#there are other support systems for that

[elijasz]

Okay I was going to put this in the tags but its honestly too important.

Apart from the financial struggle, which includes having to potentially care financially for your family instead of the other way around, there are a BUNCH of other socio-economic factors that prevent poor people from getting higher education.

One is that people who grew up poor have much higher chances of having less language proficiency, knowledge about the world etc. One of the main reasons for that is communication with the parents. If your parents work a lot, they dont have time to talk to you. If you don't eat dinner together because your parents are exhausted, or you cannot talk about your day and your experiences and ask questions, discuss etc, you will likely end up with a smaller vocabulary, less grammatical fluency, worse conflict management skills, issues critically reflecting behaviour and actions (though this is quickly fixed because the world LOVES giving marginalized people criticism and forcing them to change), and much more. Just from a lack of conversation with parents or caretakers. We also cannot ignore the stress and psychological pressure poor people are under for a bunch of reasons.

But back to the language part, because that's what I know about. Children from less privileged financial backgrounds often acquire a certain way of speaking, that is connected to their class. They don't have the opportunities to develop an academic style and this can already inhibit their application process. Adding slower writing and reading speed and taking longer for listening comprehension means they take longer to process and produce work. This takes from their freetime. Their work also takes from their freetime. This is just one of the instances where "we all have the same 24 hours" is total bullshit. Now if you consider that poor people have a higher chance of medical issues, chronic illness, mental and physical disabilities etc, we get to the point were they already spend more money to live, then spend more money to study, potentially need more time to achieve the same goals, which also costs money, and then still have to deal with so much other stuff going untreated because medical care is fucking expensive, you have a recipe for self sustaining classism.

This isn't just an american thing either. We've been talking about this issue at uni in Germany. Our education costs "only" a few hundred euros per YEAR. But the issue is that your workload, the expected workload you have to follow if you want to finish in the recommended/expected time, is often more than 60h a week. Again, adding the extra time poor people might need, and the time people need to work because living costs money and living in university cities costs even more, you have people working 70-100h work weeks.

I worked a lot since childhood because I grew up poor. When I started Uni I lived in a cheap apartment and because I had a well paying job, I was able to sustain myself with only a little support from my parents (who worked extra so my sibling and I could get a higher education. All of us worked more so my sibling and I could afford getting something that's claimed to be "free" in Germany). But you know what happened? I got fucking burnout a few semesters in. Because I was at uni 8-10 hours a day on week days and worked at least another 2 hours after uni every day, and that was barely enough, because I didn't have fucking latin, or hadn't read Judith Butler, or Mann, or Brecht, or whatever else they expected my parents to have at home. I worked my ass off on week days and on Friday I went straight to work after uni, worked until 4am, went to sleep, worked on some paper or presentation, went to work again and so on. I had NO freetime. If my job hadn't required me to walk 10-20km every night, and carry a shitton of full glasses, I'd have gotten no exercise at all.

Went my therapist said I need to slow down, I asked him how. Because I was never asked to slow down before. It was always more more more. Never less. I had to learn to destress because I had several years of stress build up and didn't even realise because I still wasnt performing to the standard I compared myself too: Rich people whose parents were academics, whose parents paid for everything the owned, ate, smoked and drank, who didn't need to go to an extra course to understand the text that kept referencing historical events I'd never heard about or used Latin phrases that left me confused.

Being poor means trying much harder than everyone to achieve the same shit, breaking yourself to be average, and then getting ridiculed because you fall asleep in class, or get sick a lot, or start smoking to cope with the stress because god forbid your suffering isn't sexy and presentable.

There are so many classist systems and the education system is one of the worst. Its self sustaining and allows all other systems of classist oppression to continue. Because it prevents people from taking narrative agency, from telling their stories in a way academia deems acceptable and "scientific". Because it prevents poor people from gaining access to power and to the knowledge on how to break out of that system. I have broken out of that system. But it's cost me a lot and I wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't had a supportive partner and parents, who literally worked themselves to failure to support me. (literally. they went to work sick, came home, changed and went to their other job. I'm not joking when I say they worked themselves to failure. Their bodies are failing and I don't have the option to support them yet because I needed to slow down myself so i dont break)

People don't understand how harmful, how deadly, this system is and how it goes beyond free education. Classism is a societal issue that needs to be resolved more than ever, as more people become poor and more money exists in the hands of those who need it least.

We don't just need free education, we need financial support independent of how long its taking you to finish your studies, instead dependent on how much you need to survive as an individual, not a calculated number. And we need a reformed system that recognises that some people will struggle more than others because of their background. With or without their own "fault".

