Me, Myself, and I.

I think you may want to explore how DID is represented, and how to represent that well. Because although this isn’t DID, I think there’s a lot of overlap issues that you’ll want to be conscious of. 

Some links

4 Common Misconceptions About Dissociative Identity Disorder

Myths and Media Portrayals of Dissociative Identity Disorder

Why ‘Split’ Is Harmful to People With Dissociative Identity Disorder 

I don’t necessarily think these are all a bunch of the best articles out there, but they came up when I searched for them and I know the first one looks pretty good. These are just about DID though.

I would want to ask a trans person with DID their advice though, and/or someone who is not straight who has DID about it. I don’t believe anyone in our team has this experience.

Or anyone who is part of a system where the people who are part of that system don’t all match up with gender and orientation.

If any followers have this experience, please feel free to respond/reblog with your advice and input!

Not Be The Host Anymore

like, I think kevin would probably be the host if I wasn’t

but like there’s always the chance that for whatever reason, I could go completely dormant

where do dormant alters go?

I’m taking this moment to say that I’ve finally launched a blog. Although this is not what I initially discussed speaking on in my blog, it is something that I feel is very important to discuss.

The blog will mostly be discussing my recovery from BPD. It will center that experience primarily, with some discussion of other aspects of mental health as well. My goal here is to illuminate what living with BPD actually means, to show people what it looks like, what recovery looks like, and what it means for my day to day life.

I decided to do this for a few reasons. First because most of the information that is available on BPD is highly stigmatizing and demonizes people living with the disorder. Secondly because the few voices of people living with BPD that have come forward and that have gained wide recognition are white cisgender straight upper-class women. BPD is seen as a white disorder. It’s seen as a female disorder. And the queer and trans people that live with it often get told by providers that their queerness and transness are simply symptoms of their disorder and that once they get better they won’t be anymore. Although I am not one of them, there are many trans people living with BPD who have been barred from medically transitioning because an unstable sense of self is a symptom of the disorder. And I absolutely feared I would encounter that and did experience some micro-aggressions along those lines early on, even though ultimately I was able to begin medically transitioning.

I cannot speak to the experiences of being a person of color and living with this disorder, but I hope to shed light on a narrative that is not the dominant one in this conversation. I hope to help others understand and be more empathetic towards what living with BPD actually means, and I hope to provide hope to anyone who may be struggling or suffering in some way.

I do plan on sharing practical resources as well. The ultimate goal here is provide psychoeducation on the topic and other topics similar to this. In the future, I will be discussing DBT exercises and concepts, concepts from CBT that I’ve found to be helpful, ideas for how to talk to your therapist about things, etc. etc.

I also would like to host other voices on the blog, people who are also suffering from BPD. I think it’s particularly important to share the voices of POC in this conversation precisely because they are often ignored in conversations on mental health in general, and particularly when it comes to BPD.

Notwithstanding the fact that providing drug addicts with drugs actually decreases addiction rates. As well as saves lives on all ends, because drug addicts are less likely to overdose on unsafe street drugs cut with god knows what, and disabled people are less likely to die from self-medication. 

And believe it or not, it gets better. Rosa’s also gives out sweatshirts to the homeless (or sells them to the general public) that has information on local soup kitchens and even computer training in the area, on an insert sewn inside the sweatshirt.

(Details)

Instead of bitching about the people in the Danish fairy tale are white in the movie Frozen

Why don’t we petition that Kidagahkash Nedakh be turned into an official princess?? 

I mean, let’s talk about Kidagakash, AKA Kida for a minute here. 

She’s got all the makings of a Disney Princess.

1. She’s royal blood. She’s the princess of the lost city of Atlantis. 

2. She lost her mother when she was baby. 

Unlike most Disney Princesses, she watched her mother as she was taken and essentially killed, along with most of her society. 

3. She loses her father, too.

Who is also played by Lenard fucking Nemoy, okay?

But here’s some other, unconventional stuff that makes Kida amazing and a perfect edition to the current line up. 

This girl can KICK. ASS.

She doesn’t take being spoken to rudely AT ALL.

When some fuckers try to get the drop on her- they grab her by the hair and yank her out of the water- she doesn’t fucking take that shit, she kicks several of their fucking asses, until the dagger she holds is eventually shot out of her hand. 

Kida also is a martyr, accepting her fate, the same one that took her mother.

She does this without question, once the Crystal spoke to her and possessed her. In addition to this, another thing that makes her amazing is that, despite being a total bad-ass, she still needed to be rescued; but it was at her own choice. She knew that she was going to be taken, and she knew that the protagonist and love interest Milo Thatch would save her. She trusted and had faith in him and the others around him, despite the fact that Milo is basically a giant dingus. Which leads me to talk about her prince, so to say, Milo Thatch. 

In fact, she is so sure of this, that she even tells him so.

Let’s talk about Milo for a minute. 

He’s a big part of her, because he isn’t a prince. He’s not pretty, or handsome, or overly masculine, or anything like that. In fact, as far as Disney Love Interests go, he’s basically a bottom tier. He’s a beta male and she is the one in charge, but he steps up as her other half, brings her back to her people so that she can save them. 

She is also the one who turns him into royalty by marrying him. In addition to this, she actually becomes  queen, which also breaks the Disney trend of Queens Are Bad. 

