#it just impossible to exaggerate how alone being disabled make you

[newlowbattery]

Wow really thought I was gonna finally have a birthday where I didn't end up crying. So much for that.

[mirasmirages]

I saw this list of prompts and wrote this for 2.”Just play along.” 

Modern AU ValNori

CW: Past abusive relationship

Word count: 737

Val belongs to @sableflynn​

*

She was just going to get a coffee, that was all.

After leaving her husband, running out the door at the end of a particularly bad day, Norina had been staying with her brother until she could sort out getting a divorse and getting back on her feet. Most of the time it felt impossible, and she kept wondering if it would be better to just go back to Leon. When she had suggested it, though, Niel had vehemently refused, and insisted Norina could stay with him for as long as she needed to, no matter how long that might be.

"Even if you stay until you're eighty, you never have to go back," he had promised.

Eventually Niel had had to go back to work, though, and Norina was bored out of her mind. Staying at home with nothing to do but to think was not a good thing, and after a week of spending hours alone each day, she needed a change of pace. So, she was going out for a coffee, just a quick trip to the mall and then back home. It was a public place, there would be people around all over the place. It was fine.

She stood in line, ordered her iced latté and went out of the store to drink it.

There was a short haired woman in a leather jacket looking at her, leaning against a railing, and Norina gave her a small smile before looking away. She took a sip of her drink. Her heart should not be beating this hard just from being out of the house. She should go back, but she didn't really want to, so she stood outside the coffee shop as she sipped her latté, looking at people, and then she saw him. Leon. What was he doing in the mall? There was no way for him to know she was at the mall, no reason for him to be looking for her at all. They had disabled the tracker app he had installed on her phone, hadn't they?

She only had a moment to panic before he saw her, and without thinking she went over to the woman in the leather jacket and hugged her. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Please just play along."

By the time Norina let go Leon had reached them.

"Nori," he said.

"Leon, hi!" Norina said, a big fake smile on her face. "Um, this is..."

"Val," the woman said, reaching to shake his hand.

"Val," Norina repeated. "She's an old friend."

"Really," Leon said, obviously not buying it. "How come I've never heard of her?"

"You haven't told him about me?" Val said, giving Norina an exaggerated hurt look. Norina felt a wave of relief wash over her that she was playing along. "Nori here and I go way back, but I moved away a few years ago. Just got back, so we decided to meet up."

"Exactly," Norina said, before Leon could say anything. Before he could apologize, or tell her to come back home.

"Anyway, nice to meet you, but we should get going," Val said, turning to Norina. "Are you ready?"

"Uh," Norina said. "Ready?"

"Yeah, I thought you were coming over to see the apartment? I took the bike, I hope you don't mind. You can use my helmet."

Norina gaped for a second, not sure what to say, before she realized Val was giving her a perfect excuse to get away from Leon. "Of course! I don't mind," she said.

"Great," Val said, linked her arm with Norina's and started walking away.

"Nori!" Leon said, the cold in his voice making her nauseous.

"I'm sorry, I have to, uh," Norina stammered as Val led her away. "I'll talk to you later!"

"Who was that guy?" Val asked, once they were out of sight.

"My... my husband," Norina said, flushing with the humiliation of having dragged a stranger into this. "I'm sorry I did that. Thank you so much for helping me."

"Not a problem," Val said. "Do you need a ride home? My bike isn't far, I can drop you off."

"Um," Norina said. She shouldn't go with a stranger, but Val had helped her, and if she went alone and Leon followed her again... "Are you sure it's not too much trouble?"

"Oh, absolutely," Val said. "It's no trouble at all."

[the-wiresmarvelau]

T.H.E. W.I.R.E.S.

Chapter 1 Chapter 5

Chapter 6: Arival 1

The first thing he noticed as he slowly regained consciousness, was how soft everything was.

A warm cloud-like texture enveloped his upper body, while what covered his legs was a little cooler, smother and he seemed to sink into the ground underneath him.

His whole body ached, but the pain had lost the sharp edge that he had almost grown accustomed to.

Thinking was too much of an effort right now, so he didn’t. Instead savouring the feeling of cotton in his brain and pulsing in his limbs.

With time though, he got more and more aware of his surroundings.

The air was cooler than what he had had to endure in the dungeons, but he smelled steam and salt waving over, as well as a smell he couldn’t quite place.

Light trickled through his closed eyelids, not very bright but enough to be a little uncomfortable.

He couldn’t quite place what all of that meant though and he made sure not to move or make a sound until the fog in his head cleared enough to know what to do.

Because he sure as hell wasn't alone. Rustling clothes and after a while the clinking of porcelain and metal against each other made it clear that someone was in the same room as him.

Metal….

Only now did he realise that his hands weren't cuffed anymore.

Curious.

It took him a few seconds more until he remembered.

Frigga had broken him out. She had gotten him out of the dungeon and brought him to Midgard.

At least that had been the plan.

Peter had spent hours reading, before he got too hungry to concentrate and decided that cold eggs on toast, wouldn’t be his choice for the first meal after what was probably years of torture.

So, he ate them while thinking of what to do next.

When he saw a slight twitch on the face of the unconscious form, he took that to mean that he would soon be waking up, or at least had gone from being out cold to just sleeping.

Taking into account that the teen really wasn't the best of cooks, he decided to just make some pasta with tomato sauce.

Better something simple then something burned.

About half way in, he noticed a hitch in the god’s breathing as well as a change in his heartrate.

Satisfied that he had been right, he turned his attention to the stove again.

A little more rest surely wouldn’t hurt and he didn’t want to rush the other.

Only when the table was set and the food all done did he speak up.

“Can you move enough to eat at the table or do you want to eat in bed?”

Just as he wanted to raise his eyes, to look at Loki, the bowl Frigga had left caught his eyes again.

About a dozen small vials lay in it now as well as a letter with the God’s name on it.

That could wait until later though.

As he looked over to the bed, he saw its occupant, struggling to turn enough to see him.

With a smile half sad, half relived on his face he went over to help the god into a sitting position.

Exhaustion was written all over his face but one corner of his mouth was slightly turned upwards.

“It worked” he whispered almost deliriously. “You kept your word.”

The brunette nodded and brought over their food, so they could eat together.

Savouring the taste of his first real meal in what felt like forever, the Jotun took his time.

Minutes went by in a strange sort of silence. Peter wanted to make sure he wouldn’t cross any lines or make his company uncomfortable while almost bursting with curiosity.

Loki on the other hand was still out of it. His hands shook and thinking was a chore with how hard it was to grasp anything that was going on.

But he was safe; that much he knew.

When they were finished eating, Peter introduced Loki to the AI, living with him.

It was obvious that the god tried to pay attention but struggled, so the teen soon decided to let him rest for a while longer.

At least the vigilante felt like he could leave the room for a bit without worrying his guest might die while he was out.

He helped the god lay back down and put the fancy bowl with the vials in it into the small, elevated crevasse at the back corner of the bed; since it was meant as a sort of nightstand anyway.

Then he went up to his room to get ready for a patrol.

On his way he made sure, Manuel knew to try and not spook the Asgardian too much and tell him when the hero would be back.

The moment he put on his suit and therefore connected with KAREN she tried to find out why he went out of his way to have Manuel out on his watch, even though he also was in the walls there.

It almost sounded like she was jealous- even though that shouldn’t be possible- giving Peter an opening to evade her question by teasing her, to come up with a lie.

Somehow, he managed to convince her to split the time spent with the AIs along the same lines, he split his life into Spiderman and Peter Parker.

While swinging towards New York City he was finally able to relax and collect himself again.

Knowing the god was safe in his room and nobody suspected a thing, was a huge weight off his chest.

After all, FRIDAY was due to be uploaded tomorrow and the chances of him wandering outside without his suit on were slim enough that it seemed almost miraculous to him that the goddess had caught him in a perfect moment like that.

Luck seemed for once to be on his side, making it impossible to wipe the smile from his face, as he arrived in his normal territory; Not that he wanted to.

High spirited as he was, he followed an instinct, telling him to swing a little farther than usual in the hopes of meeting that devil fella again.

He still hadn't gotten a clear read of this guy.

But he seemed nice enough, and if the spider wasn't completely wrong, the other had a few questions for him.

Right now, he just really wanted to talk to somebody so he hoped that Red would be fine with this.

The next time he heard the tell-tale *whip* again, which gave away the spider themed Vigilante, was when he was just on his way home from a night out with Foggy and Karen.

Matt Murdock had always been hell set on being independent.

Just because he was blind didn't mean that he needed help with everything.

Then again; He had also never been above using his disability and others' helpfulness to his advantage.

So, dropping his cane, he made a show out of cursing and tapping around the ground in the completely false direction to get spiderman's attention.

Last time they spoke, almost everything about the other had been puzzling to him.

While they had been fighting, his reflexes had been unnaturally accurate, and at times it had seemed like electric shocks cursed suddenly through his body, eliciting a little jerk of his head as if startled.

But the strangest thing was that, technically, a heart rate as fast as his resting one, should have him hyperventilating.

This irritated him to no end, because it meant that he couldn’t accurately figure out if he was being lied to like he could with others.

Especially when taking into account that his heartrate had been actually slower while he was fighting, then when afterwards, instead of the other way round.

As he listened closely for the other vigilante’s heartbeat right now, it was the same. Much too fast to be normal, even factoring in the adrenalin from his method of transportation.

Careful to keep his act up, he flinched back at the sound of feet hitting the ground right beside him.

“Excuse me, sir. It’s Spider-Man, ‘you want me to help you?” the masked man asked in a chipper tone.

“Yeah, uhm” He cleared his throat while shakily standing up. A bit worried if he was exaggerating a little too much “That would be great.”

While the other bent down to pick up the cane, Daredevil thought of what to say. How straightforward could he be about this?

“What brings you to Hell’s kitchen, if you don’t mind me asking? As far as I know the Devil is pretty territorial.” Way to go Murdock; Not at all suspicious.

“Well, that’s not at all concerning.” He raised an eyebrow at the choice of words, coupled with how nonchalantly they were spoken.

How young was this guy?

A subtle touch of the handle against the back of his hand alerted the blind man of his cane’s position.

”But I was only here to talk anyways. You haven’t by chance .. uh… heard?.. Of any sightings today?” There it was. The awkwardness around the topic of his vision.

At least he tried.

“I didn’t...” His head leaned to one side, angled up a bit; his hands both resting on his cane in typical Murdock fashion. “I also never heard you guys were buddy’s”

That’s what people did, wasn’t it? Jump to conclusions? Hopefully it would keep him talking.

“It’s not like we meet each Wednesday for a picnic on the rooftops or anything. And even if we knew each other that good it’s safer for us the less people know anything about that sort of thing.”

