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mimicofmodes · 4 years ago

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“The Ladies Waldegrave” by Joshua Reynolds, 1780 (NGS NG2171)

I’ve complained before about two very big pet peeves of mine - corset stuff and Regency women being dressed in 1770s-1780s clothes - but one that may dwarf them because of how frequently it comes up in historical and fantasy fiction is the oppression of embroidery.

That’s probably putting it a bit too strongly. It’s more like ... the annoyance of embroidery. Every character worth reading about knows instinctively that sewing is a) boring, b) difficult, c) mindless, and d) pointless. The author doesn’t have to say anything more than “Belinda threw down her needlework and looked out the window, sighing,” to signal that this is an independent woman whose values align with the modern reader, who’s probably not really understood by her mother or mother figure, and who probably will find an extraordinary man to “match” her rather than settling for someone ordinary. To look at an example from fantasy, GRRM uses embroidery in the very beginning of A Game of Thrones to show that the Stark sister who dislikes it is sympathetic and interesting, while the Stark sister who is competent at it is boring and conventional and obviously not deserving of a PoV (until later books, when her attention gets turned to higher matters); further into the book, of course, the pro-needlework sister proves to be weak-willed and naïve.

Rozsika Parker, in the groundbreaking 1996 work The Subversive Stitch, noted that “embroidery has become indelibly associated with stereotypes of femininity,” which is the core of the issue. "Instead embroidery and a stereotype of femininity have become collapsed into one another, characterised as mindless, decorative and delicate; like the icing on the cake, good to look at, adding taste and status, but devoid of significant content.”

Parker also points out that the stereotype isn’t just one that was invented in the present day by feminists who hated the idea of being forced to do a certain craft. “The association between women and embroidery, craft and femininity, has meant that writers concerned with the status of women have often turned their attention towards this tangled, puzzling relationship. Feminists who have scorned embroidery tend to blame it for whatever constraint on women's lives they are committed to combat. Thus, for example, eighteenth-century critical commentators held embroidery responsible for the ill health which was claimed as evidence of women's natural weakness and inferiority.”

There are two basic problems I have with the trope, beyond the issue of it being incredibly cliché:

First: needlework was not just busywork

A big part of what drives the stereotype is the impression that what women were embroidering was either a sampler:

sampler embroidered by Jane Wilson, 14, in 1791 (MMA 2010.47)

or a picture:

unfinished embroidery of David and Abigail, British, 1640s-50s (MMA 64.101.1325)

That is, something meant to hang on the wall for no real purpose.

These are forms of schoolwork, basically. Samplers were made by young girls up to their early teens, and needlework pictures were usually something done while at school or under a governess as a showpiece of what was being learned - not just the stitching itself, but also often watercolors (which could be worked into the design), artistic sensibility, and the literature, history, or art that might be alluded to. And many needlework pictures made in schools were also done as mourning pieces, sometimes blank, for future use, and sometimes to commemorate a recent death in the family. A lot of them are awkward, clearly just done to pass the class, but others are really artwork.

Many schools for middle- and upper-class girls taught the making of these objects (and other “ornamental” subjects) alongside a more rigorous curriculum - geography, Latin, chemistry, etc. At some, sewing was also always accompanied by serious reading and discussion. (And it would often be done while someone read aloud or made conversation later in life, too.)

Once done with their education, women generally didn’t bother with purely decorative work. Some things that fabric could be embroidered for included:

Jackets

Bed coverings and bedcurtains

Collars and undersleeves

Pelerines

Neck handkerchiefs and sleeve ruffles

Screens

Upholstery

Handkerchiefs

Purses, wallets, and reticules

Boxes

Book covers

Plus other articles of clothing like waistcoats, caps, slippers, gown hems, chemises, etc. Women’s magazines of the nineteenth century often gave patterns and alphabets for personal use.

(Not to mention late nineteenth century female artists who worked in embroidery, but that’s something else.)

You could purchase all of these pre-embroidered, but many, many women chose to do it themselves. There are a number of reasons why: maybe they wanted something to do, maybe they felt like they should be doing needlework for moral/gender reasons, maybe they couldn’t afford to buy anything - and maybe they enjoyed it or wanted to give something they made to a person they loved. That firescreen above was embroidered by Marie Antoinette, someone who had any number of other activities to choose from. It’s no different than people today who like to knit their own hats and gloves or bake their own bread, except that it was way more mainstream.

embroidery patterns from Ackermann’s Repository in 1827 - they could be used on dresses, collars, handkerchiefs, etc.

Second: needlework wasn’t the only “useless” thing women were expected to do

Ignoring the bulk of point one for now and the value of embroidery - I mentioned “ornamental subjects” above. As many people know, young women of the upper and middle classes were expected to be “accomplished” in order to be seen as marriageable. This could include skills like embroidery, drawing, painting, singing, playing the piano (as well as other instruments, like the harp or the mandolin), speaking French (if not also Italian and/or German), as well as broader knowledge and abilities like being well-versed in music, literature, and poetry, dancing and walking gracefully, writing good letters in an elegant hand, and being able to read out loud expressively and smoothly.

This wasn’t a checklist. As the famous discussion in Pride and Prejudice shows, individuals could have different views on what actually made a woman accomplished:

“How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners! And so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite.”

“It is amazing to me,” said Bingley, “how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.”

“All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?”

“Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.”

“Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,” said Darcy, “has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished.”

“Nor I, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley.

“Then,” observed Elizabeth, “you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman.”

“Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it.”

“Oh! certainly,” cried his faithful assistant, “no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.”

“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

Mr. Bingley feels that a woman is accomplished if she has the ability to do a number of different arts and crafts. Miss Bingley feels (or says she feels) that it goes beyond specific skills and into branches of artistic attainment, plus broader personal qualities that could be imparted by well-bred governesses or mothers. And Mr. Darcy, of course, agrees with that but adds an academic angle as well.

But what ties all of these accomplishments together is their lack of value on the labor market. A woman could earn a living with any one accomplishment, if she worked hard enough at it to become a professional, but young ladies weren’t supposed to be professional-level good because they by definition weren’t going to earn a living. All together, they trained a woman for the social and domestic role of a married woman of the upper middle or upper class, or, if she couldn’t get married, a governess or teacher who would share her accomplishments with the next generation.

(To be fair, almost none of the trappings of an upper-middle/upper class male education had anything to do with the kind of career training that college frequently is today, either. Men were educated to know the cultural touchpoints of their class and fit in with their peers.)

There are reasons that an individual person/character might specifically object to embroidery, but it was far from the only “useless” thing that an unconventional heroine would be required to do against her inclination by her conventional mother/grandmother/aunt/chaperone. Embroidery stands out to modern audiences because most of the other accomplishments are now valued as gender-neutral arts and skills.

“The Embroidery Frame”, by Mathilde Weil, ca. 1900 (LOC 98501309)

So, some thoughts for writers of historical fiction (or fantasy that’s supposed to be just like the 19th/18th/17th/etc century):

- If your heroine doesn’t like embroidery, she probably doesn’t like a number of other things she’s expected to do. Don’t pull out embroidery as either more expected or more onerous than them. Does she hate to sit still? I’d imagine she also dislikes drawing and practicing the piano. Would she prefer to do academic subjects? She probably also resents learning French instead of Latin, and music and dancing. Does she hate enforced femininity? Then she’d most likely have a problem with all of the accomplishments.

- If your heroine just and specifically doesn’t like embroidery, try to show in the narrative that that’s not because it’s objectively bad, and only able to be liked by the boring. Have another sympathetic character do it while talking to the heroine. Note that the hero carries a flame-stitched wallet that’s his sister’s work. Emphasize the heroine’s emotional connection to her deceased or absent mother through her affection for clothing or upholstery that her mother embroidered - or through a mourning picture commemorating her. There are all kinds of things you can do to show that it’s a personal preference rather than a stupid craft that doesn’t take talent and skill!

mourning picture for Daniel Goodman, probably embroidered by a Miss Goodman, 1803 (MMA 56.66)

#history #women's history #writing #embroidery #19th century #18th century #17th century #victorian #georgian #regency

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antichristsxbox · 5 years ago

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Can I have a part 2 to your Hawthorne Michael x cheerleader!reader fic please?! 👀 I loved ittt! 💙

Summary: Michael comes to a basketball game to watch you cheer. I’m not sure how else to describe this without giving away any spoilers. :D

From the writer: Hey guys! This is the second part to this request I received. I really like how this turned out, so let me know if you have any more requests! Feel free to check out the other things I’ve written here: Fiend, Gnarly :) Update: here’s part three to this fic! :)

Word count: 1,236

“I’ll come to the game tonight,” the text read, and you felt the butterflies in your stomach already. Michael would be there to see you mostly, but he might enjoy the game as well. Basketball is a fun sport to watch, much more than football (in your opinion at least). There’s no being outdoors, getting sweaty and gross, and bug bites. It’s all inside and air-conditioned; another upside is basketball games are much shorter than football games.

The court was well-lit and shiny when you entered, as always. There wasn’t a tremendous crown tonight, but this was going to be an easy game. Michael hadn’t arrived yet, but the basketball players are finishing up their warm-ups and getting ready for their pre-game huddle.

It’s an unofficial tradition to take spirit buddy pictures before every game— Instagram and Snapchat have to know about the games for people to care. Kyle approaches you and extends his arms for a hug.

“Are you boys gonna win tonight?” you say with a smile, returning his hug.

“Only if you cheer loud enough,” he says, breaking the hug to squat down so you could safely get over his arms— he’ll hold you for a picture to post on his Snapchat story. It’s a cute photo, your legs crossed as you sit on his left shoulder; his left arm is keeping you steady while his right hand is occupied with a basketball.

One picture turns to many as you also need something to post. He’s now holding you bridal style with one of your legs popped in the air and an arm around his neck. As he puts you down, you notice Michael in the stands, waiting for the game to start. Michael glances down at his phone the second you make eye contact with him, although you’re sure he’d seen you taking pictures just seconds before. When did Michael even get here? He seems to have snuck in without you noticing at all.

The game started shortly after pictures were done, with the boys coming in hot at 20-5 in the first quarter. Kyle is the starting point guard, and he’s had his hands on the ball at least once every minute since the game started. He’s at half court and shoots the ball in the net with ease.

“Whoosh! Let’s go Locks!”

The mascot for Hawthorne is actually a Warlock, but that’s a mouthful for a cheer. After every basket a player makes, the cheer goes ‘whoosh!’ then you stomp your feet twice, then you go ‘let’s go Locks!’ while moving your arm from a horizontal position, to a vertical position, then straight up. It’s pretty simple, but hard to keep up with when the boys keep dunking.

“Yeah Kyle! Let’s go one!” you shake your poms and wave to your spirit buddy (his jersey number is one, for obvious reasons as well as point guard being the first position on the court). He’s so focused, he almost doesn’t notice, but a small smile is exchanged between you two.

The boys end up winning the game, with a total score of 60-15. A very good game, but still not their best total score. You retreat to the cheer room to grab your bag, then you’re on your way back down to see Michael.

When you get back down to the court, you see Michael and Kyle having a conversation. Oh no, you hope this is only a simple congratulations for winning the game.

“Man, I’m a lady killer, if I want her, Imma steal her,” Kyle says, walking away with the rest of his team while he’s spinning a ball on the tips of his fingers.

“Fuck you!” Michael blurts out, loud enough for anybody in a twenty-foot radius to hear.

A collective ‘woahhh’ is audible from the rest of the basketball team as they begin to surround Michael, with Kyle in the middle of the circle, face-to-face with Michael. Kyle slams his ball down hard enough for it to bounce to a height over the highest bleachers. Yet, when it was expected to start dropping in the air again, it remains frozen in the same place at its highest point. The ball then moves to slam in the middle of the backboard and then drops in the net.

“You living up to to our mascot? Huh? Should we get you a pointy hat and a wand?” Kyle sneers, getting closer to Michael’s face before he’s suddenly flung backwards due to Michael’s now-revealed force of some sort. The team then surrounds their star player as Michael makes his exit, receiving glares from the entire team as well as their coach. You’re still standing near the bleachers as Michael walks by. Not to look suspicious, you wait for Kyle to get up. A quick goodbye is all that is exchanged between you and Kyle before you exit the court to meet up with Michael.

Once you’ve walked with Michael far enough towards the dorms until the hallway is clear, you turn and face Michael from the front so he stops walking in front of you. Hands on your hips, head cocked to the side, a disapproving look on your face.

“That was really fucking stupid,” you say, raising an eyebrow.

“What was I supposed to do? He was going all nuts for you, saying he could make you fly away with him like his little butterfly,” he goes on. It doesn’t matter though, he’s visibly angry and he’ll need some time to cool down. This probably isn’t the best time to mention that you and Michael aren’t official and you only hooked up once.

“Look, I’m tired, I just want to go to bed,” you say, looking up and smiling at Michael as you rest a hand on his shoulder.

“Come with me?” he asks in a hushed voice, taking your hand in his and offering a soft smile back. You look down at your feet, then nod your head.

“I’ll go get some pajamas and let my roommate know where I am, I’ll be up soon.”

A soft knock on Michael’s door is all it takes for him to open up and let you in. You sit on the edge of his bed and cross your legs. Soft sweatpants and a t-shirt feel so much better than your itchy shell and tiny skirt. Michael sits next to you and wraps his arm around you before leaning in and going for a kiss. Your touch is noticeably less urgent than his, so he pulls away from the kiss but wraps his arms around you, drawing you in closer.

“Babe, let’s just go to bed,” you say before letting out a small yawn.

“Of course,” he says, standing up to turn over the corner of his comforter for you to lay down. He does this for his side of the bed as well, then both of you are under the covers together. You scoot closer to him so he could pull you in and wrap himself around you. Michael is a very comfortable spooning buddy.

“This is your cocoon, you’re going to fly away with me one day,” he says before placing a soft kiss on your neck, then returning to his position of his arms wrapped around you with his head nuzzled on your shoulder.

“I would love to, my rowdy warlock,” you reply before laying your head down on Michael’s pillow.

///

Tag list: @langdonsoceaneyes @ms-mead

#michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon fanfiction #michael langdon imagine

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tlbodine · 5 years ago

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What is the Market Value of Writing?

OK, so I wrote a while back about what it’s like to work with a small press, and again about how to spot a good publisher, and that raised a pretty good question: How can you know if the rates you’re being offered are fair? How do you know if you’re being ripped off? How can you even tell how much money you should be making as an author if nobody talks about money?

Well. The short answer is: It’s complicated, and there’s a lot of factors to consider.

But let’s try to crack it anyway.

Short Fiction

OK, let’s get this one out of the way first because it’s the easiest. Most literary magazines and anthologies list their pay rates in their market listings. So if you’re using a site like Duotrope, Ralan’s, Dark Markets, Horror Tree etc. (sorry I don’t know what other genres are using these days)...you’ll find the rates.

The range is usually:

Contributor copies

Token payment (usually $10-25 per story)

Per-word ranging from 1cpw to 10cpw

A “professional” market generally pays upwards of 2.5cpw -- so a 5,000 word story would sell for $125, and so on. (some would argue that “professional” rates start at 5cpw, but I think that’s a bit restrictive, there are plenty of perfectly fine markets selling below that).

By that logic, you’d expect book rates to fall in the same range -- so, say, $2,000 to $8,000 for an 80,000-word novel.

But the reality is a little bit different.

How Publishers Pay for Books

The role of a publisher is to absorb the production costs of a book -- editing, cover, typesetting/interior formatting, etc. -- and then, hopefully, turn a profit on selling the finished product.

Which means the publisher is looking at the book, trying to guess how many copies it might sell, comparing that against the production costs, and gauging what to offer the author.

A book deal is usually paid in two parts:

The advance, which is sometimes divided into 2-4 payments between when you sign the contract and when the book goes out.

The royalties, which are a percentage of the cover price and are paid out only after you’ve “earned out” on your advance

So let’s run a hypothetical scenario. Let’s say you’re offered a $1,000 advance with royalties of 10% of the cover price. The book sells for $10, so that means you get $1 for every book sold. This means that you’ll need to sell 1,000 copies of the book, before you “earn back” your advance -- so you’ll start getting royalties after your 1001th sale.

Make sense so far?

So, okay. What are standard royalty rates?

Depends. Small presses usually don’t offer advances (or will often a token advance of less than $500) but usually offer higher royalties. 10% on print and 30% on ebooks is fairly standard; I’ve also seen 50% of net (so NOT the cover price). Traditional publishers that offer bigger advances often pay middling royalties, 3.5% or so for print, but not always.

And how much are standard advances?

It really, super depends. It varies from one publishing house to the next, and from one author to the next. In general...less than you’d think, probably. You hear about the 6-figure and 7-figure advances because they’re newsworthy. Low 5-figure is really good for a debut. A low-to-mid 4-figure advance isn’t rare at all. Which means that, yes, if you’re published by Bantam, you might still get a $4,000 advance (spread out over four different checks, maybe).

Sometimes you can get an idea for what things are selling for by stalking Publisher’s Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/book-deals/index.html

They don’t always include pricing, but sometimes you can get a feel for it.

What About Self-Publishing?

Self-pub skips the middle-man and splits the costs with the author -- up to 70% royalties on ebooks. My Kindle books at $2.99 earn me $2 per sale.

