learning to fight

my tips:

cutting off just the neckline of a shirt/dress can help SO much

cutting slits on the sides of tight shirts helps relieve tightness + you can add an accent fabric, lace, or fishnet material under there for an extra design element (or safety pin it back together for a really cool punk look!)

you can do that same thing with sleeves but i recommend doing it underneath (either on the seem if it has one or to the seem that connects it to the shirt) 

adding false pleats to skirts/dresses by cutting them up the sides and in the front and adding an accent fabric works really well with tightness around the legs

 you can do a lot of these side-cut things to pants but if you do, it’s a good idea to add elastic to the waist band! 

tutorials:

4 ways to upsize shirts

how to refit/re-elastic a waistband for a better fit

more upsizing shirts!

making a lace insert dress (could be substituted for other things like mesh/fishnet)

increasing the waist band on jeans

how to enlargen shorts

expanding a dress (from the bottom)

also, for anyone who doesn't know, there's an entire form of abuse revolved around finance. it's a common factor in cases of domestic violence and elder abuse.

Oh hi, thank you! 

I’m a fan of Coping with Trauma-related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists by Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele and Onno Van Der Hart. They have decades of clinical experience, and support collaboration with dissociative parts of the personality.

Each chapter includes short educational pieces, homework sheets, and exercises. They teach: 

Learning to be Present exercises (basic grounding)

Developing and use Anchors in the present

Managing stress via relaxation exercises

Overcoming the phobia of inner experience

Learning to reflect on an inner experience 

Communicating with parts of yourself about current issues in daily life

Developing empathy toward a part of yourself

Accomplishing a common task or goal with the cooperation of your parts

Developing an inner sense of safety and a safe place

Building and using a sleep kit and bedtime routine

Developing a realistic and healthy daily/weekly routine

Mastering next level relaxation exercises

Developing and using a relaxation kit

Making a healthy change in physical self-care

Making a plan for improving an eating problem

Identifying and coping with triggers

Strategies for planning for Difficult Times

Identifying emotions

Strategies for coping with feeling too much and too little (distraction; containment; calming and soothing; orienting to the present; activity and mental stimulation; taking care of parts of yourself)

Learning about your window of tolerance

Identifying your negative core beliefs

Developing realistic and healthy core beliefs

Identifying your cognitive errors

Challenging your inaccurate thoughts or core beliefs

Identifying realistic and healthy beliefs

Understanding and coping with angry dissociative parts of yourself

Reflecting on your inner experience of fear

Coping with shame

Coping with guilt

Working with inner child parts of yourself

Understanding more about your self-harm

Working with a dissociative part that engages in self-harm

Developing an inner meeting space

Using decision making techniques

Finding inner common ground about relationships

Reflecting on your experience of secure and insecure relationships

Balancing auto- and relational regulation

Using conflict management skills

Resolving isolation and loneliness

Identifying inner conflicts that prevent assertiveness

Identifying your personal boundaries

Understanding personal space and optimal level of closeness and distance

Preparing to set boundaries in an upcoming situation

You can get the digital version for $17 on Amazon and read it on any device with a browser. It’s a very, very good place to start.

labels aren't always fixed things.

Here are some more “ambiguous” phrases which courts have found DO NOT invoke your right to a lawyer:

“Maybe I should speak to my lawyer first.”

“I might like a lawyer.”

“I think I should have a lawyer present for this.”

“Could I speak to my lawyer first?”

“How long until my lawyer gets here?”

And perhaps most egregiously – “Get me a lawyer, dawg – ‘cause this is not what’s up.”

Here are the magic phrases which you need to know if you want to invoke your Miranda rights:

1) “Am I free to leave?”

It’s worth asking this even if the answer is obvious. Even if the officer does not let you leave, by forcing them to admit that you are not free to leave, you are creating a record which your attorney can use to prove that you were in custody. Miranda rights only apply if the interrogation is custodial, meaning that police officers will frequently claim that their suspects were “not in custody” to get around their Miranda rights.

2) “I am invoking my right to remain silent.”

Simply staying silent will not invoke your right to remain silent. As absurd as this is, you must explicitly say that you are invoking your right to remain silent in order to invoke that right.

3) “I am invoking my right to an attorney.”

As stated above, you must be not only clear and unambiguous, but clear and legally unambiguous. Don’t get cute. Don’t get sassy. And on the flip side, don’t get intimidated and use verbal ticks to minimize your request. Say the line with those words exactly – say it clearly, and say it once, and then say nothing else.

Because even after you’ve done all this, the police can still try to get you to talk. They’re not supposed to interrogate you, but they’re allowed to make casual conversation, and if that conversation just happens to circle back around to the thing they wanted to question you about, well, that’s really your fault for talking after you said you wouldn’t, isn’t it? Can’t possibly fault the poor officers when you initiated – if you really wanted to have your rights respected, you wouldn’t have talked to them in the first place.

The police know this, and they will mercilessly exploit this loophole. So, once you’ve successfully invoked your Miranda rights, any and all conversation you have with police officers will put those rights back into jeopardy. 

Putting it all together:

Ask: “Am I free to leave?”

If they say no, say: “I am invoking my right to remain silent and I am invoking my right to an attorney.”

And then shut up and do not say a single thing to them for any reason whatsoever until you have actually spoken to an attorney. Yes, even if it takes hours. Yes, even if they start talking to you about something else.

Finally, a very important disclaimer:

Every single cop lies. Every single cop lies and manipulates and twists the situation around to get a confession. Even when they know that the person is innocent, even when they know that what they have isn’t enough to convict someone, even when they know that that confession has been made under duress or manipulation. All they care about is getting anything to put someone behind bars.

believe it or not, there are many people who are attracted to us and not despite our appearances, but because of our entirety as beings, which includes our size and style.

Just from personal experience I would recommend:

Finding some core aspects of the fixation that appeal to you; genre, character archetype, art style ect, and then actively do research on an intersectional/inclusive artist who creates similar content

Sometimes revisiting an old hyperfixation helps me transition away from a destructive one. Going back to a familiar media can be like a safety blanket while avoiding a toxic one.

Unfollow and leave the online communities of the toxic media. You don't have to cut people off (hell get their email and maybe you'll get to be better friends) but steeping in the same content with people who encourage it won't help you move on.

If you have a therapist or close friend who isn't invested in the fixation actively talk to them about the change you're making. Externalizing things helps make it feel real and even if you just mention that you're moving on it can help, they might even have suggestions!

For Autism Acceptance Month, I felt the urge to focus on Quinn’s terrible experience with a certain type of therapy that many autistic children were/are subjected to. For Quinn, this lead to masking, self harm, and overwhelming stress growing up. Because of her need to protect Claudette from this abuse, she was finally able to understand that her own autism wasn’t a bad thing and taught her daughter the same.

Misinformed and ablest societies are the reason why autistic people call for acceptance rather than awareness. We don’t need a cure, we need understanding and resources that actually help us rather than those that stigmatize and try to change us. 

Do not use the website called Sci-Hub!

It lets people access scientific articles for free. This is dangerous. It helps the free flow of knowledge and reduces the competitive edge of all the people who worked really hard to have been born into a wealth.

Like, it’s literally a website where you can type in the DOI of an article and read it, without ever having to pay the publisher who exploited the author.