deep deep mourning. 

After that week begins the Sheloshim (30) for thirty days (in reality it is 23 days as the 7 days of Shiva count towards the 30 total days). The mourners return to society in terms of taking care of themselves and going to work and such, but avoids socializing/parties/concerts/seeking entertainment, to focus on the loss. For religious folk, there is a prayer said every day (mourners kaddish) during this time. This can still be done with other friends and family to give emotional support even just by being present. 

For those mourning a parent (though I think this step is crucial for losing anyone close), the 11 months of mourning begins. You no longer are sequestering yourself from society, but you still spend time each day remembering the person. (in jewish tradition this means you keep saying the mourners kaddish every day for 11 months).

Why I think this is so so so important is the community aspect. Especially during Shiva. I remember a twitter thread that was posted here a while back about someone who lost their father and how they wouldnt have made it through if their friends hadn’t come to support them as they were so deep in sorrow they couldn’t take care of themselves (friends brought food, cleaned the house, etc). It almost exactly described Shiva, minus a religious aspect. And they described slowing being able to re-join society afterwards, like the 30 days. 

if it makes you unable to think straight: you’re not faking it

if it makes you unable to brush your hair in the morning: you’re not faking it

even if you’re still able to work and smile during the day but unable to sleep or move later that day because of it: you’re not faking it

if it effects you in any way: you are not faking it

That being said. Hypermobility =/= EDS or some similar CTD (at least not necessarily)! I see too much lately, as EDS awareness grows, of people seeing a gymnast/contortionist/wacky flexible actor or comedian and saying “OMG that person has EDS!” I see it even in the EDS community.

The problem with this is that it is actually possible to have benign hypermobility without systemic symptoms or being prone to joint injuries due to instability. But when people assume it’s all the same thing and they see a person bending their joints into pretzels, who is otherwise a completely “normal” person who doesn’t identify as disabled and doesn’t have problems that interfere with performing necessary tasks, it casts doubt onto those of us who ARE disabled by connective tissue disorders. It makes people ask why, if we’re the same as that flexible but otherwise normal person they saw, we can’t just do everything everyone else can, too.

However, as a bisexual dude, I can observe that many of the arguments that are employed to establish that ace folks have no place in the queer community are strikingly similar - indeed, at times practically word-for-word identical - to the arguments that were for many years (and in some circles still are) employed to establish that bisexual folks have no place in the queer community.

The Passing Argument

It has been argued that bisexual folks don’t have any grounds to complain about discrimination and violence suffered in relation to their orientation, because a bisexual person is able to pass as straight simply by choosing partners of the appropriate gender. Therefore, any discrimination and violence that a bisexual person does experience must be construed as voluntarily undertaken, since they could have passed, and freely chose not to.

This argument is similarly applied to ace folks via the assertion that being ace poses no particular barrier to seeking a partner of a socially acceptable gender, so any failure to do so must likewise be construed as voluntary.

The Performativity Argument

It has been argued that bisexual folks ought to be excluded from queer communities because sexual orientation is purely performative; i.e., being gay is defined in terms of currently having a sexual partner of the same gender.  A bisexual person who has a partner of a different gender is functionally indistinguishable from a straight person, and must therefore be regarded as straight. Conversely, a bisexual person whose current partner is of the same gender must nonetheless be regarded with suspicion, because they could “turn straight” at any time simply by leaving that partner.

This argument is similarly applied to ace folks via the assertion that their orientation has no discernible performative component; an ace person is functionally indistinguishable from a straight person who simply isn’t involved in a sexual relationship at that particular moment, so ace folks must therefore be regarded as straight by default.

(An astute reader may notice that the passing argument dovetails neatly into the performativity argument: those who choose not to seek partners of a socially acceptable gender may be dismissed because any violence and discrimination they experience is a consequence of their voluntary failure to pass, while those who do seek such partners are performatively straight and therefore to be shunned. It’s a neat little system.)

The Mistaken Identity Argument

It has been argued that, while bisexual folks may suffer discrimination and physical and sexual violence, they’re not targeted by such acts because they’re bisexual. Any discrimination and violence a bisexual person suffers in relation to their orientation is suffered because they were mistaken for a gay person. Any effort on their part to discuss such experiences is therefore to be regarded as appropriative, in spite of the fact that they personally experienced it. In short, a bisexual person’s own experience of violence and discrimination doesn’t truly “belong” to them: it “belongs” to the purely hypothetical gay person their persecutors allegedly mistook them for.