Of course, you have to account for the other expenses (covers, editing, etc.) to make that an even comparison.

How the $^*()&^ Does Anybody Make a Living Doing This???

"Hey, uh, TL, this is cool and all, but I make $2k a month at my crappy job, so are you telling me I have to churn out 80,000 words a month at 2.5cpw to clear my shitty wages?”

Yes. That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I’m sorry.

There’s some good news, though: There’s some opportunity for passive income, so you can gain traction and make more money as it goes along. Passive income includes:

Royalties (once you’ve earned out your advance)

International/translation rights

Audio rights

Film options etc.

Speaker/panelist stipends for conventions (if anyone invites you)

Reprints (selling the same story multiple times)

See why you don’t want to give up any more rights than you need to in your contract?

So if you want to make money writing, generally speaking, you need to:

Be very prolific/fast

Publish with higher-tier publishers (more $$ per word)

Keep your books in print so they keep creating residual income

Sell lots of copies

That said, how much money are writers actually making?

Hard to say. The Author’s Guild does an annual survey that is very interesting to read. It’s a pretty bleak picture: https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/authors-guild-survey-shows-drastic-42-percent-decline-in-authors-earnings-in-last-decade/

Bear in mind though that the thing with these surveys is they’re self-reported, and their data can skew because on one side you’ve got Stephen King and on the other side you have roughly a bazillion self-publishers slapping up random garbage on Amazon and wondering why it doesn’t sell. It makes it a bit hard to find the mid-point.

But I think it’s safe to say that most authors do not make a living being authors. They supplement their income by teaching, or copywriting, or working a day job, or having a spouse who supports them.

Then again, there are authors doing this full time, or making a really good supplemental income with it -- authors you’ve never heard of, who aren’t big names but who sell consistently in their target genre and release books regularly. So it’s not impossible at all. Just...not easy or glamorous.

That’s probably not the answer anyone (least of all me) wants to hear, but it’s what I know.

Hope that helps, @ snowflake927 and anyone else who’s been wondering that same thing!

#publishing #writing #writeblr #writing advice

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noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth · 6 years ago

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A 2018 Fanfic Retrospective

Since it’s the end of the year, I thought I’d look back on the past year of fanfiction that I’ve written, read, and loved. The past year has been my most active fandom year since.... almost a decade, probably. So thanks to everyone who’s made this fandom such a great place to be. Here’s to 2019 and to Jonsa totally becoming canon.

Writing in 2018 I wrote so much this year, it’s unbelievable. I’m usually not just a slow writer but one who doesn’t produce much of anything -- a one-shot or two a year has been my tendency. But this year’s been totally different. Not only am I writing more, I’m writing multi-chapter stuff ...... and actually finishing it.

In July, I finished up A Heart That Offends, which had become a huge pain in the ass at that point because I’d never intended it to get so long. It was supposed to be a oneshot! And then it was supposed to be two chapters at most! It just kept growing (this is a recurring theme in 2018). There’s a lot I’d change about that fic now, including breaking it into more smaller and more digestible chapters, but I’m proud of myself for finishing it and seeing it through to the end. Except for the epilogue.... which I swear is coming.

I also posted all of Winter in My Blood, a fic that had its beginnings nearly a decade ago when I idly starting writing a Queen in the North AU with next to no plot. In the end I think you can tell that this was a story conceived of at a totally different point in my fandom of GOT/ASOIAF, but I honestly love this fic and feel really proud of it. I think it’s got a few of my best bits of writing in it.

And now I’m in the midst (8 chapters in!) of The Seasons of My Love, a fic that began as a fun Harry Potter AU that I could work on when I couldn’t get myself to write A Heart That Offends. Now it’s definitely become something else. It’s my most “traditional” chapter fic, and it’s ended up being a lot more about the emotional toll of all the shit Sansa’s been through, but I think it’s been valuable trying to work through that. I also love writing UST that I just stretch out for as long as humanly possible.

My writing goals for 2019 are to finish The Seasons of My Love and the A Heart That Offends epilogue, but also to go back to my roots and start writing more one-shots. I’ve got a couple in the works already. I’ve also got a list of AU ideas a mile long that I might just start doing tiny excerpts from because there’s no chance I’ll actually have the patience to sit down and write an entire Legally Blonde AU.

Reading in 2018 I’ve read so much fic this year and I’ve been consistently terrible about keeping track of it, which is why I’m trying to use my new sideblog @the-lords-kiss to write up recommendations and all that jazz. However, I thought I’d give out a few superlatives for fics that have really stuck with me this year (and if I’m being honest probably mostly from the latter half of the year).

Most delicious slow burn: But She’s a Forest Fire by Shippershape. I love this WIP with a passion and can only pray that it continues to be updated. The tension between Jon and Sansa is truly killing me in the best possible way. I also just LOVE how Sansa is written in this fic, and I love how it handles her working through her trauma.

Hottest sex scene: Chapter 24 of and no net ensnares me by @athimbleful. Look, we all know that thimbleful is an incredible writer whose plotting, characterization, and dialogue are all on point. She’s a superstar. But somehow, in addition to all that talent, she’s ALSO outrageously good at writing smut. This sex scene was so hot I sent my friend @wishwars who wasn’t even reading the fic a link. And, unsurprisingly, her response was, “Wow that was hot .... and also that was a really good chapter. What a good writer!”

Most surprisingly delightful update: Saskatoon Berry Pie by @justadram. This was one of the earliest Jonsa WIPs I read, but I’d sort of forgotten about in intervening years ... so imagine how excited I was when I got the notification that it had updated! I reread the whole thing again and the prose is just as gorgeous and subtle as I remember it. A warm, domestic gem.

Cleverest use of Alayne Stone: The Blood of Winterfell by @captainbee89/Queenofthebees. I just love this AU, and every time it updates I do a little happy dance. I love Alayne Stone fics and this is one of the best out there. The moral quandary at the heart of it is genuinely difficult, and the romance between Jon and “Alayne” is understandably and deliciously complicated.

Most evil (in the best way) use of Alayne Stone : the ghosts followed by home by @junsnow and ayuminb. Every time I read this fic I laugh to myself the entire time with pure glee. The concept is just so good. The reveal is just soooo good. I don’t want to diminish the fact that it’s a really well-written fic with real emotion behind it, but it’s also makes me cackle with delight because of how fucked up everything gets. I love it.

Most “awwww”-inducing: Spring Floods by @athimbleful. Yeah, thimbleful made the list twice. I can’t help it. I have gushed about this fic about a billion times before but it’s so intimate and warm and sweet and gentle and romantic. It just makes me so happy. It’s so simple and yet the emotion it packs in there is incredible. I don’t know how she does it.

Most promising new WIP: Totally Clueless by @jeynesgreyjoy. I think most of Jonsa fandom knows about this one by now, but if not, jump on it! It’s a Clueless AU and yet it does a remarkable thing, where tonally, it also has the ability to be incredibly thoughtful and serious. The way it’s handled the abuse in Sansa’s past, as well as Jon’s dysfunctional family issues and grief over losing his mother, while maintaining a snappy, sexy style is really incredible.

There were so many good fics I read this year so seriously, to every Jonsa writer out there, you’ve made my life better in all kinds of big and little ways. Thank you for all your hard work and creativity! Keep writing, keep fighting, keep making our babies fall in love!

Hopefully I’ve linked/tagged everything correctly -- let me know if not!

Also, if anyone else feels moved to do something like this, please do! I won’t tag anybody specifically but if you’re a fanfic writer/reader, I’d love to get your end of the year takes. Tag me if you do it so I can see what you write!

#jonsa #jon x sansa #jonsa fic recs

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whitewolfofwinterfell · 6 years ago

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Thoughts from my recent LOST re-watch

There is absolutely no coherence to this, so please forgive me. It’s just a very long list of all of the random thoughts I’ve had throughout my re-watch of LOST about my opinions on characters, ships, plot lines etc. and how they’ve changed or stayed the same. Feel free to send me an ask if you want me to expand on any of these points.

Season 1 is perfection. Literal perfection. I can’t find a single criticism for it. The mystery, the suspense, the anticipation, the characterisation, the plot, the build-up. Just everything. It doesn’t matter how many times I watch it, it’s still so impactful and the pilot is one of the best pilots of any show I’ve ever seen

It’s still so funny that all of the characters so happen to have the perfect combination of skills to survive - Jack the Doctor, Locke the Hunter, Sayid the Soldier and Kate the Tracker

I always knew it anyway, but the Jack/Kate/Sawyer triangle really is awful. And the fact that they (attempted) to bring Ana Lucia into it and then actually did bring Juliet in to make it a love square is even worse.

Jack and Juliet actually kind of make sense as a romantic pairing and have good chemistry (but Suliet still rule all)

Kate is the worst character on the show. I’m sorry, I’ve tried to like her but I never have. She doesn’t undergo any development until around the time she gets Aaron in season 5 - she kills her father in cold blood and justifies it by saying he was a violent drunk (hello, there’s nothing that can justify murder with maybe the exception of self defence), she then goes on the run where she constantly lies, schemes and manipulates to get what she wants, which ultimately leads to her best friend getting killed in the crossfire. From the second she lands on the island she consistently plays Sawyer and Jack off one another by taking advantage of their feelings for her without any consideration to how that impacts them

John Locke is an asshole a majority of the time and I really don’t like him (this doesn’t include pre-island and flash-sideways John, who’s a sweetheart)

Charlie Pace is also an asshole and I don’t know how I didn’t see this sooner

I’ll never be over Boone’s death or the fact that he died for nothing because of Locke

Walt getting taken from the raft is still one of the most shocking and haunting moments of the series

Hugo Reyes is the definition of cinnamon roll, I love him with every fibre of my being and LOST wouldn’t be what is is without him

Kate treats Sawyer like shit from the beginning and he deserves so much better. I’m not gonna lie, I still don’t understand how or why Sawyer falls in love with her

Also what is that bullshit with them having sex in the cage? I know it’s supposed to be this hot-we-could-die-at-any-moment raw sex but it just comes across as very weird?? Even if they don’t know there’s cameras on them, they’re outside in the open where anybody could see them at any time

Shannon is a very misunderstood character who deserved better. So. much. better.

I still hate Ben, but he’s one of the best written villains in television I’ve ever seen

Charlie/Claire is the worst romance in the world. They have no chemistry, Charlie develops an obsession with her and practically stalks her, forces her to do what he wants her to do, constantly tries to take over with Aaron despite having absolutely no right to. There is just nothing even remotely redeeming about this ship and I still don’t get it

Locke’s musical theme makes me cry every single time

And following on from that, as much as I dislike Locke, his flashbacks always make me cry. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do, ever!”, when he gets in the wheelchair in the hospital after his father has pushed him out of the window and when he cries in the car after his father tells him he’s not wanted. It’s heartbreaking

I still can’t get over all the amazing character connections - Charlie saving Nadia, Sayid meeting Kate’s father and Kelvin during the war, Jack meeting Desmond before the island, Christian being Claire’s father, Christian and Ana Lucia going to Australia together, Sawyer meeting Christian in the bar etc. - it’s all so beautifully done in a way that feels authentic and links the characters (even the ones with more superficial ties) together so well

Michael is not a bad person and is unfairly hated. He’s just a father that did what any parent would do to keep their child safe

Hurley and Libby are sweet but severely underdeveloped

I actually really dig the episode about Paulo and Nikki

Eko has such a touching and emotional arc, which although short, is very well rounded

The Other 48 Days is still one of the most chilling episodes of the series

It’s sad that the Tailies were all killed off so prematurely, I feel like they all had potential to be more

Jin’s development is so unappreciated. He’s probably the character that goes through the most amount of growth from the pilot to the finale

I know I should feel sorry for Claire (and part of me does), but I still find her too annoying to feel anything but dislike for her

Desmond and Penny’s love story is freakin’ beautiful and nothing can compare

Also how cute are Rose and Bernard? I’ve come to appreciate their relationship so much. They’re literally just two people who love each other in the purest way and want to be together. It’s so beautiful

Sayid is one of the best characters on the show and my love for him has been reaffirmed

I understand the appeal of Sayid and Shannon but Nadia was Sayid’s soul mate and no one can tell me otherwise

Jack is probably the most unstable character on the show but it’s never acknowledged

Am I the only one that notices that Charlie flat-out lies about not being able to swim? In season 1 when Joanna is drowning Charlie tells Jack he can’t go in to help her because he can’t swim, but he consistently dreams about swimming to save Aaron, Desmond has a vision of him saving Claire from drowning and in season 2 he flat out tells everyone he’s swimming junior champion and swims down to the Looking Glass. Is this Charlie being a liar or simply a fault of the writers, I wonder?

The episode where Sawyer, Jin and Hurley fix up the Dharma car still makes me so happy

Sun and Jin’s relationship is one of the best developed fictional ships I’ve ever seen. It’s so rare that we actually get to see a married couple who are on the verge of breaking up actually love each other enough to work their asses off to make it work and end up being happier and more in love with each other more than ever before

The Others are still absolutely terrifying in seasons 1 and 2 before we find out who they are

Charlie and Hurley’s friendship is overrated

Adding to that some underrated dynamics are - Sayid and Desmond (in The Constant Sayid blindly does everything in his power to help Desmond despite not understanding what the hell is going on with him), Kate and Sayid, Hurley and Sayid, Michael, Sawyer and Jin, Shannon and Walt, Boone and Shannon, Eko and Ana.

Jack is by far the most flawed protagonist I’ve seen in any show

I’m intrigued to know what direction Ana Lucia’s character would’ve gone in if she’d survived

The musical themes are still the best of any show I’ve ever seen. I love that each character has their own theme which perfectly encapsulates them

The way that everyone just forgets about Claire after she goes missing and don’t even attempt to find her is so bad. Particularly when you consider the fact that whenever anyone else has gone missing or were kidnapped - Jack, Kate, Michael, Hurley - they’ve gone on a rescue mission immediately

I’ve always been indifferent to Sun but I realise now that I don’t like her. She’s very hard to connect with and in the last seasons she becomes completely irrelevant and has no personality what-so-ever

Jack reacts so coldly to finding out that Claire is his sister. Like he finds out, he’s shocked, has tears in his eyes but nothing changes in how he behaves and thinks about Claire and Aaron, which makes no sense (but I’m glad we got to see this explored in the Flash Sideways)

Danielle and Alex Rousseau deserved better. So much better

All these people that accuse the show of having an abundance of plot-holes just aren’t paying attention or want everything to be spoon fed to them. There’s actually only about 1 or 2 inconsistencies big enough to be considered a plot-hole (the main one being that Danielle actually sees Ben face-to-face when he kidnaps Alex, but later on doesn’t recognise him when she captures him in a net) and everything is tied together perfectly

I didn’t realise before but season 5 is actually a pretty bad season. The most redeeming aspect is Suliet

Did anyone else notice that Naveen’s (Sayid) accent regresses into his own English accent in season 5 and 6?

I actually hate the entire concept of Jacob and the MIB and what was done with them

Jack really does become Locke in seasons 5 and 6

Following on from that, I really can’t blame Sawyer for wanting to murder Jack in season 5/6. He saunters back onto the island like he’s King of the Island thinking he’s some hero who’s going to save everyone he left behind whilst also fixing himself without any consideration to the repercussions. He completely destroys the life Sawyer and Juliet have spent 3 damn years building which results in a lot of people dying, including Juliet and he doesn’t even really seem that aware of how badly he’s fucked up

We were robbed of a Frank Lapidus centric episode and flashbacks. Robbed, I tell you

I love Jack and Kate as a ship, but when they get back to the island in season 5 they’re very OOC (which is a writing problem imo). Kate wanders off and leaves Jack behind all the time and they don’t really stick together which is just not like Jack and Kate at all. No matter what they always stick together

Sawyer’s character development is amazing. I love him so much

The Temple is dumb. The concept of it, the people we’re introduced to - everything. It should’ve just been scrapped

I also don’t understand what the hell happens to Sayid when he’s drowned in The Temple???? It’s so random and inconsistent, it makes no sense

I still love the concept of the Flash Sideways and don’t understand how people can hate on it or claim it doesn’t matter. It’s so important in so many ways

But I still don’t quite understand why Jack and Juliet have a son in the Flash Sideways? I understand why Jack has a son, because it makes sense for him to work out his ‘daddy issues’, but I don’t understand why Juliet is the mother and what the significance is of that

We really should’ve got more Desmond centric episodes

The Constant is still one of the best episodes of television ever made

The older I get the more I understand and appreciate the religious and theological meanings of the show

I still don’t understand how or why Hurley starts being able to see ghosts. Like that ability just comes out of no where with little to no explanation

It also gets very confusing trying to distinguish between literal ghosts and when the MIB has taken on a dead person’s form

I understand now that one of the many reasons LOST speaks to me on a personal level, and always has, is that I too have felt lost (both metaphorically and literally) throughout my life and I’m able to connect to every character on that basis regardless of whether I like them or not

The characterisation on this show is still second to none. The way each character has distinct lives that are fully fleshed out by flashbacks and that we get to understand every intimate detail about them - the worst thing they’ve ever done, their happiest moment, their greatest fear, the person they love most - I’m yet to find another show that writes its characters in such a complex and fulfilling way

I will always love the show and stand by it being one of the best shows ever, but as the seasons progress it does decline in quality, especially seasons 5 and 6

The finale is still perfect though. I cry like a baby every single time - the church, the way Jack cries in his dad’s arms, it’s just too much

#lost #lost meta #mine #my meta #no one will read this but i wanted to just get all my thoughts/feelings down as i was watching #cos everytime i do a rewatch i see different things or my opinions/feelings change about certain characters/ships/plots etc #text post

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onlinetyping · 4 years ago

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hjbender · 5 years ago

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You’ve got no idea the amount of time it takes to write a story. Take it from somebody who’s been writing fanfiction for 25 years, studied writing in college, has a degree in English, and has written 30 novels’ worth of fanfiction. It is a freaking lot. So the fact that we still offer it for free? Has got nothing to do your argument and everything to do with the fact that you apparently think fan authors shouldn’t care how their work is accessed or if it’s being manipulated by a third-party app. (And it is, in this case.)

