B.Yellowtail --- jewlery, clothing, and home goods designed by Bethany Yellowtail, citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation and from the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation

Cheekbone Beauty --- sustainable, low-waste beauty products from Jenn Harper, an Anishinaabe artist based in Canada

Trickster --- atheletic products from Tlingit and Deg Hit’an Athabascan siblings (Alaska)

NativeHumboldt on Etsy --- the artist, Shayna McCullough, and their fiancé make designs inspired by traditional designs from their culture; she is from the Yurok tribe and descended from the Hupa, Karuk, Redwood Creek, Pit River, Yuki, Wintun, Pomo (tribes in California), and Chetco tribe (in Oregon)

OklahomaThirtyNine on Etsy --- they mostly sell beaded work, particularly earrings, as well as some necklaces

xBeadsByMandyx on Etsy --- handmade beaded earrings, from a Cherokee veteran

food products, from wine to sauces to teas to mixes to fish to jerky and nuts, sorted by store with details beside each store

Plus they're warm as hell and the sheepskin lining means I don't have to wear socks, which is extremely nice sensory comfort. So that's nice as well.

image is one of my favourite blankets from Eighth Generation

Beam Paints --- watercolour paints by Anong Migwans Bean, M'Chigeeng First Nation (located in Ontario), who was taught to harvest pigments by their parents ((recommended by @airbenderinalbion))

Beyond Buckskin --- created by Jessica Metcalfe, who is Turtle Mountian Chippewa, they feature and sell works such as moccasins, jewelry, clothing, and blankets from over 40 artists --- featured is a beaded Yakima Plateau bag ((recommended by @sassytail))

Haipažaža Pĥežuta --- a couple, Lakota and Dakota, from Ocheti Sakowin Tha Makhoche (Sioux Nation) who make soaps, shampoo bars, bath and body products, salves, & more herbal products, incorporating traditional knowledge and using minimal packaging + natural ingredients ((recommended by @wittywallflower))

Sequoia Soaps --- soaps, candles, lotions, body mists and body scrubs, founded by Michaelee Lazore, who is Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) from Akwesáhsne and Northern Paiute (in Nevada) ((recommended by @trialofasphodel))

Only Child Handicrafts --- beadwork created by a 30-year-old beadworker, which they learned while growing up near the Great Lakes from the Anishinaabe; their paternal family is Ojibwe from Fort William First Nation & their patterns are both based on traditional patterns & contemporary ((recommended by @fruityshirts))

Sage & Oats Trading Post --- based in Montana, but selling products from native artists across the country, including beadwork, candles, foodstuffs, books, textiles, jewelry, & so much more ((recommended by @samwisegamgeeee))

Sea Wisdom Design --- jewelry by łlilawikw ("gatherer of the people"), who is Kwakwaka’wakw, from the Pacific Northwest, whose beautiful historical designs are featured in her art ((recommended by @fruityshirts))

Thunderbird Skin --- skincare made Mooretown Rancheria Maidu women from Northern California, who now live in the UK. they also make products specifically for eczema & psoriasis & have trial sizes of nearly all their products ((recommended by @a-wild-haggis))

Mistahiminis Beadwork --- beautiful art, beaded earrings & embroidery works & sewn bags, made by a nonbinary Nehiyawak (Cree) beadworker in Canada ((recommended by @thymeforeverything))

Choke Cherry Creek --- clothing created by Angela Ikūalasaash ("persistence"), a Apsáalooke (Crow) & Pikuni (Blackfeet) woman who incorporates symbols from her heritage into her work ((recommended by @alcidesire))

Good Medicine Clothing --- an Apsáalooke-owned (Crow Nation) clothing store, founded by a Native American dancer & hip hop artist (his music links here) ((recommended by @alcidesire))

The Wandering Bull --- they carry a huge variety of pow-wow supplies & whatever anyone might need to make their own pieces ((recommended by @lugarn))

Medicine Man Crafts --- goods made by people on/near the Eastern band Tsalagi Nation (Cherokee), such as traditional baskets & jewelry, craft supplies, masks & pottery, & so much more ((recommended by @lugarn))

Clark looks up from his computer at the new intern. “Oh, no,” he says. “You caught me.”