Clever of him.

He didn’t really reveal any clear information. Everything could mean one thing or it’s opposite without him having to tell a lie.

“I guess so, after all, if you knew him that good, you would know that he isn't out at this time of day. He goes around in the evening or the night, mostly.”

The vigilante coked his head to the side inquisitively. “Is that so? Good to know.”

Luckily, it didn't seem to damp his mood that much.

“You wouldn't mind escorting me home, would you?” The blind man asked, after a moment of hesitation.

“Sure, why not?” Daredevil wasn't anxious about being found out by this younger hero.

He knew surprisingly little about his alter ego. And for some reason, he trusted that the other wouldn't rat him out. Having his own secret identity.

So they chatted on their way back to Matt’s flat before Spider-man took off in the direction of queens again.

The rest of patrol consisted of the usual: a few muggings, a few cats in trees and old women to be helped over the street.

He broke up one thing that looked like an attempted rape and escorted the frightened girl to the police station.

As his curfew grew nearer, the closer he stayed to the tower. He had to let himself be seen there, soon Mr. Stark would assume something that happened to him.

When he decided that he was out long enough, he stuck to the side of the building and asked Karen to contact Friday to open a window for him.

She opened the window to the former Avengers common room.

It didn't get used much now that the rogues were on the run, and Tony preferred to use the common rooms in his own penthouse.

Since Friday had opened the window there, Peter was pretty sure that Mr. Stark was in the labs, which he wasn't allowed to climb into from the outside.

On his way to the kitchen area, he got rid of his mask.

Nobody who didn't already know his secret Identity had enough clearance to come up here anyway, not since the rogues hadn't been pardoned yet.

That was also what he didn't already panic when he heard the elevator come up to his level and people talking inside.

Tony had probably been notified of his arrival and came up from the lab, talking probably to Friday or Pepper.

As the elevator opened, however, he didn't recognize the footsteps next to the mechanic, and it was definitely not Pepper speaking up.

“That... was a lot. Though I can't say that I'm really surprised; you too always had this… quarrel going between you two.”

Panicked Peter Scrambled for his mask, glad about a super hearing, which was the only thing giving him enough time to put it on before the two men stepped into the room enough to see him.

He carried on ruffling through the pantries, as if he hadn't just had a heart nearly had a heart attack.

He may have just eaten a few hours ago, but he had had exercise and his super metabolism demanded sustenance.

“Yes, well then it will surprise you even more, that I am the one who is trying to mend the accords so everyone can agree to sign them.” The much more familiar voice of Tony came from the door; then: “oh. Hey Spidey”.

“Morning, Mr. Stark.” The addressee answered, head still in a pantry, searching for his favourite flavoured pop tarts.

That seemed to startle the unknown man, for he gave out a little squeak, as if surprised that somebody else was present.

“Well, you didn't say that Spider-Man would be here.” He led out just as Peter found what he was searching for, and pulled the box out along with a bag of Doritos.

“That's because I wasn't until two minutes ago.” He quipped as an answer while turning around and promptly almost dropping everything he had in his arms to the floor.

At the entrance to the kitchen area stood, no none other than Bruce freaking Banner, seven PhDs, a master of science and most renowned researcher of gamma radiation with a sheer endless number of articles published under his name.

The youngest had read all of them, soaked up every single world, in the hopes of finding out more about what had happened with a spider bite.

After Tony Stark, Banner was this greatest idol in science - not to speaker of the scientific miracle that was the Hulk.

But at this first reaction, Banner’s face dropped.

He really shouldn't be surprised, every time he got recognized for who he was, people reacted in fear; if they even recognized him.

But the very next second he was proven wrong.

The vigilante came over in a few long strides  and began to excitedly chat at a near inhuman speed.

“Oohmygooodd.It’syouIt’sBruceBanner. I’msuchagreatfanofyourworkwithgammaradiation. And how you managed to trace the energy signature of the sceptre?!? It’ssoocooltomeetyou!!”

As he looked to his mentor with stars in his eyes, all he could do was break out laughing.

Tony knew that his protégé was excitable but right now that trait had reached an all-time high.

When he had himself under control again, he looked up at the others; almost losing it once more at the furious blush spreading over Bruce’s faces and the comically large eyes of the mask Peter was wearing.

Upon seeing that Peter pouted.

Even without seeing his face Tony seemed to pick up on that, as he put an arm over his shoulder in the way he always did when trying to console the boy.

“Breath, kid. Or I might get the impression that you like him better than me.”

“Oh, don't worry, Mr. Stark. You will always be my favourite, but this is Bruce Freaking Banner we’re talking about. You cannot tell me that his work on the effects of radiation on electronics isn't credible?!”

The billionaire just laughed as an answer. While the aforementioned scientist, blushed furiously.

“That was ages ago. You really read all of those papers?”

“Of course, Dr. Banner. I read every single paper you have published.”

“He isn't joking either,” Mr. Stark added ”I’ve quizzed him once because I couldn't believe it, but he really did read every single one.”

“I'm flattered,” Bruce muttered, for lack of better words.

Peter flushed a tooth to grin which couldn't be seen by the other two, but he knew Mr. Stark would catch up on that; he had become good at interpreting his body language.

That theory was promptly proven right by Mr. Stark saying, “wipe that grin off your face, it makes me jealous.”

“Alright, your right. Mr. Stuck.” Peter answered. “But for the much better question, not to be rude or anything, but where were you? You were like untraceable for several years now. It must be so weird to come back after all this time.”

The concern was audible in his voice, and it made the man beside him chuckle.

“The kid has a point. Care to explain Brucey-bear?”

“Well, you know how the hulk kind of got his hands on one of Tony’s quinjets?” Bruce asked. Still a little shy.

Peter nodded in confirmation.

“Well, somehow it got us out of earth’s atmosphere and onto an unknown planet. It was some kind of post-apocalyptic hellhole... all full of ruins, not a living soul. And the big guy didn't let me have a turn in the body to go and fix a jet.

“He had his fun on the planet for over a year at which point I kind of manage to take advantage of the times you slept to take a look at the quinjet and try to repair it. Considering the limited supply of materials and tools I had, it took quite some time.

“But I managed as you see, and I somehow found a way back here. Once in the small shuttle, it was much easier to convince the big guy to stay down, and let me take control.” While Bruce had been speaking, they had all sat down on the table while Peter had gathered all he had dropped.

“That is so cool, Dr. Banner. But what made it so hard to change back on the other planet? Could it have been a difference in gravity and atmosphere, which made it harder to get control for yourself.

“Maybe the other planet had a different form of radiation level. Which would have killed a human, which would have been dangerous for a human, so the Hulk stayed?

“Mr. Stark once told me that he is able to take control if you’re in dangerous situations; to keep you to your life.” The boy had become noticeably more hesitant towards the end and Bruce appreciated the consideration of a mental state, though he couldn’t help wondering just how much Stark had told the kid.

“It could be. I can't be sure since I wasn't able to measure anything. As I said, limited access to tools.”

The boy just nodded and his mentor could see the millions of theories floating around the boy's head from the way his fingers seemed to pluck on visible strings in mid-air. While his palms dragged over, his suit over and over again.

He had witnessed the sort of movement quite often from his protégé. It seemed to help him think or calm down after a nightmare.

“I think that is enough about the big guy for now.” The engineer interrupted. “But now that Bruce will be living with us again: How far you with a compound kid?”

Peter only reacted with a slow turning of his head.

His mind still a million miles away. So, I took him a few seconds to come back in the real world.

“Yeah, I'm finished with most rooms by now.. I think. If you're coming soon there. But your room is finished already.” He said, distractedly at first, before shaking his head and coming to his senses.

“We only have to install Friday and we're good to go. Well, as I said, a few rooms need a little bit of touching up, but I get that done in the next few days.” Peter reported truthfully.

“Sounds lovely. We're going to come over tomorrow some time.” Tony said, shooting a questioning glance at the other scientist. “That is if his lab is ready.” He finished. And Peter shook his head.

“I still have to install a thing or two, but I should be done sometime in the afternoon.”

“I'm not planning to be awake any time before noon anyway. And I assume Bruce over here can deal with a little bit of sleeping in, too.” He just got a nod in response from the two.

“You're going to say in for the night?” Tony asked the teen beside him.

“No, I'll get back to the compound and make sure I haven't forgotten anything. Still have to finish the lab tomorrow. And I don't want to stand up too early either.”

With that, he stuffed a pop-tart in his mouth and went to the next window, which Friday already opened for him, once she noticed what he was about to do.

“See around” he said, flinging himself out of the window, prompting a groan from his mentor and a frightened squeak from the other scientist in the room.

“Jesus. This kid! The bane of my existence - and the cause for all of my grey hair.” Tony commented before showing his guest to the room he’d be sleeping in for the night.

Chapter 1  Chapter 5 Chapter 7

[mcousland]

1, 7, 12, 18, and 34 for maeve, wren and elide?

1. Do they have any sort of physical condition or mark that impacts their daily life? (chronic disease, deep scar, disability)

Maeve has a burn scar along the underside of her right arm, usually (intentionally) hidden behind long sleeves or shawls. It’s not an everyday thing that it happens, but there are occasional times when she will get the arm too close to considerable heat or hit it against something just a Bit too hard and she’ll essentially lose function with that arm for a time because of the pain flaring up (as well as the memories associated with it). Not sure if it’s an?? “official” thing in her timeline, but I’m leaning toward there being a particularly Rough combat encounter with Ilya and her against an unexpected amount of monsters that ends up with her seriously injured and later with a few rough scars. Thinkin’ about one that spans the back of her left thigh, and another of a decent size across her stomach, the rest having healed completely or as too small to matter marks. The latter only affects her when she stretches too much (and gets better in time), but the former across her thigh causes issues when she sprints past a certain distance, crouched for too long, sits at the wrong angle on a rough surface, etc etc. It’s the source of a lot of pain, both physical and emotional.

No scars or physical conditions for Wren!

Nope on scars or physical conditions for Elide as well.

7. Is there any emotion they find difficult to control (anger, sorrow, anxiety)?

Maeve struggles with sorrow and loneliness during her years with Carden, and for a handful after them while she’s working on… Rebuilding. She has a good handle on them for many years, but the loneliness starts to creep back in at a certain point when she realizes how lonely she felt even while amongst friends and loved ones. (Likely comes from her spending one too many nights up far too late, left alone with her thoughts to run wild and over exaggerate things with nobody there to quiet her fears.)

