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vldkeith · 3 years

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this may get long and u really dont need to post it if u dont wanna keep going with this. do you know that game that someone says something to another person, and then that person says to another, and it goes on like this and when it reaches the last person the message is completely different? Fandom DiscourseTM is always like that. especially in a case like this, it started on tumblr and went to twitter, so almost everyone had no context of what led to it. and people already have their formed

opinions about evil klancers who hate on creators for no reason, so they will on purpose ignore whatever might have started the discourse this time and jump to conclusions. i saw a lot of people who clearly had no idea what this was all about, and one or two even changed their opinions after hearing the context. so op of that post, like many people, probably had no idea how this all started and already jumped to conclusions.

fandom experience is a lot based on what you make it. its totally possible to not see criticism if... you dont follow blogs that are saying critics... people always fail to see this. "omg no one talks about this thing" no babe just because you never saw it, doesnt mean this discussion was never happening. especially because minorities are treated terrible in fandom spaces, when they say their concers and critics its treated as hate to content creators and "omg let people do what they want!!!!"

so the critics happens, but people ignore it and treat it as discourse and hate, making people who dare say something feel more and more unsafe to say anything. and then people turn around to say that no one was talking about it? cmon. also people seem to have this idea that the voltron fandom is/was so Toxic and all that as if every fandom isnt like this lol vld just happened to be >really big< but its always like that, vld is a bit different case but not that special.

its a lot easier to stop at "so you are saying that drawing buff men is bad" to actually use brain cells to analysis. some artists draw the boys buff and its nor weird or sexualized, its just a matter of preference and people are allowed to dislike. but oh how dare you say you dont like something in your fucking personal blog huh? maybe its because ive been on fandoms for a long time, and most of it was in fujoshi spaces, so i dont get why people dont get the point of this discussion.

sexualization of men happens a lot and its a huge problem for mlm. having women sexualize and project and reinforce steriotypes isnt revolutionary. its a problem. like i said, it reinforces a lot of bad things about mlm. drawing buff men isnt homophobic but when you are putting the buff men in the dominating role and the other men is very femine and small and fragile.. and u are a woman... theres no other way to see this as harmful. yes men and relationships like that exist in real life but

its one thing for a mlm to write/draw about their own experiences and its another thing for a woman, most times straight, to do it. they do it based on steriotypes and its really gross. people dont seem to get that this hole goes much depper than what ml does, thats just the tip of the iceberg. its a lot worse than what she does. but people refuse to go beyond the "are u saying people cant do what they want" so its impossible to have an actual discussion about this.

i get ur frustation with this ren, and like i said u dont need to post this if u dont wanna. i have a lot of thoughts about this but idk if i expressed myself well lol anyway king ily

(bolding done by me) this is very eloquently said. i 100% agree with you, we’re all caught in a game of telephone that nobody is sure of the context of. and everything you said abt this not beginning/ending with ml--yeah. like. that’s just it. this is a whole bigger problem, as oliver addressed above, and i wish people would recognize it or at least acknowledge when they don’t have the full story. i rly dont have much to add to this tho, oliver said it all perfectly. thank you.

#klance #eletricblue #asks🌟

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tangerinefluff · 3 years

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before i can freely dive back in on tumblr after being gone for a long time, i just wanted to address some asks i got during my inactivity:

where do I start lmao. so i’m not sure if I understood the asks the way the anons intended to communicate them. could be because of a little language barrier? and im actually having trouble deciphering hate or disrespect because i have almost never in my life been hated or received serious hate in any form (i was THE good girl, on the outside that is, my entire life no one messed with bc i dont really do anything hateful like it’s just not in my nature to respond in that way 😅 anw very besides the point) so you may talk to me again if that’s not what you (anon) intended.

to the first one who said this:

hi! i get ur suggestion but maybe word it differently? bc that was kinda rude. first off, this one (garbage) writing is for you too. second, i appreciate the cute hearts at the end to go with the insult in the beginning 😅 (but also) third, you’re on MY blog. i mean,,, with the first words i agree? LMAO. i apologize i don’t have the best thoughts but no i won’t change things. this is literally my own space and im sharing a little of what’s on my mind and they don’t have to be useful and significant and a WOW moment kind of post to everyone lmao. fourth, you can locate the unfollow/mute button yourself. im not actually sure what writings you meant, if it’s the unrelated or personal posts/asks, or the blog-related shitty posts. and i’m not very tidy with my tags either so i’ll try harder on that! will tag unrelated texts as “garbage.text” and blog-related texts as “hq.text”. fifth, that’s what i keep my following tabs open for actually. i follow a lot of even betterrr blogs with content like mine and esppp amazing artists you should check out yk instead of sending people ask like that..haha. lastly, i hope you don’t go around sending blogs asks like this one and just filter out the stuff you want to consume yourself. let’s be careful with words bestie! (edit: also my blog now is 90% reblogged art so.... why the big issue).

