#please accept this as a humble birthday halloween offering | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hegglespeggles · 6 years ago

Text

Mental Illness, the Honour System, and the Commodification of Human Beings.

Hi. I’m Peggy. I have a mental illness.

People talk a lot about mental illness. It’s kind of a Thing. It pops up when a teen commits suicide, or there is a mass shooting, but especially at Halloween, where monstrous “psychopaths” and “schizoids” charge at us with their chainsaws from the dark corners of haunted houses and our screens. Particularly, a good chunk of the discussion tends to centre on how to integrate these mentally ill people, with their strange green-skin and their funny antennae, into our society full of humans. I find a lot of this dialogue to miss the point, so like every person with an opinion and a keyboard, I’m going to offer mine.

I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder when I was 15. When I was 19, those were both were discovered to be manifestations of PTSD from an emotionally abusive and neglectful childhood. I was hospitalized at 16 for a suicide attempt (the most successful in a chain which started when I was 12) and have been in therapy ever since. With the right combination of medications, therapy, and accommodations from my university, I am in my second year studying Music at Western University and have a part time job. I also do musicals with the campus theatre society and do a bunch of writing and composing and occasionally, stand-up comedy. I spend my summers working at an overnight camp and I want to be a music therapist when I finish school.

I tell you all of this for two reasons. One, that I am not some waif withering away from some romantic disease, like a modern-day Victorian heroine. I am not some tortured saint who is just too delicate for this world. I am loud, and abrasive, I love my friends and strangers with the same ferocity and I give great advice. It just so happens that last week I was also spending about 4-6 hours a day staring at a very specific chink on my balcony because my brain was shutting down and I had no ability to focus and very little awareness of what’s happening around me. (This is what the psychologist-types would call a “Hypoarousal Trauma Response” and it is just as scary as it sounds.) This is a very foreign concept for a lot of people, and before I finish this I’ll probably end up trying to explain it even more, because yeah, part of what makes this such a hard concept to grasp is that even those who suffer from it have trouble describing it. Lumping us all together is difficult for the same reasons lumping cancer patients together is difficult. In the same way that leukemia, brain tumors and melanoma are all vastly different from each other, I could no sooner fully grasp what its like to have OCD, or schizophrenia, but I’m going to accept that your melanoma has different symptoms than my leukemia. Please don’t ask me what I did to catch it, or if I’ve tried this herbal remedy, or tell me that you don’t think that my medication is a good idea, because its messing with my brain. I know it does. That’s the point.

Secondly, please understand that those with these illnesses are under no obligation to prove themselves to you. I have had many a boss or professor push for details of my diagnosis, to the point where one professor asked for the nitty-gritty of my abuse. And hey, I get it, we all love salacious gossip and exciting backstories on the people around us. But the problem is that what is your fun real-life soap opera, or your next conversation topic for Girls-night-in, that same problem is the reason that I wake up screaming in the middle of the night, or hyperventilate, shake, and vomit until I pass out. It’s the same way that while Game of Thrones is fun to watch, no one would want to live there. I am offering my issues up as a platform and case study for discussion, and so please, I ask you to pick and prod and ask questions, (As any of my friends will tell you, I have dangerously little filter,) but the people you meet and interact with in the world, you must understand that their struggles are their own bruises to pick at and not yours. These are issues that we struggle to talk about with ourselves, let alone other humans. I understand the desire to verify the truth, but that is a job for professionals, (with all due respect,) not you.

And that’s the crux of the issue isn’t it? Mental illness is antithetical to our society’s method of dealing with the ill. It’s not a linear healing journey, and its not always a cold that you can muscle through. Submitting the proper paperwork and showing up for disability meetings and the fighting and clawing and demanding the help with is your right (the difficulty of access to which is its own discussion) is something which is difficult and frustrating under the best of circumstances, and is infinitely more difficult when the very nature of your illness is to convince you that you are an unworthy burden, sapping any focus and energy you had to do it anyway. Perhaps more frighteningly, it is an invisible illness. There is no way to tell if someone is faking it or not, and in our empirical, productivity-based society, that is a frightening notion: if some people, not for lack of trying or desire to do so, cannot function at peak efficiency most of the time, how do we measure their worth?