Man… brain bits no good, can’t think of the word for it, but Wren has difficulty controlling her tendency to zone out and enter short daydream like states. Results in her being rather difficult to have conversations with at times, because of her going silent for a beat or two as she gazes off into the distance. Needs reminding two or three times that she needs to answer, or she’ll keep quiet and end up snapping back into it a little late and continue a chat that was seemingly over minutes ago.

Elide is learning how to control her anger, because it is an almost entirely new emotion to her and she dislikes how it can send her spiraling. Anger isn’t the right word for it, because she has felt that before, this is better suited to being described as Rage or Fury. It builds in her chest and has her thinking terribly dark, cruel things compared to her old disposition on Lansing and at first it frightened her, combined with an ex-party member’s comments on how she would no longer be a “good” person if she followed up on them. But she is adjusting (somewhat) to it now, easier with Tyrus there to soothe her worries of being awful and knowing that the people she fights wouldn’t hesitate to think the same of her, and the feeling is starting to be welcomed by her. It’s a driving force and proof that she is dedicated to her quest, even if she has her snapping at enemies and friends alike. (They usually deserve it, truly.)

12. Do they have someone they trust during their own time of need, or do they prefer to handle it alone?

Handle things? alone?? Maeve would rather throw herself off a cliff, thanks. That had the joking vibes but it’s the truth, she hates the idea of being alone in anything. She has many people that she trusts! Though the top three would be: Ilya, Grey, Areli.

Hmm… I think that Wren is someone who may need the assistance to help her during times of need, and she’s well aware. I’m not entirely sure who it would be (outside of her parents), but I think she definitely has a friend or two that she relies on.

A bit of a mix for Elide?? Though it’s kind of an exception. She handles things on her own 9/10 times because of her established role as leader/supportive member of the group, she’s expected to be able to handle things and help others with their issues and she’s never argued it, she just buckles down and gets shit done. But Tyrus is the exception when he is around, because he refuses to let her handle everything alone and she is never-endingly grateful for him.

18. Is there a situation that might make it impossible for them to relax?

For a good chunk of those 7 years, Maeve was unable to relax when she knew Carden was nearby. Even if he wasn’t in the same room as her, she knew he was in the estate or somewhere around the party and she would constantly be searching for him so she could prepare herself for his approach. After that’s over, she occasionally has trouble calming down when she knows one of her friends/loved ones is out traveling toward or around danger and often loses sleep over it.

Oh, golly… hm. I think Wren has trouble relaxing when she’s been given a task. Even if there was no time limit given and she’s not expected to rush it, something about knowing that someone trusted her with a job and expects her to follow through with it really gets her fired up and she finds it difficult to calm or let herself be distracted by things/people.

Elide finds it difficult to relax in general tbh. But a specific scenario?? Knowing that a Providence member is somewhere near, whether she sees them or not. Elide is confident in her skills and the belief that she will be able to complete her quest of eradicating the cult, but she adamantly refuses to underestimate any of their members and as a result she’s set on edge most of the times that they’re involved. (Combo this with a recent session where it appeared that her friends weren’t taking a massive Providence member threat seriously and it’s only getting worse.)

34. Do they have an interesting skill they excel at but are embarrassed of?

Bold of you to assume that Maeve is embarrassed about anything. Wow, I’m struggling with this one because a lot of my characters don’t have Shame. Hmm,, maybe that she has a talent for being able to make herself cry and then cut it off with a second’s notice, simply because it stems from her forcing herself to not let Carden see her so emotional and she doesn’t like talking about those times.

Ah, heck. Alright, I’ll go with Wren having a very convincing Act of faking sleep and she maybe,, sometimes,,, uses it to listen in on people. Listen!!! She has no excuse, that’s why she’d get embarrassed if anyone ever figured it out.

Elide has no gag reflex, and. well. you can see how she’d be embarrassed to speak about such a thing around family members and certain friends, given how that can be turned into a Certain kind of joke. (She usually doesn’t feel any shame about the topic of sex, but if it’s around certain people she’s ready to yeet from the room.)

[daazurebanana]

“It is so hard to be a normal person when one is not a normal person.”

Helping Mental Disorders

When I was a senior in high school, I went on a field trip with my English class to Salt Lake City to see a Sundance film. The movie, “Notes on Blindness”, was a true story about a man named John Hull who had a disease that took his sight when he was in his 30s. I remember being totally in awe of the way the film showed blindness, something I never expected to see or feel. Mental disorders are, in a unique way, a kind of blindness. Living with a mental illness is like living in a different world -- one that cannot be understood or lived in by the meager average human like me. Now, I don’t say that to offend, though offense is bound to be taken by someone on this planet, I will verbally stand my ground from where I sit on my couch. You, try as you might, can never truly empathize with me, and I likewise, cannot completely empathize with you no matter how similar we may be. Thus, really, we are all blind in a way. If this is true of two “normal” people, the divide is especially wide between a normal person and one with mental illness. Nevertheless, I don’t mean to imply by this that mental disorders should be eliminated or dismissed. I don’t think mental disorders should be erased. This is a research argument is it not? I merely wish to draw your attention to the goods and evils of mental disorders, whether someone else’s or your own; focusing on clinical depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and anxiety as they are found in my family.

Partial Personality Disorder

  A long-time loyal social worker for a foster care facility, one probably wouldn’t immediately assume my step-aunt Sarah suffered from Borderline personality disorder (BPD). BPD, also known as an emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD). BPD is a mental disorder similar to bipolar in its propensity to mood swings as a result of abandonment and instability issues in their relationships, make being alone extremely difficult, causing extreme behaviors that tend to drive other people away. It includes symptoms like “self-image issues, difficulty managing emotions and behavior, and a pattern of unstable relationships. The effect BPD has on one’s perception of self and others creates many difficulties in daily life” (Mayo Clinic).

Her development of BPD was in response to the divorce of her parents. Her father and older siblings, while she remained with her mother . As she approached the teenage years, she showed increased symptoms of abandonment issues as is common.  She struggled with cutting, became very volatile, suicidal and promiscuous. The symptoms worsened as she got older until eventually, her mother admitted her to the hospital for treatment. As she became an adult, she was able to gain more control of her moods with the help of education in social work and the natural passage of time. Though Sarah does not mention her diagnosis in the memoir, as she describes the everyday niceties of life and the trials, there is a trace of something off-balanced about the way she describes people and memories which could easily be put down to the cancer she was struggling with, or simply exaggeration (Southey, Sarah).

Although Sarah is not a blood-relative, her disorder intrigues me. According to the Mayo clinic’s page about treating BPD, psychotherapy is the best option. With patience and willingness to make changes, patients could eventually learn to live in a self-reliant manner. Perhaps the most valuable lesson from my step-aunt’s memoir is that no matter when or how it happens, success is often possible. This doesn’t mean it is easy. In a rather hard-to-understand article I perused, the authors said that ‘it cannot be denied that people with mental disorders cannot recover completely and (the illness) will even hamper their productivity” (Agustina Barimbing, Maryati). Certainly, in my aunt’s case, for example, success was delayed by her disorder, but it was not stopped. Sure, not everyone can be an astronaut, but satisfaction with self and achievements is possible. This is possible for anyone by finding knowing personal limits and asking for help when needed. This is true of both people both with and without disabilities.

Bipolar

Memories are stretchy and blurry things, pliable to new information and experiences so I can’t give the exact order of the events of the year I turned six, but I do remember moving to Utah, my mom giving birth to twins, and my dad being admitted to the hospital. My aunt and uncle offered to watch my older sister and me, so we packed some clothes and drove for hours before arriving to be baked alive in the suffocating Las Vegas heat for two weeks (the equivalent of 2 months in kid-years). Being six, I couldn’t understand why I was with these people instead of my own family. Every night I’d sit on my bed with my 16-year-old cousin and sob fat tears as I made her show me how many days were left before I could go home. 

What I couldn’t comprehend at the time was that my father was admitted to the hospital due to a mental breakdown. It was the beginning of a recession and he had just lost his job, been injured in a car accident, become the father of (now) 6 children, and signed a new mortgage. He was thrown into a situation that would have been too much pressure even for someone without his struggles with a mental disorder. That episode was the first of many I can remember--the latest being last week, when he had a severe anxiety attack and was admitted for a week and a half to a mental institution that confiscated every possible danger, right down to his shoelaces.

My father has severe anxiety and bipolar II, meaning instead of having extreme highs and extreme lows, he experiences what is called ‘hypomania’: an emotional spectrum that has less extreme manic episodes and spends more time in the depression, resembling clinical depression. For a very long time I personally--and I am sure I am not alone--have had the tendency to interpret his reaction to stress as weakness. Reflecting on my six-year-old mindset, the belief that when presented with a trial, it is one’s own responsibility to remain strong and to protect those one loves--not to weigh them down, was incorrect. One of the main roadblocks to helping those with and without mental disorders is a difficulty “with self-care and...informing others of their needs” (Arredondo, Emanuel), and being sensitive to the needs for special support without bias is important. Such prejudices is society can be poisonous because issues that arise can’t be solved because the sufferer does not feel they can openly share their feelings.

 In society, vulnerability and sensitivity seem like signs of human weakness; something to be smothered, swallowed and overcome. But that is simply not true. It is true that mental disorders cause problems--to put it mildly. But here is a thought that a friend of mine put to me one day as I was moping around about something: “if it is inevitable, why not be happy about it?” That is not to say that anyone is wrong for being unhappy, but if it is inevitable, why beat ourselves up about it? Depending on the disorder, the reactions in our body that produce the disorder are different. One’s proclivity to having a disorder is not as simple as having one or not having one. In the article “Psychiatric genetics: back to the future," by Carson M. Owen and M. O’Donovan, it is explained that, although there are exceptions, disorders are a result of genes interacting with other genes or genes reacting to the environment. Gene-gene interaction implies that a person has the disorder no matter how the environment interacts with them, whereas gene-environment interaction refers to one developing a disorder as a result of a negative environment. But here’s the thing: both have the potential of disorder either way. Both often become apparent in teenage years to young adulthood when people are faced with a lot of stressful situations and decisions like college, moving away from home, dating, marriage, and starting a career. If stress is the catalyst, how can one a genetic predisposition to avoid a disorder? Although a perfect life is ideal, it is also impossible, as I have shown in the experience of my Aunt Sarah.

So much money and effort is spent on preventing and treating mental disorders, that the concept that mental disorders destroy is drilled into our craniums. But what do they inspire? There is a natural tendency to consider mental illness as something that is a burden. We have a tendency in our lives to see problems and try to fix all of them at once, but what we really need to do is take a breath and figure out what we can and cannot control, and from there press forward. Accepting our weaknesses is not the same thing as being satisfied with them. 

