skruffie

[skruffie]

What i think a lot of ppl dont get is that the stigma and misinformation about mental illnesses didnt just arise out of nowhere.

Ppl think that schizophrenics have multiple personalities bc it literally used to be part of the diagnostic criteria of the disorder, ppl think autistics are unable to lead a life on their own bc only the most severe cases used to be diagnosed, its a common misconception that you grow out of adhd bc psychologists used to believe that!

And its still the same with some disorders. Why does everyone think that narcissists abuse others? Or that antisocials are always the worst criminals ever? Because psychologists think that way.

[skruffie]

Me: Hey mom, how did grandma Joy die?

Mom: She drank herself to death basically.

Me: Hmm. Okay. I wonder if there's more to that though. I know, I'll order a copy of her death certificate!

Cause of death: Renal failure (3 days onset), hepatorenal syndrome (7 days onset), cirrhoris of liver (2 months onset)

Me:

[skruffie]

my extended cousins are learning the path to enrollment isn't quite as easy as they thought; they've learned what a CBID is and despite me saying rather clearly the advisory vote was an advisory vote, I think they were still believing enrollment is now a possibility for us. it's not. they might not be pursuing enrollment in the end and it's a weird space to be in for me emotionally.

After kinda finally admitting to myself this is something I want, I still question why because I'm not having children to pass this to. If I'm the only person in my family wanting to enroll, it's a crushingly lonely feeling.

[skruffie]

i love antique stores you go to check out & theyre like “where the hell did you get this”

[skruffie]

It's really cathartic to go through and mass delete ancient emails but it is also surreal because there's thoughts like "when am I going to find the last email my grandma ever sent me" or "Huh, I'm having some epiphanies about the weird online friend I had years ago" or realizing I do in fact have [REDACTED] admitting via apology when she shoved me in 2013 because Tumblr used to send an email every time someone sent you an ask and it'd contain what the text of the ask is in the body of the email!

[skruffie]

But seriously, if you keep pushing yourself past your mental or physical limits, it will catch up with you. You cannot live forever on three hours of sleep and caffeine and willpower. You cannot keep overpowering your very natural need to relax and recharge. If you don't treat both with care and respect, at some point your brain and your body will reach a point of breakdown and burnout - and any mental or physical conditions you may have tried to ignore and power through will kick your ass. So take that goddamn nap or that break now. Don't wait for yourself to shatter and fall apart before you tend to the cracks in your body and mind. Just because you may have the choice to ignore your limits right now doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Take care of yourself now or you WILL regret it.

[skruffie]

after well over a decade of having my email address, outlook was like "hey bestie, you're running out of storage space and you need to start getting rid of stuff" because I just never delete anything, ever.

I think I've gotten through like 5k old emails going back to 2009. That's still barely a drop in the bucket.

[skruffie]

One of my cousins has been talking with the enrollment office for the last several months and here is part of the email he's sent off. We're a little hopeful that if the blood degree is removed that our records will be everything they need, especially since as he states here they wanted BIA documents. I was the one that tracked those down this week.

In emails this week he asked me why I was doing this and it cracked open something I've been kind of afraid to hope for and admit wanting: I want to enroll. I know that you can connect with culture without enrollment but after all of the research I've been doing and how there's some stuff that really you just cannot access with a Google search, it seems important. Especially if it might be a real possibility in the future.

[skruffie]

[skruffie]

Post is set for a week, let's see how it goes...

[skruffie]

Boys will be boys

[skruffie]

ARE YOU SHITTING ME

HENRY WHAT DO YOU MEAN

DID YOU KNOW HIS NAME OR NOT

[skruffie]

*for our purposes, a youtube account only counts if you’ve used it to post videos.

reblog for reach/bigger sample size!!

[skruffie]

OKAY

So I took a closer look at the two applications that I was able to (the others are still in the google doc files I can't access at the moment), and for James Huntley I can suspect that he came very close to not enrolling at all. The way that these guys did the whole index of CA natives was by quite literally going door to door up and down the whole state over the course of a couple years and he wasn't home when they initially came to visit. He knew that his uncles had enrolled though so he sent a letter explaining the situation, and the guy was like "sure just fill this out and send it back".

Which is great because he has the most thorough family information. This is the same relative that has the 20+ family history document he wrote my mom and I got copies of a few years ago.

The other interesting thing was that each application had to have two witnesses. One of the witnesses on his was a woman named Josephine Beach, who is tangentially related through marriage to his uncle Edward. James, in his letter to get the application, cited that Edward and his other uncle (Also named James) had already enrolled so this is like a known lateral community tie document too.

[skruffie]

my favorite part so far

The wording of this. This application is around 80-90 years old but this is the same contemporary wording we use to acknowledge land in this year of 2024: "what is now [post-contact name]." Time collapsing on itself in a beautiful way.

I have the applications my relatives made to register and be recognized as California Indians. They're in my email right now.

Not the final index. I already had that. These are the actual applications, in their words.