My emotions are valid*

*valid does not mean healthy, or good, or to be privileged above common sense and kindness

A distinction for anyone who is young and hasn’t figured this out yet:

You are allowed to have whatever emotions you want. No one can control your emotions. Emotions are healthy responses to things.

You are not allowed to have behaviors that are harmful just because you have certain emotions. Your behaviors are what you can control, and they are far easier to control than your emotions.

You can be jealous about someone or their talents until you turn green, but it is harmful to yourself and to that person if you try to sabotage them because of it. You can be so angry you can literally feel your temperature rise, but this does not give you permission to rage at others.

Your emotions are valid. They are always valid. You are a person of value. However, you behaviors are not always justified just because of those emotions. You may not be able to control you emotions, but you can certainly control your behaviors.

and this one, i beg you to learn before you become right-wing fundamentalists: just because something gives you revulsion feelings does not mean it’s morally wrong.

you may be sex-repulsed; that doesn’t mean sex is dirty and bad. maybe you were bullied by teenage girls; that doesn’t mean teenage girls are a force of evil. perhaps a villain in a work of fiction reminds you of someone who abused you; that doesn’t mean people who enjoy that character or that fiction are abusive. your feelings about those things are absolutely valid, and it’s not right for people to tell you you shouldn’t feel that way. but it’s also not right for you to act out against others based on those feelings.

that instinct to generalize served our species well when we were hunter-gatherers living in small bands in a hostile wilderness. you nibble a delicious-looking berry, you throw up, you know that berry is BAD and you make the yuck face whenever you see it so the other hominids know it’s a bad one. but in the modern world, in the information age, there are so many complex things you might encounter, you’re going to have badfeels about a lot of things that aren’t actually across-the-board bad.

you need to not be ruled by your hominid yuckberry instinct. that’s where bigotry comes from.

Thiiiiis. 

I work at a daycare with infants.

One of our baby girls is fat, in the 99th percentile for her age. She is super cute and sweet. Lately, she has been sick with various breathing issues, so she has been reluctant to take her bottles. Normally, she’ll take 4 ounces of formula at lunch and 8 ounces in the afternoon. Today, I was lucky to get to her take 5 all day.

There was a substitute covering a lunch break in my classroom today. We emphasized to her that we need to keep trying to get the baby to drink her bottle until she finished it. She said, “Why are you guys so worried about taking her bottle?”

My coworker replied, “That’s where all her nutrients are. She needs the nutrients and the water.”

To which the substitute replied, “But she’s so fat. She doesn’t need it.”

Thin privilege is a small, pretty baby getting better childcare because the caretaker doesn’t think she’s too fat to be allowed to eat.

This reminds me of a cousin of mine who ended up with her kids being taken away from her by social services for a number of reasons but mostly for nearly killing her baby daughter. How?

By starving her. She insisted that her baby was ‘too fat’ and had an aim to remove any and all ‘chubbyness’ so her baby would be thin. She’d already been warned by her doctor about the baby not getting enough food, but insisted she knew best.

After several months of this her baby passed out cold one day and was rushed into hospital where the doctors found her to have severe malnutrition, a low body temperature and low pulse rate. They asked my cousin what she’d been feeding her daughter and she said “one bottle of skimmed milk a day. I don’t want her growing up fat.”

Even after nearly killing her daughter my cousin maintained her view that fat = bad and ended up with all her kids taken from her because she was starving them and neglecting them.

When your fatphobia leads you to starving your own children then you’ve got serious problems.

(Note. She still, to this day, maintains the view that she was right and the doctors were wrong. “They just want fat kids so they can keep employed treating them for all those diseases that being fat causes.” = her actual words.)

My mom had me dieting with her when I was eleven. She had me eating less than 600 calories a day because she was worried I was going to “get huge.” She even grounded me once because she found out my friends were bringing me lunches! I ended up passing out, going to the ER, and getting two IVs at once BC I was so goddamn dehydrated. Soooooo surprised they didn’t call child services… And looking back, this was the root of my anorexia. I’m nearly 22 and still fighting it. Please don’t starve your fucking children.

For fucks sake babies are SUPPOSED to be fat, what is wrong with people? It’s just stored energy, and growing children need stored energy - an 11 year old is just about to hit some major growing years. Damn. 