Do authors not deserve recognition for their shitload of work (which has taken them months or years of research, editing, and revising)? Is it too much to ask that opportunistic “fans” refrain from creating apps that remove links in the author’s profile and stories and actively prevents readers from interacting beyond a certain point? Because that’s exactly what the Fanfic Pocket Archive app does.

Not only that, but the consent verification protocol that makes AO3 so bulletproof is effectively annihilated by this app. I have explicit erotic art posted on AO3 behind two layers of consent verification agreements for non-Archive users, plus an entire cloud of tags and warnings. This app has removed them all. (Fun fact: warnings for content that contains underage material is put under a single non-descriptive “Archive warnings” tag. Readers have no idea what they might be clicking on.) This is a huge problem, and guess whose fault it is? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not the creators. They did their job on AO3 by tagging and properly warning. But this app has ripped out the safety net and thrown it under a bus. It’s irresponsible and shows a blatant disregard for the system that AO3 uses to keep its guests and users safe and comfortable.

Oh yeah. It also removes translations, author’s notes, and related/inspired works links. But you know, no big deal. Translating entire stories into another language and making them available to readers is just another thing any old fucknut can do (like writing). And who cares about “other works inspired by this one”, right? Probably no good anyway.

(Wow, this app really is shit, isn’t it?)

It’s the same principle same as reposting someone else’s artwork, stripping out the artist’s comments, and removing all social links that the artist depends on for followers and exposure. Sure, the art is not being sold outright (because that would be stealing, which does have legal repercussions), but the reposter still benefits from someone else’s hard work. They get the attention, the likes, the comments (the ad revenue, in this case). They did not earn any of it. They just use the artist. This is exactly what this developer has done by monetizing this sleazy (and frankly cluttered, disorganized, and inferior) app.

The sheer entitlement in your argument is what floors me more than having to list the myriad reasons why this app is so shitty. As if writing is easy. As if anybody can do it well. As if we should be grateful that we’re getting atttention. As if we’re the ones getting felt up by drunken frat boys at a party but it’s okay, we should be grateful because they’re popular and rich and now you’re part of the popular club, too, sweetie, congratulations, you’ve been promoted! So many people are going to see you now, you’re gonna go places! Be happy at the exposure!

Screw that.

We write these stories and post them on AO3 with the implicit understanding that they will be viewed on the site and nowhere else. For free. Because we love writing. We love our readers. We love our fandoms, the characters, and engaging with our readers.

But sure, yeah, these app developers deserve to get paid for hijacking a free service under the pretense of “MaKiNg iT lOoK BeTtEr” and trying to turn a profit out of something writers have always given freely.

Because this app developer deserves to be paid and recognized for their serious work and the fanfiction authors who are earning them money do not. Because writing is easy (it’s just a hobby, after all, no real work involved). Because fanfiction authors are just a bunch of marginalized nerds who will always be considered less worthy of respect and autonomy than any other type of creator on the internet. Because we owe this app for its unconsented use of our works that does absolutely nothing to benefit us and everything to harm us and the fandom communities we have built and love.

But hey. Free advertising. Why not. 👍

🚨ATTENTION🚨

All Writers Published on Ao3:

This app, “Fanfic Pocket Archive Library”, is lifting all public content from Ao3 and making it available through a service they profit from.

Your work has been stolen and is being used to make money for a third party.

^above are the ways in which the app makes money off of Ao3 content. The developer is called Simple Soft Alliance. Here’s the app’s Terms and Conditions.

Any fanfiction that can be accessed without a password on Ao3 is already available in this app. Yours, mine, every fan creator’s. Whether this is illegal I do not know, but it is certainly unethical and needs to be fought. Ao3 is a site of unparalleled integrity and shows the utmost respect to creators, so this content grab is an even bigger slap in the face for that reason.

🚨Please flag/report this app in your app store. 🚨

🚩Google Playstore link (go HERE to report directly)

🚩Apple Store link (download app, then go to report it here )

Feel free to contact Ao3 as well to alert them to this issue. Let’s take em down, folks. In the meantime, you can put your Ao3 in private mode to prevent any more data theft.

Please reblog and tag your writer friends. Signal boost this.

#THIS is why we are pissed #fanfiction #ao3 #unofficialao3app #sergey pekar #fanwriters #always the doormat to people with marketable skills #respect fanfic authors

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tribalfox147 · 4 years ago

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moneyessay683 · 4 years ago

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betta377games-blog · 5 years ago

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sorrowsflower · 8 years ago

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‘Five Things’ meme

Tagged by @randombiochemist and @francesca-wayland. Thank you! Your answers are all so interesting, mine might not be, lol!

Five things in my bag:

I don’t usually carry a bag (other than the kit I use for work), but you’ll never see me without these:

1.A thin, silver card case with fleur-de-lis designs, holding IDs and cards

2. My tiny, Jurassic-era cellphone that everybody laughs at (it doesn’t even have a camera) -- my assistant tells me I probably need to burn it and get a smartphone, but some of us aren’t quite so techie

3. Car keys and pepper spray

4. My tinted eyeglasses

5. My necklace, which I never go without -- a silver scapular with an image of the Mother of Perpetual Help, hanging on a silver chain. My mother and grandmother were both devotees, and my Mom gave it to me before I moved to the States -- the chain mysteriously broke the week before she died and I had to get a new one.

Five things in my bedroom:

A mess that a grown woman shouldn’t have, lol.

1. A whole lotta books, some of which I haven’t had the time to read, and my journal collection -- I collect journals with interesting designs

2. Some pieces of artwork I got from New Orleans: a sketch of the Cafe du Monde, a framed collage of miniaturized posters from previous Carnivals, along with some painting postcards from the time I visited the Met Museum... and my favorite, a small painting print of two lovers walking down the streets of the French Quarter at night.

3. My collection of interesting refrigerator magnets (yes, I keep them in my bedroom), from places I’ve been to so far -- including a magnet shaped like a Mardi Gras mask, one from Cirque du Soleil’s Ka, and few with art nouveau Tiffany designs (also from the Met). There’s not as much as I’d like, but then I’m not very well-traveled.

4. A genuine Harry Potter wand (Narcissa Malfoy’s -- it was the most Irene-esque one I could find in HP World), and three I designed myself with dowels, paint and a glue gun

5. A photo of myself and my family beside my ‘memory’ box with all my old pictures, ticket stubs, letters and cards from old clients, etc.

Five Things I Want To Do With My Life:

Aside from not screw it up?

1. Write. In whatever fashion or incarnation -- for myself, for the publication, for the screen, for the stage -- I don’t really care, I just wanna do it. Although one of my dreams as a child was to write a story that could be read alongside the literary greats (and then I grew up, and LOL)

2. Act. I’ve always loved films and lately, the theater (theater isn’t very mainstream in my native country, so it’s a recent passion), and my dream as a child (yeah, I spent most of my time dreaming as a kid) was to one day take part in making cinematic magic. Directing, for stage or film, is another thing I’d like to try. I’ve been trying to work on it more lately, but RL refuses to cooperate.

3. Travel. I have extreme wanderlust. I love to spend time at home, being lazy, surfing the net, watching films and reading and writing, but my heart is happiest when I’m experiencing and trying new things, seeing new places and meeting new people. Unfortunately, no one told my Wanderlust how expensive travel is, lol, so now she and Budget are having daily arguments.

4. Be more involved, in interpersonal relationships, in the community, in the world. I’m an introvert, and most of the time, I tend to live inside my head. It makes it difficult for me to reach out and build relationships and be involved in things in a productive manner.

5. Improve my health. Seriously guys, so important. I’ve been neglecting this far too much lately, cause of my job, but I’m trying to do better.

Five Things on my To-Do list:

1. Make some very important calls and set some plans in motion that might change the trajectory of my career and my life (that I’m currently having second thoughts on. Dammit.)

2. Prepare for my move (ugh so much stuff to do and so little time to do it in)

3. Clean my frickin’ apartment

4. Conquer writer’s block and actually write out at least one of the eight different plot bunnies in my head right now.

5. Prepare for another trip I’m taking (lol, what’d I tell you? Wanderlust)

Five things people might not know about me:

1. English is my second language. Being bilingual is fun, but it does give me problems sometimes (like having to translate things in my head first, occasionally speaking in my native language without realizing it and having people go “huh?”).

2. I have a deep fear of being a bitter old lady constantly telling anybody who will listen that “I could have been this, but...” or “I could have been that, if only...” and then blaming other people or my circumstances for those unfulfilled dreams, or constantly having to defend myself for wasting my own potential... Also, frogs. I’m scared of frogs.

3. In the very first story I wrote when I was around four, I killed off my main character. I don’t remember what it was about, but my last illustration was of a coffin and my lead character was in it. My mother asked (rather worriedly, now that I recall) why she was dead, and I answered with a very illuminating “I don’t know, I just wanted her to be”.

4. I am, apparently, what they call “ethnically ambiguous” (my acting coach’s words, not mine), appearance-wise. I have been mistaken as Pakistani (by a Pakistani woman), Mexican (also by other Mexicans on several different occasions), half-African American (also by another African-American woman and one slightly racist Caucasian woman), Japanese (I have no idea how), Hawaiian (also, no idea how) and Indian (by an Indian family who thought I was related to them). I don’t really see it, but whatever, I just politely correct them if the situation calls for it.

5. I’m the only member of my family who’s left our native country.

Five Things I’m Into Right Now:

1. Adlock. I am in love with those two brilliant idiots.

2. That crack headcanon I’m cooking up with @elinorx with Nero, Rosie and Archie and our OCs (like seriously, soooo obsessed with it right now) How did a little crack headcanon evolve like this and take over my brain?

3. 70′s - 80′s music: Led Zeppelin, Heart, Fleetwod Mac, Seals & Crofts etc. I still listen to other music of course, it just happens to be my favorite right now,

4. Looking for new TV shows to watch

5. Looking for new films to watch

Lol, I do tend to blabber on. Anyway, don’t know who’s been tagged and I’m lousy at tagging people, but I’m tagging @elinorx, @lyrangalia, @realestofgeek. @dinnerxx. @themissadventurer, @equusgirl, @annieanhworld, and whoever else wants to do this.

#long post #yet again #memes #the adlock yacht

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aion-rsa · 8 years ago

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Weak Sauce: The 15 Lamest Superhero Weaknesses

As CBR knows only too well, the world of comic books would be pretty damn boring if none of the heroes had any weaknesses or limitations; after all, their powers have to be balanced out somehow or every battle would be over in seconds. Without conflict, there are no comics… or, at least, none worth reading!

RELATED: 15 Superpowers That Would Suck in Real Life

That being said, we here at CBR reckon some heroes’ vulnerabilities are a whole lot easier to justify than others. Brute force? That’s pretty plausible. Magic? Heck, why not. But when incredibly powerful characters are taken down by simple, mundane or outright bizarre weaknesses such as a tree branch, lack of water or a color, you can’t help but wonder what the writers were smoking. Listed below are the lamest weaknesses CBR can think of. Try not to laugh too hard!

SUPERMAN: PRETTY SPACE ROCKS

Kryptonite isn’t the lamest superhero weakness out there, but CBR reckons it’s got to warrant a mention. After all, being allergic to pieces of your home planet is a pretty weird vulnerability to have, especially when its radioactivity is so weak that humans are largely unaffected (Post-“Crisis” Lex Luthor excluded, of course). The variant colors of kryptonite affect Superman differently and some of the symptoms are flat-out hilarious: green just makes Superman weak, but red makes him have psychedelic visions or morph into embarrassing shapes. Silver, meanwhile, turns him into a hungry drunk. And pink? Well, pink makes him super… effeminate. We have Peter David to thank for that absurd little morsel.

Perhaps what’s most ridiculous about Superman’s biggest weakness is that kryptonite is so readily available on Earth. As per “Action Comics” #600, Krypton was located approximately 50 light years from our own planet — falling within Tomar-Re’s Sector 2813, for any “Green Lantern Corps” geeks out there — so even if a few meteorites carrying the substance did make their way into Earth’s atmosphere, it’s unlikely that more than a few fragments could be recovered. So how come Lex Luthor’s got stockpiles of the stuff?

DAREDEVIL: NOISE POLLUTION

After a young Matt Murdoch is blinded by a radioactive substance while trying to save a man from being flattened by a truck, he develops other super-heightened senses that allow him to “see” using sound, smell, taste and touch… okay, okay, mostly sound (don’t worry, he’s not going to start licking the walls to track bad guys or anything). Oh, and he also becomes a martial arts master because, y’know, it’s a Stan Lee comic and it’s cool.

Although this sensory sensitivity works effectively as a substitute for vision most of the time, it comes at a high price. Therein lies Daredevil’s daftest weakness: he can’t bear loud noises. So much so, in fact, that particularly powerful sounds weaken all his senses rather than enhancing them (not just hearing, but balance and orientation too), and can immobilize him completely as the sensory overload is so painful. You could quite literally defeat him without throwing a punch: just yell at him through a megaphone!

AQUAMAN: DEHYDRATION

Since his creation by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger back in 1941, Aquaman has been the butt of many a joke. He’s gifted with a range of pretty impressive abilities, including super-strength, enhanced hearing, night vision and the capacity to withstand bone-crushing pressure, but his affinity for oceanic creatures has always made him seem a bit… well… fishy.

However, we here at CBR would argue that the silliest thing about Aquaman isn’t that his closest allies could be defeated by a fishing net, but that his entire power set is reliant on him having regular access to water. Sure, the average Joe might get a headache if they don’t stay hydrated, but being out of the sea for more than an hour renders this Atlantean King completely powerless, a flaw that was retconned in during “Adventure Comics” #256 in 1959.

Aquaman can easily fight the baddies on the beaches as part of the Justice League, but what about in the middle of the city, a space station or an underground lair (all legitimate supervillain hangouts by the way)? Take him out his element, and he gets a lot less super.

THE HUMAN TORCH: ASBESTOS

Don’t let those dodgy “Fantastic Four” films fool you: Johnny Storm is a force to be reckoned with (although, granted, he’s a little wet behind the ears). Not only can he create, absorb and manipulate fire, which is pretty awesome, but his nova flame is hot enough to vaporize the particles of anything in his way, whether it’s a bullet, a bad guy or a building.

There is, however, one tiny exception to this rule… his powers can’t penetrate asbestos. This doesn’t seem like much of a weakness, given asbestos is now banned across most of the world, but back when the Human Torch was first conceived by Stan Lee and Ernest Hart in 1963, it was commonly used to insulate pipes and wires, soundproof rooms and even make cheap garden furniture.

This initially left the Torch open to a wide range of hair-brained attacks he had no defense against. In “Strange Tales” #111, the imaginatively-named villain Asbestos Man side-stepped Storm’s powers completely using a fire-retardant shield, net and “super-asbestos” suit. However, the Human Torch prevailed in the end and the toxic properties of Asbestos Man’s suit meant he later relied on an oxygen tank for survival. Tough break, man.

THE FLASH: RUNNING TOO FAST

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but in the case of Barry Allen, the opposite is true: his speed might be his greatest strength, but excelling in his abilities puts his life in mortal danger. As part of the 1985-1986 “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover comic written by Marv Wolfman, the Flash uses super-speed to thwart the Anti-Monitor’s evil plan, but the speed vortex he creates to stop the villain’s anti-matter cannon firing is so fast it sweeps the Flash away along with it. He ends up being stranded for 23 years in the Speed Force — the mystical energy field that gives all speedsters their powers — being thought dead by his closest friends, including Wally West, who takes up the Flash mantle in his absence.

Being one with the force does have upsides though, as according to the “Secret Origins” Annual #2, Allen is able to go back and mess with his own timeline (again… will he ever learn?!), becoming the lightning bolt that hit his lab and gave him superpowers in the first place. Plus, he didn’t stay dead forever, as Grant Morrison brought him back for 2008’s “Final Crisis,” but his need for speed still makes him vulnerable!

ADAM STRANGE: FORCED DEPORTATION

To anyone who thinks archaeologists can’t be superheroes, we give you Adam Strange, the intrepid dirt-explorer who inadvertently found himself on the planet Rann and was gifted with all the powers of a superhero in “Mystery in Space.” His creator Julius Schwartz never really explained why, but Strange quickly settles down on Rann with his space-babe of a wife, Alanna. unfortunately, this life of bliss is frequently interrupted by his rather inconvenient transportations back to Earth, where he has no powers at all.

