#and people realize tattoos actually have no correlation to someone's professional ability

[kittyoverlord]

I work with attorneys who have hand tattoos. It's really not a big deal.

once when I was at my dad’s workplace, he and I were speaking to his coworker who had a butterfly tattoo. and as soon as she was out of earshot, he said “whenever I see people with tattoos, I feel that their parents have failed them.” and me, being the child of this person, who already had multiple tattoos hidden under clothing, was like 😬

[donnerpartyofone]

working for a giant corporation taught me some really crazy things about myself and others. for instance, i think that if you grow up as like a responsible little goody two shoes like myself, you develop this delusion that people in high-powered jobs are mature and intelligent in proportion to how far up the ladder they are, because how else could they possibly have become the boss of everybody? in reality there is absolutely no such correlation between mental and social ability, and what you get to do, and actually i think that most people in a position of authority get there by being so thin-skinned and intolerable when they’re not satisfied that people just give them stuff to get them to shut up. but i digress. what i’m really thinking about is the shocking realization that older, more experienced, more “qualified” people (or just as bad, people who appear to be on exactly the same level as you) don’t read. i mean, they just will never read an entire email. i used to write these emails that included every single piece of information the person might need to know about whatever the subject was; not that they were pages long, but they’d introduce the topic, ask my main 2-3 questions, and include whatever the person might need to know in order to answer me, if there was anything extra that they shouldn’t know already. then i started to realize that no matter what i did to try to finish the conversation in as few emails as possible, the person would like, read the first line, respond only to that in a confusing incomplete way, and then later get mad because i “never told them” all the stuff i explained in that first message. so, i had to learn to start dumbing down everything i wrote until it was like something i would send to a child, in the simplest terms possible and never with more than one piece of information OR one question at a time. i found it pretty disturbing to have to do this, just like i found it disturbing that in this day and age you really HAVE to use stupid little smiley face emoji in a professional environment or else no one is capable of figuring out if you’re like furiously screaming at them or not. even though some people are legitimately so busy and overwhelmed that you have to spoonfeed them information for both your sakes, these experiences can go a long way toward making you feel like everyone you work for is a fucking idiot and they shouldn’t be allowed to push you around and condescend to you if they can’t even fucking read as well as you apparently do.

anyway this isn’t exactly the same thing AT ALL but last week i sent a tattoo proposal to this person who is a really successful, sophisticated artist. it’s not my first time at the rodeo, or even at that specific shop, so i bulleted the stuff that has to go into every proposal, and added whatever extra description i thought was necessary. admittedly there was a bunch of that, because what i wanted them to do was a little complex, like i want an existing image but in a different style, and i wanted to be as clear as possible about that. the other unusual thing i did was to send a link to my reference images (all in one place after the jump), instead of attaching them--part of what i sent was a video showing the available space on my arm (i needed to turn my arm over to show the whole spot), and i couldn’t email it, so this seemed like an ok solution. this is starting to sound like a lot but it really wasn’t, it was like, read a half-page email with clear bullet points and then follow a link. about a week passed (that part is normal), and then i noticed that they sent me a DM over instagram, from a blank account i guess they keep for this purpose. that was weird since we’d never interacted over there, and also since they didn’t respond to my email; why would this be easier? so then i look, and there’s no message, they just forwarded me their booking faq--which outlines exactly what i did. i don’t know what they think i didn’t send already--i’m guessing they didn’t like or didn’t notice the photo link but i can’t be sure because they didn’t say anything--but it was all in my email. suddenly i found myself back in that office mentality. do i

a) resend everything in a different format, to try to figure out what email style works best for them? understanding that it’s always possible they won’t get it the second time either, for some reason? or b) reply that i already DID read the faq and i sent them exactly what it asked for, so they should just look at my email again, in a tone that magically doesn’t make me sound mad or rude?

