there's our catastrophe

May 5

you have to break your goals down until they’re baby food. then you’ll be pressed so close to the line connecting dot to dot, that you only see the mark, and that is all you need to look at. don’t look down, don’t look back.

click 4 more really good advice

Nov 17

I critique radical self-care rhetoric a lot but one of the main reasons I don’t like it is that it conflates work for social change with work to heal yourself, in ways that can really bog down political projects by bringing them down to the scope of the individual. so it’s bad for movements. but it’s also bad for individuals: if you’re going to be happy you need to develop the capacity to ameliorate your problems within the society we live in, not just the capacity to identify the systemic factors causing your problems. you can fight them as much as you want but they’re not gonna disappear in your lifetime and even if they do you’ll still have to deal with the scars. systemic oppression and personal suffering are obviously linked, but they are different things we need to deal with in different ways. it’s prevention and cure.

that’s one reason why an end to self-care by B Loewe — the principal claim of which is that “movement work is healing work” — is…not a good critique of self-care rhetoric. it’s the exact same idea, that social movements and self-care are the same thing, it’s just kind of callous about it.

you should read for badass disability justice, working-class and poor lead models of sustainable hustling for liberation, a more in-depth response to Loewe’s article by leah-lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha.

Jul 3

bananapeppers:

warnings for homophobic hate crime & institutional negligence, some eating disorder talk

I was going to write a disjointed text post about actual self-care, especially radical queer self-care/self-love, whatever that means, and I was going to include lyrics from Queen & Davie Bowie’s “Under Pressure” because

Can’t we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can’t we give love that one more chance
Why can’t we give love

…

And love dares you to care for
The people on the
(People on the streets) edge of the
Night, and love
(People on streets) dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves

“Under Pressure” is a song ABOUT the thing that radical queer self-care wants/pretends to be but self-care as it is commonly described and demonstrated today is actually enabling. I was googling for interviews with Queen or Bowie about the lyrical meaning—it should be obvious that the song is about what homophobia does to LGB people and what it did to LGB people in the US, UK, etc. up through the 80’s—and while a few people on a few sites have pointed this out, the song’s meaning is highly contested, and suggestions that the lyrics are about homophobia/internalized homophobia/panic within the GB male community over a mysterious deadly disease that was spreading like wildfire are often shot down.

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. “Under Pressure” is a wildly popular tune with lyrics that clearly reflect a specific cultural context, but googling queen bowie under pressure meaning and queen bowie under pressure homophobia yield very little discussion of this cultural context. apparently “Under pressure / That burns a building down / Splits a family in two / Puts people on streets” sung in July 1981 by two bisexual men could mean anything.

on June 24, 1973, someone firebombed the crowded gay bar The UpStairs Lounge; 32 patrons died. following the news, the murders were a public joke. HuffPo retrospective

homelessness was a reality for LGBTQ people for many decades, and it remains a fear and reality today.

AIDS was first identified as its own disease a month prior to recording, in June 1981. the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which made the ID, told the public that “there was no apparent danger to nonhomosexuals from contagion. ‘The best evidence against contagion,’ [Dr. James Curran of the CDC] said, ‘is that no cases have been reported to date outside the homosexual community [which always meant the male homosexual and bisexual community] or in women’ “ and what we now call AIDS was first known informally as “gay cancer” and formally as Gay-Related Immune Disease.

but “Under Pressure” could be about anything.

anyway, self-care isn’t doing for yourself what feels right. self-care is doing for yourself what is right. starving myself feels right. at times it was a fucking holy experience. but when I was starving, I was dying, and I don’t want to be another dead lesbian. this is homophobia (fueling self-destruction in the first place) against internalized homophobia (simultaneously urged to self-destruct and not wanting to be a “bad example” of a lesbian by killing myself) against self-esteem (which provides healthy reasons for me to abstain from self-destructive behaviors), and it takes practice, some help from other lesbians sometimes, and critical thinking to find and maintain a healthy balance, and that is what radical queer self-care is.

Jun 3

I don’t understand why you expect me to care about you doing stuff purely for yourself.

like sometimes that’s fine of course but why would you tell me that self-care is your ethos? the sole organising principle of your life? if that’s really the case, why wouldn’t you just do it and not care what I think?

it’s almost like this individualistic self-care stuff actually relies implicitly upon the tolerance and work of others.

Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.

sort of re: this thread.

I dunno man, I don’t like these assertions that if you fixed your mental health problems with effort and discipline and medical advice then they must not have been very serious to begin with, that if you were truly crazy you would not be able to take any steps to improve your situation, only to ameliorate it around the edges.

it’s true that I’ve had few non-mental-illness-related problems that I didn’t bring upon myself, like I don’t know shit about direct experience of trauma and can’t speak to that. but I transitioned from “pretty nonfunctional” as a teen to “pretty functional” now through years and years of really constant effort and discipline and work. like, just because that is not always possible or not immediately possible doesn’t mean it’s not also the only thing that works.

the only mindset that has ever helped me is thinking “how can I be useful?” and taking steps to increase my long-term usefulness. if my only goal is just to feel better then I will never feel better. it’s a hedonist’s paradox situation.

and like, it sucks when people think that I’m being avoidant when actually I’m just prioritising more important things, or don’t see the amount of discipline it takes just for me to not have a nervous breakdown, or don’t understand the difference between that discipline and OCD-type behaviour, or want me to be “fixed” where “fixed” means not having to think about this stuff all the time.

but I swear to god I can’t hear the phrase “self-care” anymore without locking up with anger and frustration and nausea, it’s so misused. maybe my self-care is rolling my eyes at the concept of self-care, it’s no less useful or more toxic than some of the stuff I’ve seen labelled as self-care.

