Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
ok i swear i'm not going to talk about my breakup forever but the thing that just keeps bothering me:
i know that not getting what you need in a relationship is a COMPLETELY valid reason to end it but also. i feel like having a very vulnerable moment where i opened up about my struggles with intimacy and being relieved that i didn't have to keep doing things i wasn't comfortable with, then being dumped a YEAR later because of my lack of intimacy. is something i should be allowed to be very hurt by???
If My Body Could Speak, Blythe Baird | The Godfather, Mario Puzo | My Father's House, Sylvia Fraser | To The Daughter Who Secretly Longs For Her Mother’s Affection, Lynne Shako | Storms from Jupiter, Wanda Deglane | DO NOT REPLY, @filmnoirsbian
Please do not do this but I just screamed for 30 minutes so here’s what you should know.
Can’t do it continuously for very long, have to stop to breathe (amount of time and breaths it takes to recover depends on how long you hold it)
It is EXHAUSTING. Seriously, if your whumpee has been screaming for more than thirty seconds multiple times, they won’t have ANY energy to fight back against the whumper. My head was hanging down for a bit because I was just so tired. The exhaustion also caused dizziness when I stood up. Also it’s been around five minutes and my throat still hurts super bad.
Oddly, I could still talk, maybe a bit of rasp in my voice but still effectively and fairly easily. (Again, about thirty minutes with tiny breaks)
Seriously when the exhaustion hits, it hits H A R D
Mouth kinda hurts too tbh
Heart beats pretty rapidly during and shortly after
My head hurts
Both hurts and helps to cough
Update an hour later: slightly hurts throat to talk
Do you think Mac has jacked off while reading the Bible? Or is he too ashamed? Or does the shame just turn him on more? Are the pages of his Bible all stuck together?
Oh, I don't think; we know:
(Pages stuck together, thanks for the confirmation, Charlie)
I think the shame definitely turns him on more, considering Mac Day:
And, the connected punishment, lest we forget The Gang Goes to Hell... (and the script here... whew)
While he was repressed then, he wasn't as of Charlie's Home Alone, so I think it's clear to claim that a part of his "homosexual awakening" was connected to the fact that he was gradually getting more and more into the idea of being punished (gone sexual) for his sins, to a point where he was just genuinely jerking off to the "evils of homosexuality"
I do wanna continue here though and say Season 15 is pretty interesting because we see Mac battle between being Catholic and proudly gay. He seemingly has no issue bragging to a Priest in the middle of a church that he's into triple penetration, but it is his sex life that is the driving "reasoning" for why he thinks he should become a Catholic Priest:
He's been "S-ing&F-ing" his way though life for too long and now he thinks God has taken away one of his identities (Irish) as a result. Mac's idea of being punished by/for God continues, but it's now through the form of revocation (as opposed to shame or flagellation). I think there's a clear "connect the dots" idea that depriving himself of sex (via becoming a Priest) is an "evolved" form of allowing God to punish him for being gay.
Obviously Mac learns he was lied to, as he actually is Irish, so his "journey" here is a bit of a wash, but the fact that his rationale jumped to God punishing him for having gay sex still stands. As he grows to accept himself, he's still looking for ways to feel shame (which, as we've seen, gets him off)...
But is the constant seeking for some form of punishment still there? We didn't see much of his Catholicism in Season 16 (I think the only mention of God from Mac was in The Gang Gets Cursed), but we did continue to see his sex life and—well, that was pretty heavy on Mac, openly gay dating, somehow managing to be neglected and deprived of actual gay sex, wasn't it?
Why did you do it? I don't know what you're talking about. I was drunk that night, and you told me you would always look at me— You want to get back at me, right?
sometimes I forget that my experience has been. um. not 'your experiences are not universal' vibes but more like 'your experiences are EXTREMELY atypical'
[ID: An animatic of Stephanie Brown as Robin set to Tears over Beers by modern baseball. The images are paired with the lyrics. Stephanie as spoiler staring longingly at Bruce, Tim and Cass on a rooftop is paired with "he needed more than me". A compilation of sketches of Steph as robin go with "im friendly and thoughtful and quite awfully pretty". Finally a redraw of Steph's firing as Robin is paired with "but he needed more than me". End ID]
been trying to finish a comic for. Weeks now (just been hitting a lot blocks) and quickly threw this together as a break from it! Do you guys ever think about Stephanie Brown…
Okay, so I just found out that mortal souls in heaven don't remember those who went to hell.
What do you mean Molly doesn't remember Angel Dust? WHAT do you mean Alastor's mother doesn't remember him?
Just imagine the complete anguish that these two would go through if they met their family only to find out that they don't remember them.
Molly is Angel's twin sister, they were probably super duper close and now she has no memories of him??? Alastor's mom was most likely the only person he ever truly loved and cared about (he is a mama's boy after all) and now this woman has forgotten him???