icon: "hissing (a photo of a snow leopard hissing with mouth open, whiskers back and ears flattened)"I am a very passionate person who is loud about their opinions, so I've had a significant number of arguments with friends that were so heated we stopped talking. At that point they may have considered me their enemy, but I always expected that ( Read more... )

icon: "analytical (a close-up photo of my eye in bright sunlight, showing the green and grey and roots-looking patterns)"When your parents or childhood caretakers have abused you, it is profoundly important to admit that it was abuse* (at least to yourself), regardless of your current relationship. Childhood is where you get your sense of normal; ( Read more... )

icon: "distance (two hands (from a brown person and a white person) just barely apart, facing each other palm to palm)"I have a dirty little secret to share about the queer world: it's just as misogynistic as the straight cis world, and even more femmephobic. At least among straight cis people it's fine for one group of people (women) to be femme, ( Read more... )

icon: "pain (a digital painting of a thin naked person crouching with arms tight to their chest and hands over their face, and long hair spilling over their face and down their body, balancing on the balls of their feet on top of a precariously thin column of rock)"Sorry I have been absent lately. It has been busy season at work, plus Topaz is ( Read more... )

icon: "disassociative (a digital painting of a stylized person in profile with wide open screaming mouth and arms up with palms spread wide. Head and hands flow into strands like blood vessels)"My anxiety has been increasingly intense for at least a month, maybe 2. I haven't been able to eat without forcing myself, I lay awake for at least an hour ( Read more... )

icon: "distance (two hands (from a brown person and a white person) just barely apart, facing each other palm to palm)"
How has death touched your life, and what lasting impact has it had?I've been lucky enough that no one who I was very intimate with has died. But the deaths that I have experienced all touched me with this singular feeling: a wish ( Read more... )

icon: "ADD-PI (two electromicroscope photos of crystallized acetylcholine, overlaid & warped in several ways)"I realized the other day that people who are not on the A-spectrum (Autism, Aspergers, ADHD) probably have no idea what it is like to experience brain overload, so I want to try to explain. When I am dealing with ADHD overload, all these ( Read more... )

icon: "kissy (a photo of me outside in soft light, blowing a kiss)"
I was looking through old emails from 2007 the other day (trying to find contact info) and came across gtalk conversations with someone I was close friends with back then. Here's a bit from March 2007:

( transcript of a chat )

icon: "healing (a photo of me and Hannah curled up together, naked, with Hannah's head resting on my legs and my arms around/over them. it's colored in violet with a fractal overlay of purple, blue, and green.)"

1. being triggered is literal torture, not mere dislike or discomfort.
   
2. your thoughts can get stuck in loops that take outside intervention to ( Read more... )

icon: "ADD-PI (two electromicroscope photos of crystallized acetylcholine, overlaid & warped in several ways)"When I say I am neurodivergent I mean my brain doesn't work like most people's. And I am not talking about small-difference variety, I'm talking the kind of difference where people express shock, dismay, or even disbelief when I tell them ( Read more... )