The technology responsible for bringing him to Rann — the mysterious Zeta-Beam — only allows him to remain there for as long as it’s transmitting back to Earth… and as it takes the beam a good few years to reach Strange’s home planet, it’s not exactly easy to catch a ride back. Strange might well have been recruited as Rann’s savior, but his timing issues really make his role more of a part-time gig. He could be mid-way through his heroics before vanishing without a trace. He even left his wife to nearly get eaten by a tiger once! Luckily, as Alan Moore’s “Swamp Thing” series clarified, the Rannians are more than capable of looking after themselves when Strange isn’t around.

GLADIATOR: LOW SELF-ESTEEM

Marvel’s Gladiator, created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, is arguably one of the most powerful comic book heroes ever, and that’s a big accolade. Being gifted with planet-shattering strength, super- speed, heat vision, frost breath and a few psionic abilities to boot, he’s a superhero most guys would love to be… but, funnily enough, he’s never really learned to love himself.

Although low self-esteem isn’t exactly fun for anybody, for Gladiator it’s a fatal weakness. His power fluctuates according to his confidence, as seen in Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s “War of Kings” crossover in 2009. As such, he can be defeated by opponents with far lesser abilities if only they can make him doubt himself. A prime example of this crops up in “War of Kings” #3, when Guardians of the Galaxy’s Rocket Raccoon manages to convince Gladiator his gun will hurt him and, despite withstanding far worse in the past, succumbs to the self-fulfilling prophecy and is beaten. So he’s not just insecure, he’s also dumb enough to be outwitted by a raccoon. Should that count as two weaknesses?

BANSHEE: A SORE THROAT

It’s not exactly a secret that shouting yourself hoarse won’t do you any good, mainly because everyone around you will think you’re cray. But what if your voice was your superpower? That’s the problem that Marvel’s Banshee faces, as an X-Men mutant with a sonic scream powerful enough to disable his enemies. Of course, having super-powered vocal cords doesn’t make you invulnerable to a sore throat, as Banshee learned to his peril in “Uncanny X-Men” #119.

In it, he completely lost his powers during a battle with the terrorist Moses Magnum after overexerting himself… and by overexertion, we mean yelling really, really loudly for a few minutes ‘til he ran out of wind. It’s odd to think that something most people could cure with a lozenge or two is capable of taking down a superhero permanently (as Banshee retired shortly after this defeat to shack up with Professor X’s ex-girlfriend), but since when have comic book vulnerabilities made any sense at all?

CYCLOPS: MISPLACING HIS GLASSES

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Cyclops is a powerful mutant and an effective leader of theX-Men; well, so long as he’s wearing his ruby quartz visor, that is. Without it, he’s basically a walking death trap. His optic blasts may be incredibly precise, but he’s unable to control or direct them without the visor. This weakness originated from a childhood brain injury (as stated in “Uncanny X-Men” #156), but was later retconned in “Astonishing X-Men” #14 and explained as a self-imposed mental block, resulting from the trauma of his parents’ death. Either way, even opening his eyes a little without his designer cyber-specs is likely to cause general carnage and endanger everyone around him.

Laughably, many fights with Cyclops inevitably involve him losing his visor somehow and blasting holes into everything until someone stops him scrabbling around on the floor blindly. You’d think with all the super-powered technology lying around Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, someone would’ve been able to design something to help Scott Summers keep his visor on!

MARTIAN MANHUNTER: FIRE

He’s a powerful superhero who can shapeshift at a molecular level, changing his entire genetic composition to allow him to pass through solid objects, withstand ferocious attacks or bend light waves around his body. Moreover, he hails from Mars, otherwise known as the Red Planet or the Fire-Star. So, why exactly should Martian Manhunter be so afraid of fire?

In Frank Morrison’s “Final Crisis” #1, the Martian Manhunter is captured and killed by Libra in the presence of the Secret Society of Super-Villains on the orders of his past B-list foe, the Human Flame. Theoretically, J’onn J’onzz should be able to shapeshift into something fireproof, or wet, or something, but he ends up being torched like a marshmallow instead. Weirder still, any attempt to overcome this aversion to fire turns J’onn J’onzz into an entirely different person, specifically the Burning Martian Fernus, one of J’onn’s ancient Martian ancestors. As Joe Kelly’s “JLA” #87-89 proved, Fernus isn’t really a very nice guy — he’s fuelled by “psychic grief,” after all, which is almost never a good sign.

THOR: 60 SECONDS

As the God of Thunder, Thor is granted a range of truly awesome abilities, including enhanced strength and endurance, flight, weather manipulation and a near-immortal lifespan. However, it’s worth pointing out these powers are granted by his mystical hammer, Mjolnir… and it just so happens that Mjolnir can be pretty damn fickle. Original canon dictated that if Thor lost physical contact with his hammer for more than 60 seconds, he would instantly revert back to his mortal alter-ego, Donald Blake. Moreover, if someone “worthy” of Mjolnir’s power reached the hammer first, they could claim Thor’s abilities for themselves.

Creator Stan Lee unwittingly made Thor an easy target for quick-thinking villains and wannabe gods. After all, Thor’s preferred method of combat is throwing his hammer around and occasionally using it to pin down a bad guy or two, so taking him down became very simple: keep him occupied for more than a minute and create an obstacle to prevent Mjolnir returning. Boom! De-powered Thor. Thankfully, the 60-second rule was abolished in 1984, in “Thor” #340 during the “Stormbreaker” story arc written by Walter Simonson, so bad guys can’t take out the Thunder God so easily anymore.

WONDER WOMAN: BONDAGE

Superheroes don’t come much more kickass than Wonder Woman. As a gifted warrior with enough power to take on the gods and win, she’s shown time and again that she can hold her own in the testosterone-fueled world of comic book heroes… but she wasn’t always the self-assured feminist icon we’ve all come to know and love. As it turns out, Wonder Woman’s creator William Moulton Marston had some pretty barmy ideas about the amount of power men should be able to wield over women back in the day.

Case in point: despite being a super-powerful Amazonian princess in a land ruled by women, Marston made sure Diane of Themyscira’s powers (like those of her kind) could easily be neutralized by any member of the “greater” sex through the simple act of binding her wrists. This, according to Aphrodite’s Law, made her “as weak as other women in a man-ruled world,” reinforcing the idea that women should be answerable to men at all times. Incredibly, this gender-specific weakness persevered from Wonder Woman’s debut in 1941 (in “All-Star Comics” #8) right through to the mid ‘80s, when DC finally retconned this flaw out for the good of all womankind.

POWER GIRL: ANY NATURAL UNPROCESSED MATERIAL

You’d think that after getting around that whole “vulnerability-to-kryptonite” thing through the sheer convenience of having come from another dimension (kryptonite doesn’t work when it’s brought to other realities), Power Girl would pretty much be unstoppable; after all, she’s got exactly the same powers as her on-off cousin Superman, and that strong personality of hers means she can stay sharp and decisive when the going gets tough. There’s only one problem with that: Power Girl’s got a different weakness, one that is far more common than an obscure, radioactive space rock. She’s vulnerable to all raw, unprocessed materials. Yes, you read that right.

After being knocked to the ground by a tree branch and then impaled by it in Peter David’s “Supergirl” Vol.4 #16, Kara tells a bemused Supergirl that “sticks and stones can really break my [bones]” in a nod to the old schoolyard rhyme. CBR can only assume that means “names will never hurt” her. Small comfort! Wood, stone, dirt, sand — if it’s on Earth and it’s not man-made, it can harm her. Being impervious to bullets only counts for so much if your enemy can take you down with a slingshot!

CAPTAIN MARVEL JR.: SAYING HIS OWN NAME

Speaking of being hurt by name-calling… did anyone call for Captain Marvel Jr., DC’s resident narcissist? Unfair, maybe, but there aren’t many superheroes whose powers rely on their ability to say their own name, and for good reason. Apart from being a rather ridiculous way to activate someone’s powers, it also opens the character up to mishaps of sitcom-worthy proportions.

If Captain Marvel Jr. tries to introduce himself to a super-powered ally or, for some reason, feels the need to say his name in the middle of a battle, he’ll instantly be transformed into Freddy Freeman, a decidedly ordinary young lad who relies on a crutch to walk. If he speaks his superhero alias aloud while in the guise of Freddy Freeman (who works in a newsroom — an environment where everyone’s bound to be interested in superhero shenanigans), he’ll transform into a shimmering beacon of muscly justice and give himself away.

Writer Jerry Ordway tried getting around this flaw during Captain Marvel Jr.’s sporadic appearances in “Teen Titans” between 1995-1998 by having Freeman refer to himself as “CM3” so he could avoid accidental transformations, but the change didn’t stick (largely because saying it made him sound like a CMd-bag).

GREEN LANTERN: YELLOW

For many fans, Hal Jordan is the definitive Green Lantern. He’s protected the Earth from innumerable threats through sheer force of will, making him one of the most impressive wielders of the Power Ring. However, being color-coded does have its downfalls… like being rendered useless by the color yellow. Yes, yellow. The color of sunshine, raincoats, buttercups and pee-pee.

According to canon, an impurity in the ring’s power source meant that Jordan became powerless when faced with this color. This was later explained in Geoff Johns’ “Green Lantern: Rebirth” as being tied to Parallax, a yellow fear entity who was locked in the Central Power Battery, thus weakening it. Before this was revealed, though, GL’s weakness was exploited to hilarious effect, incuding by writers such as Frank Miller. He had the Caped Crusader trap Jordan in a yellow-painted room in “All-Star Batman & Robin” #9 before letting a gold-suited Robin clobber him. Why? Because, as stated explicitly in the comic, it’s the “dumbest weakness… ever heard of.” Bruce Wayne can be a bit of an a-hole, but he’s often right.

Can you think of any other daft superhero weaknesses? Let us know in the comments!

The post Weak Sauce: The 15 Lamest Superhero Weaknesses appeared first on CBR.com.

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whorchataaa · 5 years ago

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Podcast: Deconstructing Mental Health Month

It’s Mental Health Awareness Month! But what does that mean, exactly? Who are we raising awareness for? Is “mental health” the same as “mental illness?” In this Not Crazy Podcast, Gabe and Lisa ponder the meaning of this decades-old campaign and discuss the pros and cons of the movement.

What do you think? Is Mental Health Awareness Month a necessary outreach that sheds light on mental health, or is it a flimsy substitute for actual help? Tune in for an in-depth discussion that entails several different perspectives.

(Transcript Available Below)

Subscribe to Our Show! And Please Remember to Review Us!

About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

Computer Generated Transcript for “Mental Health Month” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hey, everybody, you’re listening to the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am here with Lisa. Lisa, are you excited that it is Mental Health Awareness Month?

Lisa: How could I not be excited for Mental Health Awareness Month? But probably not as excited as you are.

Gabe: I mean, I am uber excited that for an entire month. I mean, one twelfth of the year, I matter.

Lisa: Well, and, of course, for that entire month, nobody with mental illness has any problems because everyone pays attention and loves us.

Gabe: Really?

Lisa: There isn’t anyone waiting for treatment and there aren’t any waiting lists in emergency rooms. There isn’t any one being cast out on the street. There aren’t any people who can’t afford their medication. All of that happens in May. It’s amazing. And the most important thing that comes in mental health advocacy, which everyone knows is awareness.

Gabe: Let’s talk about awareness for a moment, because awareness is one of these things that it’s really hard to nail down what it is. And many nonprofits that are funded to the tunes of millions upon millions of dollars across our nation, literally in their, in their purpose, their goal.

Lisa: Mission statement.

Gabe: Yeah, their mission statement, they say, to raise awareness about fill in the blank. And I’m not just picking on mental health charities or mental illness

Lisa: Oh, no,

Gabe: Charities.

Lisa: There’s lots of them.

Gabe: I mean, this is, yeah.

Lisa: Cancer, M.S., children, whatever.

Gabe: Lupus. Just everything, it seems like raising awareness

Lisa: Abused animals.

Gabe: Is this really vogue thing. I have a really hard time. In research for the show. I tried to figure out, like, what does that mean? Like, ah, ah.

Lisa: Well, that’s the problem, nobody knows what it means.

Gabe: Well, right, but it

Lisa: It’s a nebulous goal.

Gabe: But it has to mean something.

Lisa: It doesn’t mean anything, and I think that’s one of the reasons it’s everyone’s goal. Because how convenient. Your entire mission statement is something that can’t be clearly defined or quantified? So you really can’t mess it up. Our goal is to raise awareness about fill in the blank. How do you know if you’ve raised awareness? Do you measure it in some way? I mean, notice no one’s goal is ever, our goal is to treat 100 people with cancer or to cure 100 people with lupus. That’s our goal. That you could then go through and count. Oh, look, are there 100 of them? No, there’s only 88. Oh, no. There’s 105. We did extra well this year.

Gabe: I’m going to give you a real hard push back here because you’re doing this. This speaking in absolutes, there are many charities who their specific goals

Lisa: Of course.

Gabe: Is to treat a certain number of patients. It’s to lower the

Lisa: We’re talking about awareness. We’re not talking about all charities always. We’re talking about awareness related charities or awareness related goals. There are, in fact, many charities that actually do something that can be quantified, that are doing great work and saving the people and blah, blah, blah. Whatever.

Gabe: Here’s the thing, here’s the problem that I have with awareness.

Lisa: It’s not measurable.

Gabe: I know. That’s not the problem that I have with awareness.

Lisa: That should be the problem, you have with awareness, because that’s what’s wrong with it.

Gabe: That’s not the problem that I have with awareness. The problem that I have with awareness is that it essentially accomplishes nothing as far as I can tell. Like, there never seems to be a step two. For example, if I can’t pay my mortgage, I feel that my goal should be to pay my mortgage. If I said I’m raising awareness about my mortgage, I could make everybody aware that I can’t pay my mortgage. If there’s no step two of now that you are aware, I want you to give me a dollar. I’m seeing a lot of people being aware that I can’t pay my mortgage. And I see a lot of people like writing me messages like, hey, Gabe, so sad you can’t pay your mortgage. That’s such a bummer. We’re pulling for you. Thoughts and prayers.

Lisa: The thing that anyone is going to say to respond to that is that they haven’t gotten to step two yet because they’re not done with step one. That awareness has not yet been appropriately raised. They don’t have a high enough level of awareness.

Gabe: Do you think, like, sincerely, do you think that there is anybody in America who isn’t aware of mental illness?

Lisa: That’s a hard one for me because I’ve heard criticism of awareness raising events where people say things like, are you aware of homelessness? Is there anyone in America who’s not aware of homelessness? Yet, we still have homelessness. So raising awareness clearly didn’t help. Having said that, when you say is there anyone who’s not aware of mental illness? Sort of.

Gabe: What do you what do you mean by sort of? I think that everybody is aware of mental illness. I think they just have misconception, myths. They believe the wrong things. But are they aware that people are batshit crazy? Are they aware that people suffer from depression, psychosis, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia? I think they’ve even heard all of these terms. I think that we’ve done it. I think that people are 100% aware of mental illness. So we need to move on to step two, which is sort of the educational process. To drive that down. Being aware of bipolar, knowing what bipolar disorder is, and knowing what it’s like to live with it are three unique goals.

Lisa: For some of these groups, part of the raising awareness is including this educational piece, you’re raising awareness of how mental illness affects people’s daily lives or how people with mentally illness live or the barriers to care. You know what I mean? You’re raising awareness about all these surrounding issues or even giving education about these issues. So once again, I would point that out as a flaw with awareness. It’s a nebulous term. It’s not clear exactly what you’re doing. It’s not even clear what attitude it is you’re trying to change or influence like.

Gabe: Pretending for a moment that awareness is a good thing and that that we’re all okay with it.

Lisa: It probably is a good thing.

Gabe: I mean, I know that it’s probably a good thing, but I just I’m really struggling with who gets to define the narrative.

Lisa: Yes, exactly.

Gabe: When we talk about raising awareness about mental illness, are we talking about people with anxiety? Are we talking about people with depression? Are we talking about people with bipolar? Now, let’s say that we’ve all decided well, I’ve decided that bipolar is the worst one of those. Which has its own just unique challenges and frustrations. We’re playing the suffering Olympics. All the mentally ill people get together and decide who’s the sickest and that person’s narrative goes forward. But, now let’s talk about socioeconomically. Because, I got to tell you, a middle aged white guy in central Ohio is going to see and experience mental illness differently than somebody without insurance. Somebody that doesn’t have a good supportive family. Somebody that lives in rural America, somebody that lives in a state that thinks mental illness is a moral value or an emotional value or a hoax

Lisa: Right. Right.

Gabe: And just has zero mental health safety net. I’m not saying I’m thrilled with the safety net that we have in Ohio. I think it’s got some holes in it. But the net exists. There’s other states that they don’t even have a net.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Do we talk about having mental illness with literally no family, no insurance and being homeless? Because that looks very different than having mental illness with a very supportive family, health insurance and financial resources. I struggle with this a lot because it.

Lisa: I don’t. I think it’s terrible.

Gabe: No, no, no. I struggle with the idea of bashing Mental Health Awareness Month.

Lisa: Oh, okay.

Gabe: And here’s why. My dad is a retired Teamster. He’s a retired union man. And his entire career, nonunion people would come up to him and say, you know, you’re lazy. You get three breaks a day and you get paid 20% more than me to do the exact same job. That’s terrible. You’re overpaid and you get too many breaks. And my father would always say, actually, you’re underpaid and overworked. Why is that never? For some reason, the people who are making less money and getting less benefits want to drag my father down

Lisa: Right. Right.