Fatphobia

Is

Real

and it kills

This is no joke. people will literally starve their own babies cause they don’t want them getting fat. A parent brought in their six month old baby who was having breathing issues and kept getting sick. the parent was asked if the baby was eating regularly and the parent straight up told the doctor that they only feed the baby once a day. ONCE A DAY. A FUCKING BABY. they even had the nerve to say because they didn’t want the baby to get fat. people like this are real. they would rather have a dead baby than a fat one.

My youngest son is a very big boy and has been since he was born. When he was 10 months old I took him for his well-baby check and vaccinations. The nurse noted his weight and said, quite casually, “He is in the 99th percentile for weight so he is at risk for obesity. You may want to keep an eye on that.” I said, “He is exclusively breastfed. He refuses to eat any solids yet.” What did she expect me to do? What would it mean to “keep an eye on” an exclusively breastfed baby’s weight? 

She backed off saying, ‘Well he looks fine!” – proving once again that weight bias is not truly about health – But I know many other parents who are not as informed as I am about weight science and size diversity would react to this interaction by policing their child’s food intake, if not as an infant, then when he was an older child. This is exactly the type of seemingly-inconsequential interaction that starts the ball rolling on a lifetime of dieting, disordered eating, negative body image, and weight-based abuse for too many fat people.

Years later when he was five, another doctor measured his weight and height and commented that he is off the charts on both, but “at least he is in proportion.” And if he was not “in proportion,” I am sure I would have been advised once again to “watch his weight.” 

I no longer allow healthcare providers to weight my children unless it is absolutely medically necessary. They are unable to control their weight talk, which is a known harm for children.

We need to completely eliminate weight talk from medicine, especially when it comes to children. Even the smallest exposure can have terrible consequences.

Wtf…

My son is 13 and I get bullshit about his weight every time we go to the doctor. He had adhd and the drugs suppress his appetite during the day. He doesn’t need any more problems worrying his weight

Hey! So not letting your doctor weigh you is totally fine but only if you're not getting medication. Most medications need to be in proportion to your mass, so make sure to get weighed before a new one! However, here in the US, the scales are often in the HALLWAY. This makes it actually illegal for your medical practitioner to mention what your weight is or to comment on it until you get into the room! If they attempt it, shut it down. It's a breach of medical privacy - anyone in the hallway can hear! My point being that your weight is your business, but medications are based on it so be responsible with drugs, and don't be afraid to call out your medical provider!

Friendly reminder that asexuals, bisexuals and trans people absolutely get to celebrate pride month just as much as anyone else. It’s LGBTQIA+, not LG. This ain’t a fuckin electronics company.

Mainstream LGBTQ/Queer Support For Asexuality

GLAAD makes changes to a program and explicitly announces their support of ace, aro, and agender people. http://www.glaad.org/blog/asexual-agender-aromantic The Trevor Project made an effort to help support asexual people. http://www.thetrevorproject.org/pages/asexuality Matthew’s Place ran a series about asexuality. http://www.matthewsplace.com/asexuality/ Huffington Post changes the name of a section of their site, specifically mentioning asexuality as one of the contributing reasons. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/huffpost-gay-voices-changed-name-huffpost-queer-voices_us_56a78f78e4b0172c659422f9

And that’s after they wrote a number of articles about us. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/asexuality/

Even Dan Savage got (somewhat) better. http://www.thestranger.com/columns/savage-love/2015/05/27/22283509/savage-love The Advocate has run several positive stories about asexuality. http://www.advocate.com/pride/2015/07/20/21acestories-sex-drive-relationships-and-other-misconceptions http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/books/2012/07/24/asexuals-among-us http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/television/2015/01/27/no-sex-no-problem So has Gay Star News. http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/here-are-11-biggest-asexual-myths-busted300315/#gs.lOZu4Rk http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/first-asexual-politician/#gs.yaY5ZLE http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/dr-ruth-says-asexuals-shouldnt-exist-internet-responds-in-the-best-way/#gs.sHNd9dc Positive “Jughead is Asexual!” stories were published in many LGBTQ/Queer publications. http://lgbtpost.com/archie-comics-reveals-jughead-is-asexual/ https://www.washingtonblade.com/2016/02/09/archie-comics-reveals-jughead-is-asexual/ http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/02/archie-comics-reveals-jughead-is-asexual/ http://www.glaad.org/blog/glaad-wrap-archie-comics-reveals-asexual-character-magicians-renewed-and-more

Colleges and universities with LGBTQ Campus Groups/QRCs/etc. that explicitly mention supporting asexual people:

And all this is from just a few minutes of quick searches.  There is more.  Much, much more.

