Help a 9 people family, with elderly and kids. We have diabetics and disabled people.
Still waiting for a biopsy result to discard breast cancer and surgery to fix my MiL's herniated discs.
I have a tumor and multiple growths on my body, untreated. A mysterious pain on my foot that constantly makes it impossible to walk for long periods of time and both my gallbladder and liver need medication and a careful diet to work.
My partner suffers chronic pain and both of us have trouble finding jobs but we're responsible for our kids and his parents and sister after they lost everything in a house fire one year ago where his grandma perished.
We've been living in a house full of mold.
We don't have a computer or cellphones and logging in to beg for help means we had to use some money to rent a computer for a little while.
We've survived this long thanks to the generosity of strangers online🙇
We're both physically and mentally exhausted.
We still got food to last us until Monday/Tuesday and we paid a huge tab at the corner store because we really needed food.
We have been sleeping on one bed and recently the bed box broke down, we need a proper bed to better support my MiL who has 2 herniated discs.
We need to raise $990 to pay part of a debt and stop getting charges, get a proper bed, cellphones and make my healthcare monthly renewal that has saved my life many times!
The mold repairs to live in a clean safe space are $1,500 and growing as the humidity keeps growing and further affecting the house.
$121/$990
Pay•pal KoFi
I paint ceramic pots, make custom picture frames and charms/keychains.
*Food and medication will be prioritized.
Hope it's ok to tag, already running out of rental time and idk if I'll log in tomorrow or soon for that matter.
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It is true that the war has stopped, but the Israeli occupation fires daily from its machine guns towards us, as the bullets hit the walls and the ground. In addition to this, the crossings are closed and aid is prevented from entering. My family and I are suffering from bringing water, as it is difficult for us to obtain water in our area. Therefore, my friends, please help us and donate to us. Please donate.
leqaa kordia if deported back to the west bank is likely to just be handed into the custody of the idf. she doesn't have a green card, unlike khalil or another nationality. if ice actually succeeds at deporting her, columbia has actually sent a student to their death.
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This is so important! If this gets funded, a black woman will be at the forefront of the western 4b movement.
again, this is just a sample from what blocking radfems on this site actually looks like
at some point you have to stop leaning on just characterizing radfems as exclusively white. it's an abdication of even trying to parse transmisogynist movements like, case in point, 4b. and really, most of the time, it's part of a larger flattening of relations between cis woc and twoc, out of a combination of racialized transmisogyny, laziness, and innocence-chasing
the almond mom thing was all well and good as a critique of how mothers exacerbate insecurities in their daughters but if you're talking about your mom's eating alone rather than her trying to control your diet? that's..that's just an eating disorder and weird to portray as less concerning just because you're used to the disorder being associated with teens and not moms
Adrien Agreste and Borderline Personality Disorder
DISCLAIMER: I've been a bit low on spoons this week, so I haven't gathered as much evidence as I probably could have. Also, I am but a humble student in clinical psychology. This is mainly a thought compilation for @moonieratty!
To introduce the topic, without going into it too much, personality is described by features and behavioral patterns, or traits, consistent across situations and across time. Personality disorders are therefore enduring patterns of highly maladaptive traits evaluated in personal and sociocultural context (Dozois, 2019, p. 290).
Like other disorders, personality disorders have diagnostic criteria. The DSM is used primarily for diagnosis in the US and Canada while the ICD is used more widely in Europe and other places. I'm more familiar with the DSM, but I've included a brief section on the ICD to be comprehensive. It ended up a bit longer than anticipated, so let's go below the cut. Warning for discussions of abuse, self harm, and suicide, and a brief mention of substance use.
Overview of Borderline Personality Disorder
BPD is prevalent in a small percentage of the population, about 1-2% by varying estimates, and is characterized by instability across domains of emotions, identity, interpersonal relationships, and behavior. Its onset is usually in late adolescence or early adulthood and symptoms may diminish with age, after one's thirties or forties, especially with therapeutic intervention. Along with ASPD, it has been the focus of a lot of clinical research; it is unfortunately associated with high rates of non-suicidal self-injury and suicide (APA, 2022, pp. 754–755; Dozois, 2019, pp. 308–309).