OR, let’s say i don’t want to do this with them anymore because i’m worried about letting someone modify my body when we’re already struggling to communicate. like to be honest it bothered me that they didn’t type anything, even like “your message is missing stuff, read the faq and try again”, and/or “i’m sending my faq over instagram so check your DMs.” also they sent the faq as photos over DM so they expire; i thought to take screenshots, but if i hadn’t, i’d be fucked. so, i think now i have to figure out how to terminate this. do i

1) reply to the DMs, or to my email which i guess they got even though they switched channels on me, and make a formal declaration that i’m not going to pursue this with them so there’s no further confusion, or 2) just ghost, because who really cares, and they’re probably really busy anyway, which would explain everything that happened/didn’t happen.

i wish i didn’t agonize over stuff like this but that’s just my deal. this is slightly like when i realized that now some professionals only write in this infantile internet speak, which has the dual effect of making me feel strangely uncool even if they’re older and dorkier than me, and also like i’m just not sure if they’re actually reading and understanding what i tell them because their responses are in like baby talk. i think it’s becoming obvious that the answer is 2 just forget all about this, i already thought of someone else for this project anyway and it’s too anxious-making for me to figure out someone’s love language or whatever just so i can tailor all my messages to them. probably a lot of people would just drop it without even worrying about it. i just wish i gave less of a shit about things in general.

[imnotcrazyidontthink]

I am so grateful to have artist + mental health activist Kate Elizabeth share her story on the blog today. Her story has really touched me and I hope it can do the same for you - Leon Else

Hello, I’m Kate Elisabeth. I’m a non-binary pansexual, which is a fancy way of saying I’m hella queer. I’m also an illustrator who fancies cartoons, and I’m also a mental health activist!

My experience with mental health goes a little deeper than just receiving a diagnosis and treatment. 

When I was 12 years old I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Hashimotos, where my immune system attacks my thyroid. I now need to take hormone replacements to make up for what my thyroid is lacking. After the diagnosis my parents assumed all of my apparent mental stress was a direct correlation to my autoimmune disease, rather than it being a separate Illness that needed its own attention. While it is true that Hashimotos can cause psychosis, the psychosis goes away once the thyroid is being treated. Mine stayed with me, like an unwanted roommate. 

I grew up in a dysfunctional household filled with marital issues and my parents having their own suppressed trauma and stress. My dad worked hard, and had worked hard his whole life. He depended on my mom to be able to take care of us when he was at work. She often did, and often did it quite well. But I think there were things she was unprepared to deal with, and she struggled to communicate this to her partner. 

My earliest memory of anxiety is when I was 6 years old, and I was unable to write a handful of thank you notes addressed to the students in my class. I remember feeling paralyzed by this sense of responsibility and I was so afraid of writing the wrong words. After all, I was 6 years old and didn’t have much experience writing anything at all. To be fair, my parents were unable to recognize this as anxiety because I don’t think they recognized their own for many, many years. Instead of asking me why I was stressed out, my mother criticized my inability to write the notes myself. She ended up doing it for me, and that was the first time I remember feeling like I had failed, and like I didn’t measure up. Moments like those throughout my childhood would have a direct correlation to the severe anxiety and depression that would develop later on.

 I remember I started hallucinating in fourth grade, and it would happen frequently when I was around 13. In fourth grade I remember visually hallucinating malformations on people’s faces or their body parts. I was probably 10 at this time and had no idea how to explain this to someone, so I went to the nurses office and told them I felt sick. I did that a lot during school, looking for reasons to go home sick so I could avoid seeing or hearing anything I didn’t want to see or hear.

 I began to isolate myself from family and friends as the years went on, and my parents attributed this to teen angst. I felt myself disconnecting from the world around me and I eventually lost my sense of self. By the time I was 16 I was on my third year of highschool and failing, while just doing the bare minimum to advance. I had no desire or will to live, and developed anorexia and other suicidal behaviors. 

When I was 17, I saw a psychiatrist and told him about my visual and auditory hallucinations, and he explained that I have schizophrenia, which is a grossly misunderstood form of psychosis. Unfortunately, his treatment methods got me nowhere, and I was briefly dependent on adderall. My parents stopped taking me to therapy, and I actually can’t say for sure what their reasons for that may have been, since there was always a persistent lack of communication.

 I graduated high school with mostly Ds, because my teachers all knew I was struggling and not receiving adequate treatment. It seemed like everyone besides my parents could realize that I needed intensive care and help.