The Aphobia Masterpost

I started writing this as a comment on another post, but it got too long so fuck it, this is going to be its own post, and it’s going to be a collection of basically everything I can get my hands on about asexual oppression, history, and the shit aphobes say. Yeah, this is going to be long, heavy with links to a lot more reading, but I’ve had it up to here with the “discourse”.

Everyone who wants to is free to reblog this post and use it as a reference when arguing with aphobes. (fyi, I created the blog @asexuality-and-aphobia in the middle of this project to be a reliable source for my links.)

“Aces don’t face oppression”

Asexuality was listed in the DSM as HSDD (Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder) until 2013, making it officially a mental illness that would be treated with therapy and medication. It is still in the DSM, except that you can ‘opt out’ if you self-identify as asexual, which is great except that asexuality is still so unknown that there undoubtedly many people who are asexual but don’t know that it’s “a thing”. This means that who knows how many asexuals have been sent to therapy and told they’re sick, then been “treated” for their orientation to try and force them to experience sexuality “correctly”. 

In short, our orientation has been and continues to be pathologized, and asexuals have been put through corrective therapy: x, x, x, x, x

Posts of people describing the hardship they’ve faced for their asexuality: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

The blog @acephobia-is-real has so many submissions and examples of hatred, harassment, hostility, and abuse, of aces who have been raped and/or sexually assaulted in an attempt to ‘fix’ them, and made suicidal due to aphobia and/or their own perceived brokenness, that it would be pointless for me to try and link any. Just go and start reading. Try their suicide tag.

There may be dissatisfyingly little research done on asexuality, but there has been enough done to prove that they do face discrimination, no matter how hard some may find that to believe. But guess what? You, an allosexual person, do not get to say shit like “aces don’t get kicked out” or “aces don’t _____” any more than I as a white person get to say that things I don’t experience must not happen to black people either. Just because you haven’t experienced it personally or witnessed it with your own eyes doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. You haven’t walked in an ace’s shoes, you don’t know what they deal with. Period. 

Not even other aces can tell asexuals that their experiences aren’t real or aren’t valid. Different people can deal with different amounts of oppression, that doesn’t mean the lack of oppression is the default “truth”. 

Nobody is trying to say that asexuals have it “as bad” or worse than gay or trans people, but we don’t HAVE to “have it worse” to be included and for our experiences to have merit without being compared to anyone else’s. Let me say that again: our experiences have merit without being compared to anyone else’s. 

“We just want to protect our safe spaces”

Aphobes have:

Are all aphobes this vile? Maybe not, but this is still the disgusting, hateful attitude festering in the gatekeeping community, and it stinks like shit. The examples I have provided above are only a fraction of the harassment and abuse that is perpetrated on a regular basis.

“Het aces/aroaces are straight”

Some het aces identify as straight. Some het aces don’t identify as straight, they identify as asexual, and it’s not your place to label them against their will. There is no world in which aroaces, people who experience no attraction to anyone, are straight. 

“We accept SGA (same-gender attracted) and trans aces”

Firstly, SGA (same-gender attraction) is a term that was used and is still used in Mormon conversion therapy, so as one can understand, a lot of people are very uncomfortable being labeled with this description. Secondly, it enforces a gender binary of “same” and “opposite” gender that leaves a large number of nonbinary people out in the cold. Is a genderfluid person only “same-gender attracted” if they’re attracted to other genderfluid people who are genderfluid in exactly the same way? How about agender, intergender, demigirl/boy people? And before the argument “well they’re included as trans” is made, there are plenty of nonbinary people who do not identify as trans. I’m one of them.

The standard of “SGA and trans” as requirement for entry to the LGBTQ community is used nowhere outside of aphobic tumblr, and it seems crafted specifically for the purpose of excluding aces, aros, NBs, intersex people, and others not deemed “gay enough”.