candidate #2 who quoted a tag on my post and said:

aah what i meant there is that i am actually having a hard time remembering.. in general. (cue the victim card script) yes dramatic but i feel like my memory’s deteriorating. can’t remember names of people i just met or friends from a long time. things i just did or the phone i just put down 30 secs ago. conversations and with whom. read somewhere that it could be due to mental health problems. and i cant keep track of all the interactions here so i mess things up sometimes which is why i’m less active. and its not bc my friends here are insignificant!!! lmao. dw i remember, i have my close friends’ UNs and names listed on my notes too :D

yk i wanna bite harder than this bc im a real B on the inside and i wanted to make light of this (somehow funny to me because ik i shouldn’t respond bc it feels like twitter behavior) &&& i wanted to show off my clean record that i haven’t ever been hated before lmao until this moment that is. im just super shocked cause i’m 22 and JUST realizing, oh so this is the dangerous stuff on the internet! like i thought i could’ve avoided them because im.... literally... nice that i’m almost boring here and unproblematic and trying my best and just talking about stuff i like. bestie is not special over here.

to those who have been following me from the first (cringe) days, would know i post reallyyyy randomly. it was more original posts rather than reblogs. and i minimized on that when my following increased. there’s 4.4k amazing people following this blog in just a little over a year. so i toned down the personal stuff right away. honestly got conscious and i didn’t like it because the blog started to feel less like it’s mine. i can’t openly switch to a different content/media or just scream nonsense. i can’t answer personal asks freely. can’t interact with mutuals. then i just decided that i won’t mind anymore. as long as my post isn’t offensive and/or rude, i will post as i wish. i don’t normally engage in hateful posts because it bums me out. like a minute into reading these asks they really upset me then writing my response and letting this sit in the drafts made me think i won’t bother anymore because i could just let the asks get lost into the void and it’s not like i did anything wrong, but i guess i had a little energy today. and yes, will be turning off anon asks from here on out.

i hope this one won’t get dragged out and i’m not expecting any interactions from this because i just wanna talk about stuff i’ve been getting into lately, back to regular programming.. AAAAHHHHH!!! not sure if this will reach the anons (expected they unfollowed because that’s the smart thing to do) but I still wish them a good day/night and a peaceful tumblr experience! (^^)

#garbage.text #hate asks cw #hate (?)/ rude asks #anon asks #please please dont open if reading rude asks makes you uncomfy!

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robogreaser · 4 years

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This is a Long Time Coming...

It’s been a relatively hard task to sit down and make sense of, well, a lot of things as of late. I could chalk it up to the state of the world, but it’s been troublesome for significantly longer than that.

Long Story Short Version: I’ve been in a hell of a place, mentally, physically, and otherwise.

The proper story is a hell of a lot more involved than that and I know damned right well it’s going to take me a fair bit to explain myself and my various professional and social failings over the past... while. I’m gonna try to contain this under a read more, of course, but I apologize to mobile users if tumblr fucks that up.

Okay. That took a fair more bit of effort to figure out than I remember. Which, I suppose, is a fair enough bit of a segue into one thing that’s happened to me.

Tumblr has been deteriorating.

Whether I like to admit it or not, tumblr has been my go to social media platform since... 2011. Yeah. I’ve spent the vast majority of the decade here. I’ve seen a lot. Sure, I’ve lurked elsewhere, but I really cannot stand the interface and nature of a lot of other social media, especially the likes of twitter. Unfortunately for me, this place has been in constant decline for years now at this point. It extends well beyond the porn ban, but that’s a whole separate discussion.

I’ve lost touch with a lot of people I care about, some vanishing into the ether, some ghosting me, some just drifting into other communities or onto other sites. I’ve come to terms with the majority of this. It’s been happening for a while. It’s the very nature of digital relationships. It hurt, and I do think it’s contributed to a fair bit of stress and depression that has resulted in my... withdrawal from online spaces. It’s not a major factor, but its here, it’s present, it’s a factor in all of this.

I’ll be honest in that, well, I’ve tried to make this post several times over the past several weeks and months. It’s hard. Talking about my issues, using ‘I’ and ‘me’ so much in a post... it’s a bit jarring. But I’ll try to suck it up.

It’s been ten years (god I fucking hate time) since I’ve graduated high school. Yeah. It’s a fair thing to say that, on reflection, that’s incredibly jarring. The vast majority of that time has been... relatively unstable. I spent a fair few years working on my book and my publishing journey, now all but scrubbed clean from this blog (more on that later) and... well... Trying to be an adult. I’ve applied to, gotten accepted, and had to withdrawn from my dream school twice in this time. I’ve had a fair few jobs, nothing worthy of my resume, and lost all of them in one form or another, whether being fired for retaliating to my shitty work conditions, or, well, quitting for the sake of my own health during this pandemic. There has been a lot of family troubles. I’ve been through a lot of... ‘varied’ living situations, some horrendous, some just stressful, some, like now, actually really good compared to the others. And for the past few years in particular, it’s been constantly one thing after another, nonstop.