Etiological factors for BPD include both biological and environmental disturbances. Of note to our discussion is the heightened risk for BPD in cases of child abuse or neglect, as well as growing up with another family member with a serious mental health condition (NHS, 2022). It's been well established that Gabriel is emotionally neglectful if not outright abusive toward Adrien in multiple ways, so this is a clear risk factor. In addition, although I won't argue definitively for Gabriel having a psychological condition, he did keep Emilie's body in the basement, so there is clearly some kind of disturbance going on.
From a cognitive-behavioral perspective, Linehan argues that BPD stems from families who consistently invalidate childhood emotional experiences and "oversimplify the ease with which life's problems can be solved," which may cause children to learn to seek attention and communicate with others through emotional outbursts (Dozois, 2019, p. 297). This rings true for Adrien and Gabriel as well.
I have to apologize for my son, Ladybug, he's like his mother. Way too overly dramatic. (Jackady)
It doesn't seem like this is the first time Gabriel has thought this, and labeling an emotional reaction as being overly dramatic is very much invalidation of it. As for emotional outbursts, Adrien has had quite a few, mostly as Chat Noir. More on this later.
To round out this first section, attachment theory proposes a connection between poor parent-child attachments and BPD relationship difficulties. Specifically, maladaptive behavior in relationships may stem from childhood development of an anxious-ambivalent attachment style, where intense fears of abandonment interfere with a strong desire for intimacy (Dozois, 2019, p. 310). You can clearly see this in Chat Noir's relationship with Ladybug, and I'm sure other people have discussed Adrien's attachment style more in depth, but suffice to say I think this is an apt description.
Argument from DSM-5-TR
In the DSM, personality disorders are primarily diagnosed on a categorical model. There are a few general criteria which I won't be going into, but I will highlight that personality disorders are stable and pervasive, and would be diagnosed only if they were leading to significant distress or dysfunction. Adrien's mental state is not great, so the latter shouldn't be a problem, but this show does not always pay attention to consistency, so I'm going to be speculating some. Everything in this section is cited to the relevant DSM entry unless otherwise stated.
The DSM characterizes BPD with instability in relationships, self image, and affects, as well as marked impulsivity. It has no exclusion criteria, so BPD can be and frequently is comorbid with other disorders like mood disorders, PTSD, and ADHD. Of the below criteria, five need to be met in order for a diagnosis to be made.
Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
Hey, where're you going? . . . So you're allowed to know her true identity, but I'm not? (Syren)
You're not really replacing me with a turtle, are you? (Anansi)
A lot of people have delved into Adrien's abandonment issues, which feature most prominently in his relationship with Ladybug. His fears of being replaced result in him seeking reassurance from Ladybug, and he can lash out if he does not receive the response he hopes for. Ladybug is his world, and he wants to be hers, so anything infringing on that feels to him like a threat of being abandoned, and he does not like it very much.
Impulsive behaviors like giving up his ring can be interpreted under this lens: he can avoid abandonment by doing the abandoning first. Then it will be him leaving, and not the other way around.
I also interpret Adrien's nightmare (Le Marchand de Sable) as being a fear of being alone as much as it is a fear of being trapped.
Unstable and intense interpersonal relationships alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation
We'll be united, more powerful and free. We'll defeat Hawk Moth, then we can both run away to an island! Far away from everything. We will live off nothing but fruits, and we will have a little pet hamster and we will name it— (Le Patineur)
I just can't do this anymore. I give up… on everything. Even you . . . If I become Chat Noir again, Ladybug will just end up rejecting me, over and over. (Kuro Neko)
Even though Adrien mostly keeps his head on straight regarding what he's owed and not owed by other people, his relationship with Ladybug is full of highs and lows. He thinks Ladybug is the most amazing girl, but this can recoil quickly into feeling as though Ladybug doesn't care about him enough or isn't meeting his needs.
Furthermore, he developed this idealization of Ladybug as a potential lover or caregiver at one of their first meetings (Cœur de Pierre), and continually sought to spend time together and share the intimate details of their secret identities early on. These are all common to individuals with BPD, as is the switch from idealization to feeling as if the other person "does not care enough, does not give enough, or is not 'there' enough." Ladybug is the only person Adrien consistently projects this instability and intensity on, which might be something interesting to explore.