I can feel your incredulity, but I mean it. We pay a lot of lip service to being well rounded and self-care, which to my delight is becoming more and more mainstream, but for most it’s a lofty dream, on par with being a Best-Selling Novelist, or owning a home in Toronto. But check some twitter bios, and go on some first dates, or a party with lots of people with people you don’t really know, and you’ll notice we define ourselves by our careers, what we do, not who we are. So, what do I say when I spend an alarming amount of time fetal on my floor this morning because I didn’t have the energy to get up, and even if I did, my brain is screaming how burdensome I am to any system with which I interact?

See, we grew up in this culture too. We internalized that otherness and vague discomfort with mental illness too, often long before symptoms started manifesting. So, all that frustration and confusion at how we can’t just get up and do things, we feel that too. It all adds to the melange of confusion and self-hatred. On top of that, we see the same people who wear their neurodivergence like a shiny new thing which separates them from the normies who just don’t get it. Believe me, it makes me just as angry. I would do just about anything on this earth to be one of those normies. I believe in self acceptance and loving yourself for who you are, right now, but I also must believe in the innate human lust for self improvement, and that we all must take active steps in our lives to better ourselves every day. It’s hard, but it must be done. My illness is not beautiful, but it is also not a flaw. It is a part of myself which a work everyday to improve, and that involves taking hard, humbling looks at how I interact with the world and working hard to turn that into tangible change. Again, this shows us where that tangible change gets sticky: its different for everyone. For me, that means working on my trust issues. In order to tell my friends something as small as my age and birthday, I had to be at least five glasses into a case of boxed wine and spent the next week a broken shell of a human crying in bed as a result. In a culture which vilifies mental illness, and expects objective proof of things, where do I go from here? Surely, this is not my fault, as this was a misstep in an ever-present journey to be the best version of myself that I can be. Likewise, how do I, or anyone around me, know whether I’m faking it? How do my professors know that I am not just blowing off class because I don’t want to go?

Now of course, I’m lucky. I am a white, pretty, middle-class woman who has a very agreeable personality. This means people are more likely to give me lots of extra chances and help me out. My family had the money to put me into therapy. I’m also lucky that I’ve had lots of experience pushing through the system, first trying to access support on my own when I was 13. This means I have no fear asking for accommodation, and I have the vocabulary to describe what I need. But what about people who don’t fit the key demographic for what we expect mental illness to look like? Or people who don’t know where to start, or think that they deserve it? What about men, who are just as likely to suffer from these issues but only a fraction as likely to seek help? And while we’re at it, what about people who will experience anxiety and depression without it being a full-on disorder? I am a rare unicorn in that I have the support I need, and the self assurance to speak up when I am not getting it. But why should someone in my position, which I stress again, is an almost impossible best-case scenario, be the only person who is allowed to access support to it’s fullest? Even with a well documented diagnosis and disability accommodations, I have professors and bosses who express disappointment in my inability to function. It leaves me wanting to scream “I know! I’m angry at myself too!”

The best way to explain it is that it feels a bit like having your insides vacuum sealed to the point where breathing feels like trying to pull against the vacuum, being blindfolded and thrown naked into a pool of maple syrup which has thumbtacks at the bottom and trying to make it to some nebulous “other side” of the pool. Meanwhile everyone in your life is waiting on the other side of a door for you and you can hear them telling you that “you should be moving faster,” and that “you don’t have it that bad.” You also don’t want to be doing this, but you don’t know where the pool stops, how to avoid the thumbtacks, or how to move faster through the syrup. You start to wonder if the pool is infinite, is this just what your life is, and how you’ll ever accomplish anything.

That’s why I need the support. Because its handy to get an extension on a paper when all of a sudden, the pressure of the vacuum seal is too strong, and I need to remember how to breathe. Its really nice to not be penalized for not going to a rehearsal because I was busy fishing a thumbtack out of my foot. And its difficult to describe what’s happening to me when I’m blindfolded, so I have no way to describe where I am. Everyone around me is waiting for me to get to the other side of the room, but they aren’t allowed in, so they can’t see that in order to do this, I have to traverse this surrealist obstacle course. My academic accommodation is someone telling my professors that my room is a bit more difficult than other rooms, and my therapist is up in the spectator gallery, talking me through it from the PA system. Medication is like a pair of flipflops. I’m lucky to have these things, but what about someone who doesn’t know how to work the PA system? Or someone who’s superiors think they’re taking a nap in that room? What about someone who doesn’t realize their room has a pool in it, and now they’ve fallen head-over-foot into it?