[wispforever]

happy pride, everybody. ask me about my queer system

[Edit: now has image description]

[inkskinned]

you were raised in comparison.

it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.

you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.

you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.

what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.

it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.

you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.

you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?

a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.

you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.

it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.

something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[uncanny-tranny]

Social transition being seen (by some) as this super easy thing that isn't as hard as real transitioning (medical) is bullshit. Be critical of the idea that there are some trans people who just "have it easy" because they are trans or because they are trans in ways you may not be.

Social transition is just as difficult, hard, and rewarding as medical transition. Maybe it is not as hard for some, sure, but that is not the same as thinking that social transition is inherently easier or lesser. If you're socially transitioning, your voice still matters.

[m-a-d-e-l-e-i-n-e]

I hope leftists who think they’re above voting for president or are voting for Jill Stein or whoever because it’s their stupid way of protesting the system feel good about themselves, especially if Trump wins partly because of your negligence 😍 I know you’re not doing shit to plan the proletarian revolution, especially before January, so you guys better not complain about something harming you that you didn’t even bother to try and change

(edit: changed the last part bc I wrote “…if life gets a lot worse for you” cause that does nottt sound right at all and I apologize for writing that)

[aroaceleovaldez]

The himbo, malewife, goofball -fication of percy jackson is such a crime by both the fans and riordan. It has made Mr not like percabeth as a couple because in all posts and in later books annabeth is such a girlboss, while Percy's dumb and can't fight his way out of a paperbag without her. All the posts are about how annabeth will be an architect and percy would love to be a trophy husband.

Even the humor in the books went from Percy's sharp wit and snark to 'my pancakes can't drown because I'm a son of poseidon.'

And now this recommendation letter bullshit.

Honestly now I'd wish percy just separated from annabeth (but they remain best friends.) He stays home with his family, becomes a camp counselor, helps young demigods, holds God's accountable and eventually becomes a social activist. (I also dislike him doing something marine biology related. It's clear he hates academics but he always wants to help people. Him helping demigods and mortals is such a wholesome profession for him.)

I fully agree with the first half of this, though I slightly disagree with part of the latter.

The later-series and fanon mischaracterization of Percy is at least a solid 50% ableism minimum, full stop. He's being warped into a very stereotyped ADHD character and the exact reason why he's being characterized as "dumb" is because of ableism. Percy is a very intelligent character! That's exactly why he's so in sync with Annabeth and they're such a strong duo! It's just generally Annabeth is more book/academically smart.

I disagree with where you say he hates academics - because that's one of the common misconceptions about his character. Percy doesn't hate learning or academic subjects! He's not even bad at them! We know explicitly that when he is in an accommodating environment he is interested in learning and gets significantly better grades! Percy only dislikes school because it is generally an environment that systematically he struggles with. It's literally just he has a learning disability (two, actually)! That's it! When his learning disability is accommodated for he does well! It's almost like that's what accommodations are all about! We know this from the first series! It's discussed pretty in-depth! Percy isn't a dumb character and he doesn't hate learning, he's just been let down by school systems so much that he's inherently distrustful of them. If they actually accommodate him though then he does just fine!

And that's exactly what CHB was all about and why New Rome University was supposed to be such a big thing for him! CHB is a learning environment geared for demigods. NRU is a demigod college. Both inherently imply an environment meant to cater to and accommodate students with ADHD and dyslexia! They are both systematically structured to be able to accommodate him! Heck, CHB and CJ even both address in the wider themes of the series a metaphor about how ADHD and dyslexia are commonly seen as childhood disabilities, and how it can be more difficult to find accommodations into adulthood because of that attitude but those disabilities don't just go away - that's why CHB is a summer camp but they talk about how demigods outside of CHB don't often fare well. The metaphor there is those who are not getting help or accommodations are struggling. Because that's how that works! This is a fully intentional metaphor from the first series! CHB is never framed as being perfect for demigods, because one of the entire central conflicts of the series is Percy and Luke going back and forth about this flawed system meant to help and support them but still letting people fall through the cracks. The "claim your kids by 13" thing is a metaphor about how acknowledging a child's disabilities (and possibly getting a diagnosis) earlier/as early as possible means they will have more time to learn and build up resources and support for themselves to be able to use later in life. One of CHB's major flaws is that it can accommodate demigods to a certain point, but it can only do so much before those demigods have to leave (the metaphor being accommodating school systems when those disabled students do not have any other forms of accommodations in their lives.)