Dr. Jamison is a well-renowned psychiatrist who specialized in academic medicine and manic-depressive illness (bipolar). In her autobiography: “An Unquiet Mind”, she shares her research related to bipolar as well as her experience as she undergoes the same intense mood swings as her patients. Kay Jamison helps the blind to see, in a way (or, to continue my earlier comparison, she helps the seeing to be blind.) "An Unquiet Mind" (more than anything else I have ever read) helps a person on the outside looking in  to understand  the chaotic nature of disorders--meaning chaotic in the sense of "uncontrollable", not necessarily "manic".

 She relates having a disorder to the lifestyle of a blind teenager she used to counsel. Having met with him for many months, she felt she understood what it was like to be blind; however, one day she came to see him in class and was shocked to see that the room was totally dark, while he and the rest of the class were sitting quietly listening to a recording. This experience made her realize that she really did not know what is meant to be blind. We cannot fully understand what it is like to live with another's disorder, but Dr. Jamison says that we can love them and just be with them. The diversity of every single human ‘bean’s’ perspective adds spice to the whole of the culture. Our culture is profoundly influenced by the positives of mental illness. Bipolar disorder and depression are linked to creativity and productivity--many poets, writers, actors, singers, and other artists have made significant contributions to society. Take Dostoyevsky and Van Gogh (and my own father who has written 9 novels, a chemistry, and a computer textbook, makes cheese, is a blacksmith, a lapidarist...you get the picture).

As I have said, I don’t think the mental disorder is completely bad, but it does include some inherent and devastating problems. Some of the downsides of bipolar and depression include suicide, psychosis, abuse of others, loss of productivity and meaning, among others. In order to treat, or even better, prevent the negative effects of mental disorders, there are many resources available for both those who struggle with it personally and those who are affected, such as family and friends. Mental disorders make a person turn emotionally inward and become isolated although what they really need is a source to provide energy and emotional support, or in other words, provide energy and hope that life really is worth living. “To supply this demand”, it is “essential in these contexts to build social networks and the provision of social support”(Batistela Vicente, Jéssica).

Mental health issues are best handled by having some sort of structure in place. This structure can be found in multiple places: non-profit support groups for mental illness such as Conflict Prevention and Resolution--Brazil (CPR), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), or Omotenashi--Family Experiences Learning Program (FELP), organized religion, or extended family and friends. More often than not, a combination of a few is the most successful in creating a constant safety net. Having these resources when “facing difficulties such as time investment; economic dependency, deprivation of the needs of other family members, lack of social activities and reduction of relations with the outside world,” give much-needed stability and prevent feelings of isolation.

Some form of organization especially helps children, as they are often too young to recognize their own need for support. Research has found time and time again that a church community --unpresuming but always available-- is the optimal choice, with mental and emotional disorders, having much lower rates among young adults who were raised in homogeneous religion-based home. Religion is what saved my father’s life despite numerous trials with his anxiety throughout the years. In the study done by CPR in Brazil, one mother of a child with a mental disorder said: “I would listen, would ask for support, I have always asked assistance from God”. Having a personal relationship with a higher being provides comfort when family and friends are unavailable. As with any child, having a “scaffolding on which to hang one’s life” offers direction in the long run, whereas a child who doesn’t go to church, for example, bases their morals off their parents but does not have the benefit of a social support system. In the case of non-religious people, participating in NAMI or school groups are ideal (Batistela Vicente, Jéssica).

 It is important to note that in the case of serious mental disorders, often social support is insufficient and requires the aid of medication. Modern medicine, though often abused, as I am well aware of from my time spent training as a pharmacy technician, is necessary for those who struggle seriously with mental illness. The importance of medicine and the fact that there is no shame in it is also the knowledge that I think should be more widespread—with caution. I took medicine for ADHD when I was about 10, and the results were great, but I only used it for a while in order to establish good habits. This may be the case for minor diagnoses like mine, medicine was not necessary but was helpful for my schooling. Serious mental disorders like bipolar, severe anxiety, and clinical depression, however, may require more than a short term prescription for establishing habits. One point Dr. Jamison emphasizes is that if she was given the option to go back and live a life without manic-depressive illness, she would not; granted the medicine was still available.  

I have come eventually to realize that just because something appears wrong doesn’t mean I have to fix it. Mental health can be treated and cared for, but in chronic and genetic situations, though it might be subdued many people don’t realize that it cannot be cured. And this is okay. As the quote says, the mental disorder will “hamper [the individual’s and their friends and family’s] productivity” (Agustina Barimbing, Maryati). I believe this is true not only but specifically when the individual’s relations try to fix them. This puts a strain on everyone and only leads to everyone involved blaming each other and themselves. 

“Oh mother, how is it for you?”

(Hull, John)

At an emotional scene from the movie “Notes on Blindness,” John Hull’s wife reflected on her husband’s wrestle with his loss of sight and with it so many other things and mused: “Shall I scratch my eyes out, shall I follow you into this world?” Those with mental disorders are not the only ones affected by it. Family and friends struggle to help their loved ones but can easily become discouraged by the task of relieving the load. Caring for a loved one with mental illness is often a“lonely battle”(Kageyama, Masako). Families are required to learn to live with the disease, facing the difficulties and adapting to the new situation in order to maintain a difficult balance within the family. It can be very isolating and caregivers sometimes sacrifice their own physical and mental well being and that of other loved ones to help the person with a mental disorder. Aid from the same support programs offer comfort and understanding by “address(ing) members’ need for knowledge about mental illness, reduc(ing) their feelings of guilt and self‐blame, decreas(ing) caregivers’ burdens, help(ing) families cope, and improv(ing) parent-child relationships” (Kageyama, Masako). With a community that understands the family members as well as the individual with the mental disorder, feelings of isolation and pressure subside, relationships are healthier.

In the book by Jane Clayson Johnson, "Silent Souls Weeping: Depression, Sharing Stories Finding Hope", Johnson interviews the husband of a woman with clinical depression who shares how his view of and reactions to his wife’s episodes evolved over the years. At first, he did not feel like family, but someone that was obligated to serve hand and foot. He got caught in a vicious cycle of blaming her for not controlling herself and blaming himself for not being able to fix it. Eventually, he realized casting blaming only dug the pit of depression deeper. 

So he did what is unarguably easier said than done, and decided to stop blaming people and start “blaming the illness”. Of the experience he said:"(life with) a person with a mental illness is not doomed to be miserable", it is the responsibility and blame that we stubbornly hold on to that make us miserable. Instead of holding on to virulent bitterness and letting the illness be a barrier, he decided to love his wife. The overarching theme of "An Unquiet Mind" and "Silent Souls Weeping" is the saving grace of simply loving those struggling with some disorder: not because it miraculously relieves them of the symptoms,  but because it makes life “worth living”. 

The simplest, and yet two of the most beneficial treatment are both education and acceptance. Mental disorders are not a project that can be “fixed”(Clayson Johnson, Johnson) by the experiencer or their loved ones, but one can offer love and can educate themselves. Though undoubtedly necessary for some individuals on a case by case scenario, it would do the most good for both sides to familiarize themselves with the other person’s situation. This creates a kinship of sorts, humanizes others. Just like when you meet the person who will be your best friend the first time you see them, we should not make assumptions but instead, make an effort to understand. The teaching that losing oneself to find oneself is absolutely correct. Love is a treatment in itself.

Works Cited

Agustina Barimbing, Maryati, et al .“Family Atmosphere Make Family Resilience Which Have Adolescent with Mental Disorder (According to “Resilience” Theory of Haase & Peterson)”. International Journal of Nursing Education. July 2019. 1.

Arredondo, Emanuel, et al. “The Global Impact of Intellectual Disability and Other Mental Disorders in Children”. International Journal of Childbirth Education. 2019, Vol. 34 Issue 2, p14-17.

Batistela Vicente, Jéssica, et al. “Mental disorder in childhood: family structure and their social relations”. Escola Anna Nery Revista de Enfermagem. vol. 19, 2015, pp 107-114.

Burland, Joyce. “NAMI: Family to Family Education Program”. NAMI. 2001.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20370237

Johnson, Jane Clayson. "Silent Souls Weeping: Depression, Sharing Stories Finding Hope". Desert Book. 2018. 

Kugelmass, Heather. “Mental disorder among nonreligious adolescents”. Mental Health, Religion & Culture (MENT HEALTH RELIGION CULT). 2015, vol. 18, issue 5.

Kageyama, Masako, et al. “Changes in Families' Caregiving Experiences through Involvement as Participants then Facilitators in a Family Peer-Education Program for Mental Disorders in Japan”. Family Process. 2017, vol. 56 Issue 2, p408.

Lucille Southey, Sarah. “Sarah Lucille Southey: A Memoir”. Dollison Road Books. 2016.

Middleton, Peter, et al. “Notes on Blindness”. 2016

Owen, M., Cardno, A. & O'Donovan, M. "Psychiatric genetics: back to the future". Mol Psychiatry, vol 5, 2000, pp 22–31.

[masterthespianduchovny]

Quora Question: Do You Think Most Severus Snape Fans Are Fair and Objective in Their Judgment of James Potter?

“If you are a hardcore fan of Harry Potter, hell, I’d argue if you are even one to begin with, it’s practically impossible to have a “fair and objective opinion.” You need to ask someone who has never read the books and give them certain information, and then have them answer.

“But, what about x, y, and z???”

Exactly.

What about it?

Now, you’re trying to tilt the scales in your favor because you know how that thing makes your fave look.

The issue cuts BOTH ways, which we see with HUGE James fans answering as if they aren’t incredibly biased themselves.

Now for me, I can’t speak for most, but I agree with most Snape fans.

Now, you’ll have many who wish readers will give James the benefit of the doubt because of what his friends said, but 1. They are biased 2. His friends are willing to put others in danger to protect each other (even as adults) 3. They participated in the behavior themselves and are trying to minimize the severity.

People claim that is unfair, but is it?

What’s unfair is to assume that our opinion of James is solely based on Snape and that we also only reserve our judgement for him.

I LOATHE bullying, it’s a huge issue for me, but not because I was personally bullied, which I wasn’t. But, aren’t you being a hypocrite? Snapes your favorite character. No. I can still hate Snape’s bullying tendencies and appreciate his character, but most importantly, I understand that his maladjusted behavior stems from childhood trauma. It doesn’t make his behavior *okay*, but it contextualizes his bitterness and hard edges for me. I can understand why someone may perpetuate the cycle of bullying in this case.

But, in the case of James, I cannot understand those who bully for fun—-those are some of the worst bullies to me. Especially if they are privileged, popular, and not wanting for anything. Especially when they pick on those they feel are beneath them and who are powerless.

But, James changed!

