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Friday Question – Self-Care, Expanded Conceptions

By | 2015-11-28T20:14:47-05:00 November 27th, 2015|Categories: Questions, Self Care|Tags: , , |

What are some forms of self-care for you that people don't typically suggest/encourage or think of as self-care? - Are there things that you do to take care of yourself that you've had a hard time recognizing as a form of self-care? Have any of your needs gone unmet because of this? - Are there things that others often suggest as self-care that just don't work for you? What are they, and do you know why it is they don't work for you? If you can articulate that, it may help with explaining to those people why they should stop suggesting that to you, or possibly help you figure out what it is that you need instead. - Is it helpful for you to, as Miri put it, "distinguish between the self-care we do to replenish and sustain ourselves, and the self-care we do to prevent ourselves from falling to pieces completely"—in other words, to think about self-care very differently depending on what you need in the moment? What kinds of self-care work better when you need to replenish/sustain, and which work better when your goal is to just keep yourself together?

Hyper-kink-mode

By | 2018-04-09T23:19:04-04:00 November 26th, 2015|Categories: Intersectional Issues, Personal Narratives|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

It’s a weird feeling, to suddenly need certain kink things, to have a sudden craving so strong it suggests sometimes dangerous lengths and abandonment of boundaries and safety practices. I never know how long these things’ll last. Sometimes it’s just a day, sometimes it’s months. And it sure doesn’t feel like it will ever stop. (It’s everywhere and everywhen, how could it stop?) And it can be years in-between, and I can forget how to handle them, get out of practice, lose all my contacts and coping strategies. I don’t expect it to happen again.

Friday Question – Colors

By | 2016-04-01T16:28:01-04:00 November 20th, 2015|Categories: Questions|Tags: , , |

Color psychology analyzes a lot of common associations between colors and emotions. Blues and cooler colors are supposedly soothing, greens and earth tones are grounding. Many restaurants are painted red with the intention of making customers hungry. It can be beneficial to understand how particular colors may influence or trigger you, since you could see those colors anywhere. What do different colors make you feel or think about?

a revolution for the crooked souls.

By | 2018-04-10T00:31:44-04:00 November 12th, 2015|Categories: Intersectional Issues, Personal Narratives|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

I’m a “bad” rape victim. A Model Rape Survivor doesn’t know her attacker. My rapist is essentially a stranger to me, but that night was not the first time I had met him. She is dressed modestly and cannot be held responsible due to those clothing choices. I wore one of my shortest dresses and no bra when I walked into his apartment. She’s virginal and chaste, only doing the appropriate sexual things with appropriate people. I considered myself a virgin at the time, though I’m sure other people might disagree, but I’d gone to his place to mess around in the first place.

Friday Question: Seasonal Changes

By | 2015-11-07T01:42:39-05:00 November 6th, 2015|Categories: Questions|Tags: , , |

For a lot of survivors, trauma is kind of cyclical, and different seasons tend to bring with them different kinds of triggers or feelings. Sometimes we don't even realize the effect that seasonal changes have on us, but simply feel like things are suddenly different, and have a harder time coping without understanding why. It's a good idea to give some serious thought to how seasons can affect us, so today I want to offer some questions to get you thinking about that. Do seasons affect the way you experience your trauma? - Do you tend to feel more easily triggered during certain seasons? - Do seasons tend to affect your mood more generally? - Do you have different triggers or challenges to navigate during different seasons? - Are some of the ways that you use to cope not accessible to you during this time of year? Or, do you have more ways of coping than you would normally?

Friday Question: Ace Community

By | 2015-10-23T15:50:47-04:00 October 23rd, 2015|Categories: Questions|Tags: , , |

This week is Asexual Awareness Week, and I know that many of us have been doing things for it, even if it's something as low-key as just wearing ace pride colors. In light of that, I want to keep this week's question simple: What does the ace community mean to you? Where and how did you first connect with it? How did it feel? What sort of impact has it had on your life? Are there parts of it that are harder to connect to? Are there parts that feel more welcoming? What kinds of connection to the ace community do you have now? Is it changing in any way?

Friday Question: Self-Blame & Guilt

By | 2015-10-16T21:29:26-04:00 October 16th, 2015|Categories: Questions|Tags: , , |

What are the things you need to/have had to let go of, to stop blaming yourself or feeling guilty? - To those of you who have managed to stop blaming yourself for what happened to you: what was most helpful? Was there something in particular that helped you realize that it wasn't your fault? - To those of you who still struggle with self-blame: What is it that you tend to get most stuck on? Sometimes, if we talk about these thoughts and feelings, it can help to combat them with logic, and to hear validation from an outside perspective.

Friday Question: Safe Places

By | 2015-10-09T19:12:57-04:00 October 9th, 2015|Categories: Questions|Tags: , , , , |

One of the exercises my therapist had me do when I first started seeing her was to create a mental sanctuary of sorts where I could go within my mind when the physical spaces around me don't feel safe. Through a guided meditation, we associated a word with that feeling. Now, I can say that word to myself, close my eyes, and go to that place in my mind. What about you? Where do you feel most safe?

Friday Question: Coping Skills for Different Situations

By | 2015-10-02T19:14:12-04:00 October 2nd, 2015|Categories: Coping Strategies, Questions|Tags: , |

Maybe one barrier to identifying positive coping skills is that when people ask "how do you cope?" in general, without specifying any kind of situation or feeling that we're coping with, it doesn't paint a concrete enough picture in our minds for the things that we do in different situations to become clear. So I think it may be helpful instead to have a specific situation or feeling in mind that you're trying to cope with, and write down ways that help you deal with just that particular case. What are the coping skills you use when...? - You feel depressed, sad, or lonely? - You feel angry, resentful, or frustrated? - You feel anxious or panicked? - You feel dissociated or have a flashback?

Asexuality Basics for Health Professionals Printable Info Sheet

By | 2018-04-22T20:21:49-04:00 September 29th, 2015|Categories: Asexuality & Mental Health, For Activists, For Professionals|Tags: , , , , , |

A resource for those who: Need to come out to their therapists about asexuality, but aren’t up for fielding 101 questions Want their doctors to understand asexuality to avoid misdiagnosis, bad assumptions, or awkward questions Simply want to do activism to promote better understanding of asexuality and competent treatment of [...]

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