If you told an able bodied person “we’re going out to dinner” they could probably say, cool! Let me put some pants on. But thats not how it works with spoonies. Some things we need to think about are
* What time are we going?
I need to know ahead of time so I know when to start getting ready, because that’s a long tiring process, and I have to plan out my whole day between when to rest and when to start getting ready. Do I have to shower beforehand, or shave? That adds a whole new layer onto things.
*Where are we going?
Is it far away? How long is the journey going to be? Is it some place that I can eat food at? Or will it mess with my dietary problems, so I need to eat something beforehand? Will there be stairs? Is it wheelchair accessible? What’s the parking situation like, will I have to be dropped off to go, or made to walk from a spot a ways away? Do I have enough capability to do that *and* sit in an upright chair in a loud environment while socializing?
*Where are we sitting
Are we sitting outside? What’s the weather like? I need to be able to dress appropriately in something comfortable where I won’t be too hot or cold but am still able to move as freely as possible in my clothing without being restrained. Are we sitting upstairs if there isn’t enough room on the lower level? Is that going to even be possible? Are we sitting at a bar where I will have more trouble and more pain on the stools?
*Who is going?
This isnt super important but it is a factor. Am I going to be around people who make me uncomfortable? Will there be someone there who is going to help work as a buffer? Will anyone understand that I cant just walk around town afterwards, or understand that stairs are a big deal? Am I going to have allies? Or are people going to give me weird looks or roll their eyes when I can’t do something and vocalize it.
We also have to plan around these things using our medication. Do we have to take extra pain meds for it based on the area or weather, do we need to take anxiety medication with us because of people, do we need to bring along things for stomach upset based on food or symptoms that day.
If you have chronic pain – do I need to bring my cane, or is this a larger outing that will require a wheelchair or walker?
Going out when you’re sick is like going out with a toddler, you have to plan for every contingency. The difference is, you are your own toddler.
Literally all of this, plus extra emphasis on WHEN are we leaving? I don’t mind the time, but if you say 6pm then we need to leave at 6pm because I’ll make sure I’ve used the toilet just before we go. If you then faff about for ten minutes, I might end up urgently (and don’t underestimate how desperate this would be!) needing the loo halfway to wherever we’re going.
This is so true for me <3. Just realizing that it is actually hard made a big difference for me. I am nicer to myself now that I realize the actual challenge of it, and I’ve been able to explain it to some people close to me 🙂
it took one particularly insistent mother—and the surveillance video she pushed police to review—to stop her sons from being jailed on false robbery charges after they were set up by a white man whom cops chose to believe over them.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Patrick John Owens was the one who lied to police, telling them that the two brothers, Christopher and Jerry Tate, had robbed him at gunpoint last summer.
It is instead Owens who was finally charged on Wednesday as the culprit in the armed robbery.
I’m sorry, we need to take a short break from horses to appreciate that my boyfriend’s cat has a treadmill, and she will only run on it if she has an audience.
So I’m never having kids. This is not some kind of shameful ~desire policing~ you need to rescue me from. It is good and healthy for people to be aware of how they are statistically likely to harm others and take steps to mitigate that. I’m aware that my survivor status makes me more likely to be abusive. That’s not something I get to just deny and ignore because I’m an individual and probability is fake. To be unaware of it would be deeply irresponsible of me. Men need to be aware, too. [2/2]
I don’t think anyone should have kids unless they really, really want to and are very sure of that. But if someone did want to have kids, and felt that having kids would be a great and fulfilling thing for them, and were holding back because they were an abuse survivor and they felt that it is wrong for abuse survivors to have children, what I would say to them is:
You have a lot more information about yourself than “the statistical category I am in is abuse survivor”. You can, through looking at your own behavior and talking with trusted friends about your behavior and maybe talking with a therapist about your behavior, get a vastly better estimate of whether you engage in abusive behavior. You should do that. You should not make this decision based on the statistical category you are in. Do you lose your temper? Do you insult and berate people when you’re angry? Do you have abusive behavior patterns in your other relationships?
All of those questions are relevant, and the answer to any one of them is a thousand times more informative than the answer to ‘are you an abuse survivor’. If this is a question that matters to you, then you have the tools to figure out an answer that is vastly more precise than the answer you’d get from looking at population averages. And I think that you actively have an obligation to get that more precise answer instead of relying on the population average.
If someone who routinely berates and slaps and insults and gaslights all of their partners decides they won’t be an abusive parent because they’re in a reference class that does not statistically include many people who abuse their children, I hope all of us would go “you have behaviors that are abusive, and it’s likely that you’ll have them towards your children, and that’s more relevant than the population statistics”. And that works the other way around, too.
There’s a statistical concept called ‘screening off’, where A predicts B, but, once you know C (which is something downstream of A), then A ceases to give you any more information about B. I’m arguing that abusiveness is like this – population averages inform how likely you are to have certain unhealthy tendencies and patterns. But you can also observe the unhealthy tendencies and patterns, and once you’ve done that, population averages are not any additional information.
I want people to put serious thought into whether they’re behaving in a way that harms other, or whether they’re likely to in a situation they haven’t encountered yet. I want them to ask themselves “do I know how to manage my anger? do I succeed at treating people well? do the people who know me think that I can handle this? when I read descriptions of ways people harm others, do they describe things I do or can imagine doing?”