In short, progress is slow, but it’s happening. I don’t care to delve into a lot of these sorts of personal details lest this get to a ridiculous length, but that’s the short of the stuff I’d rather gloss over.

I’ve been on a health... Let’s call it a journey. I’ve been on a health journey. Over the past few years I’ve gone through the long processes of being diagnosed with ADHD, discussing my options regarding my depression and anxiety, and finally getting myself on a medication regimen that works. And then, because the health care system is a joke, I was without insurance. I had been off my medication, an absolute lifesaver and release of burden on my garbage tier brain, for eighteen months. Until last week. I think it’s fair to say, between my revolving door of living situations, employment, and then being un-medicated in a continually more stressful environment... That this is the main reason I’ve been absent. I’ve had no focus. There were weeks where I had no drive to do anything outside of routine that others depended on. I had not only gone back to how I was before situating my mental health, but in some ways, found a worse state.

Finances have been slowly eating away at me. I had been working a part time retail job until November, which made decent enough money, but not nearly for the amount of work and responsibility I was handling. I got fired. I found work with one of the big, corporate postal services. The pay was phenomenal, but it began to actively destroy my health, mainly physically, but also mentally, especially considering I was working a graveyard shift. Eventually when I began having prolonged health issues there, and then a whole lot of the symptoms of covid-19, on top of them turning me down for an entry-level position outside of the package handling, I had to quit. This was shortly after the lockdowns, in early April, and I refuse to look back despite people like my parents insisting on me trying to get work there again. Sure, the pay was phenomenal compared to anything else I had until then, but I cant continue to sacrifice my health. As of now, I’m unemployed, and... well...

I’m working on my commission queue. It’s art. It’s stuff I’ve owed friends (luckily those who are incredibly understanding and good to me) for an embarrassing amount of time, even before moving to and from Oklahoma at the end of 2016. I’m terrified of being the person who is known for taking commissioners’ money and running.

I know, I’m not good at giving updates. I’m not good at a consistent work schedule. I’ve had numerous tech failings over the past few years that constantly slow my roll on any progress I have made. Hell, I’ve had files corrupt despite being two thirds of the way complete when transferring from one computer to another. I’ve lost my cable for my external hard drive. I’ve had my tablet go to hell and back multiple times. But I am working. I am trying. I am sitting down as often as I can between looking for work and managing family nonsense to try and get my workload tidied up.

Which... brings me to my next point. And one I’m rather... ashamed about.

I have used trello, infrequently, since taking on a large load of commissions, and despite not being faithfully updating it and checking back on it, and using it to it’s fullest potential, I had kept, at the minimum, a list of all the work I did owe people using it. Well. Dumbass me attempted to use a mobile app. In short, in an effort to try and make myself tech literate and allow me easier access to my queue, I ended up deleting it. Somehow.

I’ve gone through and slowly flagged all my paypal notices and various emails concerning my commissions. I’m putting it together again. I’m trying. Granted, I am damned sure I am going to be missing someone, somewhere, somehow. I know it. I’ve got a shit brain, and despite my need for organization and minimalism, I don’t put it past me to have missed something along the way.

If you have commissioned me, please, do not hesitate to reach out and contact me regarding your commission. I owe every last one of you a massive apology for my continued failure to produce what you have paid for.

More likely than not, I have a wip already started somewhere, and if not, I have a slew of reference and thumbnails already compiled together somewhere on my computers. I am not ignoring this work. It’s been painfully, embarrassingly slow. It’s been one obstacle after another. But I have every intention of doing this work, and, likely, upgrading the quality of the finished piece past what my commissioners have paid for simply because I do feel bad about the wait time.

I have been inexcusably unprofessional. I know this and I am working as best I can with the time and resources I have to correct it.

In a similar vein, as I mentioned before, I have slowly been cleaning up my rather unimpressive publishing attempts. I’ve gone through and cleaned this blog recently, deleting reference to my work by name and the process of trying to get myself published. I may have missed a few posts here and there, but for the most part I would like a clean slate in regards to building a social media platform surrounding my written work. And this is the part where... I am probably going to be the most upfront and honest with you reading this than I have been publicly before.

I am not ashamed of who I’ve been online these past ten years or so, but it reflects only a sliver of my personality, a sliver of who I am as a whole. I catered to a very specific subset of who I am in pursuit of finding acceptance in communities much larger than myself. I’ve learned a hell of a lot about myself in that time. I figured out what’s important to me, my health, my sexuality, my relationships and my long term goals. I’ve found a very important group of friends. I’ve found people who understand and empathize with a lot of the things I have been through, experience, and am at my core.

