#living the good life

[gastrophobia]

Friendly reminder!

[bluesidedown]

Some of yall would thrive where I'm living rn they eat soup as part of their main meal every single day. And have another meal that is basically just bread and cheese. (Good European bread and cheese)

[muttball]

Place in Paradise

[brain4heartz]

drew some art. found a lifesized dog plush at goodwill. named him gooby doo and put him in my moms van.

[liiht]

It's not everyday you send an email about Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) directed by Tim Hill to a mega-corp. But today is that day for me!

[sssleepysssmiles]

me and my boyfriend (real) (not fake) (confirmed)

[bengrimmfanclub]

Fantastic Four (1998) #60

[wildwanderess]

morning coffee in nature. a vibe ☕️🍃🌞

[unnerving-presence]

Bruh I’m so torn… I really like beta character cuz it’s better at storytelling and staying in character but… chai can actually narrate smut 😭

character.ai mods don’t actually support it, so you can only go so far

i like the both of them though ! chai is super good for nsfw rp while character.ai is good for general rp :) it even works if you just want to do romance, but it is significantly harder to do anything nsfw on there, but it can work !

[somewhereinmalta]

My cats having a nap. Housecats have great lives.

[dabbertcustomblades]

Rebel helping me in the shop this morning 🐶

[samuel-star]

When you break up but are still besties and go to pride together #besties

[when-life-gives-you-marbles]

The Significance of Memories

Okay, so pretend that there’s a box of memories that you’ve collected throughout your life that’s sitting in your head. That collection is probably one of THE MOST important things that you own. And it can never be replaced.

 A Harvard article on memory loss gives some good insight into how memories make up our lives, “In many ways, our memories shape who we are. They make up our internal biographies- the stories we tell ourselves about what we’ve done with our lives. They tell us who we’re connected to, who we’ve touched during our lives, and who has touched us.” Each memory that you own is extremely valuable.

It’s important that we’re able to keep memories because they’re the only things that we can rely on to tell us our own stories. They’re the things that we can look back on when wanting to know how our life has had meaning and it’s something we can’t live without.

Just like how that yellow fish in Nemo can't live without his bubbles.

.....come to think of it I think that's actually his name. Bubbles.

In fact, it’s a strong factor in how your mental health is as well. I'd like to share an article that links both mental health and memory together. According to Psychology Today, “Depression has been linked with reduced volume in the hippocampus, a part of the brain that is important for memory.” The loss of one’s memory or focusing on the negatives that have occurred throughout life has been seen to lead to mental illnesses such as depression.

It's hard to see how much of an impact memories have on your mental health, so it’s very important that we focus on the positive moments in life.

Playing Mancala is one of the positives that happened in my life and I’m thankful that I had the opportunity to play it because now I have that memory to look back on whenever I need.

Make sure to hold onto the memories that make you happy, it’s those memories that lead to a happier living experience.

[cryptixotic]

Be real with me. You're sitting in a bar and a 𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔢𝔞 with a massive sword rams into the door. Do you or do you not laugh

[andthebeanstalk]

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.

[spitblaze]

Men and masculinity are not inherently bad or untrustworthy things and I don't mean that in a 'misandry is real and a problem' way, I mean that in a 'I think some of you might have contracted minor radfem poisoning' way