I was gunna put this in the tags but it’s a lot. When i first started going through the process of getting a diagnosis, i was labelled with ODD. I immediately took issue with this, it seemed like an unfair diagnosis based entirely on the session the psychiatrist had with my parents (which mostly consisted of “my child is being really difficult on purpose”), and Hoo Boy when i tell you ODD immediately strips you of your ability to call out anyone on anything, that would be an understatement. I couldn’t even disagree or bring up my concerns about the validity of MY OWN DIAGNOSIS without it being labelled as oppositional defiance. Whenever i displayed any negative emotion the “treatments” did so much more harm than good. When you label someone as ‘defiant’ (ugh), when that word is put on their medical record, that person is never allowed to complain about anything again. Knowing that POC are disproportionately affected with this diagnosis makes me feel sick, i can only imagine what’s being swept under the rug as someone just being “defiant to authority”, not even just in the medical field but as justification for police brutality and mass incarceration. When i say medical racism kills people, this is what i mean.

this is so fucking important. reblog.

THIS IS SO FUCKING REAL AND IMPORTANT! Another thing they do to test for ODD is ask like…teachers how you behave. Guess which kids are also disproportionately labeled as bad instead of struggling by their teachers? Guess which kids are more likely to be told they just don’t get opinions or rights anymore instead of someone checking for trauma, or ADHD, or Autism, or learning disabilities? Like take a wild guess.

And guess what diagnosis is real convenient for abusive parents as well? If you can manage to arrange that everything a child reports is viewed as manipulation, as acting out. If you can get every potential support around that child focused on compliance?

This diagnosis is controversial among therapists and has been since before I even started grad school which was fucking close to 20 years ago. Because it’s clearly often used to punish kids rather than figure out why they are acting how they are.

One of my professors went so far as to point out that as future providers we are empowered to just never use this diagnosis ever, and that that is a power we should take very seriously.

If you are a therapist, psychologist, teacher or parent you NEED to be advocating for kids when this diagnosis comes up. Because it will impact how school officials, doctors, and even courts and law enforcement treat someone.

It is a diagnosis about compliance, and obedience, not about the inner life and needs of the person being diagnosed.

Do not forget that.

Last saturday in Tel Aviv source

So weird thing I'm noticing is that almost all of the people arguing with me on my "please vote" post have profiles saying they're trans.

But, like, I know a lot of trans people in real life. I'm nonbinary. A lot of my closest friends are also in the trans community. All of them are planning on voting for Biden.

Maybe it's just because we're all older -- and we all remember 2016.

Maybe.

But, like, if any of you are who you say you are, I beg of you -- please understand that things are going to get so much worse under Trump. Right now we're fighting at the state level in a lot of places, and activism needs to be focused there. But if we lose the White House, it's going to start coming from the Federal government too, and it's going to be so much harder.

It's just exhausting sometimes.

I get why the psyops pretend that they're queer for discouraging voters; identity politics, we trust queer people, if queer folks say 'voting bad' then we listen to people who sound authoritative.

But.

GAY MARRIAGE RIGHTS IS PROOF THAT VOTING WORKED.

Obergefell v Hodges was decided in the Supreme Court. Won by 5 vs 3 votes. The justices who decided in favor:

Kennedy: Reagan appointee.

Breyer and Ginsburg: CLINTON appointees.

Kagan and Sotomayor: OBAMA appointees.

We got gay marriage in the USA because we elected CLINTON and OBAMA. Period. Was there a shitton of other advocacy, was there Stonewall, was there a huge, massive movement? Fuck yes. But WE PUT PEOPLE IN OFFICE WHO SAID YES TO OUR MOVEMENT.

I'll shittalk Clinton and Obama all day every day. But they got Gay Marriage over the finish line.

Okay, I get where you are going with this, but Clinton is also the one who made the Defense of Marriage Act a thing in the first place. He actively opposed gay marriage and made it harder to achieve.

Right, Clinton kind of sucked in the moment, but a second George H.W. Bush term or a Dole presidency would have been worse and we got to move the court more progressive which had the knock on effect of legalizing gay marriage down the road.

We move the needle where we can short term so we can survive long term.

Like I don't know if folks remember what public opinion about queer rights was like in the 90s. Things weren't great. Clinton was the best we could do at the time, and in the end we are better off than we would have been in the alternatives had won.