This is why I’m about to propose a mildly radical thought: If someone says they’re struggling, believe them. Give them the benefit of the doubt, that they are actually doing their best. Yes, there will be people who abuse the system, but don’t you think that letting them go, is worth helping people who need it? Otherwise, we run the risk of throwing more thumbtacks in the pool of someone who is genuinely trying to meet you halfway. Likewise, these people are not delicate flower petals who just couldn’t cope with the difficulty of their room. They’re just as capable, and strong as anyone coming out of any other rooms. Maybe their syrup was a bit deeper, or there were more thumbtacks, or to this day they aren’t quite sure of the shape of the pool and they’ve tripped and fallen back in a few times. All that does is speak about their pool. Not them. They didn’t build the room, and they didn’t ask for this room so that you would pity them. Who would want to go through a room like that? All they want is someone waiting at the door and cheering them on, without hurrying them.

When you live in a society that is timing how quickly you can get through rooms and how far you can get, it’s a wildly daunting task to not only believe that you can get through the room, but that doing so is worth risking stepping on another thumbtack, and making sure that you’re taking the air you need. For me, I don’t know if there will ever be a point where someone releases the vacuum seal, but that is something I can live with. I like so many others, am just desperately yelling to the people on the other side of the door to wait for me until I get there. I know I won’t be able to make it through with the times that other people have, and in our society’s way of measure success, that means I’m not as good. The only way to reconcile this is for us all to realize the differences in our rooms, and that we might not be able to directly compare times. Its frustrating and complicated, that there wont be such a clear one-to-one comparison of our successes, but isn’t it that much more rewarding to know that you’re actually be timed for what you actually have to go through?

So, my professors won’t know that I’m not faking it. My friends are waiting on the other side, and they’re probably getting annoyed at how long they have to wait for me. All I can do, all any of us can do, is call out to them that our room is a little bit weird, and that we’re still trying to make it to the other side, but it’s going to take a while. I guess I just hope that the world takes us at our word.

#actual blog post #actual blogging #thatmentalhealththing #mental health #mentally ill #school #studyblr

1 note · View note

stampington · 7 years ago

Text

Get Published: February Calls and Challenges

Our Stampington publications want your submissions! If you are an artist or writer looking to have your work featured in one of our magazines, here is the February calls and challenges that our editors are looking for. We encourage you to submit your work again even if you have tried before. The following magazines have upcoming deadlines of February 15th (unless otherwise noted), so this is your chance to see your name in print and get published!

Have questions about submitting your artwork? Tweet us @stampington or leave a comment below!

~Artwork by Kate Yetter

In every quarterly issue of Art Journaling, artists open their journals and share creative techniques for capturing their emotions. From stamping and collage art to painting and sketching, each journal is filled with innovative techniques and inspirational stories. If you have an art journal that you would like to share with our readers, we would love to hear from you.

Deadline: February 15th

~Artwork by Lynne Moncrieff

For that added touch of glamour without the complexity, Jewelry Affaire is a quarterly publication dedicated to the art of understated, yet extraordinary jewelry. You don’t need to be a master craftsperson to create wearable art that makes a statement. The refashioning of a vintage piece into something new, embellishing a chain, the placing of a pendant, adding beadwork — anything that exemplifies sophisticated chic on an easy to understand level can be submitted.

Here are some of our ongoing departments we feature in every issue:

Whimsical Wares

Jewelry that is out of the ordinary and extraordinary

Natural Revelry

Adornments that are otherworldly

Vintage Jubilee

For lovers of heirlooms and findings, celebrate with classics that make time stand still

Artistic Affaire

Innovative to wear and uncomplicated to share

Black Tie Affaire

Dripping with jewels, pearls, and other sumptuous materials, these sophisticated statements pieces can make every day feel like an occasion

If you’re interested in being our artist for the Feature Article, please email a link or pictures of your jewelry collection.

Deadline: February 15th

Submission Guidelines

~Event by Elisabeth Eden

Challenges

Unique gatherings take center stage with our now-quarterly publication, Mingle! From intimate art retreats, to creative, one-of-a-kind celebrations, Mingle provides the inspiration you need to plan extraordinary gatherings with an artistic flair. For this publication, we are looking for stunning photographs and stories from unique gatherings such as the following:

Intimate Affaires Do you get together regularly with close friends for a night in of crafts? Perhaps you have a tradition of going to the park for a knitting circle or a picnic.

Art Retreats Do you plan art retreats for others to come participate in? Have you attended one that had a profound effect on you?

Handcrafted Weddings Was your wedding completely crafted by hand? Did it take place somewhere unique?

Birthday Parties & Anniversaries Did you throw a party for a friend that was simply over the top? Maybe you thought of an interesting theme.