Gabe: Instead of raising themselves up. And I’m sitting here criticizing people. Talking about mental health is good. It’s good. And I’m sitting here saying, eh, it’s not enough. And I fear that the people in charge are like the anti-union people. Their response to this won’t be to do more with mental health month. It won’t be to go to step two and do more than just raise awareness. It’ll be to cancel the whole thing and I’ll end up with less.

Lisa: Well, every time I hear someone say raising awareness. I have to stop myself. Right. Well, I usually don’t stop myself. I usually just roll my eyes unless they’re looking directly at me. And then I try to stop myself. But again, raising awareness. What a stupid goal. How will you know when you’ve succeeded? Do you have any way to measure this?

Gabe: I know it’s a poorly defined goal, I know you’ve got your science brain on. I know you’re you’re about ready to, you know, launch in. Because it’s poorly defined, we can keep pumping money into the mental health industry. And since there’s no way to define it, we don’t have to meet the goals.

Lisa: Exactly

Gabe: I get all that.

Lisa: All of those things, yes.

Gabe: I get all of that. I don’t want to go down that road because

Lisa: You should it’s important.

Gabe: I’m not disagreeing. But how would you like to see step two take shape? We’ve identified the problem that mental health awareness is too ambiguous, it’s too vague. And of course, it doesn’t help people experiencing major depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, homelessness, people in prisons because they can’t get access to care.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: All of the horror stories that you just need to Google mental illness and hit return and you’re gonna find horror stories on the front page. You didn’t even write mental illness horror story. I just wrote mental illness. You’re gonna start seeing horror stories. It’s they have permeated our society.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: So let’s move past the fact that awareness is an ambiguous goal. And that we’re not thrilled with it. What’s step two, Lisa?

Lisa: Well, strangely, we have to go back to awareness, because are we making people aware that this exists in the first place? Are we making them aware of a specific situation, of a funding problem, of a new research methodology? I don’t know. What are we making people aware of? And while we’re on the subject, mental health awareness also annoys me because this focus on mental health distracts from mental illness.

Gabe: This is the thing that I fight up against constantly.

Lisa: Yeah, wellness.

Gabe: Everybody has mental health.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Most people have good mental health and most people who have a mental health crisis, it’s temporary. The example that I always use is grief. Nobody is going to be their best self an hour after they find out that their loved one died. That’s reasonable, right? But mental illness is severe and persistent. OK. So.

Lisa: Well, how are you defining crisis?

Gabe: A mental health crisis is is. Well, yeah. OK, yeah, I. Grief in my mind is a mental health crisis. The inability to function because of something going on with your mental health is a quick and dirty definition of it.

Lisa: Oh, that’s a good definition. That’s a good one.

Gabe: It’s not perfect. And that’s certainly not how it’s going to be defined medically. But.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: But I get that. I just get it. I think that when significant relationships end, people struggle mentally for a while. And we’ve heard about people having a hard time at work. People missing responsibilities, people pulling away from friends. These can all be described as mental health issues and.

Lisa: That’s another spectrum.

Gabe: Let’s talk about anxiety. Look at all of the anxiety that’s being caused by the global pandemic, by corona, by the quarantines that are finally starting to lift in some states, are still in other states and all of the social distancing. And that is a mental health issue.

Lisa: But going back, when you said crisis, you know, you’re always talking about everything’s on a spectrum. Well, so is a crisis. Right? And I think a mental illness crisis and a mental health crisis are different. I like your definition of you can’t function because of something going on mentally. I like that. That’s a good one. But again, how far not function, right? Like, I didn’t do a very good job at work yesterday because I was feeling kind of depressed. Where does it trip into crisis?

Gabe: Listen, I think that missing a day or two, because you’re overwhelmed, maybe that doesn’t rise to the level of crisis. But it is something that people should be concerned about. And when I think of mental health month, I think, are we focusing on anyone with severe and persistent mental illness? For example, how come we don’t do anything about homelessness during mental health month?

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Like nothing.

Lisa: Mental Health Month almost always seems to focus on wellness or it’s helping the worried well.

Gabe: And I hate that term.

Lisa: Really, why?

Gabe: First off, being well and being worried. That’s a fair statement.

Lisa: What are you talking about?

Gabe: This is the suffering Olympics.

Lisa: How?

Gabe: Worried well is just so offensive because you’re well most of the time. Now, when you get worried, we should ignore you. But again, I got to tell you, I do have trouble feeling bad for somebody who’s a little bit anxious

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: In comparison to somebody who’s in prison because of a psychosis episode that went south. And now they’re in prison for the next ten years. But we can’t just ignore. The worried well just sounds so offensive. It sounds so belittling.

Lisa: Well, but that’s the thing. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t ignore either, both people would get appropriate care, both people would get the resources that they need. But the pie is a finite size. Therefore, if someone else is getting some pie, then the guy who really needs it doesn’t get it. So.

Gabe: Actually, I’m going to cut you off right there.

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: It annoys me that the pie is a finite size

Lisa: Well, yeah. That’s the real problem.

Gabe: Because, I gotta tell you, the pie is not a finite size when it comes to, oh, I don’t know, military spending.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: The pie is not a finite size when it comes to government spending.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: The pie is not a finite size. When it comes to, oh, I don’t know, bailing out billionaires. The pie is not a finite size when the local sports team needs

Lisa: Needs an arena.

Gabe: A stadium. But suddenly, oh, this is awkward. We don’t have enough money for sick people, severely sick people. Let’s pretend that the pie is a finite size. You know what annoys me about that damn pie? The sicker you are, the less pie we allocate for you.

Lisa: Yes, absolutely. And it’s very depressing.

Gabe: Why is that not being addressed? I want that to be addressed for mental health month.

Lisa: I would agree with that completely.

Gabe: I also want there to be a mental illness month. I’m not against Mental Health Month.

Lisa: Did this start as mental illness month?

Gabe: This is what I hate so much.

Lisa: I actually don’t know.

Gabe: This is what I hate so much. I hate that we’re doing an episode on Mental Health Month, and you just asked if it started as mental health month or mental illness month. Because it shows a severe lack in your research abilities that you are just paid top dollar for.

Lisa: I actually do have it written down here.

Gabe: I just.

Lisa: I have it written down. Give me a second.

Gabe: You are so incredibly well paid.

Lisa: I have a lot of notes on the table here. Let me find it.

Gabe: There’s a lot of? You haven’t organized your notes. I see her organizing her notes by typing in Google.com. Look at those. Look at those organized notes right there.

Lisa: Okay, but I did find out the thing. It was founded by Mental Health America in partnership with the Jaycees. That I thought was very interesting. So they meant it to be a community wide effort.

Gabe: And I love Mental Health America.

Lisa: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Gabe: And this is the problem that I struggle with so much when I criticize these things. One, I want them to be better and I want them to do more. But I don’t want to shit all over people who are doing something because you know how many people are doing nothing? I love Mental Health America, and I don’t want this to turn into shitting on people who are doing something because so many people are doing nothing. They’re doing absolutely nothing. And then we start attacking the people who are doing something because it’s not enough.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s a problem. That’s a problem.

Gabe: I hate that. It’s not enough. But you know what it is? It’s something. We’re doing something. And in the meantime, we just leave the people who are ignoring people with mental health issues, who are ignoring the mentally ill, who are ignoring the plight of my life. I’m like, oh, I’m not going to pick on them because I’m going to go attack somebody who’s doing something because Gabe Howard doesn’t think it’s enough. That’s just a jerk move. I don’t want to be that guy,

Lisa: That is a problem.

Gabe: But I do want Mental Health Month to be so much more. I want it to be more.

Lisa: So you feel that it’s a way to say, hey, we don’t care about you the rest of the year, the other 11 months, you’re on your own. But for this month, we care.

Gabe: It does kind of feel that way. I get hung up on that because, for example, I have family members that, like, only call me on my birthday. Is that them suddenly saying that the rest of the year they don’t care if I live or die? Only when I age up or survive the whole year am I worthy of that phone call? No, it’s a good thing because it’s a birthday. It’s a demarkation. It’s a celebration.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: It’s a way to bring it up. So in that way.

Lisa: That’s an excellent analogy to a birthday. That’s exactly what mental health month is. There is no reason why your relative couldn’t call you year round, any day of the year. But they don’t. They just don’t. So there’s no reason that people can’t be interested or talking about or fundraising on mental health and mental illness in other months. But they don’t. They just don’t. They need to have that time. They need to have that day. The reason why we have Mental Health Month is the same thing as the reason why stores have sales, because otherwise there’s nothing to go around. Right? You can’t just say, hey, come out and shop at our store. Why should I go shop at your store? I shop at your store whenever I want. Whatever. Oh, but you need to come this weekend because there’s a sale. Oh, okay. I need to go do it now because it’s something that draws me in.

Gabe: It creates a sense of urgency, right, that’s the purpose of the sale. You can buy the pants at any day for $100, but you have to buy them by Friday to get them for $50. And that creates a deadline in your mind.

Lisa: I think it’s partly that, but it’s also just something to tell people. So when you call up and say, hey, I’d like to talk to you about mental health. Really? Why? Because it’s Mental Health Awareness Month. Oh, OK. That makes sense. I remember years ago we were doing a fundraiser and people were saying, oh, well, this group doesn’t need a fundraiser because people can donate money year round. We don’t need a fundraiser. People could just send in money all the time. Yeah, but nobody does that. You need something to say when you call up and say, hey, you want to send me some money? You have to say because we’re having this fundraiser on X Day.

Gabe: Yeah. Sense of urgency when there’s a deadline.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You have to have your money in by Friday. Then all the sudden. This is why we do like year end, because

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: You have to have it for your taxes that year or for your year end giving, or surrounding Christmas.

Lisa: It makes people think about it. Otherwise, they just don’t get to it. They’re like, oh, I’ll give whenever.

Gabe: So in this way, Mental Health Month is extraordinarily vital.

Lisa: Yeah, because it gives something to rally around that gives you an excuse to send out the email, it gives you a new title for the email that you want to send to your supporters. It just gives you something new to talk about, something new to use.

Gabe: It gives you a platform, and there’s no reason that people can’t learn about mental health year round.

Lisa: Right. It’s not until you call them and say, hey, we’re having our fundraising drive right now that they send in the check. So there’s no reason anyone’s going to sit around and just learn about mental health unless they’re like, oh, well, now is the time to do so.

Gabe: There’s some pretty prominent advocates out in the world who hate, they absolutely despise Mental Health Month. And they’ve gone as far as to say in prominent editorials that have been published in The Washington Post, he New York Times. I mean, this isn’t some, you know, ranty person or organization on the Internet saying this. This is.

Lisa: Right. These are prominent organizations, names you recognize.

Gabe: Yeah, who said that mental health month is killing people with mental illness. Do you believe that Mental Health Month is taking away resources and actively harming people with severe and persistent mental illness?

Lisa: That is a hard one. Ahh, the devil’s in the details, right? I would say that the idea that, oh, this is killing people with mental illness, that’s overblown. That’s being overly dramatic. That’s not fair. Could our resources be directed elsewhere? Maybe? Or even could some of our resources be directed elsewhere? So maybe the point isn’t so much whether or not Mental Health Awareness Month is good or bad. It’s how do individual groups use it? Maybe the way that individual groups are using it is bad or good.

Gabe: One of the things that I always struggle with when I read a lot of these editorials is there’s always like this grain of truth that I believe.

Lisa: Right, that they take too far.

Gabe: The grain of truth that I believe is that people with serious and persistent mental illness are not, hard stop, are not getting the care and resources and opportunities that they need to live well,

Lisa: Obviously, yes.

Gabe: I don’t care if it’s mental health month. I don’t care if it’s Christmas. I don’t care if it’s Depression Awareness Week. I don’t care if it’s International Bipolar Support Day. The sicker you are.

Lisa: Is that a thing?

Gabe: Yeah, of course.

Lisa: International Bipolar Support Day?

Gabe: It’s Van Gogh’s birthday.

Lisa: It’s just, it’s what?

Gabe: It’s Van Gogh’s birthday.

Lisa: Van Gogh’s birthday is International Bipolar Support Day?

Gabe: Yeah. You didn’t know that?

Lisa: No, I did not know that.

Gabe: This is why our marriage failed. Just unequivocally, like there’s a whole holiday dedicated to Gabe and I never got a card.

Lisa: You’re right. Never once did I give you a present for bipolar support awareness day.

Gabe: You know what’s sad about you being unaware of this? You know the picture of me and my wife holding the signs?

Lisa: Oh, is that what that was for?

Gabe: That say, I live with bipolar disorder.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And I’m his wife. I’m a husband with bipolar disorder. And I’m his wife.

Lisa: His wife, who loves him.

Gabe: That you took the picture, you helped make the signs.

Lisa: I did, actually.

Gabe: You made sure our hair and makeup was good. Remember? Remember that?

Lisa: I do remember that, yes.

Gabe: And what was that for?

Lisa: Wearing the matching t-shirts. I picked the t-shirts.

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Right. And what was the event that we did that for?

Lisa: You know, I actually have never.

Gabe: International Bipolar Support.

Lisa: Was it really?

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: I probably knew that at the time.

Gabe: You are very behind the scenes. As it turns out, so far behind the scenes that you were just like, here’s some random signs. Do your makeup. I don’t know. Gabe does something online. This is so sad

Lisa: You still. That was years ago, and you still use that picture all the time.

Gabe: Yeah, it’s a great picture. I look fabulous.

Lisa: It is. You both look great. Huh, you’re right. OK, my bad on that.

Gabe: Yeah, so all of those things. Unequivocally, yes. All of those things exist. They make us feel certain ways. They have pluses, they have minuses. But none of those things, none of those things that we just mentioned, frankly, when I say none of those things, I mean, including my wife and I holding that sign in that picture that we just talked about where I looked great in

Lisa: You did you look fantastic.

Gabe: That did nothing, that did nothing to help people with serious and persistent mental illness.

Lisa: Well, but is that true?

Gabe: Yeah, it’s absolutely true.

Lisa: You don’t know that.

Gabe: Yes, I do. I do. Because the shortfall is so great

Lisa: What do you mean?

Gabe: That people with serious and persistent mental illness have so little. They get the smallest amount. And it is absolutely, unequivocally galling to me that the better off you are, meaning the less sick, the more resources that are available.

Lisa: Oh, yeah,

Gabe: That’s disturbing.

Lisa: It’s disturbing and it’s bad for everyone, really. But I want to go back to that for a second, though. When you said this didn’t do anything. You don’t know that. The idea is that it did this incremental bit of good. That there’s someone out there who was like, oh, bipolars, meh. Right? And now they think, eh. You know, it’s just upped them by this little tiny bit. And the point being that if you do that enough or you do that to enough people, eventually you’re gaining traction. So, you don’t know that it didn’t help. But, how much did it help compared to how much time, effort and money it took?

Gabe: There’s lots and lots of unknowns. But I still have a hard time not celebrating recovery. I agree that celebrating recovery doesn’t help the people on the, for purposes of this discussion, we’re gonna say the people on the bottom, the sickest of the sickest of the sick. But I don’t know. If people didn’t celebrate my recovery, what’s the point? I’m being very genuine here. I was on the bottom. I was taken to the emergency room. I was committed against my will. I didn’t work for four years. I.

Lisa: You worked. Don’t say it like that, you worked.

Gabe: I was very underemployed.

Lisa: You were underemployed, you weren’t unemployed. OK. Take that back.

Gabe: Look, I didn’t work for four years.

Lisa: That’s not fair, you worked. You just didn’t work a lot.

Gabe: Ok, fine, fine. I went to college, I tried to work a lot, but I did not make the kind of money that would qualify me as above the poverty level.

Lisa: Ok. You were definitely.

Gabe: Thank you, by the way, for working then, because. Hey.

Lisa: I’m just saying you should give yourself credit for what you tried.

Gabe: Listen. Thank you. But we’re way off topic and I want to get back to the point at hand, which is, should we cancel Mental Health Month? And will that help people with serious and persistent mental illness? See, I can’t say yes to that.

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: Canceling it I do not think will help people with serious and persistent mental illness.

Lisa: But will not canceling it help?

Gabe: No. Well, maybe.

Lisa: Is it irrelevant?

Gabe: No, it’s not irrelevant because remember what you said about Mental Health Month gives you a platform? I think the bigger issue is that nobody’s using that platform to help people with serious and persistent mental illness.

Lisa: Ok. So.

Gabe: We’re using the platform incorrectly. It’s like having a stage and saying this stage is not helping banjo music flourish. Well, that’s not the stage’s fault. That’s the fact that nobody’s booking banjo acts.

Lisa: And now we have a word from our sponsors.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Lisa: And we’re back deconstructing May as Mental Health Awareness Month.

Gabe: You’re being pretty critical for what is essentially a month long holiday celebrating people living with mental illness while at the same time doing absolutely nothing to improve our circumstances.

Lisa: I think I would like it if it was a holiday, if it was were like Mother’s Day or Veteran’s Day and you had to like give cards and give gifts and stuff to people that have the holiday in the name. So, like, it would be a time where people would bring me stuff and say happy mentally ill day. Here’s here’s some flowers or a casserole.

Gabe: I, let’s predict in the future. Next year at this time, this episode is going to be sponsored by Hallmark and they’re gonna have like a whole line of, hey, I’m sorry, you’re depressed.