Identity disturbance: unstable self image or sense of self
When I was a kid, I always wanted to be what my parents wanted me to be! (Exauceur)
But, does that mean Chat Noir is who I really am? Deep down inside? (Kuro Neko)
With all the secret identities, it isn't surprising that Adrien fits this criterion, but canon even explicitly draws a link between Adrien's unstable sense of self and his childhood experiences. He doesn't know who he is, and he distracts from this by being Chat Noir, only to struggle even more when he feels useless and underlooked as his hero self. His behavior shifts dramatically between trying to prove himself with grand gestures and refusing to participate or lashing out. There is definitely something to discuss on this front.
Impulsivity in at least two potentially self-damaging areas
Giving you some extra time . . . I trust you to bring me back, m'lady. (Gamer 2.0)
There are only two liars left in Paris and one of them knows the ultimate way to catch her attention . . . Crazy about you, m'lady. (Mensonge)
This is walking a thin line between impulsivity and suicidal behavior, which would be excluded from this criterion, but I'll list self sacrifice here because I can see an argument for Chat Noir's impulsive behaviors being out of love or the desire to be useful. There may still be some self injurious intent or euphoria, but Chat Noir does have faith in Ladybug to bring him back eventually. Nevertheless, this is impulsive and unhealthy. Chat Noir jumps too quickly to this option to have thought it through.
I can't think of another area, because Adrien isn't old enough for reckless driving, spending, substance use, or sex. This is also a kids' show. Just presenting these options for fanfiction writers out there.
Recurrent suicidal or self mutilating behavior, gestures, or threats
I... I don't know what to do! (Chat Blanc)
This is all our fault . . . Cataclysm. (Culpabysse)
By itself, what happened in Chat Blanc would not be solid evidence, as that was an unprecedentedly traumatic situation. Combined with Culpabysse, though, there is a strong case to be made for at least passive suicidality for this to be able to come up as an option.
You could also interpret the self sacrifice in this category. Suicidal behavior in individuals with BPD is often preempted by fears of rejection or abandonment, so an interesting analysis could be made on this front.
Affective instability due to marked reactivity of mood
He's still only thinking of himself! I just want this terrible day to be over and done with! I hate Christmas! (Pire Noël)
Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to make you so mad. I get it. You're sick of me . . . No one can help me, Kagami. (Glaciator 2)
Adrien's prolonged episodes of anger and despair reflect a high reactivity to emotional stressors, especially interpersonal ones. In general, he just doesn't feel very well unless something is actively bringing him joy. Most of his outbursts are brief, though, and I will discuss them as part of a later criterion.
Chronic feelings of emptiness
I'm not Adrien, so I wouldn't know if this is the case, but I can say he has experienced at least one depressive episode (Kuro Neko) and emptiness would not be unfamiliar. You can look at him and decide.
Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger
How was your amazing evening with your "friends"? . . . What do you think? (Glaciator)
Why not? No one'll know if I quit. No one'll care! (Syren)
A two-person plan?! There's only one two-person plan, and that's Ladybug and me! (Sentibulleur)
Give me a break, Miss "I can't even come up with a superhero name"! (Hack-San)
Anger in individuals with BPD can manifest as bitterness, sarcasm, or recurrent verbal outbursts, which Chat Noir absolutely exemplifies. These outbursts are often followed by feelings of shame or guilt and contribute to a feeling of being bad. Chat Noir apologizes after being harsh in Glaciator, and I wouldn't be surprised if he felt badly about the other times. Again, these outbursts are often precipitated by interpersonal fears and perceived threats of abandonment. Unlike other symptoms, this specific one tends to be unique to BPD.
Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociation
I cannot recall any evidence for this but headcanon away, my friends.
All in all, I think Adrien has a strong case for BPD presentation according to the DSM. Canon is not always consistent, but I think it presents an interesting and mostly coherent narrative for this lens. From this perspective, Adrien's behavior reflects a deep intolerance of being alone and a dependence on other people to define the self.
As a corollary, BPD behavioral patterns are frequently linked to self sabotage and self undermining right when a goal is about to be realized, which could manifest as dropping out of school right before graduating or ending a relationship when it seems to be going well. Food for thought. Individuals with BPD may also feel more secure with transitional objects like pets than with interpersonal relationships, which could reflect in Adrien's relationship with Plagg.
To add some subjective understanding to this clinical mumbo jumbo, I've added a source of genuine BPD experiences below (Mind, 2022).
