open thread

Open Thread: What Do You Like About Yourself?

Miri13 Comments

Right now is a difficult time for many people for many reasons. It’s hard (for me, maybe also for you) to know that there isn’t really anything you can do that will make it better right away.

Sometimes that means feeling useless, worthless, and incompetent, especially if you, like me, also struggle with mental illness.

Something I occasionally find useful in these moments is to remind myself that there are good things about me that I like, and that they are true even if I mess up and even if the world sucks and even if I feel like I’m not doing “enough.”

Speaking positively about yourself can be hard, especially for women (who are often socialized to not “brag” and to be “humble”) and especially for people with mental illnesses (who can have difficulty earnestly believing that they have any positive qualities at all). I am both of these things, so this is an exercise I especially appreciate.

Here are some things I like about myself:

  • writing skills
  • ability to set boundaries clearly with people
  • resourcefulness
  • physical strength
  • ability to see the good in things/people I otherwise dislike and to acknowledge the bad in things/people I otherwise like
  • ability to care about issues even in the absence of a strong emotional response to them
  • comfort with apologizing
  • comfort with just sitting and listening to people without judging, offering advice, getting overwhelmed, or turning the conversation back to myself
  • willingness to deal with the negative emotions that being polyamorous sometimes brings up, as well as ability to experience compersion for my partners
  • style. See below for evidence. 🙂

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book_selfie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you like about yourself?

Open Thread: What Do You Like About Yourself?
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Housekeeping & Open Thread

Miri, , , , , 2 Comments

Hello! I’ve been too busy to do very much writing that isn’t for pay (that is, the Daily Dot). I haven’t even had a chance to do any proper link roundups, so I haven’t shared these two things with you:

1. I had the opportunity to be a guest on a lovely podcast called Sex For Smart People. In this episode, we discussed catcalling, female orgasms, Jian Ghomeshi, Gamergate, that Northwestern University professor who was accused of sexual assault and responded by suing the accuser, and affirmative consent laws. And more. Check it out here.

2. Skepticon is tomorrow! I’m repeating my workshop from last year, Getting It On at the Con: How to Get Lucky Consensually. It’ll be at 3 PM tomorrow in the delightfully named Maui Ballroom. Same deal as last time. In addition, I am taking my DSLR to Skepticon, so if you are there and want nice shots of your outfits, find me and let me know! I will not think you are vain. I love photographing people.

Immediately following Skepticon, I’ll be spending a lovely week at home in Ohio, where I will cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner for many people. Hopefully some actual writing will get done during that time, too.

Since I’ve been so absent lately, let’s do an open thread! What have you been reading or writing lately? What’s going on in your life? How are you coping with these bullshit temperatures? Why is your city the absolute best city in the world? (You’ve already heard my answer to that question, so I’m opening it up to you.) How do you feel about [current event I have not written about]? Here is your chance to talk about all the stuff you can’t normally talk about in my threads because it would be off-topic!

Housekeeping & Open Thread

Open Thread: In What Ways Do You Fail At Adulthood?

Miri, , 37 Comments

This may seem like a weirdly negative open thread topic, but there’s a point to it, trust me.

Something I’ve been struggling with a lot since I was 19 or 20 or so is the idea of Being An Adult and what that means. More specifically, there are a lot of things, small things and big things, that I feel I “ought” to be able to do if I am to Be An Adult, but I can’t do them, or don’t feel like doing them. Do I still get to consider myself an adult? How do I resolve the cognitive dissonance of being unable to do something that’s part of my mental schema of what adulthood means?

In some ways, I fit the “adult” stereotype. I don’t receive financial assistance from my parents. I can throw a legitimate dinner party. I have houseplants and keep them alive for the most part. I pay off my credit card in full every month. I basically take care of myself and my own needs, do the things that need to be done without reminders or cajoling from anyone, and set my own goals without needing anyone else’s approval.

But in other ways, there are still a lot of “adult things” that I can’t seem to get right. For instance:

