Live with intent.

“But it’s confusing!” If you take the time to educate yourself it’ll no longer be confusing. Otherwise you’re just gonna have to learn to be ok with being confused.

“But it’s weird!” You probably do weird things all the time. Everyone does weird things sometimes. Life goes on.

“But it scares me!” Is it hurting you? No? You’ll be fine. Being scared and being harmed are not always the same thing. Learn to tell the difference and then act accordingly.

"But it makes me uncomfortable!" The world is an uncomfortable place and complete strangers are not required to fix that for you. Learning to endure harmless discomfort is a life skill for existing in public.

"But I don't like it!" There's plenty of things in the world and not all of them are fun or enjoyable or For You. This applies to everyone and we all have to deal with that in a mature fashion.

I work hard not to publicly talk negative about my alters or their past decisions, or to separate myself from our past actions, as I'm trying to lower dissociative barriers, not heighten them.

I value the efforts my system goes to to protect itself, even (perhaps especially) if all actions aren't ones I'd have taken.

etc, etc...

And I was thinking about all of this, and I realised I was describing the process of integration.

I work hard not to publicly talk negative about my alters or their past decisions, or to separate myself from our past actions, as I'm trying to lower dissociative barriers, not heighten them.

I value the efforts my system goes to to protect itself, even (perhaps especially) if all actions aren't ones I'd have taken.

etc, etc...

And I was thinking about all of this, and I realised I was describing the process of integration.

You must be saying, but that is just a regular rooster.

WRONG

At this point you’re probably sweating, maybe shaking and crying saying, surely that child is just short, but again you’d be

WRONG

but then it keeps coming

when i asked whether their autistic classmate's meltdown was dangerous or merely uncomfortable, they said, "i felt like i was in danger!"

yes you should, actually. that's life. upsetting things happen. no one should have to experience any discomfort. but we do. we get stung by bees and sunburns and headaches. we live in bodies in the world.

autistic people are human beings who have the right to exist in society, including during meltdowns. having one class of your entire semester interrupted by a singular meltdown is not anymore of an infringement upon your entitlement to education than having your class interrupted by a fire alarm or cancelled for a snow storm.

one of my peers once experienced a cardiac event 10 minutes into class. it was terrifying. it was desperately upsetting. i was contacted by the school and offered counseling afterward because i happened to be the one who managed the situation until paramedics arrived. no one should have to experience their classmate being hauled off in an ambulance, but it happens. everyone was worried about my classmate first and foremost, and then about me. no one blamed anyone, and certainly when my classmate happily recovered and returned to school, no one thought they should be removed from the program.

this is just “boys will be boys” used to defend misogynistic behavior under the assumption it’s biological and not a choice resulting from misogyny never being socially punished, but with a coat of paint on it to sound woke

socialized behavior argument aside i just also do not think this is true beyond shitheads who are obviously not representative of the general population. some boys just had good parents idk what to tell you

Like, on top of what OP is saying, I feel like people take misogynists at their word about their desires way too much. I would say its not just that misogyny isn't socially punished, but that misogyny and toxic masculinity are the only conceptual tools many cis boys & men have to make sense of their internal and external experiences.

There are a lot of cis men who would insist they just want to get laid and engage in sexual objectification of people they see as women, who do have genuinely negatively feelings towards women, while also having genuine desires for connection and emotional fulfillment that they are processing through a deeply patriarchal worldview, which is constantly reaffirmed by their environment as the only real way to see the world and the only meaningful way to navigate their experiences.

Which is not to say that cis boys treating people they see as women as disposable sexual objects doesn't happen or doesn't matter. But the idea that if you have any more internal depth to how you view yourself and your relationship with sexuality in the privacy of your own mind, that makes you fundamentally different than all the cis boys who "just see women as fleshlights" obscures how this kind of behavior and perception of others actually arises.

Happy international wolf day! 🐺 Here's a few favorite wolf art pieces I've made the past few years. AWOOOO!