Kida is beautiful, she is active and faithful. Her parents are not obsticales to overcome [Like Jasmine, Ariel, Marida, Repunzel (technically), Pocahontas, and Cinderella] but rather a fixed point. She is faithful to her father and respects him. She defies him, but only because she feels it is the greater good for her people, not for herself or her personal interests. Kida is incredibly selfless in that regard, and it speaks volumes for being an example toward younger girls. 

She’s also incredibly non-conventional, what with having magical powers- technically, what with her ability to heal with the crystals that power her people- in addition to having white hair, darker skin, and tattoos. Her outfit isn’t skimpier than, say, Ariel or Jasmine, as some people might have concerns about. 

Also, Kida is nearly nine-thousand years old. No, really. She was an infant when Atlantis was taken into the sea, and Milo mentions specifically that she has to be between 8,200-8,800 years old. This is an interesting dynamic because, obviously, she's magical and has been kept young for thousands of years; but that also means she has many, many years more to learn. 

Kida also uses Thatch, originally, to learn. He can read ancient scriptures and tomes, when her people cannot. Her people are dying, and she needs him to help restore it. She wants to learn, she knows how valuable something as simple as reading is, and she cherishes Milo’s talent in such a thing. 

So, STOP bitching about Elsa and Anna from Frozen, and let’s put it out to Disney that Kida from Atlantis should be a Princess. 

She’s beautiful, she’s strong, she’s a fighter, she’s selfless, she becomes an incredible leader, she has an amazing relationship with her father, she made her love interest a prince and then a king, she is eager to learn, she’s original, she’s faithful, and she fell in love with a man for his smarts, his mettle, his bravery and his own loyalty to her and her people. 

Oh, and at the end?

They didn’t kiss.

It is inferred at the end of the movie that after taking the throne and restoring their city, only then do they get married. This isn’t a 3-day love story, people, this is a friendship that became a bond that resulted in marriage. 

Kida is incredible, and so is Milo. Atlantis is an underrated movie, and Kida is an under-the-radar princess. 

Deafness and being Hard of Hearing encompasses a wide range of hearing loss, and d/Deaf/HoH people communicate in different ways. Whether a person sees themselves as deaf or Hard of Hearing is a very individual thing. Being deaf does not mean you can hear no sound at all, and very few people have this level of hearing loss. The distinction between deaf and Deaf is that deafness is an audiological condition, while being Deaf is a cultural and personal identity based on shared experience, language, and history. Not all d/Deaf/HoH people know sign language, and may use a variety of methods to communicate, which may change given the situation or whether they are speaking to another d/Deaf/HoH person or a Hearing person.

Hearing aids and cochlear implants are not like “glasses for your ears.” For the vast majority of people who need vision correction, glasses or contacts can help them see just as well as people who don’t need correction. But hearing aids aren’t like glasses–magnification of a sound doesn’t work in the same way as magnification of an image. Cochlear implants can help someone with severe hearing loss hear, but the hearing these implants provide is completely different from what a Hearing person experiences. These devices merely help a person with hearing loss hear better than they could without them, and what that means varies quite a bit from person to person. In addition, not everyone gets much help from these devices, and many people are not good candidates for cochlear implants or find them controversial.

Hearing aids and cochlear implants do not make a d/Deaf/HoH person Hearing. As soon as the person takes out their hearing aids or other assistive device, the challenges associated with their hearing loss are just as they were before. People don’t generally wear their hearing aids or the outer portion of cochlear implants all the time. This could mean they only take them out to sleep and shower, or it could mean that they only wear them when they most need them. When a person is wearing them, they are still deaf/HoH, and will likely still experience problems associated with that.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing people often hear better in different situations, and hearing loss varies widely between d/Deaf/HoH people. People who are d/Deaf/HoH may hear better in small group situations, when their conversational partner is facing them, and may have trouble with certain frequencies of sound more than other frequencies. For example, they made have trouble understanding conversational speech because most of their hearing loss is high frequency, but be able to hear lower pitched sounds with less difficulty. Other factors that can impact a d/Deaf/HoH person’s ability to hear something include crowded places with lots of background noise and walking on narrow sidewalks where their conversational partner is walking in front of them and facing away. 

Lipreading isn’t easy or accurate. Lipreading can help a d/Deaf/HoH person understand what is being said, but it’s not easy and many people either cannot do it or aren’t that good at it. Lipreading works best when good lighting is available, the speaker enunciates clearly and does not mumble, and is facing the lipreader. Even people who are skilled at lipreading will still struggle with understanding what is being said, and have to use clues about context and word order to piece together speech. This can be exhausting to do constantly, and generally isn’t enough on it’s own. Not understanding what the people around you are saying can be very isolating.

Sign language isn’t a visual form of English, and there isn’t just one sign language. American Sign Language is not a a way to speak English with your hands. ASL has distinct rules that do not correspond to English grammar, and ASL does not correspond to the geographic locations where English is spoken. American Sign Language and British Sign Language are distinct, not mutually-intelligible languages, and there are many others around the globe. If your Deaf character grew up and lives in Russia, they probably use Russian Sign Language, not American.

You don’t need to write out the gestures and motions of a character speaking who’s speaking sign language. If your character is communicating in sign language, you may not be sure how to best transcribe what they are saying. Some people will translate the speech into English and italicize it to show that it is a translation. Some people will communicate the meaning of what was being said, rather than writing out any explicit dialogue. But trying to write out the actual physical gestures and adequately describe what a sign or string of signs looks like is just unwieldy and is rarely as clear as you think it is. Not only is this frustrating for actual users of the particular sign language, but most of the people reading your story are probably not going to be sign language users.