I want that because I think those questions are vastly more useful, and I also want that because the answer to those questions can change. If you have anger issues, you can get anger management. If other people tell you that you do a thing that is unhealthy and unhelpful, you can work on it. You can get support and grow and do better. If we decide which risks are acceptable based on broad demographic categories, then we end up telling people “sorry, even though you have great emotional stability, healthy close relationships, strong communication skills and a passion for working with young children, you’re still an abuse survivor, and people like you shouldn’t have kids.”
Another reason for this is that population statistics are often biased. Because “everyone knows” that only a certain sort of person commits crimes, crimes with different perpetrators aren’t reported or prosecuted. Lots of forms of abusive behavior are more common in different subpopulations, but the very definitions of abusive behavior are often drawn in a way that ignores those, precisely because of our stereotypes about abuse. Abusive behavior which is from a different demographic category goes unchallenged and people aren’t equipped to recognize it.
And that’s unacceptable to me.
And if it’s unacceptable for having kids, it’s a hundred times more unacceptable for going on dates. Creating another person who is vulnerable and dependent on your is an extraordinary thing to do and you should be completely sure that you can do it well before doing it. If you’re dating someone and you notice that your behavior is unhealthy, you can break up with them or they can break up with you. If you’re parenting, you can’t, and neither can they. Saying “I won’t have kids because there’s a risk and any risk is unacceptable” makes a lot of sense to me, even if I absolutely don’t think anyone else is obliged to make the same choice as you. But in most parts of life, “any risk is unacceptable” is a really unhealthy way to think.
So I strongly condemn encouraging people to think about population statistics about violence when they’re trying to figure out whether to ask a girl out. They should absolutely ask themselves “do I have anger issues? Am I a different person drunk? Have I been violent towards anyone? Have I insulted and berated people? When I read descriptions of unhealthy relationships, which of the failure modes seem like ones I could fall into?”
But everyone should ask themselves that. Women should ask themselves that, men should ask themselves that, everyone else should ask themselves that. And once you know the answer to that, then you have the only answer you need.
If we’re going to ask people to be aware of one thing, it should be “be aware of your own behavior and strengths and weaknesses in communication and conflict resolution”. Not “be aware of population statistics”. And I think lots of people are hyperaware of the population statistics at the expense of awareness about their own needs and boundaries and abilities, and I think that’s basically useless and often actively counterproductive for them.
Chlorine dioxide is basically bleach that gets peddled as a cure for autism.
Parents give this to autistic kids either by mouth or as an enema.
They assume the distress, pain, and mucus being vomited or pooped out is “ropeworms” aka they assume it is the autism “leaving the child’s body.” This is actually the mucous membranes from the child’s digestive tract being burned off.
These awful, horrible, very bad people are destroying their child’s body and causing them immense pain and distress because they want to cure autism. The child learns that if they act autistic, they get hurt, so they stop acting autistic and the parent calls that “cured”.
Any parent who does this should be in prison for child abuse.
If you know of a parent who is doing this to their child, report them to the authorities immediately and get those children out of that abusive home.
So I read up on it and what’s actually happening is much more nefarious than even what the post says. Well-meaning but dangerously misguided parents are unintentionally poisoning their kids, and it’s making it impossible to tell who’s doing it on purpose and who’s not.
So a mixture of sodium chlorite and hydrochloric acid is being sold under the name Miracle Mineral Solution, presumably to sound like a wholesome, “natural” treatment for a wide range of conditions including autism and Alzheimer’s. I also came across an article advocating its use to treat cancers.
In the body these chemicals combine to make the same kind of bleach you use to clean the house with. It’s dangerous and can’t feel good, but it usually isn’t lethal. The way these sick fuckers have tricked people into killing their kids is so sneaky it’s hard to tell what the parent’s intents are.
The way that the bleach becomes chlorine dioxide, a much more powerful, lethal bleach, is that people recommend drinking fruit juice with or directly after it. To most people this would seem harmless. “Fruit is all-natural and always healthy” they might think, but it acidifies the bleach, turning it into chlorine dioxide, which kills.
I have a feeling one reason they did this is that if chlorine dioxide gets banned or people realize what chlorine dioxide is, their product doesn’t technically contain chlorine dioxide, and unless people understand the chemical process, which they probably don’t, they still won’t realize the kind of damage they’re doing.
So don’t just report them if you know they’re using chlorine dioxide, report them if you hear them talk about Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) or if you see a bottle that looks like this.
Also, if you know anyone who’s using this to treat a condition, warn them. The 1 person I know of who’s died from this was actually an old man who was self-administering it.
[Image description: two rows of 4 fluid oz./125 ml bottles of “natural remedy” receding away from the viewer. The bottles on the left are green, and the logo reads MMS International, in large gold letters, with “MMS Solution” underneath. The bottles on the right are blue, and their logo reads “Citric Acid Solution” in large gold letters. Both feature the image of a green leaf over ripples on water. And both are labeled “Water Purification Drops.” Description Ends]
[Image description: a cropped photo of a filler piece in a newspaper, under the heading “Changing World”: It used to be “Be my Valentine,” but not it’s “Come on, kid, let’s be goin’ places and imbibing things.” Description ends]
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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