As a reader and a writer, Rowling did a pisspoor job of James’ transformation. It happened “off screen.” His friends lack credibility due to how close they are to the situation. And, for the record, I somewhat like Sirius and Remus and, no, this isn’t *another* instance of hypocrisy because they are actual characters, but my enjoyment of them suffers due to their bullying or passiveness as it happened.

The other thing is: my issue with them bullying isn’t *just* about Snape. They, especially James and Sirius, bullied other people. “Oh, but it was just hexing.” No, that doesn’t cut it. If you are repeatedly hexing people who do not want to be hexed, it’s bullying.

“*Snape gave as good as he got.”*

Being* *able* *to* *defend* *yourself* *doesn’t* *mean* *you* *weren’t bullied, it just means you could defend yourself. * *And* *this* *doesn’t even touch on he fact that he tortured Snape by having him choke on soap and sexually assaulted him via pulling down his underwear.

But, James changed after that!

1. When I was in high school, I had a “friend” tell me that he fantasized about raping me. I was disgusted and confused—-I tried to pivot and see if he meant sex and he said, “No, rape.” I bring this up to say, whether or not he’s actually committed rape, the fact that he vocalized this fantasy to me and stuck to his guns will always make me weary and suspicious of him. That being said, I will always side eye someone who bullies, tortures, and sexually assaults someone even when they’re kids, especially if it’s for “fun.”

2. We never hear anything about him apologizing to him *victims*. I don’t care if it’s just two, which at the very minimum it is, they deserve to be apologized to. To be more specific, we don’t hear about James feeling remorse for his actions. People like to say that James is similar to Sirius and Sirius is a good person, well, Sirius actually doesn’t regret what he did to Snape and still resorts to childish nicknames and taunts as well as harming Snape when given the chance. How can anyone argue James deserves the benefit of the doubt without accounting for his victims. His fans are so obsessed with him “changing”, but not too much because he still has his “rivalry” behind Lily’s back, messes with muggle officers for fun, and *adds* to a rift between lily and her sister, but what about those he harmed? They still have to live with he trauma that doesn’t go away over night. Bullied victims carry this shit for years, but yes, let’s focus on James’ road to improvement. That’s *more* important. :)

Some people may know this, but I’m black. I bring this up to say, I went to school with kids who thought it was “fun” and “cool” to be racist even if they didn’t say the “n” word, even if they didn’t believe the crap they said. I went to school with kids, like a handful, who turned to nazism not because they hated black people, but they were powerless and wanted to belong. On a general principle, I disliked them, but you know who I hated more: fucking bullies.

Them motherfuckers never said shit to me and always whispered shit under their breaths, but my friend was terrorized all throughout high school and even said he wanted to blow the school up because he felt so helpless. Clearly, he didn’t and he wasn’t serious, but his bullying was *so* bad, he flirted with the idea that that was a solution for him. After he graduated, life became better because he got away from his tormentors. And I bet his bullies “improved” and their friends would say they’re great people, but despite my friend’s life improving, he still has to unpack what years of bullying did to him.

That’s the other reason why I can’t be “fair and objective.”

“But, what about Snape bullying his students???”

Like, I said, he has bullying tendencies, which isn’t right. But, I’ve had my fair share of mean, asshole, and unfair teachers. I’ve also had some I unfairly judged because I was a young kid/teen.

Literally none of the students Snape taught that we know of were traumatized by his behavior.

But, Neville!

Neville was afraid of his own shadow. He already came from a suspect background where he was almost killed just to see if he had magic. By the end of the story none of the kids we know of are scarred by Snape. Now that doesn’t mean he didn’t bully anyone, but me pointing out how much people exaggerate his behavior.

Lastly, I support minorities, the disenfranchized, and other discriminated groups, such as: disabled folks, the poor, LBGTQ community, sex workers, immigrants, etc.

When I see a privileged, rich person who wants for nothing picking on others because he can, there is no “fair and objective.” People say since he was spoiled he didn’t learn appropriate boundaries. Boo fucking hoo. In the mean time, he made other lives hell. Then, he got off basically scotfree with a great legacy to boot!

His sins are supposed to be erased because his friends said he changed and he died young? He showed no signs of regretting what he did or apologizing to his victims. If we are supposed to believe he changed because his friends said so, why didn’t they mention that he apologized and felt guilty for his past behavior? Those are important steps too!

And not even his friends can fully admit what they did back then.

What we do know is “he got his head out of his ass”, by not hexing people randomly and got the girl he’s been chasing for a while…

Well, I guess that wasn’t my last point!

A point I forgot to make, I don’t care that he didn’t actually hex her. The fact that as he was *in* *the* *process* of bullying Snape, he leveraged leaving Snape alone with a date. This is fucking *repulsive*. People say, “he only did it because she threatened to hex him.” So fucking what! He was bullying her friend at the time, and then threatened her for intervening as well as he tried to get a date out of it. So you have this guy bullying her friend, and then wants to be *rewarded* for doing the right thing.

But, lily said no!

What if she didn’t, huh? What if she said yes because she felt like it was her only play because, “James hexes everyone, why not me too?”

But, again, the fact that he even went there is downright appalling.

So, to sum up, we have a privileged, rich kid who bullied others along with his friends, sexually assaulted a kid, tried to coerce a date out of a girl he liked as he bullied her friend, and besides hearing that he decreased in hexing people, we do not see his redemptive journey nor hear/read about him apologizing or expressing regret, yet I’m supposed to be “fair and objective.”

Another point I forgot to make, James can sympathize with Sirius who was disowned by his family or whatever and protect/befriend Remus because of his condition, but he draws his lines at poor boys who wanted to go to slytherin because of what is being said about them. I mean, much was said about werewolves too. I guess if you don’t share his views, you didn’t deserve his sympathy.”

So, very long answer short: if any Snape fans are like me and either identify with Snape’s experience and/or care about groups discriminated against, I mean truly care and not this performantivd crap, most wont be able to give a “fair and objective” judgment on James.

[raptorific]

Like I refuse to engage with every dumbass reply on this post, but the reality of the situation is that even in rural and midwestern areas, there is community theatre or, at the very least, theatre closer than New York. If you are unable to attend live theatre due to disability, then the problem is with a world that makes “going to a place” inaccessible, not with a product that cannot be easily replicated in the home.

The idea that All Theatre Should be Filmed And Made Available For Public Purchase would, no exaggeration, fully bankrupt an already cash-strapped industry. It would be, no exaggeration, the death of live theatre. It would mean the only people who could produce it are people who have the initial funds necessary to pay not only the crew and actors, but the rights to the intellectual property of the prop, set, lighting, and sound designers in perpetuity. No theatre company is going to shell out the kind of money it would take, except the ones that already have an insane amount of money backing them. “All theatre should be filmed so people can buy it on DVD” pretty much means the end of independent theatre, with the only remnant of live theatre being major networks making telecast versions of classic shows.

I’m not saying everybody who can’t afford to go to Broadway should find investors and start their own theatre company-- obviously that would be impossible. But the vast, overwhelming majority of people making these complaints doesn’t bother supporting their local theatre scene (and yes, pretty much every town has one, no matter how smalltime!) let alone getting involved in it. Are you volunteering your efforts at the local high school’s productions so they don’t need increasingly-cut state funding to afford to put on a show? Are you looking at which nearby colleges have theatre programs, and then going to see the shows they put on so they can afford to put on more shows in the future? And if there’s truly nobody putting on live plays in your area (there is, I promise you, you’re just not looking hard enough) then are you making any effort, whatsoever, to change that?

Or are you just demanding that a theatre company thousands of miles away make their product specifically available to you, and completely overlooking the hundreds, if not thousands, of theatre companies closer to you than New York? People talk about how flying to New York and paying hundreds of dollars for a broadway ticket is hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, and that’s true! You know what’s a lot cheaper? Making a day trip to the nearest town-- not even city, town will do-- googling “local theatre,” and paying like 40 bucks to see a show! It might not be a high-budget production of a show with insanely expensive production rights, but guess what! If enough people do it, the local, independent theatre companies will be able to translate the financial support into higher production values, and buying the rights to more well-known shows!

The whole “theatre should be filmed and sold” thing genuinely does not address the problem of “live theatre is often difficult to find” at all-- it just makes it so the only people making money off it are, specifically, broadway producers. All of these people who supposedly can’t find theatre (because they simply WON’T go to any amateur or local professional productions, which definitely exist closer to them than New York) are absolutely NOT going to suddenly start going to see community theatre productions just because they can buy “Next to Normal” on DVD. They don’t support local theatre now when all it takes is, at maximum, a few hours’ drive and maybe 50 dollars. Why on earth would they start supporting live theatre when suddenly they can get almost the same product neatly packaged and delivered to their home for half the price?

But here’s the genuinely unhinged thing about this: all of these people talking about “woe is me, I’m the only person in my rinkydink backwards town who wants live theatre.” I promise you are not. None of you is that special or interesting. In every town in America-- literally every town, even small ones-- there is a group of people willing to get together and put on a show. The budget might not be great and the actors and crew might be amateurs, but I promise you, there is nowhere in this country with no live theatre closer than New York City, except for the New York Metropolitan Area

My most correct and least popular opinion is that the "they MUST make filmed versions of Broadway and London stage productions accessible to purchase no matter how far you live from the theater" crowd are elitists and that anybody who isn't actively and financially supporting their local community theatre companies by buying tickets or even getting involved, even if it means you have to do the work yourself, find investors, rent a space, and build community theatre in your area from the ground up, has no right to complain about their inability to see live theatre. Unless you live within an hour of New York, there are theatre companies— both amateur and professional— closer to you than New York, and they need support. Just because you've all collectively decided Broadway is the end-all-be-all of theatre because it's more famous and more expensive doesn't mean it's actually so, and "release filmed versions of Broadway shows," in addition to being a labor rights and intellectual property rights NIGHTMARE, is a top-down solution that doesn't actually address the core issue.

It's like demanding Wal-Mart and Amazon put big box stores in economically depressed neighborhoods. It means no struggling independent businesses can hope compete and they'll all go out of business, at which point the superstores will be able to set their prices however high they'd like.

If you want live theatre to become more accessible, then you need to look elsewhere, and you need to play your part in actually solving the problem, from the bottom up, not the top down, by supporting local theaters and giving up on New York. Regardless of geography, everyone deserves access to live theatre! But just like everyone should have access to food but restaurants in New York aren't expected to sell their recipes so people in Idaho can try their food without coming to their business, theatre companies in New York shouldn't have to neatly package the product they sell for people who live too far away to buy it from them, but who REFUSE to buy from anyone closer to them because they're snobs and don't want to see COMMUNITY theatre, they want to see BROADWAY due to its made-up superior value that they've assigned it out of nothing but elitism

[hoshiko2000]

The Boy On The Bridge & The Dangerous Myth Of The Autistic Robot

I want to begin by saying how much I love M.R Carey’s The Girl With All The Gifts! A highly original addition to the sci-fi genre, it centers on a race of human/zombie hybrids discovered in the fallout of a devastating apocalypse. Told through the eyes of Melanie - one such of these unsettling, eerily intelligent children - it paints a terrifying and unnervingly tangible picture of a decimated England. It was a book I found utterly impossible to tear myself away from, so when a prequal was released in late 2017 I couldn’t fail to check it out.