Argument from ICD-11
With the release of the ICD-11, a dimensional model for diagnosis of personality disorders became the new standard. What this means is that individuals are no longer labeled as having 'histrionic' or 'dependent' or, indeed, 'borderline' personality disorders, but are rather assessed as having any form of personality disorder on a sliding scale of severity and with trait domain specifiers (Swales, 2022). To put it more simply, people are diagnosed only with a general personality disorder or personality difficulty which can be optionally specified as deviating on one of the personality traits in the Big Five model, which is well established in personality psychology.
This move has several benefits. Stigmatization related to particular personality disorders can be reduced, and differential diagnosis and comorbidity between personality disorders becomes irrelevant. However, people retain access to treatment and support. Evidence-based treatments like dialectical behavior therapy are particularly well established and crucial for BPD; for this pragmatic purpose, the ICD contains one additional specifier for borderline pattern personality disorder (Bach et al., 2022; Swales, 2022).
The DSM and ICD are designed to be compatible with each other in many ways, and in this case, the borderline specifier in the ICD is directly lifted from the criterion of the DSM (WHO, 2023, 6D11.5). Based on our previous discussion, Adrien would be equally qualified for a diagnosis in France. I would likely describe his personality disorder with moderate severity, where multiple areas of functioning are affected and self harming behaviors may be present, but not all areas or relationships may be equally impacted and traits are not as rigid and inflexible (WHO, 2023, 6D10.0–6D10.2).
Interestingly, the ICD includes three additional manifestations of borderline pattern which are optional and may vary across time (WHO, 2023, 6D11.5).
A view of the self as inadequate, bad, guilty, disgusting, and contemptible
An experience of the self as profoundly different and isolated from other people; a painful sense of alienation and pervasive loneliness
Proneness to rejection hypersensitivity; problems in establishing and maintaining appropriate levels of trust in relationships; frequent misinterpretation of social signals
I'm fascinated by the number of adjectives in here. I simplified very slightly, as I did with the DSM criteria, but I had to keep all these adjectives. Anyway, I won't elaborate for too many more paragraphs, so let's say sentimonster moment and leave it at that. I will spare you my mirrored Félix essay. For now.
Qualifications and Limitations
First of all, Adrien is a teenager. The distinguishing factor between a personality disorder and regular adolescent difficulties would be longevity and identity concerns beyond his developmental phase (APA, 2022, p. 758). Second of all, Adrien has a uniquely terrible home life and magical problems. Some of his behaviors could be normal considering his experiences and sociocultural context, and this matters when it comes to psychological evaluation. Take everything with a grain of salt!
More generally, the categorical model of the DSM has several issues, not to mention diagnostic issues related to culture, gender, and stigma. Some but not all of these issues are addressed by the dimensional model it includes in a later section, which shares theoretical foundations with the model of personality disorders in the ICD. Even so, issues remain. Diagnosis, access to treatment, and political statements are intrinsically linked in complex ways. I won't get into all of the nuances, but be safe, remember this is a fictional character, and keep an open mind.
REFERENCES:
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787
Bach, B., Kramer, U., Doering, S., di Giacomo, E., Hutsebaut, J., Kaera, A., De Panfilis, C., Schmahl, C., Swales, M., Taubner, S., & Renneberg, B. (2022). The ICD-11 classification of personality disorders: A European perspective on challenges and opportunities. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-022-00182-0
Dozois, D. J. A. (2019). Abnormal psychology: Perspectives (6th ed.). Pearson.