During middle school, and into my junior year of high school, my main motivation for getting out of bed was artwork. I became known to everyone as the artist and that was the only facet of my identity. I would go to therapy for a few years on and off, but it was always me complaining about my parents, so no real progress on my mental health was made. I was under the impression that life was an illusion, and I had no way of being absolutely sure that the people around me were even real. Schizophrenia changes your perception of reality, and can cause delusional states of mind. It dulls your ability to feel strong emotions, and it can cause severe detachment from your sense of self. I legitimately felt like I was empty, and I couldn’t possibly imagine a brighter future.

 I became increasingly paranoid that people were lying to me about everything, and I had trust issues. I would spend weeks isolating myself in my room, accumulating piles of dirty dishes, trash, dirty clothes, etc. I was essentially living in my own misery. My mom often helped me clean my room, but became frustrated that I couldn’t keep it clean, There were times where she tried to not make me feel guilty, but I felt the guilt anyway. I remember always feeling like I had no control over anything.

When I was 18, I was raped repeatedly for two months by someone who I assumed I could trust. I was unable to leave my situation out of fear, denial, coercion, manipulation, and gaslighting. I started to smoke marijuana heavily during that time as a means of escapism. I was only able to leave that situation because he hit me over the head with a pair of drum sticks, and he was arrested and charged with domestic violence. 

I now have a restraining order against him. I also have a tattoo on my chest that he gave me without my consent, because I was under the influence of drugs. I remember standing in front of a mirror shirtless, then I remember being on a table getting tattooed. I don’t remember agreeing to getting anything tattooed. When it was over I tried to justify it and convince myself that I wanted this to happen. He treated me like a carnival prize that he had won, and he would objectify me to anyone who encountered us. He would tell me to take off my shirt and show people the tattoo that he gave me. I felt like a billboard for his own twisted personal brand of self aggrandizement. 

My mental health at the time was poor, even without the effects of drugs. I felt like what was happening to me was meant to happen as a means of punishment for not cleaning my room, not doing better in school, or whatever reason I could think of to explain cause of the abuse. I smoked weed every day for a year and a half to cope with everything. I’m 20 years old now, and I’ll be 21 on October 13th. It has taken me two and a half years to fully accept that it wasn’t my fault, and that blaming myself isn’t the answer. I couldn’t even talk about the sexual assault verbally without breaking down in tears until earlier this year.

That experience made me realize that life is not a delusion. Additionally, that I am in fact vulnerable to the same dangers as everyone else. I am not exempt from experiencing the impact of other people’s decisions.

This all made me reflect on my own life and the decisions I was making, as well as the people in my life. It has given me the motivation to take control over my college education, my career, and my art. I still suffer daily from all of my health issues, mental or otherwise, and the trauma of what I lived through. Although, what is different now is that I have a self awareness that could only have been gained from walking through Hell and coming out the other end alive. I also had to make a decision: I could either run away from my problems and ignore them, or I could actually get to know myself and figure out how to overcome these obstacles. 

This is a constant choice that I make every day. I can’t erase what happened to me, I can’t magically make my Hashimotos disappear, and I can’t cure my schizophrenia, but I can make the decision to try and live my best life despite it all. I strongly encourage all of you to do the same thing. I’m in school majoring in psychology now, and I am going to become a doctor in the field of psychiatry. I’m also still making art and I often enjoy it and find great pleasure in it. Having a creative outlet is so fundamental for your mental health. There’s an entire field of study for it, and it’s called art therapy.

If you’re depressed, have anxiety, OCD, or a broken leg, just know that positive things can and will happen when you make the conscious decision to help yourself. People will only understand that their depression or anxiety or mental illness can receive treatment if we educate and spread awareness. Suicide is an increasing epidemic because people are afraid to ask for help or talk about their feelings.

I encourage every one of you to understand the significance of mental health and why it’s morally ethical to assist those who need our help. If someone you know is suffering from depression or mental illness, or they’ve experienced a traumatic event, reach out to them and suggest they seek professional help and treatment.

There is hope, it gets better, and you are not alone.

Kate Elizabeth xo