  • I do not bring my lunch to work. I hate food that’s been sitting in tupperware for hours. I hate cooking in the morning or the night before. I hate soggy sandwiches. I hate salads. I hate cold lunch. I hate carrying around even more stuff. I hate washing tupperware that’s been sitting around all day. I hate forgetting to wash tupperware that’s been sitting around all day. I hate feeling hungry no matter what I brought because I can never bring as much as I can get at a local take-out place. I hate eating 10 granola bars for lunch. I hate that 10 granola bars cost more than lunch from a local take-out place and feel much less satisfying. I hate a lot of things. So I buy my fucking lunch.
  • I cannot arrive anywhere without being sweaty and disheveled. Even if I’m not in a rush! The city means lots of walking and lots of standing wedged in a mass of people on the subway. Unless I give myself an extra half hour so I can wait for the nicest emptiest train and then crawl down the street to my destination at a leisurely pace, I’m going to show up hot and exhausted and with my hair going all over the place.
  • I am bad at alcohol. I hate beer. I hate whiskey and scotch and all that other stuff. I don’t really like wine except the very sweet wine, and I know nothing about picking out nice wine. I don’t know how to mix drinks. When I go out to a bar I order a diet rum & coke, a vodka cranberry, or one of the special cocktails. I absolutely don’t give a fuck which wines go with which foods. The only reason I ever pay a lot of money for alcohol is because otherwise you can’t drink in New York.
  • I do not make my bed. Because IDGAF.
  • I also don’t dust anything. I hate dusting. I have no idea where to put the things that were on the surface while I’m dusting that surface. I can’t notice dust for some reason, so I have no idea what I need to dust. Also, it’s so much more boring than almost any other cleaning task.
  • I have not had a serious romantic relationship with anyone who actually lives in my city for over five years and counting. A psychoanalyst would have a field day with me. Maybe I have a pathological fear of letting anyone get too close to me. Or maybe I just don’t have time to see the same person several times a week. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence.
  • I don’t frame any of the things I put up on my walls. I don’t care if it’s “college-y.” Money’s tight, framing is expensive, and the last thing I want is for that shit to fall on the floor and break.
  • I do not wear pumps, pantsuits, necklaces, bracelets, button-downs, sweater sets (is that even still a thing), or any of that kind of Career Woman stuff. And I thank a nonexistent deity every day that I work in a field where this stuff is unnecessary.
  • I live with roommates. I adore my roommates and it’s not like I have any other option, but it’s hard to feel like a grown-up when I can’t have my own place to live.
  • I only go to the doctor when I’m sick. Time, money.
  • I miss my family to an unreasonable and depressing extent. 
  • I have no idea what I’ll end up doing as a career. I only know what I want to do, but that’s not the same as having a plan that I’m confident I can carry out.

Of course, the more I think about it, the more I realize that this isn’t really about failing at adulthood. It’s about not living up to a societal image of what a mature person ought to look like and be able to do. A lot of this is out of our control, some of it isn’t, but ultimately none of it is a reasonable way to judge someone’s value and capabilities as a human being.

But sometimes it helps to share it with other people and see that you’re not at all alone in feeling inadequate and a little like a child sometimes. Even the people we compare ourselves to when we’re feeling negative probably have these same thoughts.

So: in what ways do you fail at adulthood? What did you expect to be doing, or able to do, by now that you still can’t get right? 

As a friendly reminder, please do not give advice (to me or to any other commenter) unless they’ve specifically asked for it. And if you want advice, feel free to ask for it directly.

Open Thread: In What Ways Do You Fail At Adulthood?

Open Thread: How Do You Practice Self-Care?

Miri, , , , 28 Comments
A teapot and a mug that says, "Write like a motherfucker."
90 degrees outside. No fucks given.

I’m going to give open threads a try! The folks who comment here seem to have a lot of interesting things to share, so I thought it’d be cool to have some threads where you can talk about yourself as much as you want.

The topic I’m starting with is self-care. Whether or not you have what could be called Mental Health Problems, everyone needs to calm down, unwind, or get their mind off of things sometimes. Different things work for different people, and sometimes something that seems really weird or counterintuitive will help someone.

Self-care is not a replacement or substitute for treatment (if you need it). It’s a way for people to cope with stress and jerkbrain, maintain recovery from a mental illness, or help manage mental illness symptoms if you have them. So none of these things are intended to cure or treat anything, and a lot of frustration tends to arise when people offer them up as “advice” for those with mental illnesses.

We each know best what helps us best. Here’s how I like to do self-care:

  • Hot tea. (Even in the summer. Must be because I’m Russian.)
  • Writing, even if it’s about something heavy.
  • Taking a hot shower, even if it’s just to have a place to cry in private.
  • Cleaning, organizing, doing dishes. My apartment tends to get cleaner the more life problems I’m having.
  • Going for a walk and listening to music. Unfortunately, I don’t get to do this so much now that I live in the city, where it wouldn’t be relaxing or necessarily pleasant. But my high school years, back in Ohio, were full of leisurely walks around the neighborhood.
  • Playing music. Now that I finally have a keyboard piano, I’ll finally be able to do that again.
  • Reading sci-fi novels or nonfiction articles. For some reason, it has to be one or the other. Nonfiction books don’t work, and short stories or poetry don’t work.
  • Watching something that tells a good story but doesn’t require careful attention. So, Star Trek and Doctor Who are in; West Wing and Damages are out.
  • Talking to a friend about something totally unrelated.

Some things that help lots of people but not me are: YouTube videos, animal photos, talking to someone about the thing I’m upset/stressed about, eating, video games (though I like them at other times), basically anything that’s supposed to be funny/uplifting. The first two are especially frustrating, because the first thing many people will do if I say I’m feeling down is send me YouTube videos and animal photos. Then I have to either pretend that it helped, or tell them that that doesn’t help. (Except sometimes. Hard to predict.)

 

What works for you? What doesn’t?

Open Thread: How Do You Practice Self-Care?