Set around 10 years before the original novel, The Boy on The Bridge follows the ill-fated former crew of the Rosalind Franklin; an elite team of soldiers and scientists who will become the first humans to encounter the mysterious ‘hungry’ children. It’s a intriuiging premise, promising to provide answers to the many burning questions left over from the previous novel. 

But as much as I wanted to lose myself in this exciting tale of post-apocolyptic survival, devastated cities and fungal-plagues, I quickly found myself distracted by one specific character. A character who, from the moment they first appeared on the page, immediately began to grate on me.

They’re not someone I’m at all unfamiliar with. I’ve encountered characters exactly like him many, many times over. While once they were rare, today they seem to endlessly bombard us in movies, on TV, across countless genres of fiction. They are a character who embodies troubling, regressive cliches that – in 2017 – I was hoping we were finally beginning to see the back of. A character who is, supposedly, just like me.

His name is Stephen Greaves, and he’s autistic.

 (TW for references to both the fictional and real life abuse of autistic children)

I should correct my previous paragraph by stating Stephen’s not ‘actually’ autistic. The author does have the forethought to pull the disclaimer-card of saying he might just have severe PTSD instead. It’s the same convenient ambiguity that always seems to precede terrible, regressive depictions of autistic people; Christopher Boone being another key example.

Considering that this is a kid who literally watched his parents get eaten by zombies, the idea that Stephen may have PTSD does feel fairly plausible. Probable even. But this still doesn’t change the fact that Stephen is heavily, heavily autistic coded. By which I mean he is yet another exaggerated stereotype of how neurotypical authors believe we think and behave.

From the moment he first appears Stephen is strikingly, undeniably ‘odd’. At 15 years old he rarely speaks, is terrified of physical contact and devotes much of his time to avoiding other people. He is a scientific savant who views the world through a detached, analytical lense and considers human relationships an unwanted distraction. This doesn’t stop him from forming one close relationship - with his mentor and mother-figure Dr Khan - but this is clearly an exception to a rule.

Like many other autistic caricatures in fiction, Stephen is obsessed with facts and has a neurotic preoccupation with the truth. More bizarrely, he is physically incapable of telling a lie. Like, genuinely physically incapable. If forced to lie, he will literally begin uncontrollably stuttering out the truth as though under some bizarre curse.

Out of all the myths regarding us that exist in fiction, the one that says autistic people can’t lie is the one that completely baffles me. Autistic people can lie. I told a lie just yesterday; ‘I’m not drunk’. A claim I refuse to believe was at all undermined by the fact I was unable to walk straight at the time.

Some autistic people are, in fact, talented liars. Parents of kids with pathological demand avoidance will attest to this. Neurotypical writers keep returning to this cliché under the misguided belief it offers us a ‘virtuous’ quality; it doesn’t. It’s patronizing and dehumanizing; dismissing us as individuals with free will and turning us in to the helpless puppets of some ‘robotic’ internal wiring.

And this is the fundamental issue with Stephen’s character: his uncomfortable robotic quality.

Unusually for an autistic character, a great amount of effort has been put in to exploring how Stephen thinks and feels. But this is only to emphasize how fundamentally different he is from other human beings. Stephen doesn’t function like a human being, he functions like a computer. His machine-like mental processes are depicted frequently, and in tedious detail. He is not a character who exists for non-autistic readers to relate to. He is instead constructed to be as strange, as baffling and as dramatically different as possible. Not because this is how autistic people actually are, but because we apparently make much more interesting reading this way.

 A lot of neurotypical readers are probably wondering why – outside of the blatant predjudice, loss of relatable representation and piss-poor, lazy characterisation - the ‘robotic’ stereotyping of autistic characters bothers me so much. And that’s because outside the realms of fiction, the dehumanization of autistic people has devastating repercussions. The most harrowing example being the all-too-frequent murders of autistic children at the hands of their parents, and the disturbingly sympathetic news coverage that follows them.

These reports follow a distinct formula. They paint a tragic picture of the murderer; their ‘hellish’ existence as the parent of an autistic child, the eventual ‘breakdown’ that drove them to commit this ‘desperate’ act. They will gloss over incriminating details like online-evidence suggesting the murder was being planned weeks in advance, or previous accusations of exploiting their child’s disabilities for money or attention. We will hear all about their ‘mental health problems’, their manslaughter plea, how ‘dedicated’ a parent they supposedly were prior to stabbing, drowning or – in one inconceivably horrific case – burning their own child to death.

The one person they say little about is the murdered child.

Unlike other young murder victims, we rarely see quotes from grieving relatives or teachers about how they were ‘a delight to teach’ or ‘a bubbly, affectionate little girl’. We don’t hear about how they - like other kids their age - loved cuddles and bath-time and watching Peppa Pig. We often don’t even get a photo.

Instead we are presented with yet another faceless autistic monster who has driven their parents to desperation.

 It gives me no pleasure to detail these horrendous acts of violence. I know this segment must be deeply distressing for many of you to read; it was harrowing to research. I’ve not included it because I wish to upset you. I’ve included it because I want you to understand that the dehumanization of autistic people across the media - the depiction of us as emotionless, affectionless and not quite human -  is a very, very dangerous thing.

At best, it robs of us our identities as sensitive human beings who experience life in diversely individual ways.

At worst it legitimizes the abuse we suffer; turning us in to the deserving recipients of our own victimization.

 And indeed, the way Stephen is portrayed in The Boy on The Bridge is only one half of the problem. The other is how the rest of the cast treats him. Stephen isn’t just treated with dislike by the other members of his team, he’s treated with open contempt. He is nicknamed ‘The Robot’, a cruel moniker that is used so frequently you’d be forgiven for forgetting his actual name. He’s called ‘emotionally disturbed’, ‘an idiot’ and a ‘fucking retard’; the verbal punching bag for the frustrations of a terrified and disillusioned crew. When a panicked Stephen locks members of his team outside during an attack, this abuse boils over in to physical violence and he is viciously slammed against a wall.

There are two very important things to remember when we talk about how Stephen is treated by the other character in The Boy On The Bridge.

This is the abuse of a literal child at the hands of adults twice his age.

This is abuse of a child at the hands of characters readers are sympathize with. Characters who have their own chapters, voices, storylines. Characters readers are not meant to always necessarily like, but are expected to relate to.

We are expected as readers to empathize with fully grown adults victimizing an autistic child. The bullying, isolation and violence Stephen is subjected to by the rest of the cast is presented as cruel, but seemingly understandable.

Because Stephen is different, and that makes them uncomfortable. And that is the only defence they need.

 I don’t want anyone to leave this post with the wrong impression; I’m not writing this because I don’t want to see autistic characters in fiction. I do, desperately so. I yearn for characters I can relate to, characters who represent my own experiences. Autistic characters who, like me, who have struggled with a life-time of misdiagnosis. Autistic characters who are told they ‘don’t look autistic’. Autistic characters that struggle with subtle, frequently misinterpreted difficulties which are constantly overlooked.

 Autistic characters who represent the sum of our real experiences, not creative interpretations of how non-autistic writers imagine we ‘might’ function.

 I don’t want to see yet another tiresome savant with intellectual abilities way outside of human limitations.

I don’t want to be represented by caricatures so cartoonishly exaggerated they are unreIatable to most autistic people, let alone neurotypical people.

I don’t want to see the abuse I have suffered legitimized through the myth that my supposed strangeness ‘drove’ my abusers to it.

I don’t want to be shown the world through the eyes of another emotionally-detached robot, and be told that this is how people like myself think and feel.

 Those are not my eyes, that is not my story.

[shock]

I found out I needed adderall, or something like it, because the recreational use of it around me made it something I could try easily - and I found out my reaction wasn't the same as it was for some people I knew, and in fact a lot of the things I've suffered through my entire life weren't normal. It's not anything I would've sought out, or knew was even abnormal, until I had a chance to experience it and suddenly found out about it and it prompted me to do so much research.

I have no insurance.

This culture of thinking the only people who use drugs illegally are idiots who are "abusing" it and are just happily harming everyone not only dehumanizes and criminalizes addiction and drug use, it also completely erases the experiences of people who do research, who check in with themselves and with others, who do often make educated choices about their bodies and minds... when in my experience almost everyone I know, even people who could be labeled as ~recreational~ users, use them because they aren't getting what they need because of a system in place that makes it difficult and do their research. Healthcare. Inaccessibility of education. Drug patents. Things like racism, LGBT discrimination, misogyny, for so many of us getting to the point of even TALKING TO SOMEONE who can WRITE prescriptions is an impossible ordeal, let alone getting one once you're there without groveling, putting yourself down, and even lying to "professionals" who will never see you as a thinking, human person. All of the people I know who NEED adderall go through it in the same channels "recreational" people do. Me, a trans man among other things without insurance. One of my friends, a black man w/o insurance. Another, a nonbinary person with a disability w/o insurance. A lesbian w/o insurance. More transgender people, many of whom also get their HRT through illegal means because of how hard it can be to get that as well.

I do a lot of art while on adderall. Notice I said a lot. Because normally I am so distracted, so frustrated with that distraction, that it takes me six hours to do what I can absolutely do in two, know I can do in two, and it makes me depressed. Because of this now I can do exactly what I've always been capable of, with a clear mind, because I'm not distracted and can actually do it. I'm PROUD of being able to do things and I'm open with saying why, in the hopes that it might encourage someone similar to DO RESEARCH, that they aren't alone. I'm proud that I know what my potential could be with some help. It's all already there in my head, but drawing it out is always SO difficult! And I'm proud that I made a decision that I did, to try it when I did, to learn about myself and what I needed when I did.