(SGA did NOT come from ‘SGL’, same-gender loving. That is a term created by black queer people and not to be appropriated by white people.)

Discussion of the history of the word ‘queer’ and why it’s better than ‘SGA’: x, x, x, x, x

There are also many “SGA and trans” aces who are against the gatekeeping and feel that they are hated by these aphobes.

Your “discourse” is harmful to all asexuals. And PS, your rhetoric is literally indistinguishable from TWERF rhetoric. 

“The LGBT community has always been about fighting homophobia and transphobia/we came together to fight homophobia and transphobia”

Despite the fact that bisexual and transgender people have always been around, and have done great things for the community, they have faced a great deal of lateral oppression from the LG part of the group that did not want to see them get an equal share of attention, support, or legitimacy. This post is not about proving LG transphobia and biphobia, but it’s so rampant that I don’t feel like I need to provide sources whatsoever. Nevertheless, here’s a collection of biphobia, and the blog @terf-callout documents some of the violent transphobia on this site, particularly in the lesbian community. This post is an example. 

“The A stands for Ally so that closeted people can be the community without being outed”

No one is saying that we don’t care about closeted people, but a) even if you’re a closeted L, G, B, or T, you are still a L, G, B, or T. Allies do not need to be part of the acronym to be intrinsically welcomed. As someone said, this is like saying the ‘B’ in BLT stands for ‘bread’. We can pretty much safely assume that a sandwich is going to include bread, we don’t have to go of our way to give it a letter. Either you are outing every “ally” as a closeted queer person, or you are giving 100% cis straight people an LGBTQ member card, the very thing you are arguing against by trying to exclude asexuals.

Furthermore, this puts forth the argument “I’m willing to let cishet straight people into the community for the sake of a few closeted people” while at the same time stating “I’m not willing to let the A stand for asexuals because I don’t think letting cis heteroromantic asexuals into the community is worth giving all asexuals representation and support”. Which says that you consider asexuals less valuable and more of a threat than cis straight people.

Bonus: The History of LGBT(QQIAAP+)

“Aces have never been a part of the LGBTQ/queer community”

“Stop tokenizing bi and trans people/stop comparing bi/trans and ace experiences”

We’re not the ones doing it. They are comparing them, themselves.

“I have proof of an asexual being homophobic/transphobic/racist/a terrible person”

Of course there are asexuals who are terrible people. There are legions of gays and lesbians who are racist and transphobic. Does that make them not gay/lesbian? Does their bigotry invalidate their sexual orientation, or remove the L and G from the acronym? No, I don’t think so. Some asexuals being bad people doesn’t justify you trying to invalidate all of us.

“’Allosexual’ is a bad word because ____”

I actually have an ‘allosexual’ tag just for posts about why ‘allosexual’ is a perfectly fine word: x, x, x, x, x. x

“The split-attraction model is homophobic”

What we call the split-attraction model was first described by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a gay advocate from the 1800s, as “disjunctive uranodioning”. (source) (credit to this post)

“The term ‘corrective rape’ was coined by South African lesbians and should only be used by lesbians”

No one means any disrespect to lesbians or other victims of corrective rape, but this is not a correct statement.

“We’ll Show You You’re a Woman” describes the violence directed towards LGBT people in South Africa, stating, “Negative public attitudes towards homosexuality go hand in hand with a broader pattern of discrimination, violence, hatred, and extreme prejudice against people known or assumed to be lesbian, gay, and transgender, or those who violate gender and sexual norms in appearance or conduct (such as women playing soccer, dressing in a masculine manner, and refusing to date men).” It goes on to say, “Much of the recent media coverage of violence against lesbians and transgender men has been characterized by a focus on “corrective rape,” a phenomenon in which men rape people they presume or know to be lesbians in order to “convert” them to heterosexuality.”

The Wikipedia article on corrective rape in South Africa states that, “A study conducted by OUT LGBT Well-being and the University of South Africa Centre for Applied Psychology (UCAP) showed that “the percentage of black gay men who said they have experienced corrective rape matched that of the black lesbians who partook in the study”.”