(Also Biden is largely the reason Obama moved towards supporting Gay Marriage -- but folks seem to forget that Biden's been one of the queer community's best allies in the White House)

I also think you need to know this:

DOMA WAS A COMPROMISE.

DOMA. WAS. A. COMPROMISE.

The Republicans wanted a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman. Constitutional amendments require 2/3 of all states to sign off on them and are nearly impossible to undo, because they can only be repealed by passing another amendment.

Clinton knew DOMA and DADT could be challenged in court. He knew they were bullshit laws! AND THAT WAS THE POINT! He was playing the long game. We absolutely did not have the votes to get queer equity in the 1990s…but if the Republicans had had their way, we still wouldn’t have same-sex marriage and might not for another hundred years.

Yes, to an extent this was Clinton having his own biases. But it was also him setting up a gateway for “I could be wrong.” When viewed with the benefit of the context of history, DOMA was a good thing because it protected us from the worse thing.

I hate a-historicity which refuses to take context into account. "This would be a step backwards now, therefore it was always awful and the worst possible thing."

A President today signing the DOMA would be terrible and disruptive.

But in context there were no major national politicians at the time who were explicitly pro-queer. The vast majority of Americans were homophobes. The vast majority of Americans at the time were against gay marriage. Saying that people shouldn't be killed or beaten up because they were queer was a radical statement in a lot of places in the US. If Clinton had been pro-gay, he simply could not have been elected. Period. It would not have happened.

Was DOMA, by itself, good for queer people? No! It was not! But it was a damn sight better than a constitutional amendment that would have been a lot harder to overturn, and such a constitutional amendment would have been very easily ratified, given the political climate at the time.

And if Clinton in the 90s was not great on LGBTQ+ issues, he still appointed two Supreme Court judges who, because they were liberal, were willing to move with the times and take changing social attitudes toward queerness and gay marriage into account when the Obergfell case came before them.

Ok I'm not going to reply to the post directly but smoking weed on the beach is absolutely different from getting drunk on the beach because:

A) people drinking booze doesn't make the entire beach stink like the ass of a dead skunk. You do not get to nickname something SKUNK and then be shocked when people hate when you smoke it in public. It smells bad, and I can assure you I don't go to the beach to smell your shit stink

B) as an asthmatic, people drinking on the beach does not pose a health risk to me

C) I cannot get second hand drunk from people drinking on the beach

I am a person who prefers getting high to getting drunk (gummies, I am asthmatic) but you can't pretend that smoking weed in public isn't straight up obnoxious, lol

Smoking weed/vaping in public airspace is exactly as obnoxious smoking cigarettes in the same airspace. Either bring edibles to the beach or if you MUST aspirate, hotbox in your car like a normal person.

also while i’m ranting about gender i always see debate about whether girls are rewarded for being tomboys or not and it’s like. actually girls are rewarded for mirroring whatever the situation demands of them. girls can’t be too prissy and refuse to play in the creek, but girls also can’t show up to girly events covered in mud. girls can’t have makeup art as a hobby or else they’re superficial, but if they never wear makeup they’re a slob and dumpy, etc. it’s not that girls are universally rewarded or punished for being tomboys, they’re rewarded for bending over backwards to always be exactly right for any given situation and punished for breaking those boundaries. so yes a classically pretty girl who cleans up nice is rewarded when she can ALSO be a tomboy. but a girl who is a tomboy all the time is definitely punished for never being able to achieve that prerequisite feminine side. this debate is over now thanks

this is spot on. A woman's masculinity is rewarded as long as it doesn't conflict with being heteronormatively attractive and as long as the masculinity plays harmonising second fiddle to the masculinity of the men around her.

Been working in pest control for 3 months now and i can confidently say that nobody on earth seems to understand that sometimes You Will See A Bugs and that’s Normal if you live literally anywhere with oxygen

Unfortunately it appears you have a garden that is growing several important pollinator food sources you will be seeing wasps sometimes. You want us to spray your flowers? That’ll stop the wasps but only because your flowers will be Dead

I just think everyone would benefit from living in the woods for a week and having their bug tolerance forcibly increased by being forced to share a showerstall with a wolf spider the size of a half dollar everyday

(Life hack: if you consistently put out safe water sources for bees, the wasps will see you and they WILL eventually recognize you. And once you become The Bringer Of Water, they will become your own little goon squad. I used to get stung if I startled them by my compost bin, but now I have banged doors open just to realize a wasp was chilling right on the lintel, but all it does is wave its antennae at me. They see me carrying watering cans to my flowers and follow me. When I go to other places, the wasps there will also be friendly. Wasps are fucking amazing yall.)

