replied to your post
“russian-hackers-official:
kissingerandpals:
Removing shame from our…”This is about ones own personal concept of shame and a disappearance of taboos in all public discourse media, and the effects that has on children, not about shaming any particular individuals, but I’m glad to see some creative responses
Oh, I’m aware. I was being facetious because I’m tired and crabby.
But buddy. My dude, my bro, my guy. I grew up in a family that was very big on shame and taboo and ‘think of the children!’ It fucked me right the hell up.
For the longest time, I could not do simple, normal human things like ‘go shopping for emergency things on Sunday’, ‘have mild sexual fantasies’, or ‘drink tea’ because I was too ashamed and disgusted with myself to do so. I could not be around women in tank tops because the Mormon Church sexualises bodies to the point where bare shoulders are sinful. I could not eat bread because I was on a special ‘autism cure’ diet and eating bread would make me ~crazier~ and ~more autistic~. Which was something to be ashamed of. I was shamed for existing as an autistic person, which is something I did not choose and did not control.
On a bad day, I cannot take any action because I am frozen with guilt and shame. I cannot stop thinking about how I am a disgusting creature and don’t deserve to live. This is partly due to my mental health bologna, but it’s also due to being raised in a household that centred ‘growing a personal concept of shame’ and ‘being obedient’ over most anything else.
Shame exists to make people stop doing for the good of society. At its best, it makes people realise they’re being ridiculous or cruel and gets them to stop. But at worst? It makes people feel bad for existing. If you shame people for being disabled, or for being born to parents who weren’t married, or for being a certain race/colour- none of which are things that are under their control– you make the existence of certain people taboo. And that’s not fucking healthy. It’s not fucking sane. It’s fucking evil.
Teaching children that they don’t deserve to live is fucking evil. Teaching children that they are bad and wrong because of things that they did not choose is fucking evil. Keeping children from having access to things that they need– like food or love – because they’re supposed to be ‘ashamed’ of something they are is fucking evil. Teaching children that there are life choices that are so bad that no one will ever love you again? Fucking evil.
I have chosen to live my life with a minimum of shame. I am not going to let external forces make me ashamed of who or what I am, ever again. If I do something wrong, I will let myself feel ashamed for the amount of time it takes to repair the thing I’ve done, and then I will not let it bother me again. Because
I deserve to live, I deserve to be happy, and a ‘personal sense of shame’ would just get in my way.
So yeah. I’m shameless. And creative about it. Bite me.
Not only is shame really damaging, all the social uses of shame? Can be achieved with non-shame things and in ways that are less likely to mess (general) you or your society up. You can have norms like “Don’t talk graphically about sex unless you’re sure your the people you are talking to are okay with that” without having messages like “sex is disgusting and evil and immoral and what sort of freak would ever want to talk about it?” And then you can have a norm that keeps most people comfortable, without screwing people over. (Also, when you’ve got messages like “how dare you ever discuss sex, because it is disgusting and if you want to talk about it you are disgusting” floating around, it becomes hecking difficult to say “John Doe sexually abused me.” Which hopefully in not what the people calling for more shame intend.)
And even if we threw out the idea that shame is damaging (which we really shouldn’t throw out, because it is, and it gets glossed over a lot), e v e r y t i m e people have said “We just want to bring back shame for people who have done actually shameful/bad things, like being misogynistic, promise!” it has mutated into (or started out as in the first place) shaming people for non bad things like being fat, or autistic, or having a thing about anthro trains. Which is a reason to side eye calls for renewed shame.
As I’ve said before, I have major issues with toxic shame. On a really bad day, I’m incapable of saying anything to anyone without being ashamed of what I said.
So I think I’ve got enough experience with shame to say, firmly, that society absolutely does fucking not need to reintroduce it in the areas where we’ve alleviated it.
Day: December 1, 2017
Doubting procedures intended to root out $badpeople doesn’t mean that you support $badpeople.
That’s a face that says “I waited too long to correct this person so now everything is awkward and I’m really uncomfortable.”