And that's why Camp Jupiter was framed as being so revolutionary for Percy because it had an environment acknowledging that this is not just a childhood disability, adults with ADHD/dyslexia exist too and still need and deserve accommodations, AND is a place where those accommodations are available. That's why Camp Jupiter and NRU are treated as such special and important things to Percy, because it's essentially Percy being shown this type of thing can and does exist and it is available to him. It is an option he never thought was possible. Percy never thought he'd be able to go to college because he would not be able to go through school without accommodations, but NRU proves otherwise.

The part that's absolutely stupid is Rick then proceeded to retcon NRU so that apparently it's not a full college and Percy still has to take classes at normal mortal college which DEFEATS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF NRU EXISTING. Rick has fully retconned that demigods struggle past the ages of 16-18 when they're on their own (see above elaborated metaphors) and in doing so we have fully killed all symbolism in literally all of that. It's so stupid. And by having the plot of the CoTG trilogy entirely be that Percy is not actually allowed access to NRU in the first place because he is a son of Poseidon and has to do extra to even be accepted is stupid!

All that to say, I agree the marine biology feels like a huge cop-out and a disservice to his character by reducing him to just a son of Poseidon. The literal only reason why it's the default option people take for him is because oh, fish thing, fish guy. But I feel like everyone ignores the really obvious answer for what Percy would want to do which is - writing. Both his parents are writers/authors and he clearly admires that about them. Percy likes telling stories! He canonically is already a published author in-universe! That's what the books ARE in-universe! The first series fully exists in their universe and Percy is the author! This is explicit canonical information! Percy canonically has help physically writing it down (accommodations) but he is still the credited author! Percy is a writer! Already! Canonically! Why are we making him a marine biologist he already has a profession that ties into his character significantly more. Like you said, Percy likes helping people. That's what the books in-universe are supposed to be for! It's point blank at the beginning of the series! Book one! The thing everybody quotes all the time! The books exist because it is Percy trying to give advice to other demigods who don't know what's going on yet! It's Percy's writing down his experiences to help new demigods understand and contextualize their experiences so they can understand themselves better and figure out what's going on - WHICH IN ITSELF IS ALSO A METAPHOR ABOUT ADHD/DYSLEXIA! Because the core of the series has and always will be built around ADHD/dyslexia! Percy as a protagonist EXPLICITLY was created so that ADHD/dyslexic kids could see themselves as a hero!

Sorry that all was a very tangential rant but my point being: Absolutely. Percy in newer stuff in the franchise and in fanon is horrifically mischaracterized in ways that are functionally either fully ableist (shoutout TSATS for just outright claiming Percy is intentionally lazy and skips school out of disinterest, which is like the number one ableist attitude towards kids with learning disabilities) or a complete erasure of Percy's disabilities. Also I think he should be a writing major not a marine biologist.

[serpentface]

This was going to be a panel of a little comic but I got too invested in drawing minute background details so, here.

[tevanbegins]

Chimney and Tommy's reactions whenever their parents-in-law visit: 😖😐

[seance]

LET'S GET YOU BACK ON THE SHIP. YOU NEED IT.

[compaculaaa]

Please excuse my attempt at being funny

[menlove]

one crazy thing about the "male loneliness epidemic" to me is that romantic/sexual love and companionship is not the be all end all. for many women, straight & queer, their friendships with other women are the most important ones in their lives. and yet somehow men not being able to make friends they can open up with and find emotional fulfillment from is women's fault lmfao. like no I'm sorry that you're lonely, but there's a lot at play here including the way men treat male friendships. go figure yourselves out and treat each other better before whining and stomping your foot that you're not getting pussy like cmon man 😭

[necrotic-nephilim]

this is not a ship post, but something that frustrates me a lot in fanon concerning Jason Todd that attempts to soften Jason's return to Gotham for the sake of found family domesticity or easy hurt/comfort or just sliding him into the Batfam sooner, is they all seem to fundamentally misunderstand Jason.

because there seem to be a lot of fandom popular concepts of Jason coming home much sooner and just not having his whole Under The Red Hood arc. which in theory is fine and i can see the want to simplify canon to make room for your lighthearted more fluff-leaning concepts. but in everyone without fail, the way they address the clown-shaped elephant in the room is by having some throwaway line that "oh Jason quietly kills the Joker and moves on".