But the fact of the matter is, this hypersexual, sci-fi aesthetic-oriented, very open person is only a singular facet. And it is not nearly enough of a reflection of who I am, or who I want to be as a professional, public adult. Will I always be gay for robots? Yes. Will I, when time permits and creative energies are present, continue to make nsfw art? Absolutely. Will I always have a toe dipped in erotic literature and the like? Most likely.

But a lot of me, a lot of my emotion and strife and feelings regarding most things in the world, are completely separate from this. It’s separate from me liking porn on twitter or having a homestuck roleplay blog. It’s separate from who I am in real life, with my boyfriend or with my family or with my work. And I have been dwelling on this, sincerely, for a while. I need to allocate more energy into my life. The separate life offline and online too, where I am pursuing an actual professional career, because, at the end of the day, I want to be an author. I want to have a career telling stories. And, in my time online, I’ve found a lot of skeletons in authors’ closets, the kind that really put mine to shame, and the kind that will always be a footnote to their work. You know the ones.

I want my creative work to speak for itself. I want people to be able to enjoy what I do without a specter, without my time and energy having to explain to a future audience why it is I had explicit thoughts about x,y, and z. I want to be able to write a book, write many books, and have people enjoy them without a footnote about me, a person with a sexual life and a history exploring it through years of depression and isolation, clouding it. It’s not fair to my work. It’s not fair to a future reader. It’s not fair to me.

I’ve got several social media accounts made and slowly coming to life that I need to spend more time with as I try and pursue this new, second leg of a very long journey into publishing. I’m not going to link those here, now or in the future. It’s likely a few people I know and trust have access to them. But I am, effectively starting over from scratch trying to build a platform as a writer. And it’s hard. Juggling that, alongside all of the things in the world today, alongside family and my relationships, alongside my commission queue? It bears down on me and if I didn’t have experience handling more than one thing at a time, I might trip up more frequently. Hell, I forget to post and use those new accounts regularly.

But I’m trying.

I’m not moving away from my current social circles or hobbies or anything like that. I’m not abandoning any fandom or friends or communities. But I am going to be trying to balance myself more thoughtfully moving forward, past just commissions, past just writing.

I’m here. I’m moving forward, slowly but surely, and I am making an effort to improve.

#jesus christ mike shut up

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byunlucid · 7 years

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This is gonna be really long bc I feel like I should explain myself properly, so uh if you care then click on read more.

First of all, it’s crazy how much y’all believe everything you read on tumblr dot com without fact checking.

That being said, when it comes to the first issue about Yixing’s braids - I usually don’t talk about appropriation on my blog bc I’m not the one affected and I definitely don’t want to talk over black people. I remember answering asks about Kai’s dreads and linked them to articles I’ve read about CA, and referred them to ask others affected cause I have no say in the matter - though I acknowledged that it was wrong of him.

Regarding the tweets… I said that only tumblr cares bc in reality, its true. I checked the youtube comments and tweets about sheep and no one seemed to talk about his hair? My tweet may be read as offensive and for that, I apologize cause I didn’t mean to belittle the issue.

Weeks ago I retweeted a quoted tweet of this tweet which basically said that this was cultural appropriation and was offensive. I got upset bc the replies were disgusting, and ppl were defending the girl for wearing an oversexualized traditional clothing as a costume. And the caption and emojis…yikes. Also miss silkstan girlie seemed really dismissive about that but you know, poc solidarity is a myth like you guys said lol.

Anyway, the only thing I tweeted about mamamoo was “the same white people hating on mamamoo are staying mute on the sweet and sour tweet ok.”

I NEVER compared blackface with appropriation. I did NOT say that this was worse than the mamamoo issue. It’s funny how the tweet was taken out of context cause the only reason I was talking about mamamoo was bc of a mutual.

What I was so upset about was ppl deflecting the issue at hand by saying “there’s a lot of anti blackness in the asian community too!” as if that give y’all a free pass to be racist towards asians. The argument can literally be turned around and say that “there’s a lot of antiasian sentiments in the black community too”.

How am I antiblack for being offended by a black person using a slur or being openly racist? (referring to the replies on the tweet).

I’ve never blamed black people for our issues lmao i don’t even understand how she’d draw to that conclusion. I literally had a recent discussion about the negative effects black people experience bc of their hypervisibility, and I wish asians would speak up more without stepping on black people.

About that anon silkstan got about all of my friends being white because I live in europe - you’re erasing all of the pocs living here. I know yall americans are ignorant and dont know much geography, but pocs exist here! I grew up in a school which only had two white people in my class! :)

I’ve literally never interacted with silkstan so I think it’s funny how they only have heard «things» from others… Don’t know why they’re bringing up an issue from three weeks ago either. If she really “cared” about me getting educated than she could’ve dmed me without making a public post (that I cant even read) stating “byunlucid is antiblack” and then skip out without any explanations or proof.

Some of you should grow up and learn to form your own opinions maybe without eating up everything handed to you on here and realize that there’s a world outside of tumblr. Silkstan girlie is comparing me with pcys as if she isn’t the one making a callout lmao.

