heihua smut pioneer, jin guangyao apologist, monster theorist. manager of the international support helpline for those victimised by baron chen's cleavage. call today - you may be entitled to compensation.
Man when I was growing up and dealing with my undiagnosed, unmedicated ADHD and having the worst time, my parents would say, “If you can’t do this now, how are you going to handle being an adult?” all. the. fucking. time.
But all of my problems are actually so fixable.
My mom is out of town and asked me to take out her trash. I forgot. And when I remembered I had two seconds of freaking out before I put together a plan: I got two big plastic boxes, loaded her trash into the trunk of my car, and threw it out in my apartment complex’s dumpster. The only bad thing that happened is I had a small leak into one of the boxes, and I’ve already got that soaking with bleach in my tub. FIXING my terrible ADHD mistake took less effort than doing it properly and you are the only people who will know.
But nooooo when I was a kid it was always ~do it right the first time exactly how we expect or it can’t be done at all~. No fucking wonder I’m a mess of an adult now.
And can we talk about how “how are you going to handle being an adult?” encourages suicidal ideation as well? Bc holy FUCK
The fact is, if no one teaches you these coping strategies, if no one encourages your creativity and problem-solving, you WILL suffer as an adult - but that’s still not your fault.
SO many ADHD kids that go undiagnosed because they’re “gifted” or fly under the radar crash and burn in college. So many crash and burn trying to hold down a stable job.
This isn’t mean to be doom and gloom, it’s meant as an admonishment to parents and teachers and administrators and therapists and all other adults: if you see a child who is struggling and you do not give them coping techniques; if you do not teach them a different way to accomplish the task, or if you don’t encourage them to think up ways that work for them, you are setting that child up for failure.
I’ve had to do so much work just to stay afloat as an ADHD adult. It’s hard. Sometimes it feels impossibly hard. But I just keep trying to stick with the tricks I know work; to try out new ones, and if something is novel and works for a bit, great!! If the novelty wears off and the coping technique stops working, that’s normal for ADHD too. You are not FAILING if the thing that worked for two weeks suddenly isn’t working anymore. We thrive off novelty, period.
Some of the techniques will stick, I promise.
My parents spent years and years trying to teach me to keep track of my keys with shame.
Never. Fucking. Worked.
I’d do shit like walk around the neighborhood for two hours in winter rather than admit that my keys were lost again. And even when I could keep track of my keys, it was a constant drain of executive function points that I could have been spending on things like homework.
My husband hung little key hooks by the front door, and it worked instantly. Not 100% effective, but like 99% effective. And when my keys do get lost, instead of blaming myself, I stop and think about why the system broke and how I might need to modify it. Oh, there was snow, and dealing with boots and other outerwear distracted me as I came in the door? Yeah, that might happen. How do I incorporate key hanging into the process of wet boot removal?
as someone without ADHD but who lives with someone with ADHD who has in turn experienced all the constant parental shaming we’re talking about, the things he’s most terrified of doing or thinks i’ll get mad at him for are actually not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.
scared to use the oven in case he forgets to turn it off: ovens can stay on for a while. i’m never gone so long i wouldn’t notice and turn it off myself.
scared to forget to lock the door: who cares? we don’t have anything valuable anyone would want to steal, and they did, a locked door wouldn’t stop them.
scared to park in the garage in case he hits either wall and damages the property: yeah that would definitely suck but 1) he’ll get a scratch on his car, whoopdeedo, and 2) a garage door can be fixed. it might cost money but whatever. mistakes happen. all you can do is fix them.
scared to forget his laundry in the washer (which he’s done several times now): just wash it again.
scared to forget his meds before work: i bought him a little med bottle for his keychain so he can take a couple spares with him.
scared to forget something i asked him to do: i’ll remind him or, better yet, we’ll do it together.
scared to leave something out in the kitchen: ?? ??? i will put it away.
to me, unless something causes actual bodily harm or death, it’s not that big a deal. everything can be fixed. everything. the worst that can ever happen is that you lose time or money, and maybe it’s a lot of time and maybe it’s a lot of money, but the point is, it can be fixed. you can burn your entire fucking house down and as long as no one’s hurt, nearly everything can be replaced. no doubt it will suck and you’ll lose a few things of sentimental value, but it’s just stuff. just physical objects that you own. and the place you live is just a building. imo it’s way more worth it to live without shame or fear and make the occasional mistake/forget something important than it is to be constantly vigilant of what-ifs.
My life changed when I learned HOW to fix mistakes. When a mistake wasn’t a spiral to despair. When I finally quit trying to be perfect and decided to use my weird brain for creative solutions. ADHD brains are WIRED to be creative and beautiful problem solvers. When you accept that your can be GOOD at fixing mistakes, they become opportunities to shine instead of abuse yourself. And that’s a WONDERFUL feeling!
