#smth smth bodily integrity

[michadeau]

number of characters swapping eyes in naruto is abnormal. kishimoto do you have something to say.

[iagreewithlilithsrightsnwrongs]

ok so. in my college au, theres no supernatural elements, yes? so ive been thinking abt ava n how in the shadow her being paralysed, alone, an orphan with poor caregivers is an integral part of her character. and i dont know how to incorporate smth similar in this au.

i’ve read abt conversion disorder. you can google it n have a better understanding but basically “Conversion disorder is a mental condition in which a person has blindness, paralysis, or other nervous system (neurologic) symptoms that cannot be explained by medical evaluation.”

“conversion disorder happens as a way for your brain to deal with emotional stress. It’s almost always triggered by upsetting situations and other mental disorders.” and “It also happens more often to people who have a history of emotional stress or who have a hard time talking about their feelings.”

the most common symptom is “the loss of one or more bodily functions. Examples include: Weakness or paralysis. Loss of balance or difficulty walking.” also: movements that you can’t control, tunnel vision or blindness, loss of smell or speech, numbness. 

(this got long but this is useful for me n shit so yeah)

common signs: a debilitating symptom that begins suddenly, history of a psychological problem that gets better after the symptom appears, lack of concern that usually occurs with a severe symptom, they affect your movement or senses, and you can’t control them, hey can’t be explained by any other condition, medication, or behavior, they aren’t caused by another mental health problem, they cause stress in social and work settings.

“The physical symptoms are thought to be an attempt to resolve the conflict the person feels inside.”

here’s some examples (which i need a lot of cuz its kinda hard to understand all those medical terms n shit, from all the sites i’ve read on it): “For example, a woman who believes it is not acceptable to have violent feelings may suddenly feel numbness in her arms after becoming so angry that she wanted to hit someone. Instead of allowing herself to have violent thoughts about hitting someone, she experiences the physical symptom of numbness in her arms.” “For example, imagine taking a hard fall off your bike and then not being able to move your arm. But your arm isn’t injured. Neither is any other part of your body.Your body converted the emotional and psychological stress of your fall into the physical response of a paralyzed arm.” “Physical symptoms can sometimes help with an internal conflict. For example, if you’re struggling with the desire to hurt someone, conversion disorder may cause you to become paralyzed, making it impossible to act on that desire.”

now back to ava. it started to happen after the car accident that took her mom. because of how stressful it was, for weeks, ava was paralysed n doctors were confused cuz every test didnt show how the fuck that can happen. some episodes last days but sometimes its weeks, n they might be gone just as soon as they appeared. 

lil 7 year old ava was terrified n it just kept being amplified everytime she thought it was getting better. her mom was dead. the doctors told her her dad wasn’t coming to pick her up which shocked her cuz she thought he was dead (very awkward for the doctors). both parents only children so no help there, grandparents either dead or in care homes. 

then she gets send to the orphanage, all alone and confused since they were in Spain on vacation n now she doesnt understand anything. most workers n kids dont even speaking spanish since the orphanage specializes in misplaced children, so now shes learning english, n spanish, and she thinks shes still paralysed for weeks, months UNTIL. she makes a friend, a kid in another room who found out abt her n befriended her. 

and ava only starts feeling better when this friend, diego, who’s such a sweet boy, but so sick he’s not gonna live that much longer, and he knows it, says “jsut because you cant move doesnt mean ur not fun!! i think ur cool, ava silva.” n ava moves. its a miracle, diego is an angel, ava is saved n all the kids are ecstatic, ava is crying in pure relief but also confusion because what???

doctors label it as a freak accident n dont want to think much of it since what does it matter, ava is just a girl. but the childcare workers now label ava as the attention seeker n never trust her abt anything. some older kids do it too, but most of them are agaisnt the ladies there out of principle n spite. still, it sucked, n now ava cant trust any adult to save her life n cant even trust her own body to work how its supposed to.

as she gets older she both gets better and worse? she definitely knows when and how to calm down, n the episodes go away if the main source of stress gets resolved, except for any stress caused by ptsd, which ava definitely has from yknow the fucking accident n her moms death. she also, however, has a very yolo mentality, n will get in trouble n in stressful situations most of the time. she’s a menace to herself, n it normally results in one or more limbs to go numb or paralyzed. 

she was homeschooled tho, since it two maybe 2 years of her being bullied, picked on, critiqued, n having the overall stressful n horrible experience that is being a new kid in a new school after ur mom died, for the teachers to beg the childcare workers to keep her at home and safe so she stops showing all these upsetting symptoms. its freaking everyone out and it disrupts the class. so yh, ava was struggling.