Hey so I looked this up and it’s a joke post by a wildlife rehabilitation group! https://www.facebook.com/122334mommy/?hc_ref=ARS-GF9yIX9bpP3eu-UWcS9Rwn1_wFmJEaq7ulcsZILjI7I99TguM5lWcxeqQBJoy6M&fref=nf
They’d probably appreciate it if the source was known!
Nope, still not lazy
So I’d been watching these posts on executive dysfunction go by, and yeah, some of it sounded familiar, like I know I’ve got that issue SOMETIMES, but like… People keep describing it as thinking insistently about the thing they want to do and still not being able to do it. And I don’t do that. I think idly about something like putting away that basket of laundry, and my entire being goes ‘Meh’ and I shrug and move on to something else. Like. It drives me NUTS that there’s been a basket full of clothes sitting in one corner for months, but… at the same time I can’t really care about it?
So I figured, okay, I’m SELECTIVELY lazy. Sometimes it’s legitimately executive dysfunction, but sometimes I just don’t care enough to do something.
And then this morning, I woke up and realized: I had executive function. I mean literally the minute I woke up I realized I was capable of DOING THINGS today, it was AMAZING. And even with chronic fatigue meaning I had to rest for hours after like twenty minutes of exertion, I got SO MUCH DONE that I have been YEARNING to be able to want/to do. If I list it it won’t sound like much, but trust me, I did a LOT, for me.
And it felt SO GOOD. Because, spoiler! I’m not actually lazy. My form of executive dysfunction just looks a little different than some people’s. When I can’t do a thing, not only can I not mentally surround the steps it would take to do that thing, I can’t even manage to care about doing the thing. Maybe that’s some kind of emotional defense I’ve built up to keep it from being so maddening, I don’t know. But it doesn’t mean I’m lazy. It just means my brain has realized I can’t do the thing, and I can’t afford to care, or think about doing the thing, because pounding my head against that brick wall won’t help anything.
So hey. If, back before you had executive dysfunction, you really LIKED cleaning, just for instance? And now you find you’re ‘fine’ living in a mess? It might just be your brain protecting you from its issues. You’re not lazy, executive dysfunction is just even sneakier than we think.
“It just means my brain has realized I can’t do the thing, and I can’t afford to care, or think about doing the thing, because pounding my head against that brick wall won’t help anything.”
ohhhhh hey
The thing is, I’ve been like this LITERALLY my entire life. From when I was a tiny child being told to clean my room. To being a teen and not being able to keep up with all my homework. Although I have been MORE functional and productive than I am now, I have never been what I or others would consider “normal”.
And paradoxically because I’ve always been this way I feel like that undermines any legitimacy my claim of executive dysfunction may have, as though the fact that I’ve never had a “normal” to decline from means I have simply NEVER tried hard enough.
It’s fucked up. I hate it. It’s awful.
/slow breath in, slow breath out. Here’s the emergency post.
So we are further from rent than I think we have been. We’re talking hundreds. Our rent just went up $100. I am trying not to panic. We have just under a week.
Still have a full commission queue I shoudn’t be adding to, but I do NOT HAVE A CHOICE, so, uh. If you want something drawn hit me up.
$5 sketch chibi doodles (digital or pencil scan), too.
Animal Crossing is big right now so if you want your avatar drawn, or you as an animal, I’ll give you a special rate on that.
http://www.paypal.me/HallOfMirrors if you just want to help but don’t want to request art, which I normally hate asking but am in no position to be proud about at this moment.
…Guys, I….don’t really know what to do.
Thank you to those who have helped and reblogged so far. Seriously, it means SO MUCH and when things stabilize I aim to pay it forward.
That said, we still need $550 in three days. Four if we wait until the last second.
Please. Commission me if you want, help if you can, reblog if you can’t. I know this is just another desperate plea in a sea of more desperate pleas, but this is our life situation and it’s scary.
Thank you to those who show you care. ❤ You’re heroes.
I’m sorry but there is going to be a lot of panicked squawking from me today until things are resolved.