Mind. (2022, September). What does BPD feel like? https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/borderline-personality-disorder-bpd/experiences-of-bpd/
National Health Service. (2022, November 4). Causes - Borderline personality disorder. https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/causes/
Swales, M. A. (2022). Personality disorder diagnoses in ICD-11: Transforming conceptualisations and practice. Clinical Psychology in Europe, 4(Special Issue). https://doi.org/10.32872/cpe.9635
World Health Organization. (2023). International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (11th ed.). https://icd.who.int/
This is my very niche pet peeve as an Iraqi but I hate it when Americans talk about the way US has destroyed and continues to destroy the Arab world in what I assume is a good faith attempt empathize….. bc they’re always like “bc of the us iraq is now reduced to DIRT AND RUBBLE” “do you see how the people back there live…….” Like I can tell it’s just their softcore way of referring to Arabs (or maybe Iraqis specifically because the US has a very weird relationship w Iraq for obvious reasons) as Neanderthals but they blame the US for it so now it’s okay
And the reason I’ve kind of removed myself from online spaces talking about this stuff for a minute (save for my mutuals whom I trust w my life) is I am tired of playing into this circlejerk where clearly most people haven’t spoken to an Arab person in real life at all and even in attempting to help them it comes across as disingenuous
this is a perfect example of what I mean btw ……. Not Yemeni people being bombed to death by your white supremacist president but you still think highlighting a white soldier savior figure is the most pertinent thing to do rn
Omg my other least favorite thing in the world is when people discuss Iraqi atrocities on here thinking they’re shedding light on it, but they do so in a way that makes it seem like Iraqis have gone extinct?? Or is basically borderline non functional as a country???? Like in their minds it’s just an ashen crater????? Like noooo there’s still civilization there lol go read about it! And make some Iraqi friends bc this is just lazy
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Bill Gates is quietly ending his green energy policy and advocacy organization, laying off employees throughout the US and Europe.
Obviously billionaire pro-environmentalism was a smokescreen but it's nonetheless unsettling seeing them take the mask off so blatantly. They see ego and reputation as less of a priority which means they feel their position is less stable, but that doesn't mean they're "losing", it means they'll clamp down harder to win
I'll be going in for my first treatment soon! Thanks so much to everyone who got me this far.
Hopefully the goal total will shift down after talks with this new practitioner, as this estimate is from the last one I consulted with who sucked big time.
So, the new place won't give me a total quote, just per session prices, I got 2 & a half free sessions. At 90$/session that puts me ahead and extra 225$ towards my goal as my first paid session is next Friday. Please help me afford this, electrolysis is one of those procedures that's difficult to get back into if you need to stop before it's done.
Turns out this is going to be 90$/hour, not 90$ per session, so while that increases the value of the 2 & a half free session I got to 675$ (yippee) that also means my per session cost budget has almost tripled once taxes are taken into account (🔫). The remaining 360$ that represents the money I've actually raised over the years barely got me through the first paid session today.
My original plan of doing a session per week to get this done as planned is going to end up at ~900$/month to keep up the pace and ensure getting permanent removal. On disability that's an impossibility even without considering my other costs of living. At this point I'm looking at options; private insurance costs, lowering my sessions per month, eating disorder relapse, etc to save money, in the meantime I would really appreciate any help folks can offer.
I'll be going in for my first treatment soon! Thanks so much to everyone who got me this far.
Hopefully the goal total will shift down after talks with this new practitioner, as this estimate is from the last one I consulted with who sucked big time.
So, the new place won't give me a total quote, just per session prices, I got 2 & a half free sessions. At 90$/session that puts me ahead and extra 225$ towards my goal as my first paid session is next Friday. Please help me afford this, electrolysis is one of those procedures that's difficult to get back into if you need to stop before it's done.
Turns out this is going to be 90$/hour, not 90$ per session, so while that increases the value of the 2 & a half free session I got to 675$ (yippee) that also means my per session cost budget has almost tripled once taxes are taken into account (🔫). The remaining 360$ that represents the money I've actually raised over the years barely got me through the first paid session today.
My original plan of doing a session per week to get this done as planned is going to end up at ~900$/month to keep up the pace and ensure getting permanent removal. On disability that's an impossibility even without considering my other costs of living. At this point I'm looking at options; private insurance costs, lowering my sessions per month, eating disorder relapse, etc to save money, in the meantime I would really appreciate any help folks can offer.
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Hello!
Was wondering if you know of any good sources or general arguments to use when people claim things like the minsk agreement was never about russia helping the people of donbass and the lpr. I know largely this is unfortunately one of those conversations, where if people are already deciding to deny the actions of ukraine in the dpr and lpr it may be useless but I do think it'd be useful for me to know regardless in the event someone actually decides to listen
This might sound defeatist given that I spend a great deal of time trying to communicate things of that nature to fence-sitters, but if someone is so instinctively anti-Russia that they perceive even clear attempts at de-escalation which would've ensured the people of the DPR and LPR retained their sovereignty and democratic rights alongside a cessation of the violence as some inherently untrustworthy and duplicitous act, then they are frankly too far gone to reel back in.