It is not only lesbians, but also bisexual women, transgender men, gay men, and gender non-conforming people in South Africa who experience corrective rape. This is not in any way meant to minimize the horror of the epidemic or shift attention away from lesbians, but other victims, including asexuals, deserve attention as well. Do not silence or speak over victims of rape by policing their language.

“Aces are valid, they’re just not queer/LGBTQ”

You cannot in one breath say “Asexuals are valid” and in the next deny their experiences. Spend five minutes in the community and you will see testimony after testimony from aces describing their abuse, their sexual assault(s), the countless times people have called them confused, broken, wrong, mentally ill, inhuman, sinful, and how these experiences have left them feeling hopeless, alone, alienated, subhuman, depressed, and suicidal. Almost every asexual out there will tell you a story of how their orientation has caused them pain and struggle, and you can’t call them valid while at the same time calling these experiences invalid and nonexistent.

Bonus: This is a list of all the mainstream LGBTQ groups that include asexuals.

“Form your own community!”

a) We do have our own community, because every letter in the acronym has its own community and yet is still part of the acronym, b) you fucking shits won’t stop sending us hate and bombarding us with shit meant to trigger and harass us.

“Aces take resources from other LGBTQ who need them”

I’ve seen some pretty wild claims about this one, insisting that asexuals “steal” things such as scholarships, beds at homeless shelters, food and space at pride events, suicide hotlines, and so on, yet I have never seen any actual proof that any “stealing” has ever taken place. For one thing, I thought “you’ll never get kicked out or fired for being ace”, “no one is suicidal because they’re asexual”, so why would you think aces need these resources? Either we don’t need them or we don’t use them, you can’t have it both ways. 

For another, how heartless do you have to be to tell asexuals that they can’t use suicide hotlines? Do you realize that you’re saying that asexuals should be denied life-saving services? That, in essence, asexuals are suicidal due to their orientation, but you think they’re not “queer enough” so they deserve to die? Because that is the logical progression of refusing someone suicide prevention, and that’s the message aces receive when you tell them they are “stealing” suicide prevention. 

LGBTQ resources offer them to asexuals, and benefit from us using them.

Lastly, do you not realize we are also PROVIDING resources? We are bringing bodies and minds to the community, we are here to be voices, to volunteer, to bring encouragement, information, and support. We earn our keep. You just have to admit that you don’t WANT us here. 

“Nobody wants to hear about your nonexistent sex life”

#BoostAceVoices #BoostAroVoices

On Lestrade, Conan Doyle, and Sherlock

It’s time to revisit this, I think.

In recent trips back through Arthur Conan Doyle’s works featuring Sherlock Holmes, I’ve been thinking of the character trajectories across the stories, especially regarding Holmes’s relationship to Lestrade (less celebrated that the brilliant Holmes-Watson partnership, but nonetheless fascinating).

“We All Three Shook Hands” by Sidney Paget, 1902 (L to R: Lestrade, Holmes, and Watson)

My thoughts are based on looking at the novels and short stories in internal chronological order (wherever it can be determined), not publication order.

Holmes

Point the First: Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is quite capable of being obnoxious in the BBC's Sherlock Cumberbatchian sense. Perhaps one of the worst affronts appears in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” (set in 1889), in which Holmes plays his “Lestrade’s So Stupid That He Wouldn’t Understand X” game. The example he chooses, however, 1) is one that Watson doesn’t comprehend either and, more to the point, 2) is one predicated on Holmes’s own knowledge of Watson’s daily grooming habits gained only by the fact he’s lived with Watson for years. Of course Lestrade wouldn’t reach Holmes’s conclusion: he’s never lived with Watson, and thus he has no access to that data! The entire exercise is just an excuse for Holmes to show off, not an honest assessment of Lestrade’s abilities. Holmes is none too gentle with delivering the insulting conclusion of his reasoning, for that matter, and thus he humiliates Watson. If Lestrade (or Watson) appears to get short-tempered with Holmes now and again, it’s not unwarranted.

Point the Second and the More Important: Holmes shows rather compelling character development over the years (and here I’m reminded of the great man/good man point articulated by Lestrade in Sherlock), and it’s instructive to watch this unfold through his relationship with Lestrade. [1]

“Good-afternoon, Lestrade! You will find an extra tumbler upon the sideboard, and there are cigars in the box.”