I actually just recently (october) started to use twitter more actively bc tumblr has been pretty boring lately, so if you’re looking to find more then you won’t find much.

You can unfollow or block, that’s your choice - but if we’re mutuals, make sure to softblock/hardblock.

For all of you who had the decency to actually ask for my side of the story, thank you i love you mwah .

#you can always dm me if there's smth that needs clarification

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treadmilltreats · 5 years

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Glorify God with your works

Our duty as Christians, is to go into the world and preach the gospel. We cannot decide what people that we are going to preach to.

We cant decide who can come to our house of God, our "jobs" are not to judge but to love, to show people the light.

If you are called, you are suppose to disciple people. No converted person who has accepted the Lord as his own, can escape this fact, this is what he expects from us.

Today we have focused so much on what we expect from God that we have forgotten about this fact.

Church has become a place that has become one sided. It's all about what can God give us, what blessings are you giving us, what we can get from coming to church today, we forget that we have a job as well.

The trend of our society is changing and the church is sleeping. We are not alert because our focus is off, we want, want this, want that and we don't want to give back.

This has a lot to do how you live your life, if you every day show others love and compassion, then they will see the Jesus in you, so they may also come to God. We need to show them how good God is, we need to be a living testimony for others.

If the truth be told, all the stuff you are killing yourself for isn't really that powerful, it isn't worth it. We are losing our sense of purpose, we need to show people the happiness in us first, we must know what is truly most important but we are going after stuff that is not making us happy and so how can we show others, when we ourselves don't know.

The bible says that the end will not come unless the good news will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it.

That is when the end will come...

We are holding up the second coming...

He is challenging you and I to go out and preach his word, to every nation, to everyone. We must tell our testimonies to others, let others know how God has been there for you, what he has done for you.

We dont promote the gospel, but yet we tent to promote the wrong things, ourselves on social media, trash TV, everything else but the gospel.

We don't understand that when we glorify God in all the things we do, then that is the most effective way to promote the gospel. You need to let your light shine before others so they will see your good works and then help others see God's goodness.

The best form of discipleship is what you speak about your God.

The best way to descpile others is to show them what God has done in your life. We cant be hostile in trying to bring people into God's house by saying things like your gonna burn in hell if you don't.

We don't get to sprinkle grace on some people and not others. We are becoming bitter and harsh as if we are better than others because we go to church.

Hello! People! News flash going to "church" doesn't make you a Christian any more than sitting in a garage makes you a car!

It's about how and what you do outside these walls that makes you a Christian.

God tells us:

"You are the light of the world, like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. In the same way let your good deeds shine out for all to see so that everyone will praise your heavenly father"

We are expected to be his disciples, we are expected to be the light, we are expected to be living testimonies for others, this is our job, this is what is means to be a Christian.

So today my friends ask yourself are you being a good Christian? Are you promoting his gospel? Are you glorifying God with your works? And then think long and hard about your answer.

"Be the change you want to see"

"And just when the caterpillar thought his life over...he turned into a beautiful butterfly"

**Now released my latest book**

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plainsimplevic · 5 years

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Well - That’s One Way To Come Out At Work

That was surprising. At work, as I've been vehemently talking about on twitter, there's been a lot of homophobic slurs being thrown around. Just as importantly, it was communicated to me that I basically needed to step up or I'd be fired. That I was “making excuses” for not doubling my output and occasionally coming in later (sometimes too late) in the day. This is when I've done nothing but excel at this job. In fact I've been given additional responsibility and praised by those who are hardest to please! I’ve pushed through illness after illness the past 6 months. Fought through infections so painful I could feel them through the haze caused by an entire bottle of whiskey. I’ve been here in the middle of the night vibrating because my cold is that bad. I’ve gotten SURGERY because I realized a condition was affecting my work - prioritizing that over other procedures I need done because I believe in fulfilling my commitments. Period. Whatever it takes. Be they professional, personal, or in support of my loved ones. And now my dedication, competency, and integrity are being questioned and I’m being threatened on top of all the bigotry? Those are NOT things you question about me. I’m not perfect and I fuck up but those base values are what makes me, me. Hell, my motto is Honour, Courage, Integrity!

It had gotten to the point that I've been very close to exploding, quitting, calling them the bigots they were, and storming out. I nearly did so this week after one boss was subtly (though I believe ignorantly) racist and the other was using gay slurs within half an hour.

After calming myself down, my plan was to consult with some friends this week, calm down further, get some sleep, and be professional. To put in my 2 weeks, tell them why, and use the last pitiful paycheck to put myself in a position to make money by other means.