I really hate how culture normalizes fear of bugs and reinforces and fuels insect phobias until they make it impossible to coexist with nature

I would never dismiss someone’s phobia. I know what kind of hell on earth that shit is. And I don’t mock people for being scared of wasps or bees because some people have allergies that can kill them and it’s kinda dumb to be rude to someone who is afraid of something that might kill them. But it’s done people such a disservice that culture tells people it’s reasonable to be afraid of all bugs and that most bugs will hurt you or your house or your pets.

I see so many comments and tags on posts about nature saying things like “I would love to spend time outside but I can’t handle being around bugs” as if it’s normal! If you can’t sit on grass or go on a hike because of your fear of bugs, that’s like…clinically significant highly disabling stuff. It’s locking you away from so many experiences.

Fears like this often get reinforced by witnessing other people’s responses to a stimulus. We are social creatures and if you watch the people around you show disgust and fear in response to bugs, you will learn to respond that way too. If you hear on the internet and TV and elsewhere that most bugs are dangerous and want to hurt you or will give you diseases, it will be reinforced even more.

The fact is, bugs are just guys. We depend on them for almost every part of our lives. Our planet is teeming with so many wondrous life forms, and many of them are insects. They come in every color and every form of iridescence, they glow and sparkle and they are fuzzy and striped and spotted. They are not “gross” or dirty.

Insects worldwide are now dropping in number, and it could mean disaster for us and every life form on earth. Most flowering plants (80% or so) have a symbiotic partnership with insects where they are dependent on insect pollination to fertilize their flowers. Wasps, bees, flies, butterflies, and even ants and beetles are all important pollinators, and each plant’s flowers are designed to be pollinated by a different group of insects. Without these insects, the majority of flowering plant species would not be able to exist. They would go extinct. That includes most of the plants we eat. No wasps, bees, flies and other pollinators= no apples, no berries, no peaches, no plums, no anything. That’s a simplified summary but it expresses just how important they are.

A big reason for it is the use of insecticides that are highly toxic to a wide variety of non-target insects. For instance, carbaryl, typically known as Sevin in the US, was for a long time sold in every garden center in a powdery dust form, to put on garden plants that had holes in their leaves.

Carbaryl dust is incredibly toxic to bees and can be picked up by them in the same way as pollen, and in that way it can be carried back to the hive and kill the whole hive.

Many of these insecticides are also highly dangerous to humans, and using them in and around your home exposes you to poisonous and/or potentially cancer-causing substances. The residues of these insecticides linger basically forever inside homes. There have been studies done that found insecticides that have been banned for a long time still lingering in people’s carpets and floors.

So it’s not good that so many people are terrified of insects. And the best antidote is to learn. Learn about bugs and their diversity and unique beauty and intelligence. If videos are no good, look at books with pictures; if you don’t want to look at pictures, books without pictures or podcasts might help. Maybe start with bugs that seem less frightening and move on to learning about others from there.

Learn about their ways and behaviors and how they are similar to animals you are more familiar with, such as birds or cats. Learn the ways in which they are similar to you—you will find that you share many important qualities, like “enjoy fruit” and “would defend friends and family.” Join bug identification groups online. Learn from people who keep bugs as pets.

It is so, so rewarding and important.

i saw a post the other day about treating spiders in your apartment like employees. like yeah, that spider over there is steven, hes the in-home exterminator. best not to destroy his hard work or else who’s gonna keep control of the ants? bees, even. betty stopping by your garden for some pollen so she can make honey for her hive. leave her alone she’ll be on her way soon.

personify them, and realize they’re just trying to exist like everyone else. the main reason any insect would act aggressive toward you is out of fear. like, imagine if you finally found a place to rest and some giant flesh creature decided to forcibly evict you. that would be terrifying.

We had a weird little beetle infestation we didn’t even know about (they were eating an old septic tank treatment packet?) because an industrious spider set up shop next to the cabinet and ate every beetle that was dumb enough to wander out.

I felt really bad for the spider when I got rid of the packet, I felt like I was closing an all-you-can-eat-buffet.

Bugs are friends!!! Bugs are neighbors!!!!