Think about why recreational markets exist. Think about how many of these people absolutely would fit the criteria of a diagnosis, but either can't get one or don't feel SAFE having one. Think about the consequences of having a diagnosis. Think about why it's so easy to find things recreationally, without a sometimes dangerous label attached. Think about why people sell things for cheaper to recreational users than it costs for therapy, psychiatry, insurance. "Recreational use" is largely exaggerated to point the finger at people abused and ignored by a capitalistic system. Grow some empathy, for real.

as a woman who struggles with adhd, i can’t even begin to describe my frustration with the inaccessibility of medication for it. between the misinformation on how symptoms present in certain groups, the expense of the medication, and doctors reluctance to prescribe because of abuse, it’s awful.

but as someone who has struggled with addiction, I beg y’all to stop making posts like this. “I’m glad y’all are having fun abusing meds…hope it was worth it”. Addicts aren’t addicted to spite you. Yes, we need to address the culture that encourages high school and college students to abuse medication in order to get ahead, but this isn’t how you do it.

Shaming addicts for….being addicted? isn’t going to solve anything. It’s definitely not going to make adhd medications more accessible. I get that youre angry and frustrated but this isn’t how to handle it.

[pixel-glow-blog]

Favoritism, emotional abuse, and bitterness.

So this is going to be kind of a long, personal post. But suffice to say, I’m interested if anyone has had a similar experience to mine, or feels sort of the same emotional turmoil that I do? I just really want to know I’m not alone. 

Right now, I’m feeling kind of bitter, and sad, and unhappy. You know, that feeling where your chest tightens up when you see some injustice or unfairness, and there’s nothing you can do, so you just sit there feeling both frustrated and powerless? And it all started with one thing. My parents happily told me that my stepsister, who is 5 years younger than me, just got a letter from Yale inviting her to tour the college because they’re impressed with her SAT records. 

Now I’m sure we all know that twinge of envy when someone much younger than you ends up being more successful, but this goes much deeper than that. You see, she was always the favorite. She was my stepdad’s real daughter, and thus he cared about her more than he did about me. And honestly, that part never bothered me too much. At least, it didn’t for the first few years our parents were together. 

Now, I’m going back to some kind of triggering memories right now, so I’m sorry if my writing seems a little jumbled or disorganized, but I really want to get this out, so I’m going to try anyway. 

The trouble started when I was about 12. That was when my mental illnesses starting showing through, and since I was under a lot of stress, I was acting ‘more autistic’ (even though I was undiagnosed at the time). That was about when the abuse started. Now, I hesitate to call what I went through abuse, because my parents never physically assaulted me. There was no real “evidence”, per se, that anything was wrong. But because of the deep psychological scars it left, I’m going to call it abuse. Basically, from the time I was 12, till I was about 16, I was emotionally abused and neglected by my parents. I almost have the urge to say “Well, other people have it worse, so you can’t claim it was abuse.” That’s what people always told me when I confided in  them, anyway. But I know plenty of other people have been through the same thing, and I wouldn’t ever minimize their suffering, so I won’t do it to mine.

So basically how this all started, was my mom just out of the blue took away my antidepressants, took me out of therapy, and just basically ignored the fact that I had depression for almost a year. I say this is when it started, because I had only just started treatment a few months ago. I had gotten my diagnosis of depression when I was just miserable and numb all the time, I had meltdowns often, and I wanted to die at 11 years old. I’m saying all of this so you understand that after I had no treatment, I went back to being depressed.

Most of the abuse I went through, was specifically related to, or because of, my mental illnesses and my autism. I’m not going to go too into detail about my abuse (that’s for another post, if I ever get around to making it), but I’ll give you the basics: I was yelled at or punished for showing pretty much any signs of autism (having a meltdown, expressing sensory sensitivities, trying to avoid overload, or not getting facial expressions), showing any symptoms of depression (being yelled at or punished for not being able to get out of bed, not being able to do my chores, being slow at understanding things or responding, self harming (the only one that’s really understandable), or expressing that I was unhappy at all. I just want to make it clear that most of the things I was abused for were not things I could control. Now I was a teenager, and there were times that I actually got into trouble for legitimate reasons. But most of the time, I was punished for things I didn’t understand and couldn’t control.

The neglect showed through in other ways. Like most families, we were pretty tight on money, but I call it neglect because I was never considered a priority. For example, being autistic, I can only tolerate certain foods, (and my list of foods I could eat was even shorter back then). About 80% of the time, my parents would go out of their way to NOT bring back anything I could eat. The only way they got food for me, was if I agreed to go grocery shopping with them (which was sensory hell) and basically begged them throughout the store to get at least 1 or 2 things for me. It was bad enough to the point where I would only eat maybe 2 or 3 meals a week, and even then they were usually things that had me gagging or crying because I hated them so much (on the inside of course. I would be punished if I dared to gag or cry in front of people). When I needed things, like clothes or school supplies, I rarely got them. I was stuck in a catch 22 where if I only told my parents about it once, they would often forget I had asked. But if I asked them more than once, I was yelled at for “nagging” them. I remember one instance in particular where I needed clothes for school, because almost everything I owned I had either outgrown or had holes in it. I was told we didn’t have the money for it. LATER THAT SAME WEEK, my dad buys a membership to Farrel’s (you know, that workout place) that costs $300 dollars. I’ll never forget the feeling of absolute betrayal. The knowledge that even after bills, even after food, even after all the necessities, when I specifically put in a request, my actual needs were considered less important than his vanity. He lost 15 pounds. I’ll remember that till the day I die, and I hate it.

Now, to describe how he treated his daughter. She was his princess. I used to (and still do, sometimes) call her “Her Highness”, because that’s how he treated her. If she wanted anything, anything, she got it. She needed 1 pair of shoes? He’d buy her two. She lost her coat he bought her a week ago? He’d buy her another one, just as expensive as the last. He bought her as many school supplies as she could need, every year. I remember 1 year he bought her 3 separate pairs of glasses. Because she kept losing them. If she was coming over that weekend, the house had to be spotless. Instead of eating the cheap food WE were stuck with, we always had either fresh ingredients, or we’d eat out. It got to the point when I could reliably count on eating like a normal person on the weekends she’d come over, because he would never in his wildest dreams think of forcing her to eat the same stuff I did. She got piano lessons, violin lessons, tae kwon do lessons, she went to an expensive summer camp nearly every summer, and she always went. Even if that meant pulling money from what was supposed to go towards our bills, she always got what she wanted. Fancy dresses, new books, all the supplies she could need for her hobbies.

And the emotional treatment was even more of a gap. If I brought home a report card with all A’s and one D, all my parents would do is berate me for the one bad grade, and threaten me that it had better be higher next time. If she brought home a report card with all A’s and one D, she got $20 for every A. I’m not even exaggerating, that LITERALLY happened. I was called basically every name in the book “Lazy, stupid, ungrateful, not trying, condescending, a fucking bitch, crazy, a bad person, faking, a burden, impossible.” When I asked for help with my depression, I was told that it was all in my head, that I was making it seem worse than it was, that I could get over it anytime I wanted. When I talked about things I was struggling with in school, I was told that it was obvious, that I was stupid for not getting it, that I just wasn’t trying hard enough. When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life, I was told “You’ll never be able to do that. We can’t afford to send you to college. Scholarships won’t help you. You won’t be able to make it through.” I was basically told that I was inherently a bad person. That I would never be able to achieve anything because I was bad. And even if I tried my hardest, I would never be able to be any better than I was. And when I did succeed? When I got good grades, when I was able to fight through my depression to do my chores, when I actually did something I felt proud of? Silence. Well, most of the time. Sometimes I got criticized for it not being good enough, “You can do better. You didn’t even try!” Eventually, I pretty much gave up trying to impress them, or earn their love and respect, because I knew it was never going to happen. I gave up a lot of my dreams, because either they didn’t approve, or they convinced me I wouldn’t be any good at it anyway.

Which brings me back to my stepsister. You see, we both had basically the same grades in school, before I dropped out. We were both really smart, we both were the highest in our respective classes. Intellectually, we were both equal. We both had the same potential. But she had more resources than I did. She was encouraged and praised and accepted. She had everything she needed to be at her best, and everything she wanted to keep her happy and focused. She never had to go through the abuse I did, the kind that beats you down every day until you feel like you’re a worthless speck of nothing. She didn’t have two parents who picked apart and exaggerated every flaw or mistake until she felt like she would never be able to do anything. She never had to go to school with the kind of hunger that only comes from not having eaten for several days. She didn’t go to school wearing clothes that had holes in them causing her to get made fun of by all her peers. 

Look, I get that life isn’t an even playing field. I have a developmental disability, and she doesn’t. I have several mental illnesses, and she doesn’t. Our lives would never have been perfectly equal. But much of her success is directly tied to my lack of it. So many of the things she got, she didn’t just get, she got them because they were directly taken away from me. They money that should have gone towards food for me went to violin lessons for her. The money the should have gone to clothes for me, went to expensive clothes (that she didn’t need) for her. The money that could have been used so I could practice my art, which I’ve always wanted to do, went to horseback riding lessons for her.

So much of the success she’s had in life is directly tied to everything I didn’t get. And it hurts. There’s the pain of realizing something’s been taken from you, something you can’t ever get back. There’s the guilt that comes from realizing you should be able to be happy for your little sister’s success, and instead you’re a bitter mess. And there’s the injustice of having it not be your fault. If I had spent my teen years drinking and partying, and I had thrown away my own future, I would be fine. I would write that one off under “oops” and move on. But I can’t. The future I could have had was stolen by parents who didn’t care about me, and basically did everything they could to make me feel like garbage. And there’s the frustration of not being able to talk about it. I can’t tell her I’m not happy for her because my parents screwed me over to make sure she succeeded because then SHE’D be guilty, and I don’t want to put her through that. My parent’s have made a commitment to doing better, and I’d no longer classify them as abusive, but I’m not allowed to bring up anything they did. Anytime I try it’s “Why are you bringing up the past?” “It’s different now.” “Just let it go.” They’re willing to treat me better, as long as I don’t get any closure. 

It’s just not fair. It’s not fair how two people who you trust and rely on can just decide to ruin your mental health, and leave you with psychological scars that will last a lifetime. And then they get to move on while you’re stuck holding the bill. I’m still dealing with the consequences of those 4-5 years, and they get to just pretend they never happened. 

And now I’m the terrible person who hears their little sister got an invitation to Yale, who’s dreams are starting to come true, and can only think “Fuck you.”