when she turns 18 n ages out of the orphanage, she scrambles to find a job n a home n shit. father vincent, a local priest, helps her and shelters her. she shows her the beauty of religion n its practices n the glory of god, but ava is more fascinated by the art there. like sure shes seen movies n read things, but shes never stepped foot in a museum. in fact she didnt go out much just out of precaution n also cuz the ladies most of the time forbade her (if she got hurt they could come under fire n they didnt want that with her symptoms n their unpredictability)

vincent tries to teach ava all abt religion, meanwhile she’s studying the architecture, the paintings, the sculptures. vincent wanted a student, but he didnt have that in ava. so he decided to embrace that n help ava with this calling. its also vincent who tells ava to go to therapy n research abt her symptoms n possible disorder. ava does it more out of the fear vincent would get fed up with her not following his rules n getting kicked out for it. it actually helped tho, and she wont admit it to no one ever. 

i rly like this hc for this au, since it stays true to the character while remaining realistic to our universe n world n shit. HOWEVER. if anyone who has this disorder wants to criticize anything ive written, pls dm me, ask me, whatever. im open for constructive criticism always!! 

also this got long apologies

[autisticmob]

okay so. i don’t particularly enjoy talking abt abor/tion rights As A Topic because people get just.... SO heated about it. but I live like right next to plan/ned parent/hood, and its across-the-street neighbor, nebraska right to life, who supplies a near constant stream of protesters. so it’s a thing i encounter and think about a Lot and today i realized smth that made me incredibly angry so i just gotta rant i guess.

so what i realized is that outlawing abor/tion provides my living body less of a right to bodily autonomy than my corpse. like, in order to Most Completely legally protect the integrity of my body, i as someone with a uterus would have to Die, which is supremely ironic given that proponents of these restrictions claim to be “pro lif/e.”

like okay, i personally am an organ donor, but for the sake of argument let’s assume i am not. when i die, if someone wants my organs, even if it’s to save a human life, even if i’m the only potential donor they can find, they can’t take my organs if i did not consent to it premortem. 

now for the sake of argument let’s pretend i’m alive and pregnant, but did not plan to be, and would prefer not to be. the argument these protesters are making is that the unborn child in my uterus requires my body to survive, it will die otherwise, and as such it has a right to stay in my uterus until i give birth to it. but the thing is, i haven’t consented to that. even if it was my choice to have sex with somebody, i consented to like, Have Sex. I never consented to becoming pregnant or carrying a baby to full term. 

so by organ donation laws, i should be able to say, “hey, no, this other human being can’t use my organs. I don’t consent to that.” that logic would stand up in court if i was a corpse! but because i’m alive, these people are saying that i should be legally compelled to give an entire organ to this other tiny human for 9 months? that’s wack. that’s stupid.

or like! say i was dying of kidney failure, and i needed a donor or i would die. and let’s say i find out somehow that another person is a perfect match for me, and really the only viable donor. according to the logic of these protesters, that other person should be LEGALLY COMPELLED to give me one of their kidneys, because i would otherwise die. 

but that’s not how the law works! that isn’t how bodily autonomy works! that would be madness! that would be repo the genetic FUCKING opera irl!! but apparently this one specific organ, this one Specific type of body is different for them. god its so fucking stupid i’m just angry

[onlyfangz]

i agree with your points, but i take issue with your opener -- trans women have it worse on almost every front. if we're talking about things like rape stats, suicide stats, access to HRT, reproductive rights (or lack thereof), and bodily autonomy then no, trans women do not have it "worse", (which im taking to mean as one group is more likely to experience a specific form of oppression), but i wonder why its important to people at all.

transfem and transmasc experiences and oppression are (in most ways) not comparable, so why must every statement about transmasc oppression be blanketed with a (false) acknowledgement that other people have it worse? its a common trauma response to believe that other people are worse off that you -- thats one thing -- but to push that onto other people? what are we achieving? what benefit does this serve to either trans men or women?

i genuinely do not blame you for thinking like this -- part of the oppression transmascs face is silencing, and in fact it is an integral part of the beast that keeps us oppressed -- but there is a real problem when transmascs ourselves actually start believing it. that our trauma are anomolies, and something that needs to be downplayed in order to even mention them, that we're an afterthought when it comes to trans rights.

it is generally believed that because one side of the trans community is more likely to experience a specific form of oppression, that it mustnt happen to any other aspect of the community and that is just point blank falsehood. trans men may be less likely than trans women to be murdered bc someone realises theyre trans, but this does not make this smth only trans women experience, and trans men are still more likely to be murdered than cis people by cis people. same with the rape stat -- trans men are more likely than trans women to be raped however that does not mean trans women do not or can not experience this. it is not misdirected, theyre targeted attacks, and whilst statistics are important, actual experiences matter more.

we have really allowed cis women to get FAR too comfortable being transphobic toward trans men.