when the Joker being dead or alive is not the *point*. if by some chance accident, the Joker had died prior to Jason's return, whether by ridiculous freak accident, getting whacked by a fellow villain, hell even someone actually doing so to avenge Jason, it *would not* satiate Jason's anger. because Jason's end goal in UtRH is not to simply kill the Joker: it is to make *Bruce* kill the Joker. Jason's anger is directed to the idea that to Jason, if Bruce truly loved Jason, he would've killed the Joker. that is love, for Jason. compromising your personal values for love and not letting someone go unavenged. when Jason was Robin, almost every angry or misguided thing he did was born of love. he wanted to kill/hurt Two-Face because he believed Dent killed his father. he was so angry at Felipe because an innocent woman was dead due to that man's actions. he wanted to save his mother in a situation he knew he shouldn't be in because he loved her. his anger, his violence, it is driven by love and feelings of righting wrongs. that is how he thinks wrongs *should* be righted. that is how you avenge and *love* someone.

because so long as Jason's return to Gotham doesn't end in Bruce killing the Joker (which, it never will bc Bruce is Bruce), Jason will never forgive Bruce. you cannot wave away the layers of hurt and complicated trauma by killing Joker offscreen. because Jason will still be angry that Bruce didn't avenge him. in his eyes, that means Bruce did not love him enough. he was not truly loved by Bruce the way he loved Bruce. bc Bruce was Jason's whole *world*. prior to being taken in, Dick and Tim, they had support systems. they had loved ones. they knew what stability and healthy family love looked like. Jason *didn't*. and that's not to say that Catherine Todd did not love him with her whole heart and thus he loved her, but it certainly wasn't a stable and safe support system for Jason to grow up in. Bruce was Jason's first real sense of a stable, healthy life. and so of course Jason poured everything into Bruce and loved Bruce so devoutly. Bruce was his world. like he says, if it had been Bruce, Jason would've stopped at nothing.

so his betrayal is rooted in that he was not avenged, not that Joker is alive. so long as the Joker does not die by Bruce's hands, it will never be enough for Jason. (in this era, at least.) notably, this is also why i don't think it would change a thing if Jason knew the whole "oh Bruce wanted to kill the Joker but Superman stopped him" tidbit that fanon has really latched onto as a way to pacify Jason's anger toward Bruce. Jason knowing that wouldn't change a thing, in my opinion. because Jason knows Bruce. and a tenant of Bruce's character is that he grapples with murder *every day*. the whole point is how *easy* it would be for him. he is a human weapon, trained by killers, trained to be deadly. he is the greatest strategist to exist. he knows he could kill someone and get away with it. *no* trace, no proof, nothing. and he knows he *wants* to. wants to kill the Joker, Joe Chill, anyone who's hurt him that viscerally.

but he *doesn't*. that's the point. Bruce wakes up every day with that question on his mind, and every day the answer is the same. Bruce's morality is not a decision he made in an alleyway when his parents died, it's a decision he continues to make every day and he *must* continue to make in order to remain who he is. Jason is quite familiar with the fact that Bruce grapples with this daily. i do not think it surprised nor fazed Jason to know that Bruce did *consider* killing the Joker. that he wanted to. maybe even planned to. but a consideration, a want, a plan, is just a thought. it's nothing substantial, and substance is everything to Jason. at the end of the day, Bruce didn't. he was talked down by *Clark* of all people with an excuse of diplomatic immunity, as if Jason and Bruce don't both know that Bruce could've *easily* found a way to make it look like an accident or some other loophole. because he's Batman. there's always a loophole. he always finds a way when he actually intends to. but he never actually intended to kill the Joker. so he didn't. and Jason would know that there was never an intent. it's an interesting piece of fodder to add to the nuance of Jason and Bruce, but honestly, i think it'd make Jason angrier to have that excuse thrown in his face. as if Bruce hasn't beaten Clark half a dozen times by now. it's a flimsy nonsense excuse that Jason would rip to shreds.

so while yes, i understand the wish for easy lighthearted fanfic that doesn't have to deal with the nuances of canon, i think that Jason's character will always be so deeply robbed and altered if you try to fix his thirst for vengeance with an off-page killing of Joker at Jason's hands. it was never the point. the point was that -in his own eyes- he wasn't loved enough for Bruce to make an acception. he realized that not even his *death* would come before Bruce's Mission. Jason truly believed that Bruce loved him and held him as the most important thing in the world, and now he has proof that Bruce didn't. because the Mission mattered more.

i'm not saying i have a solution to this conundrum if you're attempting to solve it for fanfic/fanon, nor am i even saying it's a bad thing it exists. i just think it becoming overwhelmingly common has led to misunderstandings surrounding Jason's motivations and feelings about this arc and it's an unsatisfying solution that only seeks to pacify Jason's rage and his trauma responses for the sake of found family-ification.