1) rewriting history to erase bisexual and asexual contributions to political LGBTQ rights movements, and then claiming that bisexuals and asexuals have never done anything for the community at large

2) arguing that modernday bisexuals and asexuals should be excluded from current political movements because our goals are distinct from, or even contradictory to the goals of the LGBTQ rights movement at large

3) interpreting any attempt on the part of bi/asexuals to make safe spaces for ourselves within the community as an attack on LG safe spaces, generally by reframing bi/ace pride as homo/lesbophobia, or by dismissing accusations of bi/acephobia as inherently homo/lesbophobic

It’s often been asserted that bisexual folks ought to be excluded from the LG community because that community is specifically for folks who experience homophobia, and bisexual folks don’t experience homophobia, save by misidentification. (See the Mistaken Identity Argument, above.)

However, anybody who’s over the age of 30 can tell you that the positioning of the experience of homophobia as the community’s great unifier is, itself, a relatively novel development.

Up until quite recently (and by “recently” I mean as recently as the mid 1980s), even lesbians were routinely characterised by the leaders of mainstream gay rights activism as unwelcome parasites, riding on the movement’s coattails and contributing nothing in return.

Not only is identifying the experience of homophobia - defined narrowly as discrimination against those who are actively involved in sexual relationships with persons of the same gender - as the sole qualifier for inclusion a totally arbitrary place to draw the line, it’s baldly ahistorical.

But brushing your teeth for 30 seconds is better than not brushing them at all when that 2 minutes seems exhausting.  Doing ten minutes of yoga is better than 10 minutes of sitting when 30 minutes of cardio sounds impossible.  Changing my clothes is good when a whole shower is impossible.  Standing on the porch for a few minutes is worth it after being in the house for three straight days because I don’t have the energy to go anywhere.

giving disabled people accommodations and therefore making them more independent “degraded a vital sense of community”; his reasoning for this was that he once went to a restaurant where a large disabled woman couldn’t navigate between tables and people stood up to help her and moved their tables for her and she was so touched she cried. 

so catch me like two weeks ago in the supermarket with my cane, and I had to squat down to get a can off the bottom shelf. of course my leg gives out again and I tumble to the floor, cane clattering on the tile and stuff in my hand going flying, and I’m collapsed on the floor with like my fuckin leg spasming 

like, ten people walk by in this crowded store and not one stops to help me 

so 

Re-posting this because I finally got to scan it in high-res.

Betty Bates is a goddamn hero.

It occurred to Pooh and Piglet that they hadn’t heard from Eeyore for several days, so they put on their hats and coats and trotted across the Hundred Acre Wood to Eeyore’s stick house. Inside the house was Eeyore.

“Hello Eeyore,” said Pooh.

“Hello Pooh. Hello Piglet,” said Eeyore, in a Glum Sounding Voice.

“We just thought we’d check in on you,” said Piglet, “because we hadn’t heard from you, and so we wanted to know if you were okay.”

Eeyore was silent for a moment. “Am I okay?” he asked, eventually. “Well, I don’t know, to be honest. Are any of us really okay? That’s what I ask myself. All I can tell you, Pooh and Piglet, is that right now I feel really rather Sad, and Alone, and Not Much Fun To Be Around At All. Which is why I haven’t bothered you. Because you wouldn’t want to waste your time hanging out with someone who is Sad, and Alone, and Not Much Fun To Be Around At All, would you now.”

Pooh looked and Piglet, and Piglet looked at Pooh, and they both sat down, one on either side of Eeyore in his stick house.

Eeyore looked at them in surprise. “What are you doing?”

“We’re sitting here with you,” said Pooh, “because we are your friends. And true friends don’t care if someone is feeling Sad, or Alone, or Not Much Fun To Be Around At All. True friends are there for you anyway. And so here we are.”

“Oh,” said Eeyore. “Oh.” And the three of them sat there in silence, and while Pooh and Piglet said nothing at all; somehow, almost imperceptibly, Eeyore started to feel a very tiny little bit better.

Because Pooh and Piglet were There. No more; no less.