My husband and I are $250 short for rent tomorrow. He is struggling to find work and book photography gigs (he lost his day job about six months ago, and for the six months before that I myself was unemployed), and I am a chronically ill person currently working 40-hour weeks in a physically demanding job and then doing commissioned art in my little free time to try and make ends meet. I do not get paid until next Thursday, which is too late for even the late fee.
http://www.paypal.me/HallOfMirrors is my Paypal.
https://ko-fi.com/A602GYG is my Ko-Fi.
My art queue is very full but I’m desperate so I’ll tack whatever on if you don’t mind waiting. I’m currently doing Animal Crossing style commissions for $13 each. Those go quick so they get done fast. If you just want to help without requesting anything I’m in no position to say no.
If you can help even a tiny bit, it means the world. If you have no spare pocket change you are willing or able to part with and you don’t want to buy anything, please please please PLEASE signal boost. We NEED HELP.
Thanks.
so i had this horse named max when i was growing up who didn’t have a mean bone in his body, i believe he genuinely had no desire to hurt anyone in his life, the only problem being that he was at times almost too clumsy to live.
he was a dirt-speckled white tall stocky arab gelding with absurdly long haunches and very dark quizzical eyes. he was very interested in new people and new objects and utterly terrified of anything that he couldn’t automatically define. he had very pronounced withers that would jam right up into your goddamn crotch when you were riding him bareback, and he had the worst, bumpiest, most broken-laundry-machine of a gait that would jar the teeth from your skull right as you were losing your virginity.
he was the world’s largest dog. he would wander over without fail to come over and say hi and then he would slowly and sedately lick you all over your hands and arms without using his teeth once. the man. loved. to lick things. you offered him something to eat and he would ever so delicately pick it up with his front lip, deposit it dexterously in his mouth, then gently chew. he never bit or kicked a person in his entire life. he didn’t mind being sat on while he wandered around and grazed, and he was so tall and broad that you could sit on him backwards and lay forward with your arms folded on the big black-spotted white of his butt like he was a couch.
he loved having his feet trimmed. he would always be so interested in the man working with his feet, and he would lick them on the arms and they never knew how to deal with it. “This is the lickiest damn horse I ever saw” said one while he had one of max’s knees locked between his legs while he carved away at the long overgrown toenail of his foot.
he’d trip over himself every four seconds, and while he’d amble like a lanky sedan chair on the way out on a trip, on the way back you’d have to keep your elbows yanked back to your sides and your biceps straining as you kept his head glued to his chest and kept him from going faster and faster. he had this amazing lunatic bursts of insane energy when the situation called for it, and while he wasn’t particularly fast, the mere sight of that much poorly aligned and desperately out-of-proportion horsemeat attempting to fling itself through the sound barrier was enough to make you want to sit down for a minute.
he became desperately unhappy once his lifelong partner-in-horse would leave while someone took her out on a ride alone and he’d stand in the farthest mile corner of the six miles of pasture and scream his head off until she came back. his sweat always smelled more acrid and sour than hers did, and he always foamed in big greenish smears. he loved being brushed until his hair fluffed out gleaming white, and while hoses terrified him into emotional outbursts, he very much loved to swim, and stand in the shallows and churn the water while jerking his head up and down in dogged delight.
on hot summer days he would lay down in the softest most nibbled to the quick part of the pasture and sleep for hours in the sunshine with the breath wheezing in and out his mouth and his legs stretched out.
he absolutely had to walk in front of his horse partner at all times.
he didn’t like dandelion flowers. he liked eating hollyhocks and thistle flowers, and he destroyed my mother’s lilac bush by literally walking over it until it was on his undercarriage and scratching back and forth with a look of complete and total bliss on his long stupid face.
if you walked up to him in the dark he would walk over, inspect you for food, then breathe on you and keep you company while farting gently. if you were taking a nap in the grass he’d walk over and lick you mournfully on your face, while farting gently. if you were riding him and he saw a leaf that looked at him wrong he would explode in seven different directions at once and yank your arms out of their sockets, excitedly farting the entire time.
he was, in every respect, the sweetest, dumbest farmboy who ever lived.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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