Now, as I continued to calm down, I realized that immediately pulling the trigger on quitting was an immature way to handle the situation. As much as I wanted to, the enlightened thing to do would be to open a dialogue with my bosses and trying to resolve the situation rather than treat them as hostile. Despite the evidence, there may be more going on that I’m unaware of and they may be receptive to what I have to say. What can I say? I’m a Trekkie who grew up in the TNG era. Exhaust all opportunities for discussion before taking any action that could be taken as hostile. It may sound silly, but that show was very formative for me and the principles I learned from it have helped me well in life. #IAmStarfleet

But, after FINALLY getting some sleep last night and with one of the bosses gone on a business trip, something felt right about doing this today. I’d had some sleep so I knew my emotional control would be there and I wasn’t going to act unprofessionally. The boss had just come back from a “liquid lunch” so he was relaxed but not drunk. Having come out the day before to my straight-ally coworker had heartened me. And I was not so overloaded that I couldn’t take some time and write the 3-4 pages of talking points I needed to write before hand to keep me on track if I got flustered. So, I positioned myself so that my boss couldn’t avoid me (not that he was trying - just so he knew I needed to talk to him) and asked for a half hour one on one before he left. He agreed. It was no big issue.

Now, I’ve dealt with similar situations before. When I worked political campaigns, I was not only in a much more demanding and labor intensive positions (20+ hour days for months with no ability to take weekends off) but that boss was a total, self absorbed, jackass that continued tearing me down despite all I was doing. Nothing was good enough. So I called him and demanded a meeting. He asked when I could come in. I demanded he come to me (I was an hour and a half away). I sat him down and did then what I did today. I explained the situation and told him why there was an issue. At the next team meeting he promised to do better and afterwards gave me a big hug and thanked me. He didn’t change and was eventually replaced, but the point is that I knew that this is something I could do. But that doesn’t make it less scary. Especially since this involved something so personal that I’ve had so many issues dealing with over my life. Especially since I’ve only in the past few weeks felt comfortable enough with my sexuality to begin to talk about it with straights who are my long term friends. It surprised the heck out of me when I came out to my co-worker yesterday. #Scary.

I also had several people cautioning me not to do this. My mother was the most adamant. But also a friend who was concerned that this place was so hostile that I might just face further discrimination. For insight into my mindset, and really, just who I am, I want to quote an excerpt from my response to that.

“The bigotry, lack of respect, and lack of compensation is whats bugging me. If this convo fixes that... Long hours I'm meh about and I enjoy the work. And that’s not judging others. That’s just who I am. I'm the guy who has the guts to face things head on. Stare the darkness in the face and dare it to extinguish my light. If I lose that, I lose everything. I cant have that with every other aspect of my life and not this now that I've accepted it.”

And for those who are going to criticize me and say that my lack of self acceptance of my sexual identity disproves that statement let me point a couple things out. 1) Bandwidth. Without going into too much detail, my life, especially the past 10 years, has been ROUGH. It’s hard to do things like process your sexuality issues when you’re doing things like working 16 hour days while a tooth rots in your head because you can’t afford to get the root canal you need because all you’re money’s going into making the choice between food and bills. Or when everyone around you, with the exception of your mother, does not seem to be, but is actually dying or abandoning you. 2) Lack of community. I’m just a man and I have my limits - sometimes I need help. By reaching out for that help, I’m proving my statements about myself true. I haven’t had anyone I could turn to and ask, “what was it like for you?”. No-one to relate to. No-one to tell me that there’s nothing wrong with me. I didn’t even have support outside the queer community dealing with every other aspect life - much less in it to deal with this. Every time I reached out the past 5 or 6 years to try to get that support, I was shut down in some way. I’ve had community members shrug and be dismissive, not understanding the traumas involved with growing up Catholic and in a homophobic setting. I’ve had people point to some reading material, pat me on the head, and send me on my merry - not truly understanding the damage 25+ years of internalized homophobia can cause. I’ve had one gal talk about bi-erasure in one breath, insist I’m straight in the other, declare how lesbians are superior to all others, and then try to get me to apologize for being a cishet man. Which, growing up primarily raised by women, having strong memories of sitting around the table as they talk about how horrible men are, being told “but you’re different” and “one of the good ones” and left feeling othered and wondering how much I should hate myself for my gender did NOT go over well. But that’s an entire blog post in it of itself and I digress.

So the time for the meeting came and I told my boss everything. I told him that he needed to quit the gay slurs. That I was bi. That I had met and was falling for the most amazing guy which had inspired me to make another attempt at confronting these issues. That the past couple months have been awesome and positive but extremely intense. That there’s been many times where I’ve held it together during the day and then just stared into my monitor for hours unable to do anything but have tears in my eyes once everyone left. That I’ve been on my laptop so much because I’m getting (and giving) support. That I’m afraid that some of my friends may end themselves and not be there tomorrow. Of all the illness I’ve been pushing through. And how, through it all, I still got the job DONE.