Lisa: I would like that. You know, actually, I think they do have a whole line of I’m sorry you’re depressed cards because they have everything, but I don’t think it’s specifically the card that you’re looking for, which is like, hey, you’re depressed. But today’s your day.

Gabe: Are you baffled by bipolar? Are you depressed because you’re depressed? Cheer up, some bunny loves you, and it can be like a bunny.

Lisa: Ooh, well, maybe we could get a bunny as a mascot?

Gabe: Why? Why is it a bunny?

Lisa: Well, I don’t know.

Gabe: Like when I was thinking of mascots for people with mental. Like when I was thinking of like mascots for Gabe Howard.

Lisa: You sit around and think about this?

Gabe: Like who do I want to be the mental illness mascot? I’m thinking a dragon.

Lisa: Ooh, dragon is absolutely the best. Yes, Dragon one hundred percent, yes. Forget the bunnies.

Gabe: I’m Thinking straight up, dragon. Would it be a fire breathing dragon?

Lisa: Screw the bunny, we’re in with the dragon.

Gabe: I can already hear the criticism. Really? When you think of mental illness, you think of a mean, evil, fire breathing, attacking dragon? And I’ll be like,

Lisa: You mean a magical, mythical creature?

Gabe: Exactly.

Lisa: Of exquisite beauty who is rare?

Gabe: Exactly.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: See, dragons are misunderstood.

Lisa: They are.

Gabe: We see them as like violent and destructive, when in actuality we’ve got Puff, we got Puff the Magic Dragon. Remember, he lives in a land called Honnalee. He’s just trying to help little Jackie Paper. He’s just minding his own business. And everybody’s like, Oh, my God, the horrible dragon. I, you know, I feel like a dragon.

Lisa: Is that how the story goes?

Gabe: Really?

Lisa: I, uh?

Gabe: We’re the same age.

Lisa: I remember the song, but I don’t think I ever actually

Gabe: What is wrong with you?

Lisa: I don’t think I ever actually saw the movie.

Gabe: Wow.

Lisa: Sorry.

Gabe: It’s literally about helping Jackie Paper through depression.

Lisa: Is it really?

Gabe: His name is not actually Jackie Paper. His name is Jackie, but he’s really depressed and he blows into Jackie’s ear and puts his soul into paper so that he can talk to Jackie Paper.

Lisa: Really?

Gabe: And he helps. Yeah. This is a big, big deal to me because it helped me understand both the.

Lisa: Oh.

Gabe: Yeah. Yeah. It just I.

Lisa: Apparently, I’ll

Gabe: Wow.

Lisa: Have to see if that’s on Netflix because that seems much more profound than I thought. Ok, going back, focus.

Gabe: You still haven’t answered

Lisa: Oh, OK. What was the question?

Gabe: From like six and a half hours ago.

Lisa: Sorry, I don’t remember the question.

Gabe: What is step two? See, I really try to be aware. Sincerely, Lisa, focus. Like I’m not trying to pick on you.

Lisa: Sorry, sorry. I’m all over the place.

Gabe: Just, just focus for a minute. I just I want to talk about what I want to happen and not what is not happening. I want to focus on what I love instead of dwelling on the things that I hate. What is step two? What do we want people to do?

Lisa: Well, the very fact that you can’t define it or that we don’t know or that I didn’t immediately have an answer for that goes to show you that this is a real problem. That, as I said before, raising awareness is a nebulous and dumb goal.

Gabe: You know the part where I said, stop hating on the things that you hate and focus on the things that you love? You didn’t do it. You might have depression or

Lisa: You think?

Gabe: Or some sort of pessimism or

Lisa: You think?

Gabe: Maybe you’re a negative person?

Lisa: I almost can’t stand to watch anything anymore. It’s ridiculous. Like all pop culture is terrible. Anyway.

Gabe: Focusing on what we want to happen. Here are some things that I would like to see happen.

Lisa: Ok. You’ve got good stuff.

Gabe: One, I would like people to understand, and I know that that’s dangerously close to raising awareness.

Lisa: Well, I was going to say understanding is awareness.

Gabe: But I want people to understand the warning signs for suicide. I want people to

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: Understand the warning signs for major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, psychosis. I want people to know. I want to see the equivalent of first aid for mental health issues. I want more people to understand what these things are. From an educational standpoint, like actual value, like, for example, you can argue first aid is just raising awareness about injuries. But then they also try to teach you how to treat the injuries.

Lisa: Well, yeah. I was going to say.

Gabe: Right. That’s what I want to see. I want people to know what bipolar disorder is. I want people to know the warning signs. I want people to know then what to do

Lisa: Well, the what to do is the most key part.

Gabe: If they suspect that somebody has bipolar disorder, I want them to know what to do. So I guess that that’s awareness. But I think it’s education with action items. I also want a fully funded safety net. I want less people with mental illness to be homeless. I want less people with mental illness to be in prisons. And people are like, well, Gabe, how do you do that? And I hate that question. You know why I hate that question? Because when I say, I don’t know, they’re always like, ha, you don’t know. But you expect us to know. Yes,

Lisa: Yes. that’s your job.

Gabe: I expect you to know because that’s your job. I don’t have access to doctors. I don’t have access to research. I’m not the government. I don’t run a government agency. We know all of this data on everything else.

Lisa: Yes. It is very annoying.

Gabe: But if I don’t know the answer to that, they think it’s some sort of proof. No, I don’t keep track of this. It’s not my job.

Lisa: Well, I’ll also when anyone proposes any other goal, no one says, how are we gonna do that? When someone says, Oh, hey, let’s invade Iraq. How are we gonna do that? No, we just do these things.

Gabe: Then everybody sits down and figures it out because we have

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: A well-funded Defense Department and military. We make a plan. It costs millions of dollars to come up with these plans.

Lisa: Billions.

Gabe: In the meantime, somebody gave Gabe, a guy living with bipolar disorder, no money, no resources, no doctors, no research, no nothing. And they want me to come up with a plan.

Lisa: It’s a difficult thing because everyone says the problem is too big to do anything about. What does that even mean? What are we supposed to do?

Gabe: Do you know why I know the problem is not too big to do anything about?

Lisa: Other countries have successfully done something about it?

Gabe: Well, I mean, there’s that, but I’m going to keep it in America. Because I believe in America. I want my analogies to come from America. Let me tell you about Sacramento. You

Lisa: Sacramento. Ok.

Gabe: Know what I love about Sacramento?

Lisa: They have that fast food place you like?

Gabe: You know what else I love about Sacramento?

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: Sacramento’s history is actually very, very fascinating. Let me tell you about Sacramento. Now, you know, I’m going to tell the story quickly. It’s a cool analogy. I strongly suggest that you Google this to learn the real story. But I’m going to give you the 50 cent version. If you want to learn about the history of Sacramento, you should probably get, what? What would you Google to learn about the history of Sacramento?

Lisa: History of Sacramento.

Gabe: Smart.

Lisa: Probably history of Sacramento would do it. Yeah,

Gabe: Always a smart ass.

Lisa: Google is magic.

Gabe: Yeah, yeah. A long, long time ago. Sacramento was founded. It was a gold rush town. OK. And then they built up an entire city and they built it by the river because rivers are pretty. Right? So this whole city built up by the river. It had gold money. There was wealthy people and everybody was happy. And then the river. What did the river do, Lisa?

Lisa: Everybody was happy? Everyone just lived happily ever after in the fairy tale. Did they live in Arendelle, Gabe? Did they live in Arendelle?

Gabe: The river flooded.

Lisa: Ok, the river floods.

Gabe: That’s where I was going with this, and of course,

Lisa: I don’t know a movie that does that.

Gabe: It flooded through Main Street. And the solution to this in any reasonable person’s mind would be to move the city back.

Lisa: Ok,

Gabe: Right?

Lisa: That’s not what almost any city does. But OK.

Gabe: You built too close to the river, so you move the city back. And then the town sits there now

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: And you’re fine. Well, but what’s the problem with that?

Lisa: Nobody wants to do that, they’re entrenched. They’ve already built their house.

Gabe: Well, yes, they’re entrenched. Because that means all of the people that own the land behind the city would all of a sudden become the rich and powerful people.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: And all of the people that own the land and businesses and store fronts, they would become the people that owned land that wasn’t as desirable. So they didn’t want to move the city back.

Lisa: That is why we have so much flooding in America. Yes, we have this exact problem all over the country. And those people, the people that own the land in the front are the ones that have all the power and all the money. So when people say, oh, my God, this is a huge problem, the river has flooded and it happens to affect me. And I have all this power and money. Yeah, that is a big problem. Suddenly, all of society is reacting to help you with that problem rather than just saying, hey, somebody else can come up into power now.

Gabe: I feel like you’re stealing most of my punch line. But

Lisa: Oh, really? I’m sorry. I didn’t know that’s where you were going.

Gabe: But what I’m saying is, this was a problem and the people that owned these buildings, the people who stood to profit the most or to lose the most, didn’t know what to do. But they had money, resources, power, as you just said, Lisa. So even though they didn’t know what to do, they hired a whole bunch of engineers and experts and smart people to figure out how to protect themselves, protect their businesses, their resources, their power, and to keep them, for lack of a better word, safe

Lisa: In power.

Gabe: And well, yeah, in power. But also safe from the next flood. So they carted in hundreds of thousands of tons of dirt.

Lisa: Oh, yeah. I saw your pictures. Yeah, right. It was fascinating.

Gabe: And raised Main Street. And suddenly those people that owned all of the buildings on Main Street

Lisa: Were good again.

Gabe: Still owned all of the buildings on Main Street. All they had to do was turn their first floors into basements and their second floors became a street front property. But all of their buildings, all still safe. All of their power, all still safe. To tie this all back. People keep saying, I don’t know what to do about the mental illness crisis. I don’t know what to do to help people with severe and persistent mental illness, because this is a huge problem. But yet, strangely, a hundred years ago, we figured out what to do to help a bunch of rich people keep Main Street exactly where it was now in Sacramento. By doing this incredibly huge engineering project that was largely unnecessary because all you had to do was relocate the town back a couple of blocks. That’s all you had to do. That would’ve been much cheaper. But they didn’t want to do that because, hey, they wanted to help the people in power. And I know this speaks to a whole bunch of things. I’m not trying to get political. I’m just simply saying that when the first flood happened, everybody shook their heads and said, I don’t know what to do. And they spent a lot of time, energy, effort and money and came up with a plan that is still working in 2020.

Lisa: Great. OK.

Gabe: I want to see somebody do that with this problem, except this problem is going to help Gabe. It’s going to help people like me. It’s going to help people with severe and persistent bipolar disorder. But we need to get all of those people. And we need to be willing to move mountains. We were willing to move mountains to protect Main Street and Sacramento. Why are we not willing to move mountains to save people like me?

Lisa: Did? Did you hear what you just said? That you want to do this massive, large and amazing plan to help people like you? Nobody wants to help people like you, like me. Nobody wants to do that. People want to help, for unknown reasons, it is a flaw in society, the people who are already in a good position. That’s why we have to have tax breaks and bailouts. Nobody wants to help you. Could this be done? Absolutely. We have the resources. We don’t want to.

Gabe: What I do know is that needs to be an advocacy point. That needs to be something that we just poke into people’s eyes constantly. Why are we ignoring this problem? Why are we not looking for a solution?

Lisa: Because we don’t care about these people.

Gabe: But I do. And mental health charities do. And there are people that do.

Lisa: Clearly there’s not enough.

Gabe: And right now, what we’re talking about, person, first language, I want to see this become an advocacy point. I want to see people like me, people like the mental health charities. I want to see all of the advocates high and low, the people in government that do care about us. I want them to ask this question over and over and over again. Why are we willing to let people with mental illness die and succumb to their illness? Because we don’t want to help them. And they answer can’t be because we don’t care. I understand that that’s the way that it looks. But I know I know there are good people in this movement. There are mental health charities. There are mental illness charities. There are Gabes and Lisas. There are Web sites. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who care this. This needs to be a major advocacy point. Why don’t we care? And what are we going to do about it to move forward together? We need to get off of things like person first language. We need to stop raising awareness about this nebulous idea of mental illness. We’ve succeeded. It’s there. We need talking points. We need to move forward. I guess that’s what I want. That’s what I want step two to be. I want to see more of that. And to all of the places that are doing it. Thank you. Thank you. Please help us coordinate. There needs to be a sense of urgency. We moved mountains in Sacramento. We need to move mountains for this. And I’m so sick and tired of being pushed around because. Well, Gabe doesn’t know either. Of course, I don’t know. And if I pretended to know, you would know that I was full of it. And you should stop listening to me. The very fact that I don’t know shows how hard I am thinking about this and how big of a problem it is and how serious it is.

Lisa: But that’s the point, that it is hard. This is a hard problem. There are plenty of people who acknowledge that this is a problem. This is terrible. It’s awful. Well, what can they do as individuals? Right? But they want to do something. What can they do? Well, they can raise awareness. They can put on the ribbon. They can, you know, do all of those things that are easy and make them feel like they’re accomplishing something.

Gabe: I want to be very careful to say that all of the people that care about me and are doing everything that they can, that you are valuable and that you’re needed. I want to say to the higher ups, the bigger people, the people with bigger platforms.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: You know, my mom wears the ribbon and frankly,

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: That that’s all my mom can do. She is absolutely, unequivocally doing everything that she can. She is wearing the ribbon. She is honest about her son. She allows me to drag my family through the mud on my podcast damn near every week.

Lisa: Well, okay.

Gabe: She is supportive of Gabe, but I don’t want to throw all of the Gabe’s mothers under the bus. But the charity that gave her the ribbon. I want you to do more. I want you to raise the bar. I don’t want you to just hand Gabe’s mom a ribbon and decide that you’ve done enough. It’s time to do more. And I want to see more of that in Mental Health Month. And to all of the charities who are raising the bar. I want you to get, I want you to get more exposure. I want to help raise awareness about your efforts so that we can all follow and we can all get more out of mental health month.

Lisa: Well, I do believe, because I know your mother, I do believe that she’s doing all that she can do. And wearing the ribbon does have a non-zero benefit. Don’t stop wearing your ribbons. But for someone who’s just wandering around wearing the ribbon and you said she’s doing everything she can. That’s all she can do. That’s not all she can do. She can support these causes politically and monetarily. What she can really do is vote for policies that will help the mentally ill. Vote for politicians who are voting for policies that will help the mentally ill.

Gabe: Well, that’s what’s uber awesome about my mom. She does do all of those things along with wearing the ribbon.

Lisa: She does. She does.

Gabe: My mom is uber uber cool. I strongly suggest

Lisa: She’s definitely much better than everybody else’s mom. Except for mine.

Gabe: [Laughter]

Lisa: She’s the second best mom of all the moms. Anyway, that’s all irrelevant. The point is there are other things that an individual can do, but to be fair, you do kind of have to do it en masse. I would like to see a lot of these charities move more into political activism. The personal is political. That’s the only place to go.

Gabe: This gets tough, too. What if the political activism is against our best interest? Like there’s

Lisa: Exactly. That’s a huge problem.

Gabe: There’s a huge political action movement for assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) or forced treatment.

Lisa: Yep.

Gabe: To essentially lock people up for being sick without due process. There are charities that are moving in that direction. Some national, some local.

Lisa: That is the most. Yes. A lot of mental health charities, that is by far their greatest policy success. Awesome. Just awesome. So, oh, actually, if you think about it, there is a silver lining. That goes to show it can be done. These people can marshal political power and get change and make stuff happen. We just need them to do the right stuff.

Gabe: You know, AOT is tough for me in many ways,

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: I’m against most of it. I can’t break it down into percentages, but the overwhelming majority of it is extremely problematic. But like anything, it doesn’t always do bad.

Lisa: That is a completely separate podcast. We will add it to the list of topics that we’re going to get to. Which is why you should share and subscribe so that you can make sure you get all the topics. But anyway, separate topic. The topic at hand is Mental Health Awareness Month, bringing that back around. Mental Health Awareness Month. Gabe, go.

Gabe: I think that’s the longest way ever to say, shut up, Gabe, and get back on track I have ever heard in my life. I hope that we’ve given the listeners something to think about, you know, like anything, nothing is all good or all bad. I’m not completely for mental health month. I’m also not completely against it.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And I really want to give a huge shout out to Mental Health America for starting the whole thing. Because, listen, before they started it, we didn’t have anything. There would be nothing for Gabe to criticize. There would be nothing for Lisa to mock. There would just be nothing. There would be nothing. We would all be sitting around probably saying, hey, why isn’t there a mental health month?

Lisa: And then we could have a campaign to start one.

Gabe: Whoo!

Lisa: Whoo.

Gabe: And then when people insulted it, I’d be like, I started it, why are you being mean to me? And so the world goes.

Lisa: Not a perfect system.

Gabe: Thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode of Not Crazy. Lisa, as always, thank you for being here. I appreciate all of your insults, both implied and said.

Lisa: It wasn’t all insulting, I said some nice stuff. You’ve done good work.

Gabe: This is awesome.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: This is awesome.

Lisa: I don’t know where to go with this. I just say stuff. I don’t know. I just do things.

