just trying to survive

We’ll have to make it ourselves, and we’ll have to help each other make it. That’s why it is solarpunk. 

Some resources to consider creating or joining or doing:

Repair cafes - create or join your local repair cafe! Repair stuff, learn how to repair stuff, teach others how to repair stuff.

Map of Makerspaces - make some things! learn how to make some things! teach others how to make some things!

Community Garden Map (note that this is US-only, and not a complete list) - join a local community garden

Support your local farmers / local economy (US only link)

Support or create a local Food Not Bombs chapter

Support or create a local Food Not Lawns chapter

Grow food in 5 gallon buckets

Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity (as a bonus you can learn extremely practical skills)

Volunteer via 350.org to help the environment / the planet / the place we live and depend on

Excellent-and-still-growing wiki from reddit’s awesome r/zerowaste community - great resource to learn how to live more lightly on the earth

Spread the word about solarpunk, especially to engineering students. Show them projects like Open Source Ecology - Global Village Construction Set and Bridges for Prosperity 

Learn how to Patch a Hole, Mend a Seam, and Fix a Hem

Learn how to repair a hole in the sole of a shoe

Learn some basics on passive solar design - clever use of the sun can create extremely energy efficient homes and buildings. You can use these principles to save on energy bills, even if you’re renting.

Free USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, 2015 revision - cut down on personal food waste! Learn how to safely preserve food. Very useful if you suddenly harvest / purchase for crazy cheap in season / dumpster dive a ton of perishable food.

Donate to One Acre Fund, which provides training and capital to farmers (making them more productive and pulling them out of poverty) in various east African countries

Donate to Bridges to Prosperity, which provides technical expertise, money, and volunteers, to help local people build and maintain their own footbridges in extremely isolated rural areas 

joining r/solarpunk, and sharing links/ideas/art/music with the community. Also, upvoting stuff for greater visibility. There’s over 900 members!

Replant scraps from your produce

Graft fruit-bearing branches onto ornamental trees in your area

Turn plastic waste into pretty much any plastic thing you need, in your garage, with machines built out of cheap and accessible parts

Make your own paper out of recycled paper or cardboard

Build a composter or a wormery

Harvest rainwater

Mod your toilet to flush gray water (used sink/shower water, or even that rainwater you’re harvesting)

Build a solar collector on the cheap

Build a wind turbine on the cheap

Build a hydroelectric water wheel on the cheap

Get internet access without going through cable companies using cheap, low-tech equipment

Make your own beer, cheese, soap, wine… really anything you can make rather than buy is a success!

And I mean fat fat. The kind where people look at you sideways when you eat a burger. The kind where people congratulate you when you skip a meal, even though the meal skip was because you were too busy to remember.

The kind where, every once in a while, you remember that not only is your body some people's worst fear, but that you used to be one of those people.

For all of these reasons, I started avoiding old photos of myself a few years back. They brought on negative feelings and relapses and extra therapy sessions, and it just wasn't worth it. I focused on loving the me I saw in the mirror, and remind myself that this body is ALIVE, and it takes me places, and it functions, and it allows me to feel hugs and smell flowers and enjoy baths, and considering everything it's been through, that is a miracle in and of itself.

I accidentally stumbled on an old photo today. I was wearing an extremely oversize sweater dress on it. Coincidentally, I still own that sweater dress, and it fits as a bodycon now.

And I felt such deep joy thinking "my god that dress looks so fucking hot on me now!"

All of a sudden I saw all things I was unable to see before. That my hair is so much thicker and healthier now. That my skin is brighter. That I stopped posing for photos to make myself look slimmer. That I wear brighter colors. That I smile wider.

And I'm so fucking proud of coming this far.

Anyways, fat people out there : I'm sorry doctors often dismiss us by saying "lose weight" and don't bother to do their jobs properly. I'm sorry we're only ever represented as unattractive, or gross, or comic relief, or second-place at best. I'm sorry for all those terrible experiences and for the way the world responds to us.

But I'm not sorry for existing. Keep living, keep loving yourself, keep caring for yourself.

Keep taking up space.

Keep being loud.

I love you.

beauty requires openness. it asks you to let things reach you, to soften enough to be moved. it’s not naive to see beauty everywhere—it’s a skill, a form of intelligence, a kind of quiet bravery. because it is so much easier to critique than to create, to detach than to engage, to dismiss than to love.

The game treats the Miis like they’re real people and makes zero mention ever that they are not, and only ever refers to them and their POV as if they are real and you are their caretaker! While playing this honestly messed with my head pretty badly at times and made me worry a lot on if I was hurting real people/not doing enough for real people while I was playing!

I cannot imagine how much worse this would be for someone who’s unmedicated, non-dormant, or experiencing breakthrough symptoms! Do please be careful and PLEASE remember to have a way to reality check yourself while playing the game!!!

I'm so lucky to be able to have a roof over my head. Some people don't have that much.

I'm lucky my family feeds me, and I have to make sure to eat everything I'm given. Some children don't get to eat.

Imagine how worse things could be for me if my parent was more like (insert an extremely violent criminal you've heard about )

If my parents knew what I was thinking right now they'd kill me (I had angry thoughts)

I need to remember my parents had way worse childhood than me and I'm having it easy so it's normal for them to be resentful and angry at me all the time

They don't mean all the things they say to me, it just gets out in anger because they don't think it's fair for me to have an easier life than they did

I'm sure my parents would act differently if they just understood. They always just think it's not serious when I say anything. It's my fault for joking around sometimes.

I'm sure everyone has it just as bad as me but we don't talk about it.

I wonder how everyone is keeping it together so well if things are this bad for everyone?

I must be the weakest most pathetic out of everyone. I can't have anyone know.

My situation isn't that bad because bad things are not happening all the time. Right now nobody is doing anything to me. So I need to stop feeling like this.

What is wrong with me that I can't feel normal?

If only I got kidnapped/tortured/trafficked. Then my feelings would be explained. Plus I could scream out loud which I really want to do but it would bother people so I don't.

Is it okay for me to exist? Would things be better for everyone if I was gone?

If only I never existed. There's no way out of this now.

I'm selfish for wanting to die because it would upset my parents if they found me dead. They would be so mad I didn't think about them when doing that. I can't be that insensitive.

I just need to get over myself. I'm not that important. It doesn't matter. There's nothing special about me. I'm just being dramatic and making things up.

If your main focus was making sure someone is pleased with you, that you don't accidentally annoy or offend them, if you had to keep your own needs invisible and focus on what they want of you, something was not right. You are not meant to be a pacifier or a caretaker as a child, and your happiness should not depend on pleasing someone. If on top of it you felt like one wrong move would get you punished, abandoned or despised, that was wrong. It's not how most children live.

If you relate to this, it's not your fault, you had no control over what situation you were put in. Adults around you should have prevented this. Your well being was supposed to be the center of their world, not the reverse.

This kind of reversal can be called child neglect, but also parentification, grooming, even emotional incest if you had to do emotional labour to comfort and support them like a partner would. It sets the foundations for you to be exploited endlessly while never having your own needs met. It puts you in danger of sexual abuse because you're a child with no protection and no source of attention or affection, which is exactly what the predators look for.