Like the terms of the Minsk agreements are not a secret. You can argue about much regarding them, but not about the fact that they clearly prioritise the safety and sovereignty of donchane people. So my most honest answer is that there is probably literally nothing you can say that will move someone who is already familiar with Minsk yet nonetheless chooses to believe Russia had 0 intention of helping the Russian-speaking minority in the border regions and was actually the bad-faith actor in this equation. Ultimately someone like that is not animated by some great love or empathy for Ukraine, they’re animated by a deep-seated hatred and distrust of Russia, first and foremost. You cannot easily reason someone out of what is essentially racism, prejudice is not housed in the chamber of the mind governed by reason. You can sway them on many things. You can waver their support for the Maidanist Ukrainian regime. With enough evidence you might even get them to begrudgingly acknowledge that a genocide is taking place in Donbass(<- immensely difficult, but not impossible). But it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it would be to convince them that Russia is not forever and always acting in evil, subversive ways for evil, subversive self-serving ends. And if those are the terms of the discussion it will always be fruitless imo.
But if you wanna try nonetheless it’s good to keep in mind that what they're usually actually asking you to do is prove something that is ultimately impossible to prove: the purity of a state’s motivations. Like. Unless you can just... call Vladimir Putin up and have him personally relay to us his innermost thoughts at the time while twirling the phone cable and kicking his feeties, if we’re talking intentions we’re all just making inferences at the end of the day. The heart is the domain of Allah, not I, nor you. You cannot intuit intentions, and I don’t have vovochka’s number :(
What we can instead look at(and redirect them to) is what was materially taking place;
Millions of people in the Donbass region rejected the post-Maidan order and organised politically around demands for autonomy, federalisation, or outright independence from Kiev. And that opposition was not unfounded or unprovoked. For people in the east things like the massacre of activists in Odessa+the growing influence and acceptance of open fascists+the increasingly genocidal rhetoric toward Russian-speaking populations by those in power, to name a few, were taken as clear signs of what the new western-aligned political order had in store for them.
Like The DPR and LPR were not beamed down from the Kremlin one morning fully formed like Aphrodite from the sea foam. They emerged from a real political constituency with real grievances and fears and had real popular support. And the new Ukrainian government’s answer to that popular demand for sovereignty was military force; eight years of genocidal warfare, shelling, and displacement aimed at destroying a population that had made it very clear it no longer consented to being governed by the new regime.
So when people try to frame the conflict as though it began and escalated alone with Russian interference, they’re hoping u will just sidestep the accounts and fears and political aspirations of the millions of people who actually live in Donbass and whose, again, popular support made the republics even possible in the first place. That’s why the burden is always on proving Russia's ‘sincerity.’ Because if it was on explaining away the existence of a population that spent years resisting the post-Maidan Ukrainian state and were routinely violently denied their sovereignty, they would sound ghoulish. Because it is a ghoulish position to defend.
Like my support for the DPR and LPR, for the sovereignty of the people of Donbass, and for Russia’s role does not hinge on my believing that Russia is somehow the one state in the world that never acts according to its interests, because it isn’t and even if it was it would be impossible to prove. It hinges on the fact that there comes a point where u have to decide whether self-determination is a universal principle or one that only applies to populations whose humanity has been cosigned by the west+the fact Russia, regardless of intentions, was the only major state actor in this conflict materially supporting the people of Donbass while NATO states armed and politically backed the far-right regime massacring them.
As for Minsk, the terms of the agreements were literally structured around guarantees of Donbass’s autonomy, self-government, amnesty for resistance fighters, right to elections, constitutional reform, and a cessation of violence. Like I’d imagine it would be very difficult to argue that Donbass was an afterthought in an agreement whose central premise is very obvious upon reading was about resolving the status of Donbass😭
But for what it’s worth, I actually agree that Minsk was never intended to be implemented in good faith. Just not because of Russia. Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande straight up admitted afterwards that the agreements largely served as a ploy to buy time for Ukraine to strengthen itself militarily.
Hello!
Was wondering if you know of any good sources or general arguments to use when people claim things like the minsk agreement was never about russia helping the people of donbass and the lpr. I know largely this is unfortunately one of those conversations, where if people are already deciding to deny the actions of ukraine in the dpr and lpr it may be useless but I do think it'd be useful for me to know regardless in the event someone actually decides to listen
This might sound defeatist given that I spend a great deal of time trying to communicate things of that nature to fence-sitters, but if someone is so instinctively anti-Russia that they perceive even clear attempts at de-escalation which would've ensured the people of the DPR and LPR retained their sovereignty and democratic rights alongside a cessation of the violence as some inherently untrustworthy and duplicitous act, then they are frankly too far gone to reel back in.
