And growing up we lived an hour plus from shopping and had not a lot of money — our shopping trips tended to be “until the clothing requirements are met”. And honestly there’s a point of exhaustion and misery where I’ll lie to myself and say requirements are met by a piece of clothing so I can leave.

Also my mom noticed this and took advantage of it — and even into adulthood would push me into overwhelm so that I’d be more biddable about choosing clothing. She explained this one weird trick to get her daughter to buy socks to my spouse, who was like “hey what the fuck?” and then repeated it to me when I was not overwhelmed. “Oh!” I thought, “that explains things!” and then donated about 65% of my wardrobe that I hated but felt guilty about not wearing.

Also I stopped clothes shopping with my mom.

Anyway! Here’s my tip for clothes shopping with like significant overwhelm issues and sensory issues and a human body and probably some trauma don’t worry about it.

Sit outside the store, think about the clothing item you’d like to buy. Set minimum standards for the item: comfort, price, appearance, quality. (Don’t sacrifice on comfort! Do prepare a generous fallback for the other options.) Set a timer for a short period of time: I usually do twenty minutes. Walk into the store, navigate directly to the appropriate area, identify several items that meet the minimum standards*. Try those items on, pick the most comfortable one.

*if there are no items that meet minimum standards leave the store, armed with additional knowledge, and either go to a different store OR stand outside and recalibrate standards. Do not recalibrate inside the store.

If at any time the alarm goes off, get up and exit the store. Check in with yourself after five-ten minutes outside about your ability to go back in. If you can’t: hey you have valuable market data! If you can: set the timer. Put five minutes less on the timer. Back inside.

After the female body recovers from her starvation, there is a distinct possibility that she will never be able to get pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term. Even if she is able to, this process will likely be far more difficult and unlikely than it would typically be.

These facts directly dispute the oft repeated claim that a woman's biological purpose is to reproduce. When given the choice between survival and reproduction, the female body chooses, time and time again, survival. Reproduction is not prioritized in the slightest; in fact, it is often the very first bodily function to be shut down--literally deemed the least important part of a woman's body. And this choice of survival--the prioritization of the heart, the lungs, the bones--over the reproductive system is not even to the purpose of allowing a woman to reproduce later in life; no, the reproductive system is at the very least damaged, if not debilitated for the rest of the woman's life.

If the female body, as so many claim, was biologically "meant" to first and foremost reproduce, perhaps it would choose to increase libido and prioritize the reproductive system in order to let the woman birth a descendant before ultimately dying. This is not what the female body does. The female body itself declares that its own life, not that of which it could create, is the most important, that the female body, alive, is worthy even if it never passes its genes on. The female body declares that it is not alive only to further humanity, to reproduce and then die, but instead to live; to live its own life, following the desires of the woman in command of it and no one else.

it was only within the past few months that i got to a point where i was like okay, this is reasonable. they’re not EASY, but if i pace myself i can take the stairs all at once without gasping for air. that’s not too bad. there’s room for improvement and i still get a little winded but that’s a reasonable amount of tired to be, i reckoned, it’s one staircase but it’s kind of a long staircase. i’d always known it was kinda long.

except i recently found out i was underselling it a bit, there. turns out it’s a VERY long staircase. it’s ‘appears in tour guides and news articles’ long, actually. it’s ’annual citywide step challenge event’ long. it’s ’i can’t tell you the number of steps without doxxing myself’ long. and for almost a year i had no idea, because it’s nearby and not very fancy looking and i thought it was just Some Stairs and i was really badly out of shape. but no, i’ve accidentally been doing insane superhell cardio this whole time. i’m pretty sure i’m currently in better shape than i was running cross country in high school. the big hill by my parents’ house feels like flat ground to me now.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

This is because you hold the belief that eating disorders “work”

And it indicates that maybe you have a disordered relationship with bodies

If you think that body hair on women is unattractive and a burden

This is because your brain defaults to what you have been told is attractive and good enough

And indicates that your beliefs on beauty belong to somebody else

If you are stuck in a cycle of negative beliefs about your self worth and self esteem

This is because you live in a world that has convinced you that self-policing is the only path to emotional safety

And it indicates that you feel self-sabotage is the only path to self-control

Our biases often reveal aspects of patriarchial conditioning

And it is deep and necessary feminist work to recondition your brain

Root out what is not native to you, weed the garden of your mind

Because those invasive species are destroying your natural ecosystem

It’s worth living in a world where you have compassion for yourself,

because if you want compassion for billions of women who are not like you

You should start with compassion for the one who is exactly like you

And if you can unravel the ropes that hold you down

When another woman struggles, you can tell her: “Sister, don’t be scared,