And the response was shocking. He was completely taken aback. He asked, “what slurs?” I gave him an example and, being total white straight male, he hadn’t even realized what he was doing. He asked if I was gay. I told him bi and he laughed and exclaimed how insensitive he’s been and immediately apologized. He lit up and exclaimed how awesome it was when I said I was falling for (again) the most amazing man (hard). He said how he has no issues with queer folk and told me of his gay friend with a similar background to me. He told me how, when he grew up, they used those terms all the time to effectively mean asshole but had no clue what they meant and that they had just become reflex - but that that was no excuse. That he had no problem not outing me to anyone else, though I’m close to being completely out. I was valued and appreciated.

And then, no joke, he asked me what I needed on my projects and the entire thing became, among other things, a pitch session and him putting many of his resources at my disposal.

Also, it turns out that the “firing” thing was because the other boss was freaking out about how a couple of business partners who were funding my salary simply didn’t like having to pay me and, for that reason alone which nothing to do with me, were looking for any excuse to “cut costs.” From my own deductions, I now realize that it’s mostly that I haven’t been putting up enough of a “show” of working on the rare occasion they’ve been around which is probably making it harder for that boss to defend me. Also, I’m 90% sure this is that guy’s first time managing someone and I know for a fact that this is his first time working in this industry and dealing with certain types of personalities - like said business partners. These are things that I have decades of experience with in one form or another so, now that I know that I know what his issues largely are, I plan on having a similar talk with him and offering my advice and support. I’ve been in that position before and watched it blow up in my face. Honestly, he’s fucking lucky it’s me and not someone else - they would have stormed out. I know. I’ve been the one stormed out on.

His main fault was not properly communicating to me how much of an issue these asshole business partners have been. I’ve been in his position many a time and now exactly how to compensate for that kind of bullshit. And because of his lack of communication, I haven’t been able to make his job easier by doing so.

I think there might be a couple of translation-to-this-industry issues as well so I’ll talk to him about that too. And, apparently, the boss I talked to has had to pull that boss aside a few times recently. Somethings going on with his personal life I feel.

So, yeah. That was probably the best coming-out-at-work experience I could have had. We’ll see if the boss I spoke to lives up to his promises but, as of now, things are looking up. I’m so glad that I haven’t been too traumatized in life that I can still hope. Maybe I’m just too stubborn an asshole to let it go. But it’s that hope that led me to try the diplomatic path. That allowed me to adhere to my values and belief that dialogue and understanding can solve nearly all situations so long as both sides listen.

And yes, those are Starfleet values. And if that’s too corny for you I have 2 things to say. 1) Read the above book-of-a-blog again and tell me how I’m wrong when EVERYONE else (except Mom) was telling me that the only solution was to quit in a righteous rage. 2) Fuck off you ignorant, pessimistic, little shit. #IAmStarfleet #FirstDutyToTheTruth #TrekTillIDie

I may still leave here soon for various other reasons, but now, rather than making enemies here I’ll leave with (assuming words meet deeds - which evidence so far here as indicated these are the kind of people where that’ll be the case) A) the use of these facilities for my own projects, B) plenty of time to prepare, and C) a financial cushion to aid in the transition.

Thanks to Danni, Alex, and Kaeden who’s support and affections have been crucial in helping me get to the point where I’m secure enough in my identity that I can tackle issues like this. Thank you for being my community.

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infiniteundo · 7 years

Text

Software As Narrative Parts 1-8 Collected

I was asked by Twitter to switch to long form writing about testing, QA and risk. Here are the early raw results of my return to blogging about… all of those things Please note that part 7, the [further reading page.](http://infiniteundo.com/post/158412712773/further-reading-s-as-n-7n "The Further Reading page is constantly being updated with new resources!") is not included here as that is a living document.

Table of Contents

Part One: in which the map disturbingly turns out to be the territory

Part Two: in which robust partition tolerance is found to be desirable but impossible

Part Three: in which someone got punched in the face

Part Four: in which the significance of software as narrative is expounded upon

Part Five: a brief examination of the social forcing functions exposed by narrative tactics

Part Six: in which a fictional old-timer relates tales of the SDLC

Part Seven: list of further reading materials

Part Eight: in which the hidden art of de-noising is shewn for the non-initiate

Part One

> Any software system begins as a shared narrative about a problem and > the people who come together around solving that problem.

If you don't accept the above proposition completely then nothing I have to say about software is going to work for you.

Chthulhucene Devops: staying with the trouble as a service

This is and always has been the core proposition of my "way of Devops." Which I am now finally able to articulate and which I differentiate from other devops as Chtulhucene Devops, so as to acknowledge that it is not "mine" in any sense except as far as I know I am its sole practicing engineer. Designers and executives and other leaders may practice it --- but developers mostly have a hard time with the tolerance for chaos required for what Donna Haraway has so insightfully now labeled: "staying with the trouble."

Software is narrative

> The problem with intelligent communication is the illusion that it > has taken place. > > -- GB Shaw

Suspend your disbelief and just run with this for one minute if you will: commercial software is a narrative about a problem and the community of people who come together around said problem. Note that I haven't said anything about money or value streams yet. That's the beauty of this approach: you start at the highest-possible view of the project: the gods-eye view. This is what the narrative approach can deliver to you, the confused but eager software hacker-er.