Party Details Did you take a couple pictures (or maybe just one) of a stunning aspect of an event that you think Mingle readers need to see?

This is just a sampling of the items we are looking for to publish in each issue of Mingle. Submissions and questions can be emailed to the editor at [email protected], or saved on a disc and mailed to our physical address. If selected, we will need hi-res versions of your photographs.

Deadline: February 15th

Click here to download our guide for how to submit photographs. It will also show you how to convert images to the correct size and resolution for this publication.

Submission Guidelines

~Artwork by Lynne Moncrieff

Somerset Life aims to demonstrate how easy it is to add a touch of beauty to our daily lives, whether it is through a simple craft project, or an inspiring essay that shares how to find the beauty that already exists. Our mission is simple: make the ordinary extraordinary. For those looking to be a part of this bestselling publication, we have a number of ways to do so. We are currently looking for artwork submissions in the following categories:

Locales of Intrigue This special department features stories about truly unique stores and boutiques across the globe. Stores that would like to be featured in this department are asked to submit digital images of the store with a brief written query to the Editor-in-Chief at [email protected]. If the submission is accepted, professional hi-resolution digital images (300 dpi at 8″ x10″) will need to be furnished by the store. Deadline: Ongoing.

Life Creative Spaces Where do you create? Whether it’s a small table or breakfast nook, cleared-out closet, or an actual room dedicated as your creative studio, we want to peek inside. If you think your creative space is something that Somerset Life readers would like to learn more about, please submit digital images of your space with a brief written query to the Editor-in-Chief at [email protected]. If the submission is accepted, you will be asked to furnish professional hi-resolution images (300 dpi at 8″ x 10″). Deadline: Ongoing.

Mood Boards Artists frequently create mood boards that contain scraps of paper or fabric or other assorted elements that they like to display on a wall or a large piece of cardboard or foam core. These boards provide a ground from which ideas for projects come alive. Aside from their functionality, mood boards can become incorporated as part of the décor. Please submit digital images of your mood boards with a brief written query to the Editor-in-Chief at [email protected]. If the submission is accepted, you will be asked to either furnish the actual mood board or to provide professional hi-resolution images (300 dpi at 8″ x10″). Deadline: Ongoing.

Miscellany Sometimes, an image of something lovely is all we need to feel inspired. Have you taken a photo of something that makes you feel inspired? Perhaps it is a photo of your collection of vintage handkerchiefs. Or an old stack of books. Or your treasured stash of ribbons. Please submit your favorite digital images (5″ x 7″ @ 300 dpi) to be considered for Somerset Life’s special Miscellany department to the Editor-in-Chief at [email protected]. Deadline: Ongoing.

Artful Kits We all love to collect papers, ribbons, embellishments, and other bits and bobs. More fun than collecting specific elements is finding creative ways to juxtapose the pieces together to create unique kits. Whether you create them to give away or to sell or offer to students in a workshop setting, we’d like to see your favorite kits. Please send in kit samples directly to the Editor-in-Chief as outlined in the Submission Guidelines. Deadline: Ongoing.

Creative Living Ideas In each issue of Somerset Life we share 10 Creative Living Ideas, and we show quick and easy ways to add a touch of beauty or creativity to your life, or perhaps someone else’s. Maybe you have a clever way of packing a sack lunch, or you have a developed a creative way of saying “Thank You” to a friend. Please send in samples directly to the Editor-in-Chief as outlined in the Submission Guidelines. Deadline: Ongoing.

The Magic of Tea Bags How many tea bags have you tossed out lately? Well, stop! Take another look at the humble tea bag and re-imagine it as a work of art! Let the tea bag dry out, and then carefully cut it open by making a small slit close to the edge with very sharp scissors. Discard the tea and — voila! — a beautiful tiny canvas. Your lovely subtly stained tea bags can be painted, distressed, stitched, and embellished in so many ways. (If you dry them out on a piece of watercolor paper, you’ll have gorgeous stained paper to use in future projects.) We’d like to see how you incorporate tea bag art into your authentic and creative life for our summer issue. Deadline: February 15, 2018

ARTISTIC TEST TUBE ART We love L. Katherine Roberts holiday decor featured in our Oct/Nov/Dec 2017 issue showcasing holiday wrap and test tubes. L. Katherine often uses test tubes in her artwork and her paper wrapped Treat Tubes are a fabulous idea for gifting. How can you use test tubes in an artistic, creative way? From filling them with bath salts or potpourri and incorporating them into a spa basket, to making single-serve hot cocoa kits, to bundling a few together as bud vases, we know there are many ways to use these versatile vessels. They can hold tiny bits and baubles or transport you to another land — we want to see how your muse uses test tubes as part of your authentic, creative life. Deadline: February 15, 2018