“Clark, you pull this shit every time, man,” his desk neighbor Steve says. “Shut the fuck up.”

“No, the kid’s right, I’m Superman,” Clark says. He gets out of his seat and cracks his back out. “I guess we’re gonna have a superhero fight.”

“Clark, sit back down.”

“Nope. Superhero fight.”

“Clark if you don’t sit the hell back down and finish your article by lunch I am going to tell Perry on you.”

Clark points at the intern. “You get off easy this time, buddy,” he says, and sits back down. 

“So…” the intern says, very lost. “Uh…”

Intern: “Ahahahah Superman in Kansas tilling the fields at superspeed, that’s a good one. What, if the tractor breaks down, do you just pick it up and take it back to the barn?”

Clark: “Nah, between my ex-ray vision and my heat vision I can generally find whatever the problem is and do a spotweld if necessary so long as I know where to get the parts - once had to nip over to South Korea because I didn’t want to wait 6 weeks for the ship to get there.”

Intern: “Bahahaha classic, Clark you are so funny! Superman fixing tractors with his heat vision, oh that’s a good one.”

a lot of my ritual behaviors are "checking"

self-guided ocd exposure therapy can be as simple as resisting the urge to check if your door is locked more than once and sitting with the discomfort until it passes without engaging in any reassurance rituals.

it can look like sending an email and resisting the urge to re-read it over and over again obsessing over your wording, sitting with the discomfort until it passes without engaging in any reassurance rituals.

some of my rituals are also "avoidance"

in which case it can look like checking your email inbox you've been obsessively avoiding because you're anxious about receiving a specific email you don't want to see.

and YEP! ☝️

!!!

it might be hard to believe, but learning distress tolerance for things like "checking" with emails and door locks actually prepared me for the Big Ones like harm and sexual OCD themes.

I think this article from 2007 is a good introduction to the basic concepts of exposures:

that SAID, a lot has changed since 2007! the idea that exposure therapy can (or even should) prevent fears from every happening has come into question!

now the conversation about OCD exposure has turned to training distress tolerance:

...rather than aiming for the decline of anxiety (habituation) during exposure, the inhibitory learning approach to ERP teaches people how to be open-minded toward experiencing anxiety and fear when these experiences inevitably show up. Indeed, fear and anxiety (and other emotions in OCD such as disgust or guilt) are universal and even adaptive experiences, not something that need to be “fixed” or gotten rid of. Most importantly, even if they can be unwanted, intense, and distressing, these emotions and thoughts are safe. From an inhibitory learning perspective, fear extinction (and long-term improvement in OCD) depends not only on learning that feared stimuli are safe, but that it is also safe to experience the emotional response that is triggered by these stimuli.

And remember at the end of the day I AM NOT a specialist. I am discussing my own OCD journey and referencing the available material on OCD exposures.

I'm not always right, and I can't know what's best for you.

Which is why I haven't recommended any of the old workbooks I've completed, because some of them are old enough that there are better ones to follow that I haven't gotten to trying yet!

I recommend doing your own reading from OCD-aware organizations:

the city of los angeles

the city of new york

sex

how drinking alcohol works

how getting high works

how a child of any age speaks

how nuclear physics work

how [my job] works

how debilitating being shot in the shoulder is

how hypothermia works

things I have never before seen someone fake their way through writing about, until today:

SHRIMP COCKTAIL:

banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol

generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is

#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro

And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!

POMEGRANATES:

zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple

thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute

sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.

FRUIT TREES:

zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''

salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE

baander: #cranberry trees

DOUGH/BATTER:

maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre

livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles

lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY

Some other topics:

Excellent update on year 2 of this program:

Sure, people complain. Rich people are always going to complain about taxes. But they never flee the way they threaten to, largely because whether or not they like to admit it, they prefer to live in the kinds of areas where things are made nicer by the taxes they don’t want to pay.

BISEXUALS GROW FROM THE GROUND