I think this is also why I can’t deal with anarchist critiques of the concepts of “work” and “productivity”. like being passive-aggressively bitched out for saying “I didn’t do anything productive today”, fuck that. a related thing I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is that I don’t find many archetypally “fun” activities that fun and never have. I can take or leave theme parks, rides, picnics, changing outfits with your friends for three hours, music festivals. it’s often this self-conscious performance of frivolity, LOOK HOW MUCH FUN WE ARE HAVING, that I find stressful and a bit empty.

and like, what is more capitalist than a rigid divide between work and joy? than a concept of “free time” which is all about frivolity and consumption? having said that, I find parts of DIY culture strange. I don’t find fulfillment in making my own rope or expending thirty minutes of effort in order to not have to buy an eight dollar new bike part.

I would like to be able to talk about hard work and discipline in a way that moves beyond a critique of the protestant work ethic as the spiritual justification for worker’s exploitation. I want to talk about work a way that’s not purely reactive and bratty. but then, what’s the point of putting so much energy into another reactive discourse? probably I just need to BE A GROWNUP and expect that of others and hang out with people who take that expectation for granted.

Actual Forms of “Self Care:”

forwhenifeellikesharing:

Exercising regularly, paying your bills on time, staying informed, cultivating meaningful friendships, brushing and flossing regularly, having healthy adult relationships with your parents (and siblings) in whatever capacity you can, reading more, setting short- and long-term goals, working towards short- and long-term goals, going to sleep instead of passing out, owning your bullshit, sitting with good posture, not taking everything personally, letting things go, eating well, expressing your feelings like an adult, becoming aware of your self-destructive behaviors, doing things you enjoy that aren’t self-destructive behaviors, limiting self-pity, apologizing when necessary, drinking enough water, realizing anger and resentment are not sustainable forms of life-fuel, being self-critical while not self-shredding, responding to criticism with informed opinions or not responding at all, and most importantly: being “present” without delusions of what it means to be “present.”

(via terrorbull)

Mar 16

“It happens to all of us, you wake up in the middle of the night and try desperately to get back to sleep but instead toss and turn until the alarm goes off. Rather than it being simply symptomatic of a stressful work week, science suggests you might be experiencing a throwback to a default pattern of human slumber. According to mounting research, the concept of a solid eight hours sleep is a fairly recent phenomenon and it’s likely that our ancestors enjoyed “two sleeps” of shorter duration, separated by time awake, as opposed to one sustained period.”

eight hours sleep a myth, say experts//the age

“…If you find that you can’t easily drift back off you might want to take a leaf out of the pages of history and engage in some low-stimulus activity for an hour or two rather than sit there worrying about it.”

Feb 25

Police to revamp training for handling mentally ill//The Age

ALL operational police and new recruits are to receive special coaching to deal with the mentally ill after an internal review found previous training was flawed and increased the risks of violent confrontations.

Feb 8

The Psychopath Test, Act One:Underachievement Test//This American Life

NPR Science Correspondent Alix Spiegel tells the story of Robert Dixon, who’s in a maximum security prison in Vacaville California and is unlikely to ever get parole because of his score on the psychopath test. The test also is called “the checklist” or, more formally, the PCL-R, which stands for “Psychopathy Check List—Revised.” Alix tells the story of its creation and reports that the man who created the test, Bob Hare, is concerned at how it’s being used today in the criminal justice system. A version of this story aired on NPR’s All Things Considered. (28 minutes)

this is a link to the audio. full transcipt of the show here.

this is an interesting little case study on the politics behind the categorisation of personality disorders, their use in controlling a marginalised population (in this case, prisoners), and the move in recent decades towards a model of criminal justice based on pathologising the criminal and away from sociological explanations for crime.

note: contains a description of a murder with a gun and some discussion around physical and sexual violence.

Dec 23

“And let us not forget about “safe space.” A major problem with these therapistic means of communicating is that they can be so damn manipulative. “Safe space” is perhaps the biggest manipulator. At one time safe space for lesbians meant space where we could show affection for each other without fear of heckling or verbal abuse. It meant space where we could dare to look like Dykes without fear of physical assault. This kind of safe space was particularly important to working class Lesbians and Lesbians of Color who did not enjoy the relative safety that academic communities offered white Lesbians. However, today the term “safe space” indicates something entirely different. It means safety from each other. As far as I can tell, “safe space” is now an environment where a woman can express her emotions or feelings without fear of criticism. Safe space is a good example of how therapism has taken away our ability to discern the appropriate application of political ideas—sometimes popularizing these ideas past the point of significant meaning.” Joan Ward (via youneedacat)