It was no very unusual thing for Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, to look in upon us of an evening, and his visits were welcome to Sherlock Holmes, for they enabled him to keep in touch with all that was going on at the police headquarters. In return for the news which Lestrade would bring, Holmes was always ready to listen with attention to the details of any case upon which the detective was engaged, and was able occasionally, without any active interference, to give some hint or suggestion drawn from his own vast knowledge and experience.

On this particular evening, Lestrade had spoken of the weather and the newspapers. Then he had fallen silent, puffing thoughtfully at his cigar. Holmes looked keenly at him.

“Anything remarkable on hand?” he asked. “Oh, no, Mr. Holmes–nothing very particular.” “Then tell me about it.” Lestrade laughed.

“You’ll dine with us, Lestrade, and then you are welcome to the sofa until it is time for us to start.”

Lestrade

Lestrade is practical throughout – he bristles at insults and scorns the thought of trusting theorizing over legwork, and yet he proves willing to admit his own mistakes from the very first (“I freely confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in the death of Drebber. This fresh development has shown me that I was completely mistaken…” in A Study in Scarlet, set in 1881) – but it’s clear that the no-nonsense pragmatism of his relations with Holmes grows into genuine warmth and affection over time. Beyond the above examples, there are others.

The London express came roaring into the station, and a small, wiry bulldog of a man had sprung from a first-class carriage. We all three shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since the days when they had first worked together. I could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite in the practical man.

“… I don’t mind saying, in the presence of Dr. Watson, that this is the brightest thing that you have done yet, though it is a mystery to me how you did it. You have saved an innocent man’s life, and you have prevented a very grave scandal, which would have ruined my reputation in the Force.”

Holmes smiled, and clapped Lestrade upon the shoulder.

“Well,” said Lestrade, “I’ve seen you handle a good many cases, Mr. Holmes, but I don’t know that I ever knew a more workmanlike one than that. We’re not jealous of you at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are very proud of you, and if you come down to-morrow, there’s not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn’t be glad to shake you by the hand.”

“Thank you!” said Holmes. “Thank you!” and as he turned away, it seemed to me that he was more nearly moved by the softer human emotions than I had ever seen him.

Random Musings Related to ACD Canon and the BBC’s Sherlock

[1] There are other interesting character changes Holmes exhibits, including his evolving thoughts on justice vs. law and means vs. ends, but I’m particularly thinking of his personal, non-Watsonian relationships at present.

[2] It’s perhaps worth pointing out that Holmes describes Watson as “not a man with intimate friends” (save, Holmes implies, himself) in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

[3] Interestingly enough, Watson begins referring to Lestrade as “our old friend Lestrade” in works set in 1894 and 1895, including “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder” and “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans.”

stop believing that you ran out of time to shape yourself into who you want to be! stop believing that its ruined! stop believing you don’t have potential! you are not a fixed being! you have endless opportunities to grow.

sometimes you say or do bad things while you’re in an awful mental place. sometimes you say things that are rude or uncalled for or manipulative. and i’m not going to hold that against you. mental illness is hard, and no one is perfect. but once you’re through that episode, you need to take steps to make amends. you need to apologize.

“i couldn’t help it, i was having a bad episode” is a justification, not an apology.

“i’m so fucking sorry, i fucked up, i don’t deserve to live, i should stop talking to anyone ever, i should die” is a second breakdown and a guilt trip. it is not an apology.

when you apologize, the focus should be on the person you hurt. “i’m sorry. i did something that was hurtful to you. even if i was having a rough time, you didn’t deserve to hear that,” is a better apology. if it was a small thing, you can leave it at that.

if you caused significant distress to the other person, this is a good time to talk about how you can minimize damage in the future. and again, even if it is tempting to say you should self-isolate and/or die, that is not a helpful suggestion. it will result in the person you’re talking to trying to talk you out of doing that, which makes your guilt the focus of the conversation instead of their hurt.

you deserve friendship, and you deserve support. but a supportive friend is not an emotional punching bag, and mental illness does not absolve you of responsibility for your actions. what you say during a mental breakdown doesn’t define you. how you deal with the aftermath though, says a lot.

This is the most carefully-nuanced discussion of this I think I have ever seen. Thank you for writing this.