[datingadviceonreddit]

I don't want to sound too pessimistic, but I'd also rather not be delusional.Long story short, I have something called psoriatic arthritis, which can cause nasty skin lesions, pain in your joints, mobility issues and severe fatigue, among a host of other things. As its an autoimmune disorder, this affects your immune system as well. The treatment I take for it (a biologic, so injections) is able to reconcile a lot of this but makes the fatigue worse and weakens your immune system even more.The big problem: I can't be around anyone who's sick with a contagious illness. Brief exposure is fine but longer than a few minutes, and I'm legitimately in danger. Every time I'm sick nowadays, I am carted off to urgent care. Even the common cold takes me the fuck out.Needless to say, this has made dating next to impossible. I've tried looking up articles on it but they're all very vague and all about empowerment, but it's difficult to be empowered and alone.Granted, even before I started treatment, my dating life was not all that great. My previous longterm partner was emotionally and sexually abusive and suffered from untreated BPD, and would constantly insult me about how much difficulty I had in functioning on a day-to-day basis, and would intentionally exacerbate my symptoms to the point where I physically relied on them. So on top of this, I've also got the trauma from an abusive relationship that really shattered what little self-esteem I had left.I am in therapy, with a therapist who also suffers from a chronic illness (not the same as mine), said therapist can't magically snap their fingers and make a relationship happen.I am a lot of work. I know that to be a fact. I'm sure anyone with a chronic illness or disability would say the same, and some are lucky enough to find partners, I am not one of them. I'm not owed anything, of course, I don't deserve anything, but I can't help wanting what seems to come so easily for people who don't have these particular issues. I already struggle with platonic friendships and the sheer amount of people who have completely cut me out of their lives the second I started asking for any kind of accommodation. Factor in all of this with severe depression and anxiety, and I've been told by many a person that all of this means that I don't deserve to be loved by other people and that I'm too much of an inconvenience for anyone to handle.Like I said, I'm in therapy and I am barely making the tiniest sliver of progress day by day. Being almost perpetually alone doesn't help in the slightest. I'm lucky to have friends still, and they try their best to be understanding, but even the most understanding people have that little sliver of frustration and annoyance they can't hide from me. Being in my life in any capacity is being in a state of constant toleration. I am employed, and it's not like I can't do shit for myself, it's just that I have to cancel pretty frequently because my body completely shuts down on me.But there's a level of emotional distance in a friendship that results in not all of my friends getting rid of me, so I guess they've all decided that I'm worth keeping around. A romantic relationship, that sheer level of intimacy and connection, takes a while to build and not very much to shatter. I have my last relationship ringing in my ears still of how quickly a person can turn on you the second they realize that you weren't exaggerating when you said you are limited in what you can do. I'm almost certain my previous partner assumed their "love" for me would magically cure me, and all of my partners (three people altogether) had this mentality to some extent.There is no dating app currently for chronically ill people, and in my experience, able-bodied people will throw you to the curb the second you disclose. Not disclosing, which I've tried before, has led people to get upset and snap at me. So I have to disclose, knowing the second I do, I will be viewed as less than human and discarded. And again, platonically I've been able to prove that people won't do that as often, but romantically, I'm three-for-three. Granted, only the longest of my three relationships was outright abusive, the other two simply wanted a more functional person. I know all of this has led me to hate myself, which colors a lot of the wording I'm using. But it's also very difficult to love yourself when it is constantly reinforced that you don't deserve happiness because of something you simply cannot control in any way. I did not choose this, though some people like to assume that I did just to piss people off. It's when someone suggests a homeopathic cure and it does nothing.I'm hoping that maybe someone on here is either a person with a chronic illness who has been able to climb what feels like an impossible mountain, or someone dating someone like me who doesn't give a shit that I'm like this, or just anything I can do to make myself more desirable to people. Not in the usual "fashion/exercise/diet" way (cuz I think I'm decent at all of that, I am kind of obsessed with my own hygiene as a side effect of all of this). Whatever magic spell y'all have, I badly need it. via /r/dating_advice

[angrycollectordaze-me-blog]

Paper代写：Science Can Inform Our Values

本篇paper代写- Science Can Inform Our Values讨论了科学与价值观。人类的价值观与科学的进步和发展息息相关。科学之所以存在和发展，原因在于同情、尊重人、致力于诚信和道德实践、致力于追求卓越，也体现在人类价值观中的医疗公正。很多事实都证明科学可以告诉我们价值观。本篇paper代写由51due代写平台整理，供大家参考阅读。

Can science inform human values? The answer is positive. Science definitely sheds light on our values. Generally speaking, human values includes compassion, respect for persons, commitment to integrity and ethical practice, commitment to excellence, and justice in healthcare. Taking commitment to excellence for example, human spare no effort in pursuing a better life probably out of the fast-developing science. The invention of Internet has brought people closer all over the world, so those living in less developed regions may have a chance to see the life standard they have dreamed of, which turns into a strong desire for excellence and then values come into being. My argument may be developed on the account of several aspects of human values mentioned above.

Firstly, I want to discuss how science would account for compassion. At first glance, most of people think they have been educated to possess compassion for others, such as the poor, the old and the disabled. It seems a great result of humanistic education, and has nothing to do with science. What is more, the emergence of violent video games, driven by science for sure, push teenagers further from a mercy heart. Nevertheless, they are not all about science. If we look at a bigger picture, science is much greater than they thought. While seeing the scenes of refugees from Africa or Syria fleeing away and becoming homeless due to wars on TV or Internet, people could not be without shock and astonishment by virtue of such a scientific technology, and compassion is strengthened in their mind. They start to cherish things and people around them, as well as care for disadvantage groups.

Recently, an extreme scientific research lends a support to my idea. Meditation technique is used to show that it might be possible. The research is published in the journal Psychological Science.

“Compassionate Meditation” by focusing on a specific person while repeating a phrase like, “May you be free from suffering.” The subjects concentrated on five different people: A loved one, a friend, themselves, a stranger and then someone they were in conflict with.

Another group of subjects performed general positive thinking. Both groups did the exercise

30 minutes a day for two weeks. Finally, finding show that they are more compassionate than before.

When it comes respect for others, science could be a fair explanation. A typical example is while writing a scientific paper, scholars may find a lot of reference to help with their research, in which three are some cutting-edge technologies as well as advanced ideas they can learn from. Then why do they need to add the list of reference at the end of the paper? That is to show respect for peers and for their achievement. Respecting facts and peers is the core spirit of science. Nothing can be achieved without this philosophy. On the other hand, science is strict. Any plagiarism or copy without permission is not allowed. Science requires us to respect others and achievement of other scholars, which are spread out as universal values. What is more, science discloses respect for others all the time. Image you are a professor and just finish a project. You would thank your assistant, your students and those technicians who work in the laboratory for their painstaking efforts to make your concept come true. That is exactly kind of values the majority of scholars may uphold. Naturally your students will inherit these values. Although it is confined to academic circles, when students graduate from colleges, they may bring such a spirit to work. I believe students like this will be highly appreciated by the company which hires them, and are more likely to stand out among peers.

Commitment to integrity and ethical practice is the fundamental requirement of science, the cornerstone of scientific moral and the critical factor of scientific survival and development. On the contrary, science symbolizes integrity and ethical practice. Whenever we speak of scientists, the first thing that comes to our mind is their integrity and ethical practice. Yet recently there are some negative testimonials in various sections from project application, funds receiving, achievement assessment to paper publishing and in all kinds of personnel, from common researchers, leaders, even to distinguished scientists. Scientific misconducts are always related to interest community, making it very complicated and complex, and is less likely to be found and punished. Like Huang Woo-suk, the father of South Korean Cloning, was suspicious of publishing a paper on the global renowned Journal of Science with fake data. He made up these data to complete an extraordinary paper, by which he hoped to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. His practices is obviously opposite to integrity and ethical standard. Actually, his values had changed to Benthamism and was totally wrong, and he may do whatever he can to achieve his goal. What a shame! However, the case like this is never alone. The tobacco company is trying to deny the harm of smoking, or the pharmaceutical company attempts to exaggerate the effect of drugs. All these happened because their values are misled, which are not allowed in the area of science. In another word. Science is the outward manifestation of integrity and ethical practice. Independence, objectiveness and fairness are connotation of science, and are also requirement for people, scholars and researchers in particular. Science is sure to inform integrity and ethical practice, and thus values. This is a truth that everybody may accept it universally.

Pursuit of excellence is normally an intrinsic requirement or request of science. Normal trains can only run at about 100 miles per hour while high speed bullet trains can ramp up to 250 miles per hour. The purpose is to meet the increasing demand of people who want to spend as less as time on the way. Just as the saying goes, “where there is a demand there is a market”. Scientists’ struggle to be innovative, forge ahead and keep moving motivates the development of science and become a part of human values. The Invention of Internet

has brought people closer all over the world, so those living in less developed regions may have a chance to see the life standard they have dreamed of, which turns into a strong desire for excellence and then values come into being. Despite pursuit of excellence is merely one of the most important of existing human values. Human’s seek for excellence not just focus on life standard, and is shown in sports activities. Athletes wants to run faster, jump higher and throw further, exactly their values once they are engaged in the area. That is why global leading sports goods companies such as Nike and Adidas keep developing sportswear with latest techniques to reduce the air friction and help them extend their bodies. The record will be renewed time and time again while athletes’ spirt never dies with the assistance of scientific progress. Science again proves it can account for human values.

Justice in healthcare is one of human basic rights. That is why the medical industry develops millions of new drugs every year. That is why UN sent several groups of medical assistance to Africa, help people there cure all sorts of difficult miscellaneous diseases. The continuous development of medical science technologies promotes the transform of medical service formats. Facing different diseases, medical workers, including doctors and nursing workers, are aware of the transformation of medical service concept, playing a key role in correct diagnoses and fair treatment of clinical works. World Health Organization argues that human health not only refers to no presence of sickness or feeble phenomena but also a perfect status the mental, the physiological and social happiness. People’s chase for this phase bases on scientific advance and they count on it. In the human society, namely the democratic constitutionalism, the government may strive to educate the public with a higher ability of identifying self-profits by continuously strengthening it. However, common people cannot act like doctors to provide professional assistance. For example, if there is no community doctor, family doctor or insurance company, it is impossible to let the patent become a doctor to judge whether the treatment he/she receives is appropriate, credible or fair. This is associate with human inner values and science makes in come true.

To sum up, human values are closely related to scientific advances and development. As I analyzed above, compassion, respect for persons, commitment to integrity and ethical practice, commitment to excellence, and justice in healthcare represented in human values are the reasons why science exists and develops. There is no reason to deny that science can inform our values.

Reference

[1] Jacobs, Alexandra (2014). Science, Technology & Values. Sage Publications, 11(2), p.15.

[2] Caitlin, McGarry (2015). Compassion Can Be Trained. Psychological Science, 4(3), 6-9.

[3] Charleton, Graham (2011).  Legislative Intent and Other Essays on Law, Politics, and Morality. University of Wisconsin Press, p.5-p.8.

[4] Schoenmann, Joe (2015). The Pursuit of Excellence in the Sports, Human Science and Accomplish, 8(15), 5-10.

[5] Marshall, Matt (2013). Justice in Healthcare. Outline of Healthcare Science, 2(1), 8-11.

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