Gabe: And to all of our listeners, we really appreciate you being here. Listen, as a new podcast, we really, really need your help. Please rank, review, and subscribe. When I say review, please use your words when you share us on social media. Tell people why they should listen. E-mail people. Write down PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. Put it on a little index card. Carry it in your pocket. Give it to people at support groups. We’re really hoping to start a movement and really change things and well, frankly, argue with each other in a productive way that, you know, makes us not hate each other in the end. Right, Lisa?

Lisa: And to think we’ve been doing this for free all these years.

Gabe: All right, everybody, we will see you next week.

Lisa: See you then.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person? Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details.

Gabe: Hey Not Crazy fans, this is your host, Gabe Howard and I want to tell you about AuthorityDental.org. Now you can whiten your teeth easily and affordably 100% from home. Compare the most popular teeth whitening kits at AuthorityDental.org. And hey, use code STAYHOME to get 25% off your purchase. Listen, this is a limited time offer. Please visit www.AuthorityDental.org/best-teeth-whitening-kit and order your teeth whitening kit today.

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Podcast: Deconstructing Mental Health Month

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Computer Generated Transcript for “Mental Health Month” Episode

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Gabe: Hey, everybody, you’re listening to the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am here with Lisa. Lisa, are you excited that it is Mental Health Awareness Month?

Lisa: How could I not be excited for Mental Health Awareness Month? But probably not as excited as you are.

Gabe: I mean, I am uber excited that for an entire month. I mean, one twelfth of the year, I matter.

Lisa: Well, and, of course, for that entire month, nobody with mental illness has any problems because everyone pays attention and loves us.

Gabe: Really?

Lisa: Mission statement.

Gabe: Yeah, their mission statement, they say, to raise awareness about fill in the blank. And I’m not just picking on mental health charities or mental illness

Lisa: Oh, no,

Gabe: Charities.

Lisa: There’s lots of them.

Gabe: I mean, this is, yeah.

Lisa: Cancer, M.S., children, whatever.

Gabe: Lupus. Just everything, it seems like raising awareness

Lisa: Abused animals.

Gabe: Is this really vogue thing. I have a really hard time. In research for the show. I tried to figure out, like, what does that mean? Like, ah, ah.

Lisa: Well, that’s the problem, nobody knows what it means.

Gabe: Well, right, but it

Lisa: It’s a nebulous goal.

Gabe: But it has to mean something.

Gabe: I’m going to give you a real hard push back here because you’re doing this. This speaking in absolutes, there are many charities who their specific goals

Lisa: Of course.

Gabe: Is to treat a certain number of patients. It’s to lower the

Gabe: Here’s the thing, here’s the problem that I have with awareness.

Lisa: It’s not measurable.

Gabe: I know. That’s not the problem that I have with awareness.

Lisa: That should be the problem, you have with awareness, because that’s what’s wrong with it.

Gabe: Do you think, like, sincerely, do you think that there is anybody in America who isn’t aware of mental illness?

Gabe: Pretending for a moment that awareness is a good thing and that that we’re all okay with it.

Lisa: It probably is a good thing.

Gabe: I mean, I know that it’s probably a good thing, but I just I’m really struggling with who gets to define the narrative.

Lisa: Yes, exactly.

Lisa: Right. Right.

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: I don’t. I think it’s terrible.

Gabe: No, no, no. I struggle with the idea of bashing Mental Health Awareness Month.

Lisa: Oh, okay.

Lisa: Right. Right.

Lisa: Exactly

Gabe: I get all that.

Lisa: All of those things, yes.

Gabe: I get all of that. I don’t want to go down that road because

Lisa: You should it’s important.

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: So let’s move past the fact that awareness is an ambiguous goal. And that we’re not thrilled with it. What’s step two, Lisa?

Gabe: This is the thing that I fight up against constantly.

Lisa: Yeah, wellness.

Gabe: Everybody has mental health.

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: Well, how are you defining crisis?

Lisa: Oh, that’s a good definition. That’s a good one.

Gabe: It’s not perfect. And that’s certainly not how it’s going to be defined medically. But.

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: That’s another spectrum.

Gabe: Listen, I think that missing a day or two, because you’re overwhelmed, maybe that doesn��t rise to the level of crisis. But it is something that people should be concerned about. And when I think of mental health month, I think, are we focusing on anyone with severe and persistent mental illness? For example, how come we don’t do anything about homelessness during mental health month?

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Like nothing.

Lisa: Mental Health Month almost always seems to focus on wellness or it’s helping the worried well.

Gabe: And I hate that term.

Lisa: Really, why?

Gabe: First off, being well and being worried. That’s a fair statement.

Lisa: What are you talking about?

Gabe: This is the suffering Olympics.

Lisa: How?

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Actually, I’m going to cut you off right there.

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: It annoys me that the pie is a finite size

Lisa: Well, yeah. That’s the real problem.

Gabe: Because, I gotta tell you, the pie is not a finite size when it comes to, oh, I don’t know, military spending.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: The pie is not a finite size when it comes to government spending.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: The pie is not a finite size. When it comes to, oh, I don’t know, bailing out billionaires. The pie is not a finite size when the local sports team needs

Lisa: Needs an arena.

Lisa: Yes, absolutely. And it’s very depressing.

Gabe: Why is that not being addressed? I want that to be addressed for mental health month.

Lisa: I would agree with that completely.

Gabe: I also want there to be a mental illness month. I’m not against Mental Health Month.

Lisa: Did this start as mental illness month?

Gabe: This is what I hate so much.

Lisa: I actually don’t know.

Lisa: I actually do have it written down here.

Gabe: I just.

Lisa: I have it written down. Give me a second.

Gabe: You are so incredibly well paid.

Lisa: I have a lot of notes on the table here. Let me find it.

Gabe: There’s a lot of? You haven’t organized your notes. I see her organizing her notes by typing in Google.com. Look at those. Look at those organized notes right there.

Lisa: Okay, but I did find out the thing. It was founded by Mental Health America in partnership with the Jaycees. That I thought was very interesting. So they meant it to be a community wide effort.

Gabe: And I love Mental Health America.

Lisa: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s a problem. That’s a problem.

Lisa: That is a problem.

Gabe: But I do want Mental Health Month to be so much more. I want it to be more.

Lisa: So you feel that it’s a way to say, hey, we don’t care about you the rest of the year, the other 11 months, you’re on your own. But for this month, we care.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: It’s a way to bring it up. So in that way.

Gabe: Yeah. Sense of urgency when there’s a deadline.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You have to have your money in by Friday. Then all the sudden. This is why we do like year end, because

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: You have to have it for your taxes that year or for your year end giving, or surrounding Christmas.

Lisa: It makes people think about it. Otherwise, they just don’t get to it. They’re like, oh, I’ll give whenever.

Gabe: So in this way, Mental Health Month is extraordinarily vital.

Gabe: It gives you a platform, and there’s no reason that people can’t learn about mental health year round.

Lisa: Right. These are prominent organizations, names you recognize.

Gabe: One of the things that I always struggle with when I read a lot of these editorials is there’s always like this grain of truth that I believe.

Lisa: Right, that they take too far.

Lisa: Obviously, yes.

Lisa: Is that a thing?

Gabe: Yeah, of course.

Lisa: International Bipolar Support Day?

Gabe: It’s Van Gogh’s birthday.

Lisa: It’s just, it’s what?

Gabe: It’s Van Gogh’s birthday.

Lisa: Van Gogh’s birthday is International Bipolar Support Day?

Gabe: Yeah. You didn’t know that?

Lisa: No, I did not know that.

Gabe: This is why our marriage failed. Just unequivocally, like there’s a whole holiday dedicated to Gabe and I never got a card.

Lisa: You’re right. Never once did I give you a present for bipolar support awareness day.

Gabe: You know what’s sad about you being unaware of this? You know the picture of me and my wife holding the signs?

Lisa: Oh, is that what that was for?

Gabe: That say, I live with bipolar disorder.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And I’m his wife. I’m a husband with bipolar disorder. And I’m his wife.

Lisa: His wife, who loves him.

Gabe: That you took the picture, you helped make the signs.

Lisa: I did, actually.

Gabe: You made sure our hair and makeup was good. Remember? Remember that?

Lisa: I do remember that, yes.

Gabe: And what was that for?

Lisa: Wearing the matching t-shirts. I picked the t-shirts.

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Right. And what was the event that we did that for?

Lisa: You know, I actually have never.

Gabe: International Bipolar Support.

Lisa: Was it really?

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: I probably knew that at the time.

Lisa: You still. That was years ago, and you still use that picture all the time.

Gabe: Yeah, it’s a great picture. I look fabulous.

Lisa: It is. You both look great. Huh, you’re right. OK, my bad on that.

Lisa: You did you look fantastic.

Gabe: That did nothing, that did nothing to help people with serious and persistent mental illness.

Lisa: Well, but is that true?

Gabe: Yeah, it’s absolutely true.

Lisa: You don’t know that.

Gabe: Yes, I do. I do. Because the shortfall is so great

Lisa: What do you mean?

Lisa: Oh, yeah,

Gabe: That’s disturbing.

Lisa: You worked. Don’t say it like that, you worked.

Gabe: I was very underemployed.

Lisa: You were underemployed, you weren’t unemployed. OK. Take that back.

Gabe: Look, I didn’t work for four years.

Lisa: That’s not fair, you worked. You just didn’t work a lot.

Gabe: Ok, fine, fine. I went to college, I tried to work a lot, but I did not make the kind of money that would qualify me as above the poverty level.

Lisa: Ok. You were definitely.

Gabe: Thank you, by the way, for working then, because. Hey.

Lisa: I’m just saying you should give yourself credit for what you tried.

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: Canceling it I do not think will help people with serious and persistent mental illness.

Lisa: But will not canceling it help?

Gabe: No. Well, maybe.

Lisa: Is it irrelevant?

Lisa: Ok. So.

Lisa: And now we have a word from our sponsors.

Lisa: And we’re back deconstructing May as Mental Health Awareness Month.

Gabe: I, let’s predict in the future. Next year at this time, this episode is going to be sponsored by Hallmark and they’re gonna have like a whole line of, hey, I’m sorry, you’re depressed.

Gabe: Are you baffled by bipolar? Are you depressed because you’re depressed? Cheer up, some bunny loves you, and it can be like a bunny.

Lisa: Ooh, well, maybe we could get a bunny as a mascot?

Gabe: Why? Why is it a bunny?

Lisa: Well, I don’t know.

Gabe: Like when I was thinking of mascots for people with mental. Like when I was thinking of like mascots for Gabe Howard.

Lisa: You sit around and think about this?

Gabe: Like who do I want to be the mental illness mascot? I’m thinking a dragon.

Lisa: Ooh, dragon is absolutely the best. Yes, Dragon one hundred percent, yes. Forget the bunnies.

Gabe: I’m Thinking straight up, dragon. Would it be a fire breathing dragon?

Lisa: Screw the bunny, we’re in with the dragon.

Gabe: I can already hear the criticism. Really? When you think of mental illness, you think of a mean, evil, fire breathing, attacking dragon? And I’ll be like,

Lisa: You mean a magical, mythical creature?

Gabe: Exactly.

Lisa: Of exquisite beauty who is rare?

Gabe: Exactly.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: See, dragons are misunderstood.

Lisa: They are.

Lisa: Is that how the story goes?

Gabe: Really?

Lisa: I, uh?

Gabe: We’re the same age.

Lisa: I remember the song, but I don’t think I ever actually

Gabe: What is wrong with you?

Lisa: I don’t think I ever actually saw the movie.

Gabe: Wow.

Lisa: Sorry.

Gabe: It’s literally about helping Jackie Paper through depression.

Lisa: Is it really?

Gabe: His name is not actually Jackie Paper. His name is Jackie, but he’s really depressed and he blows into Jackie’s ear and puts his soul into paper so that he can talk to Jackie Paper.

Lisa: Really?

Gabe: And he helps. Yeah. This is a big, big deal to me because it helped me understand both the.

Lisa: Oh.

Gabe: Yeah. Yeah. It just I.

Lisa: Apparently, I’ll

Gabe: Wow.

Lisa: Have to see if that’s on Netflix because that seems much more profound than I thought. Ok, going back, focus.

Gabe: You still haven’t answered

Lisa: Oh, OK. What was the question?

Gabe: From like six and a half hours ago.

Lisa: Sorry, I don’t remember the question.

Gabe: What is step two? See, I really try to be aware. Sincerely, Lisa, focus. Like I’m not trying to pick on you.

Lisa: Sorry, sorry. I’m all over the place.

Gabe: You know the part where I said, stop hating on the things that you hate and focus on the things that you love? You didn’t do it. You might have depression or

Lisa: You think?

Gabe: Or some sort of pessimism or

Lisa: You think?

Gabe: Maybe you’re a negative person?

Lisa: I almost can’t stand to watch anything anymore. It’s ridiculous. Like all pop culture is terrible. Anyway.

Gabe: Focusing on what we want to happen. Here are some things that I would like to see happen.

Lisa: Ok. You’ve got good stuff.

Gabe: One, I would like people to understand, and I know that that’s dangerously close to raising awareness.

Lisa: Well, I was going to say understanding is awareness.

Gabe: But I want people to understand the warning signs for suicide. I want people to

Lisa: Ok.

Lisa: Well, yeah. I was going to say.

Gabe: Right. That’s what I want to see. I want people to know what bipolar disorder is. I want people to know the warning signs. I want people to know then what to do

Lisa: Well, the what to do is the most key part.

Lisa: Yes. that’s your job.

Lisa: Yes. It is very annoying.

Gabe: But if I don’t know the answer to that, they think it’s some sort of proof. No, I don’t keep track of this. It’s not my job.

Gabe: Then everybody sits down and figures it out because we have

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: A well-funded Defense Department and military. We make a plan. It costs millions of dollars to come up with these plans.

Lisa: Billions.

Gabe: In the meantime, somebody gave Gabe, a guy living with bipolar disorder, no money, no resources, no doctors, no research, no nothing. And they want me to come up with a plan.

Lisa: It’s a difficult thing because everyone says the problem is too big to do anything about. What does that even mean? What are we supposed to do?

Gabe: Do you know why I know the problem is not too big to do anything about?

Lisa: Other countries have successfully done something about it?

Gabe: Well, I mean, there’s that, but I’m going to keep it in America. Because I believe in America. I want my analogies to come from America. Let me tell you about Sacramento. You

Lisa: Sacramento. Ok.

Gabe: Know what I love about Sacramento?

Lisa: They have that fast food place you like?

Gabe: You know what else I love about Sacramento?

Lisa: Ok.

Lisa: History of Sacramento.

Gabe: Smart.

Lisa: Probably history of Sacramento would do it. Yeah,

Gabe: Always a smart ass.

Lisa: Google is magic.

Lisa: Everybody was happy? Everyone just lived happily ever after in the fairy tale. Did they live in Arendelle, Gabe? Did they live in Arendelle?

Gabe: The river flooded.

Lisa: Ok, the river floods.

Gabe: That’s where I was going with this, and of course,

Lisa: I don’t know a movie that does that.

Gabe: It flooded through Main Street. And the solution to this in any reasonable person’s mind would be to move the city back.

Lisa: Ok,

Gabe: Right?

Lisa: That’s not what almost any city does. But OK.

Gabe: You built too close to the river, so you move the city back. And then the town sits there now

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: And you’re fine. Well, but what’s the problem with that?

Lisa: Nobody wants to do that, they’re entrenched. They’ve already built their house.

Gabe: Well, yes, they’re entrenched. Because that means all of the people that own the land behind the city would all of a sudden become the rich and powerful people.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: And all of the people that own the land and businesses and store fronts, they would become the people that owned land that wasn’t as desirable. So they didn’t want to move the city back.

Gabe: I feel like you’re stealing most of my punch line. But

Lisa: Oh, really? I’m sorry. I didn’t know that’s where you were going.

Lisa: In power.

Gabe: And well, yeah, in power. But also safe from the next flood. So they carted in hundreds of thousands of tons of dirt.

Lisa: Oh, yeah. I saw your pictures. Yeah, right. It was fascinating.

Gabe: And raised Main Street. And suddenly those people that owned all of the buildings on Main Street

Lisa: Were good again.

Lisa: Great. OK.

Lisa: Because we don’t care about these people.

Gabe: But I do. And mental health charities do. And there are people that do.

Lisa: Clearly there’s not enough.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: You know, my mom wears the ribbon and frankly,

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: Well, okay.

Gabe: Well, that’s what’s uber awesome about my mom. She does do all of those things along with wearing the ribbon.

Lisa: She does. She does.

Gabe: My mom is uber uber cool. I strongly suggest

Lisa: She’s definitely much better than everybody else’s mom. Except for mine.

Gabe: [Laughter]

Gabe: This gets tough, too. What if the political activism is against our best interest? Like there’s

Lisa: Exactly. That’s a huge problem.

Gabe: There’s a huge political action movement for assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) or forced treatment.

Lisa: Yep.

Gabe: To essentially lock people up for being sick without due process. There are charities that are moving in that direction. Some national, some local.

Gabe: You know, AOT is tough for me in many ways,

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: I’m against most of it. I can’t break it down into percentages, but the overwhelming majority of it is extremely problematic. But like anything, it doesn’t always do bad.

Lisa: Yeah.

Lisa: And then we could have a campaign to start one.

Gabe: Whoo!

Lisa: Whoo.

Gabe: And then when people insulted it, I’d be like, I started it, why are you being mean to me? And so the world goes.