[erinwantstowrite]

why are people saying Bruce was a teen when he started fostering Dick? he was in his early twenties

[varpusvaras]

Do I think Jason should have to cut contact with the rest of the family just because of Bruce? No. The "Batfam" is not a singular unit, and it has people in it that do not answer directly to Bruce in every single thing. Do I think that he should have to leave Gotham, too, because of Bruce? Absolutely not, that is his home just as much as it is everybody else's. It's not fair to him.

Do I think, though, that both of those things might be the only way for him to heal and be safer? Unfortunately, yes.

[dorianbrightmusic]

PSA

-OCD is not a synonym for neat or preoccupied with tidiness. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is all about distressing intrusive thoughts and rituals (compulsions) used to combat those thoughts.

-Intrusive thoughts are not synonymous with silly things I want to do. They're deeply upsetting, often taboo mental apparitions. Letting them win is the last thing anyone wants, and nobody is immoral for having them. (See 'impulsive thoughts' if you need a term.)

-Anorexic is not a synonym for thin or emaciated. The majority of anorexic people have OSFED atypical anorexia – that is, their BMI is above 18.5. You cannot judge the severity of someone's illness by their appearance. (If you're worried about someone, look out more for rapid weight loss than thinness, even when it's occurring in someone in a larger body. 10kg in 10 weeks is never a good thing.)

-Eating disorders are not synonymous with just anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is an ED, but it's nowhere near the most common. Bulimia is an ED, but again, not the most common. Together, they do not constitute the most common. The most common ED is binge-eating disorder, and the second most common is atypical anorexia, which is one of many, many OSFED categories. Those living with ARFID, pica, night-eating syndrome, rumination disorder, subthreshold BN, subthreshold BED, and orthorexia all deserve dignity, compassion, and acknowledgement. Remember: EDs are not necessarily thin, and never glamorous.

-Schizophrenic is not a synonym of all over the place, abnormal, unpredictable, dangerous, or crazy. Nor is schizoid or schizotypal. Folks with schizophrenia spectrum disorders live with hallucinations, delusions, disorganised thoughts/behaviour, and/or catatonia. They are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators, and go to huge lengths to act okay even when distressed by symptoms.

-Schizophrenic is also not a synonym of multiple personalities/volatile. For the disorder involving having different facets of personality that are generally unaware of each other, see Dissociative Identity Disorder, and even then, don't assume it's a) dramatic as it is in the movies; b) evil; or c) trivial. DID is a trauma disorder.

-Delusional is not a synonym of wrong. Nor is it the same as this politician/friend is saying something I do not like/that is potentially dangerous. Delusions are false, fixed beliefs held despite evidence. And generally, folks with delusions don't tend to proselytise them. I know that certain politicians have beliefs that seem to persist in the face of evidence, but nevertheless, we don't need to stigmatise mental illness further to call out poor political/social behaviour. If you need a word for the pundit spewing potentially dangerous content, use 'dangerous' or 'wrong', but don't call them delusional.

-Bipolar is not a synonym of all over the place or fluctuating results. Bipolar disorder involves mood states that, even in the rapid cycling form, tend to last at least 3-4 days (mania) and weeks (depression). If you need a word for the weather, use 'British' instead.

-Psychotic is not a synonym of evil. Psychosis is losing touch with reality, whether it be through hallucinations or delusions. It doesn't make a person bad or violent. It's just a neurological phenomenon that may be distressing. It's also relatively common: 6-15% of people will hallucinate in their lifetime.

-ADHD is not a synonym of just quirky/scattered/forgetful/unfocussed/lazy/careless. ADHD is fundamentally a disorder of being able to choose where to direct attention, rather than of just I can't focus. If someone can't tune out the noise of the crowd, but can't prevent themself focussing on something trivial because their brain is wired that way, it's not laziness or just being quirky/scattered.

-Autistic meltdown is not a synonym of temper tantrum.

-Borderline is not a synonym of harridan.

-Narcissist is not a synonym of abuser.

-Mentally ill is not a synonym of volatile or bad person. This doesn't mean we have to make something artificially positive out of mental disorders. If there is good to be found in certain disorders, great; if there is nothing positive about living with certain others, that doesn't make you any less real or resilient than anyone else. It's okay to have complex feelings about your own disorders. It's okay to feel exhausted or frustrated by a disorder. But never should anyone have to face stigma.