Like the terms of the Minsk agreements are not a secret. You can argue about much regarding them, but not about the fact that they clearly prioritise the safety and sovereignty of donchane people. So my most honest answer is that there is probably literally nothing you can say that will move someone who is already familiar with Minsk yet nonetheless chooses to believe Russia had 0 intention of helping the Russian-speaking minority in the border regions and was actually the bad-faith actor in this equation. Ultimately someone like that is not animated by some great love or empathy for Ukraine, they’re animated by a deep-seated hatred and distrust of Russia, first and foremost. You cannot easily reason someone out of what is essentially racism, prejudice is not housed in the chamber of the mind governed by reason. You can sway them on many things. You can waver their support for the Maidanist Ukrainian regime. With enough evidence you might even get them to begrudgingly acknowledge that a genocide is taking place in Donbass(<- immensely difficult, but not impossible). But it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it would be to convince them that Russia is not forever and always acting in evil, subversive ways for evil, subversive self-serving ends. And if those are the terms of the discussion it will always be fruitless imo.
But if you wanna try nonetheless it’s good to keep in mind that what they're usually actually asking you to do is prove something that is ultimately impossible to prove: the purity of a state’s motivations. Like. Unless you can just... call Vladimir Putin up and have him personally relay to us his innermost thoughts at the time while twirling the phone cable and kicking his feeties, if we’re talking intentions we’re all just making inferences at the end of the day. The heart is the domain of Allah, not I, nor you. You cannot intuit intentions, and I don’t have vovochka’s number :(
What we can instead look at(and redirect them to) is what was materially taking place;
Millions of people in the Donbass region rejected the post-Maidan order and organised politically around demands for autonomy, federalisation, or outright independence from Kiev. And that opposition was not unfounded or unprovoked. For people in the east things like the massacre of activists in Odessa+the growing influence and acceptance of open fascists+the increasingly genocidal rhetoric toward Russian-speaking populations by those in power, to name a few, were taken as clear signs of what the new western-aligned political order had in store for them.
Like The DPR and LPR were not beamed down from the Kremlin one morning fully formed like Aphrodite from the sea foam. They emerged from a real political constituency with real grievances and fears and had real popular support. And the new Ukrainian government’s answer to that popular demand for sovereignty was military force; eight years of genocidal warfare, shelling, and displacement aimed at destroying a population that had made it very clear it no longer consented to being governed by the new regime.
So when people try to frame the conflict as though it began and escalated alone with Russian interference, they’re hoping u will just sidestep the accounts and fears and political aspirations of the millions of people who actually live in Donbass and whose, again, popular support made the republics even possible in the first place. That’s why the burden is always on proving Russia's ‘sincerity.’ Because if it was on explaining away the existence of a population that spent years resisting the post-Maidan Ukrainian state and were routinely violently denied their sovereignty, they would sound ghoulish. Because it is a ghoulish position to defend.
Like my support for the DPR and LPR, for the sovereignty of the people of Donbass, and for Russia’s role does not hinge on my believing that Russia is somehow the one state in the world that never acts according to its interests, because it isn’t and even if it was it would be impossible to prove. It hinges on the fact that there comes a point where u have to decide whether self-determination is a universal principle or one that only applies to populations whose humanity has been cosigned by the west+the fact Russia, regardless of intentions, was the only major state actor in this conflict materially supporting the people of Donbass while NATO states armed and politically backed the far-right regime massacring them.
As for Minsk, the terms of the agreements were literally structured around guarantees of Donbass’s autonomy, self-government, amnesty for resistance fighters, right to elections, constitutional reform, and a cessation of violence. Like I’d imagine it would be very difficult to argue that Donbass was an afterthought in an agreement whose central premise is very obvious upon reading was about resolving the status of Donbass😭
But for what it’s worth, I actually agree that Minsk was never intended to be implemented in good faith. Just not because of Russia. Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande straight up admitted afterwards that the agreements largely served as a ploy to buy time for Ukraine to strengthen itself militarily.