Bugs are critical infrastructure!!!!!!

Hey I just realized I don't think I know any American irl who doesn't have an immigrant ancestor within living memory and want to see if that's a me thing or just an average situation

What about "my great-grandparents were living in places that became American but were not when they were born there?"

The rare excellent piece of writing on AI

I’ve read this. I love this. This man IS ABSURDLY FUNNY please read this, please.

New Intro post!

Hi everyone, I'm Lee (any pronouns) and I write, draw, and animate a bit. I am a therapist by day, but I'm not your therapist, so please do not try to interact with me in that capacity.

My blog is a writeblr first and foremost but I'm gonna be honest I post about a whole lot of different things. My favorites include psych stuff, gardening, science, politics (mostly US), very intermittent fandom things, the odd shitpost, and pictures of my very photogenic cats.

I have a free monthly newsletter that I'm very proud of, where I write about those things and then actually edit them, add research links, etc. Especially when those subjects interact with research for my books.

I have two books out: Secondhand Origin Stories and Names in their Blood. Those are the first 2 books in a 5 book series called Second Sentinels. On the surface they're superhero novels. At their heart they're family dramas. In the middle they're low neon cyberpunk, near future scifi, political commentary, midwest gothic, and sometimes a murder mystery. They are very queer but most of the angst is not about that. They're also very much about disability but please don't picture some Very Special Episode shit when I say that. This is much angrier and messier than that.

You can find a variety of ways to read or listen to those here, and the first book in the series is free in ebook form.

I'm working on book 3 in the series, tentatively called Scrapped Gods, right now. It has a genetic engineering cult in rural Iowa in the middle of a blizzard! It's gonna be fun.

I'm also working on a fun mecha/body horror/terraforming story with my wife. It’s inspired by anime we watched in our youth and frustration with late stage, unfettered capitalism. This is very much in early development, but here are my poor unfortunate pilots.

My animation is entirely focused on making a full movie-trailer style thing for Secondhand Origin Stories. I learned to animate specifically to be able to make this, but my animating won't end there.

I like following writeblrs, especially writeblr's that aren't ONLY about people's writing. I like getting to know PEOPLE. It doesn't feel like community to me otherwise. I particularly love:

Thanks for reading this far!

Here are those photogenic cats I was telling you about.

oh my god??? you’re so multifaceted and talented???

i thought the covers were already peak but then you introduced ANIMATION????

i’m a fan i’m a fan i’m a fan lordie i’m a fan

Ok, if I show y'all my aesthetic can someone point me towards actually cool nose studs? I've given up on the septum ring. It just didn't feel good and it was always crooked cause my head is on crooked.

Has to have a locking back. Needs to be big enough to matter.

Or should I get an eyebrow piercing? I'm worried about it rejecting- fellow hypermobile peeps, feel free to weigh in

And this is me- but like with totally different hair now.

I dunno y’all we drew some spots on to try it out and I think my eyebrows might be a bit low and my eyes a bit too deep set for an eyebrow ring that doesn’t feel like it’s right up in my eyelids all the time.

🌧️Rainy Day Ask Game🌧️

I wish it would rain, so here we go. Don’t forget to send an ask to the person you reblogged from!

☁️ Cloud: Describe your MC’s arc during the main story. Is it positive or negative?

🌫️ Fog: What do you say to yourself in times of uncertainty and self-doubt? How do you encourage yourself to keep writing? (answer one or both)

💨 Wind: Share a line from your WIP’s most suspenseful scene (or tell us about it, if you haven’t written it yet).

💧 Raindrop: Describe your antagonist/villain in 5 words.

☂️ Umbrella: Share ten lines that best represent your MC (can be dialogue or prose).

☀️ Sun: Show off your work! What’s your favorite thing you have written recently?

🌡️ Temperature: Imagine waking up in the body of your MC. What is the first thing you would do?

🌦️ Overcast: Which character do you think readers would love the most? Which character do you think they would dislike?

⚡️Lightning: Really search your WIP—what is the ONE line that best describes the story? Give it a tag line!

🌈 Rainbow: What is your favorite character dynamic to write? Give us an example from your WIP!

🌀 Storm: Will your WIP have a happy or sad ending? How do you feel about it?

🪟Window: Obligatory song share request! Give us some ambiance!

hit me!

(For MC specific things you can pick Opal, Issac, Yael, Zipporah or Jamie)