not the coolest but a little interesting

a poem by Jay Hulme, titled Jesus at the Gay Bar

He's here in the midst of it - right at the centre of the dance floor, robes hitched up to His knees to make it easy to spin.

At some point in the evening a boy will touch the hem of His robe and beg to be healed, beg to be anything other than this;

and He will reach His arms out, sweat-damp, and weary from dance. He'll cup this boy's face in His hand and say,

my beautiful child there is nothing in this heart of yours that ever needs to be healed.

for a while, my husband worked as a call handler for the ambulance service. during his training, they had a talk from someone wanting to introduce new policy and he wanted to use my husband's group as a tester group. fun, right?

well, the talk was about how saying suicide was triggering. if a caller says theyre suicidal, the handlers should say "unalive" instead, because saying the word might actually trigger the suicidal person.

if the caller says they were raped and need help, the handler should say "S A" instead, because rape is triggering.

I don't know about you, but if I phoned up the ambulance service to ask for help because I want to die, I wouldn't want them using tiktok speak and trivialising the issue. I think that would make me less likely to ever ask for help. SAY THE WORDS. how are we supposed to address the problem if we can't even name the fucking problem.

luckily, my husbands main instructor literally said "well, that's fucking stupid" to the man wanting to introduce this policy and it hasn't been implemented. but it might. we are watching language be erased. NAME. THE. PROBLEM.

“Do you want to kill yourself?”

A, it has the benefit of making sure everyone is on the same page. Self-harm and attempting suicide are two different things. You can want to harm yourself without wanting to kill yourself. It can also let you know if the person is passively suicidal or if they’re in the process of killing themselves.

B, stigmatizing suicide leads to more suicides.

When I was working on breaking my self-harm habit, one of the most COMFORTING things was discussing it frankly and openly with a professional. Saying out loud, “I’m doing X to myself” and seeing her just nod like it was no big deal and proceed business as usual with her questions was AMAZING for making myself less shameful im talking about it. The idea that I wasn’t revolting, that my problem was not uncommon, that it was actually a pretty normal response to stress and trauma, made it easier to talk about it and eventually stop doing it.

On the other hand, the WORST therapy session I ever had was with a young man who I presume to have been relatively new and inexperienced in the field because, after confessing I was experiencing symptoms of PTSD related to childhood abuse, instead of asking outright, “were you physically abused?” or “what were typical punishments in your house?”, THIS GUY sort of fumbled over his words to ask, “Were you ever…”, before flicking his hand in a “striking someone with a belt” gesture in my general direction.

And because HE wasn’t comfortable using frank and open language, *I* got to deal with being triggered by that! Because GUESS WHAT: SOMEONE PRETENDING THEY’RE HITTING YOU CAN BE UPSETTING TO PHYSICAL ABUSE SURVIVORS

So yeah. Obviously everyone has different triggers and different things that help or make things worse.

Ok, so. I’ve seen so many takes about how Aziraphale was done dirty in the finale. And I agree. But I also want to scream that Crowley was done dirty too. Actually, that’s not even the right way to put it. He was done freaking spotless, and somehow that feels even worse to me.

[At least Aziraphale was a sidekick to a princess. And I’ve never really felt an emotional connection to princesses. I always found them a bit boring. You know, prisoners of the story being told, predictable. It’s the sidekicks that were interesting to me. Exciting.]

Crowley was my comfort character. I loved Aziraphale, but I was obsessed with Crowley. And I will be again, I promise.

What I loved about him was that he felt like a decent person. Not perfect. Decent. He enjoyed pranks (at least in the book), looked way cooler than he really was, and hid behind attitude and swagger. He stepped in when he saw suffering, even when it could bring him harm. He loved deeply, protectively, but also to an unhealthy degree. Ready to flee from everyone and everything except Aziraphale. He was flawed, emotional, avoidant, caring. You know. Human.

And that’s exactly why he meant so much to me.

For me, the finale butchered that by turning him into the very best being in the universe. Someone so incredibly selfless that he is willing to give up not only his own happiness, but even the existence of his one true love, for the abstract concept of true free will.

And I completely detached from him at that point.

Don’t get me wrong. There are people out there who have done extraordinary things for others. But most of us? Most of us would sacrifice a lot for the people we love, but not really for strangers or big ideals. Not when the sacrifice in question is the death of not only you, but also the person you love most.

ryland grace + rising to the challenge