Something you have to understand about Jin Guangyao, and which makes him SO interesting to me, is that he started life at the bottom of the social ladder (grew up in a brothel, son of a sex worker and her client) and rose all the way to the top (Chief Cultivator, literally the leader of the cultivation world), and never once throughout all of that did he ever actually feel safe
when your pet comes to you from another room, the preceding moments meant that they were alone somewhere and thought about YOU, an animal brain literally thought about you and came to you to see what you were doing. that’s love, unconditional.
also if you wanna combat the “women in the past only crossdressed because of misogyny!” you have GOTTA read chapter 11 in Transgender Warriors where leslie feinberg does such a good job constructing an argument against this kind of radfem reductionism
“"No wonder you’ve passed as a man! This is such an anti-woman society,” a lesbian friend told me. To her, females passing as males are simply trying to escape women’s oppression- period. She believes that once true equality is achieved in society, humankind will be genderless. I don’t have a crystal ball, so I can’t predict human behavior in the distant future. But I know what she’s thinking- if we can build a more just society, people like me will cease to exist. She assumes that I am simply a product of oppression. Gee, thanks so much.“
"First, let’s talk about who can pass as another sex. My same friend reminds me periodically that she too might have passed as a men a century ago to escape women’s oppression. She stares right past my gender expression as she speaks. […] I don’t want to burst her bubble. Everyone deserves untrammeled dreams. But I want to tell her that, in the dead of winter, if she was bundled up against the cold, with a hood or hat covering her head, some man in a deli might call her "sir.” But could she pass as male on a board ship, sleeping with and sharing common facilities with her fellow sailors for decades and not be discovered? Of course, hundreds of thousands of women have dreamed of escaping the economic and social inequities of their lives, but how many could live as a man for a decade or a lifetime? While a woman could throw on men’s clothing and pass as a man for safety on dark roadways, could she pass as a man at an inn where men slept together in the same beds? Could she maintain her identity in daylight? Pass the scrutiny of co-workers? Would she really feel safer and more free? How could females have lived and been accepted as men without hormones or surgery? They must have been masculine; they must have been trans-gendered. If they were not, how could they pass? We don’t know how each of the thousands who passed from female to male over the centuries would define themselves today- whether as transgender or transsexual or drag or any other modern definition. The point is that their gender expression allowed them to transition. I just don’t believe that the debate about why “women pass as men” can be understood only in the light of women’s, or of lesbian and gay, oppression. It has to be viewed in the context of trans history in order to make sense.“
"Look at George Sand, the nineteenth-century novelist. It’s true that she could not have published without a male nom de plume at that time. But if that’s all there was to her identity, why did she wear men’s clothing? Why was she attacked for masculine behavior? And if it was just a question of lesbian oppression, what was she doing in bed with Chopin? If passing from female to male is simply motivated by the need to escape lesbian oppression, then why have females who have passed as males chosen other men as lovers?”
“Finally, if so many females have passed as men only to escape women’s oppression, then why have so many males passed as women? While it is biologically easier for a female to pass as a young boy than for a male to pass as a woman, there are many, many examples in the modern era of those who passed from male to female.”
“We have not always been forced to pass, to go underground, in order to work and live. We have a right to live openly and proudly. When we are denied those rights, we are the ones who suffer that oppression. But when our lives are suppressed, everyone is denied an understanding of the rich diversity of sex and gender expression and experience that exist in human society. I have lived as a man because I could not survive openly as a transgendered person. Yes, I am oppressed in this society, but I am not merely product of oppression. That is a phrase that renders all our trans identities meaningless. Passing means having to hide your identity in fear, in order to live. Being forced to pass is a recent historical development. It is passing that is a product of oppression.”
Reblog if you’re comfortable receiving crabs on Crab Day (July 29th) so all your beloved followers know who they can comfortably crab on crab day (July 29th) without feeling nervous about crabbing someone 9n Crab Day (July 29th).
Sharing the secrets of your hearth with strangers who will never be able to meet or thank you. Honoring the dead through learning their traditions of the home; emulation and exaltation. A good carrot cake.
Every single craft has been paying “The Passion Tax” for generations. This term (coined by author and organizational psychologist Adam Grant) — and backed by scientific research — simply states that the more someone is passionate about their work, the more acceptable it is to take advantage of them. In short, loving what we do makes us easy to exploit.
If the phrase “vocational awe” isn’t part of your lexicon yet, stop scrolling and read Fobazi Ettarh:
Vocational awe describes the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique. I argue that the concept of vocational awe directly correlates to problems within librarianship like burnout and low salary. This article aims to describe the phenomenon and its effects on library philosophies and practices so that they may be recognized and deconstructed.
I see it in every field I’ve ever worked in: publishing, open source software development, higher education. It describes pretty much every industry that relies on creativity, altruism, or both.
Hey. Peeps on the museum fields. These apply. It takes work not to be taken advantage of because we love what we do. And it also takes work to be better and do better and not rest on our laurels and stop learning