CALLING ALL BEACHCOMBERS — WE WANT YOUR SAND! White, black, coarse, fine, glass, dune, volcanic. There are many types of sand and for our summer issue we’d like to showcase a variety of sand from our readers across the globe. Simply send us a sample of sand from your local beach or a special place you’ve visited. A quarter cup or so in a Ziploc bag or sealed container will do. Make sure to attach your contact information including your mailing address and email and exactly where the sand is from and what makes it special. If you want to go the extra mile and present it in a creative way, that’s fine too. (Please note: sand will not be returned.) Deadline: February 15, 2018

Click here to download our guide for submitting photographs. It will also show you how to convert images to the correct size and resolution for this publication.

Submission Guidelines

~Artwork by Renee Zarate

Challenges

Frightful & Delightful Double, double stamping and trouble; embossing guns burn and inkpads bubble! Our annual Frightful & Delightful Challenge, the most popular challenge of all, is back and we’re dying to see your submissions. Each year we receive amazingly spooky Halloween art that defies the imagination and we know this year will be no different. Dust the cobwebs off your Halloween-themed stamps — be they bats, ghosts, zombies, or monsters — and get ready to create some hocus-pocus! Deadline: February 1, 2018.

Color Challenge Colors have the amazing ability to evoke different moods and feelings. This serene shade of blue has just a hint of green and a name that can transport you to a calm state of mind — perfect for getting in the creative zone. In fact, research has shown that the color blue increases productivity, so you don’t have to worry about running out of inspiration any time soon! Sit back, relax, and incorporate this lovely hue in your next card creations. Send us your submissions by February 1, 2018 for possible inclusion in our Summer 2018 Issue. Don’t forget to include stamping! Deadline: February 1, 2018.

Sea Breeze Blue

Tempting Template

We would like to invite you to join in the stamping fun and send in your own template ideas! Please include the proposed pattern for your template as well as a sample card using your template. If your template is selected, you will receive a complimentary issue of The Stampers’ Sampler and the joy of seeing how other talented stampers build upon your original concept. For a better idea of what we’re looking for, click here to view our past templates online.

Deadline: February 1

A Different Point of View A single stamp has endless options. Part of the joy of rubber stamping is the number of ways one stamp can be used. We are always looking for submissions for A Different Point of View. Take a stamp that catches your eye, and create several different cards using that image or a portion thereof. Really challenge yourself to view the image in new ways, and push the boundaries of a single stamp. Deadline: February 1

A Call for Articles We are always looking for new and innovative stamping articles. If you’re interested in submitting an idea for an upcoming issue of The Stampers’ Sampler, we would love to see it. Just send us 5 – 10 cards that demonstrate the same theme, a new stamping technique, a unique usage of an unexpected or interesting material, or an exciting project. Just make sure it has stamping! Deadline: February 1

Are you The Stampers’ Sampler’s Next Guest Artist? Since The Stampers’ Sampler was first introduced 20 years ago, this publication has featured many Guest Artists. This department is dedicated to artists (many who began as loyal readers) who capture The Stampers’ Sampler style — original greeting card creations that incorporate rubber stamping into the design. If you are a dedicated stamper, this is your chance to show off what makes your talent unique, whether you have a signature inking technique, an anything-but-ordinary style or a knack for layout designs. We would like to see new techniques, ones that are contemporary and one-of-a-kind, and vast themes. If you would like to audition to be a Guest Artist, we ask for the following:

A minimum of 5 sets of 3 cards in each set (ideally, we would prefer 8 sets of cards in a similar theme), for a grand total of 15 – 24 cards.

The best way to become familiar with what makes our Guest Artists stand out is to take a peek through our publication. For each set, keep in line with a similar color palette or theme. We’re dedicated to showcasing the very best artists, and we would love to feature your talented creations for all our readers to see! Deadline: February 1

Click here to download and print our Submissions Form!

Submission Guidelines

The post Get Published: February Calls and Challenges appeared first on Somerset Place: The Official Blog of Stampington & Company.

from Somerset Place: The Official Blog of Stampington & Company http://ift.tt/2DwEbns via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Somerset Place: The Official Blog of Stampington & Company

0 notes