Lisa: Not a perfect system.

Gabe: Thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode of Not Crazy. Lisa, as always, thank you for being here. I appreciate all of your insults, both implied and said.

Lisa: It wasn’t all insulting, I said some nice stuff. You’ve done good work.

Gabe: This is awesome.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: This is awesome.

Lisa: I don’t know where to go with this. I just say stuff. I don’t know. I just do things.

Lisa: And to think we’ve been doing this for free all these years.

Gabe: All right, everybody, we will see you next week.

Lisa: See you then.

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brentrogers · 5 years ago

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Podcast: Deconstructing Mental Health Month

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Computer Generated Transcript for “Mental Health Month” Episode

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Gabe: Hey, everybody, you’re listening to the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am here with Lisa. Lisa, are you excited that it is Mental Health Awareness Month?

Lisa: How could I not be excited for Mental Health Awareness Month? But probably not as excited as you are.

Gabe: I mean, I am uber excited that for an entire month. I mean, one twelfth of the year, I matter.

Lisa: Well, and, of course, for that entire month, nobody with mental illness has any problems because everyone pays attention and loves us.

Gabe: Really?

Lisa: Mission statement.

Gabe: Yeah, their mission statement, they say, to raise awareness about fill in the blank. And I’m not just picking on mental health charities or mental illness

Lisa: Oh, no,

Gabe: Charities.

Lisa: There’s lots of them.

Gabe: I mean, this is, yeah.

Lisa: Cancer, M.S., children, whatever.

Gabe: Lupus. Just everything, it seems like raising awareness

Lisa: Abused animals.

Gabe: Is this really vogue thing. I have a really hard time. In research for the show. I tried to figure out, like, what does that mean? Like, ah, ah.

Lisa: Well, that’s the problem, nobody knows what it means.

Gabe: Well, right, but it

Lisa: It’s a nebulous goal.

Gabe: But it has to mean something.

Gabe: I’m going to give you a real hard push back here because you’re doing this. This speaking in absolutes, there are many charities who their specific goals

Lisa: Of course.

Gabe: Is to treat a certain number of patients. It’s to lower the

Gabe: Here’s the thing, here’s the problem that I have with awareness.

Lisa: It’s not measurable.

Gabe: I know. That’s not the problem that I have with awareness.

Lisa: That should be the problem, you have with awareness, because that’s what’s wrong with it.

Gabe: Do you think, like, sincerely, do you think that there is anybody in America who isn’t aware of mental illness?

Gabe: Pretending for a moment that awareness is a good thing and that that we’re all okay with it.

Lisa: It probably is a good thing.

Gabe: I mean, I know that it’s probably a good thing, but I just I’m really struggling with who gets to define the narrative.

Lisa: Yes, exactly.

Lisa: Right. Right.

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: I don’t. I think it’s terrible.

Gabe: No, no, no. I struggle with the idea of bashing Mental Health Awareness Month.

Lisa: Oh, okay.

Lisa: Right. Right.

Lisa: Exactly

Gabe: I get all that.

Lisa: All of those things, yes.

Gabe: I get all of that. I don’t want to go down that road because

Lisa: You should it’s important.

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: So let’s move past the fact that awareness is an ambiguous goal. And that we’re not thrilled with it. What’s step two, Lisa?

Gabe: This is the thing that I fight up against constantly.

Lisa: Yeah, wellness.

Gabe: Everybody has mental health.

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: Well, how are you defining crisis?

Lisa: Oh, that’s a good definition. That’s a good one.

Gabe: It’s not perfect. And that’s certainly not how it’s going to be defined medically. But.

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: That’s another spectrum.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Like nothing.

Lisa: Mental Health Month almost always seems to focus on wellness or it’s helping the worried well.

Gabe: And I hate that term.

Lisa: Really, why?

Gabe: First off, being well and being worried. That’s a fair statement.

Lisa: What are you talking about?

Gabe: This is the suffering Olympics.

Lisa: How?

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Actually, I’m going to cut you off right there.

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: It annoys me that the pie is a finite size

Lisa: Well, yeah. That’s the real problem.

Gabe: Because, I gotta tell you, the pie is not a finite size when it comes to, oh, I don’t know, military spending.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: The pie is not a finite size when it comes to government spending.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: The pie is not a finite size. When it comes to, oh, I don’t know, bailing out billionaires. The pie is not a finite size when the local sports team needs

Lisa: Needs an arena.

Lisa: Yes, absolutely. And it’s very depressing.

Gabe: Why is that not being addressed? I want that to be addressed for mental health month.

Lisa: I would agree with that completely.

Gabe: I also want there to be a mental illness month. I’m not against Mental Health Month.

Lisa: Did this start as mental illness month?

Gabe: This is what I hate so much.

Lisa: I actually don’t know.

Lisa: I actually do have it written down here.

Gabe: I just.

Lisa: I have it written down. Give me a second.

Gabe: You are so incredibly well paid.

Lisa: I have a lot of notes on the table here. Let me find it.

Gabe: There’s a lot of? You haven’t organized your notes. I see her organizing her notes by typing in Google.com. Look at those. Look at those organized notes right there.

Lisa: Okay, but I did find out the thing. It was founded by Mental Health America in partnership with the Jaycees. That I thought was very interesting. So they meant it to be a community wide effort.

Gabe: And I love Mental Health America.

Lisa: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s a problem. That’s a problem.

Lisa: That is a problem.

Gabe: But I do want Mental Health Month to be so much more. I want it to be more.

Lisa: So you feel that it’s a way to say, hey, we don’t care about you the rest of the year, the other 11 months, you’re on your own. But for this month, we care.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: It’s a way to bring it up. So in that way.

Gabe: Yeah. Sense of urgency when there’s a deadline.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You have to have your money in by Friday. Then all the sudden. This is why we do like year end, because

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: You have to have it for your taxes that year or for your year end giving, or surrounding Christmas.

Lisa: It makes people think about it. Otherwise, they just don’t get to it. They’re like, oh, I’ll give whenever.

Gabe: So in this way, Mental Health Month is extraordinarily vital.

Gabe: It gives you a platform, and there’s no reason that people can’t learn about mental health year round.

Lisa: Right. These are prominent organizations, names you recognize.

Gabe: One of the things that I always struggle with when I read a lot of these editorials is there’s always like this grain of truth that I believe.

Lisa: Right, that they take too far.

Lisa: Obviously, yes.

Lisa: Is that a thing?

Gabe: Yeah, of course.

Lisa: International Bipolar Support Day?

Gabe: It’s Van Gogh’s birthday.

Lisa: It’s just, it’s what?

Gabe: It’s Van Gogh’s birthday.

Lisa: Van Gogh’s birthday is International Bipolar Support Day?

Gabe: Yeah. You didn’t know that?

Lisa: No, I did not know that.

Gabe: This is why our marriage failed. Just unequivocally, like there’s a whole holiday dedicated to Gabe and I never got a card.

Lisa: You’re right. Never once did I give you a present for bipolar support awareness day.

Gabe: You know what’s sad about you being unaware of this? You know the picture of me and my wife holding the signs?

Lisa: Oh, is that what that was for?

Gabe: That say, I live with bipolar disorder.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And I’m his wife. I’m a husband with bipolar disorder. And I’m his wife.

Lisa: His wife, who loves him.

Gabe: That you took the picture, you helped make the signs.

Lisa: I did, actually.

Gabe: You made sure our hair and makeup was good. Remember? Remember that?

Lisa: I do remember that, yes.

Gabe: And what was that for?

Lisa: Wearing the matching t-shirts. I picked the t-shirts.

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Right. And what was the event that we did that for?

Lisa: You know, I actually have never.

Gabe: International Bipolar Support.

Lisa: Was it really?

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: I probably knew that at the time.

Lisa: You still. That was years ago, and you still use that picture all the time.

Gabe: Yeah, it’s a great picture. I look fabulous.

Lisa: It is. You both look great. Huh, you’re right. OK, my bad on that.

Lisa: You did you look fantastic.

Gabe: That did nothing, that did nothing to help people with serious and persistent mental illness.

Lisa: Well, but is that true?

Gabe: Yeah, it’s absolutely true.

Lisa: You don’t know that.

Gabe: Yes, I do. I do. Because the shortfall is so great

Lisa: What do you mean?

Lisa: Oh, yeah,

Gabe: That’s disturbing.

Lisa: You worked. Don’t say it like that, you worked.

Gabe: I was very underemployed.

Lisa: You were underemployed, you weren’t unemployed. OK. Take that back.

Gabe: Look, I didn’t work for four years.

Lisa: That’s not fair, you worked. You just didn’t work a lot.

Gabe: Ok, fine, fine. I went to college, I tried to work a lot, but I did not make the kind of money that would qualify me as above the poverty level.

Lisa: Ok. You were definitely.

Gabe: Thank you, by the way, for working then, because. Hey.

Lisa: I’m just saying you should give yourself credit for what you tried.

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: Canceling it I do not think will help people with serious and persistent mental illness.

Lisa: But will not canceling it help?

Gabe: No. Well, maybe.

Lisa: Is it irrelevant?

Lisa: Ok. So.

Lisa: And now we have a word from our sponsors.

Lisa: And we’re back deconstructing May as Mental Health Awareness Month.

Gabe: I, let’s predict in the future. Next year at this time, this episode is going to be sponsored by Hallmark and they’re gonna have like a whole line of, hey, I’m sorry, you’re depressed.

Gabe: Are you baffled by bipolar? Are you depressed because you’re depressed? Cheer up, some bunny loves you, and it can be like a bunny.

Lisa: Ooh, well, maybe we could get a bunny as a mascot?

Gabe: Why? Why is it a bunny?

Lisa: Well, I don’t know.

Gabe: Like when I was thinking of mascots for people with mental. Like when I was thinking of like mascots for Gabe Howard.

Lisa: You sit around and think about this?

Gabe: Like who do I want to be the mental illness mascot? I’m thinking a dragon.

Lisa: Ooh, dragon is absolutely the best. Yes, Dragon one hundred percent, yes. Forget the bunnies.

Gabe: I’m Thinking straight up, dragon. Would it be a fire breathing dragon?

Lisa: Screw the bunny, we’re in with the dragon.

Gabe: I can already hear the criticism. Really? When you think of mental illness, you think of a mean, evil, fire breathing, attacking dragon? And I’ll be like,

Lisa: You mean a magical, mythical creature?

Gabe: Exactly.

Lisa: Of exquisite beauty who is rare?

Gabe: Exactly.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: See, dragons are misunderstood.

Lisa: They are.

Lisa: Is that how the story goes?

Gabe: Really?

Lisa: I, uh?

Gabe: We’re the same age.

Lisa: I remember the song, but I don’t think I ever actually

Gabe: What is wrong with you?

Lisa: I don’t think I ever actually saw the movie.

Gabe: Wow.

Lisa: Sorry.

Gabe: It’s literally about helping Jackie Paper through depression.

Lisa: Is it really?

Gabe: His name is not actually Jackie Paper. His name is Jackie, but he’s really depressed and he blows into Jackie’s ear and puts his soul into paper so that he can talk to Jackie Paper.

Lisa: Really?

Gabe: And he helps. Yeah. This is a big, big deal to me because it helped me understand both the.

Lisa: Oh.

Gabe: Yeah. Yeah. It just I.

Lisa: Apparently, I’ll

Gabe: Wow.

Lisa: Have to see if that’s on Netflix because that seems much more profound than I thought. Ok, going back, focus.

Gabe: You still haven’t answered

Lisa: Oh, OK. What was the question?

Gabe: From like six and a half hours ago.

Lisa: Sorry, I don’t remember the question.

Gabe: What is step two? See, I really try to be aware. Sincerely, Lisa, focus. Like I’m not trying to pick on you.

Lisa: Sorry, sorry. I’m all over the place.

Gabe: You know the part where I said, stop hating on the things that you hate and focus on the things that you love? You didn’t do it. You might have depression or

Lisa: You think?

Gabe: Or some sort of pessimism or

Lisa: You think?

Gabe: Maybe you’re a negative person?

Lisa: I almost can’t stand to watch anything anymore. It’s ridiculous. Like all pop culture is terrible. Anyway.

Gabe: Focusing on what we want to happen. Here are some things that I would like to see happen.

Lisa: Ok. You’ve got good stuff.

Gabe: One, I would like people to understand, and I know that that’s dangerously close to raising awareness.

Lisa: Well, I was going to say understanding is awareness.

Gabe: But I want people to understand the warning signs for suicide. I want people to

Lisa: Ok.

Lisa: Well, yeah. I was going to say.

Gabe: Right. That’s what I want to see. I want people to know what bipolar disorder is. I want people to know the warning signs. I want people to know then what to do

Lisa: Well, the what to do is the most key part.

Lisa: Yes. that’s your job.

Lisa: Yes. It is very annoying.

Gabe: But if I don’t know the answer to that, they think it’s some sort of proof. No, I don’t keep track of this. It’s not my job.

Gabe: Then everybody sits down and figures it out because we have

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: A well-funded Defense Department and military. We make a plan. It costs millions of dollars to come up with these plans.

Lisa: Billions.

Gabe: In the meantime, somebody gave Gabe, a guy living with bipolar disorder, no money, no resources, no doctors, no research, no nothing. And they want me to come up with a plan.

Lisa: It’s a difficult thing because everyone says the problem is too big to do anything about. What does that even mean? What are we supposed to do?

Gabe: Do you know why I know the problem is not too big to do anything about?

Lisa: Other countries have successfully done something about it?

Gabe: Well, I mean, there’s that, but I’m going to keep it in America. Because I believe in America. I want my analogies to come from America. Let me tell you about Sacramento. You

Lisa: Sacramento. Ok.

Gabe: Know what I love about Sacramento?

Lisa: They have that fast food place you like?

Gabe: You know what else I love about Sacramento?

Lisa: Ok.

Lisa: History of Sacramento.

Gabe: Smart.

Lisa: Probably history of Sacramento would do it. Yeah,

Gabe: Always a smart ass.

Lisa: Google is magic.

Lisa: Everybody was happy? Everyone just lived happily ever after in the fairy tale. Did they live in Arendelle, Gabe? Did they live in Arendelle?

Gabe: The river flooded.

Lisa: Ok, the river floods.

Gabe: That’s where I was going with this, and of course,

Lisa: I don’t know a movie that does that.

Gabe: It flooded through Main Street. And the solution to this in any reasonable person’s mind would be to move the city back.

Lisa: Ok,

Gabe: Right?

Lisa: That’s not what almost any city does. But OK.

Gabe: You built too close to the river, so you move the city back. And then the town sits there now

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: And you’re fine. Well, but what’s the problem with that?

Lisa: Nobody wants to do that, they’re entrenched. They’ve already built their house.

Gabe: Well, yes, they’re entrenched. Because that means all of the people that own the land behind the city would all of a sudden become the rich and powerful people.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: And all of the people that own the land and businesses and store fronts, they would become the people that owned land that wasn’t as desirable. So they didn’t want to move the city back.

Gabe: I feel like you’re stealing most of my punch line. But

Lisa: Oh, really? I’m sorry. I didn’t know that’s where you were going.

Lisa: In power.

Gabe: And well, yeah, in power. But also safe from the next flood. So they carted in hundreds of thousands of tons of dirt.

Lisa: Oh, yeah. I saw your pictures. Yeah, right. It was fascinating.

Gabe: And raised Main Street. And suddenly those people that owned all of the buildings on Main Street

Lisa: Were good again.

Lisa: Great. OK.

Lisa: Because we don’t care about these people.

Gabe: But I do. And mental health charities do. And there are people that do.

Lisa: Clearly there’s not enough.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: You know, my mom wears the ribbon and frankly,

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: Well, okay.

Gabe: Well, that’s what’s uber awesome about my mom. She does do all of those things along with wearing the ribbon.

Lisa: She does. She does.

Gabe: My mom is uber uber cool. I strongly suggest

Lisa: She’s definitely much better than everybody else’s mom. Except for mine.

Gabe: [Laughter]

Gabe: This gets tough, too. What if the political activism is against our best interest? Like there’s

Lisa: Exactly. That’s a huge problem.

Gabe: There’s a huge political action movement for assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) or forced treatment.

Lisa: Yep.

Gabe: To essentially lock people up for being sick without due process. There are charities that are moving in that direction. Some national, some local.

Gabe: You know, AOT is tough for me in many ways,

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: I’m against most of it. I can’t break it down into percentages, but the overwhelming majority of it is extremely problematic. But like anything, it doesn’t always do bad.

Lisa: Yeah.

Lisa: And then we could have a campaign to start one.

Gabe: Whoo!

Lisa: Whoo.

Gabe: And then when people insulted it, I’d be like, I started it, why are you being mean to me? And so the world goes.

Lisa: Not a perfect system.

Gabe: Thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode of Not Crazy. Lisa, as always, thank you for being here. I appreciate all of your insults, both implied and said.

Lisa: It wasn’t all insulting, I said some nice stuff. You’ve done good work.

Gabe: This is awesome.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: This is awesome.

Lisa: I don’t know where to go with this. I just say stuff. I don’t know. I just do things.

Lisa: And to think we’ve been doing this for free all these years.

Gabe: All right, everybody, we will see you next week.

Lisa: See you then.

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Podcast: Deconstructing Mental Health Month syndicated from

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