You see, a big problem in software -- the main problem -- is that you wake up one morning and find that you've spent 3 months building the wrong thing. It seemed like the right thing 3 months ago, communications got dropped, mistakes were made, it's wrong now. This can happen so easily with software.

The problem of what was it even supposed to do in the first place

In order to not build the wrong thing we must know with clarity what we are meant to be building. It sounds like a tautology and if we were talking about any medium but the digital medium it would be a tautology. But as all software engineers immediately come to learn, there is a Lovecraftian, Non-Newtonian gulf between "what we build" and "what we were meant to be building."

"Know what is meant to be happening not just what is happening" is anything but a tautology in software. It is a yawning conceptual gulf that can swallow projects whole.

How do you know what is meant to be happening?

As people we have something called an inner narrative that we compare to the external happenings in the world and that's how we do sense-making. The thing is that the "external happenings" of the world aren't external at all. Events in the world around us impinge on and irrevocably merge with our "inner" narratives.

The world is made of stories

Stories are how we do sense-making. Stories are literally the tool that allowed us to come down from the trees. We couldn't master fire until we could fashion a story about how to master fire.

But with fire there was a physical thing to point to: the thing that is on fire. Get that thing. Such were our stories. For almost our entire time on earth as a species, stories were basically: there is thing, do something with thing.

But now we can't use that narrative any more even. Because with the digital domain there is no "raw material" that we start with to create products. That this is the case causes a lot of mis-spent Web budgets, because it is counterintuitive so people tend to budget in spite of it not in alignment with the reality that Web products all begin as stories and some are less fictional than others.

There is no thing

> A monk asked Joshu, a Chinese Zen master: Has a dog Buddha-nature or > not?' > > Joshu answered:Mu.'

In software there is no "thing" that you can point at. In order to point at a "thing" in software you have to construct the thing, starting with the environment in which the thing is going to exist.

You always have to design both "the product" your customers want and "the environment" in which your product will run in production. Thus any software product begins with two obvious categories of "work to be done." People ignore this because it seems counterintuitive.

Now you have two problems

> A programmer has a problem and says I know I'll use Perl. > > Now they have 2 problems.

This is a class of Boundary Problem -- you always have to design the environment your software product "lives" in, no matter how hard you try to isolate your project from the vagaries of its environment.

This observation generalizes and goes back at least to Wittgenstein who said of Boundary Conditions in general:

> Can't we imagine a rule determining the application of a rule, and a > doubt which [it] removes — and so on?

Further reading

For further reading on this and related chtulhucene devops topics, please visit the further reading page.

Part Two

No you have n+1 problems

The old joke goes like this:

> A programmer has a problem and says I know I'll use Perl. > > Now they have 2 problems.

It's ha-ha only serious humor or as I prefer to call it: you-have-to-laugh-because-you-can't-cry humor. I may have learned this phrase from my dad, who was a journalist.

Solving a problem with a Web service (or a device or an appliance or a mobile app that depends on Web services -- to me it is the same thing!) is not just finding the solution but keeping the solution running in production forever after. That you have to be responsible for the product in the long term is something a lot of people overlook. In the early days of software "keeping it running" was minimized under the label "maintenance" or "system operations" making it sound like a negligibly important background activity.

Don't bet against the CAP theorem

It turns out that keeping Web services running is really hard. That's why so many historical Web sites even though they were super cool are no longer around: it's really expensive to pay people to run sites. And it turns out people don't like running sites no one uses. This is new information as of about 2008 or so -- before that everyone assumed the opposite was true.

The crowd that realized they were wrong and copped to it coined the word "devops" to describe their insight. Devops just means that you try to establish common ground within the company, in response to any problem you establish common ground and work together toward a commonly-known compromise goal of solving the problem. It's drawn from Theory Of Constraints and other stuff that if you are reading this series of posts still, I probably don't have to explain to you!

You can't sacrifice Consistency

It turns out people really care about their data. You can't build a distributed system that is resistant against partitions. You can't build a site that's up all the time. But you can damn well ensure that if the user saved data with you and you told them you got it, that you definitely really still got it.

The value of data integrity to users is often overlooked. Doubters would do well to remember Ma.gn.ol.ia.

So given that these "ops" exist…

Ops came to prominence in the mid-to-late 2000s as Web 2.0 apps like Gmail and Google Maps exploded in popularity. Not to mention a stupid service called twittr that was started around then too that one caused all kinds of trouble.

The thing is that you can scale hardware and you can scale software but people can't be cloned nor can more people be trained to do hard specialized nerd labor like Ops.

The moral of the story so far

So as a person who is interested in making a thing that will work on the internet, you need to learn about Ops. Now. And you need to learn as much as you can. Because real ops people cost a lot of money and for the most part you can bet you will never even work with one. They are that rare because the Internet of the 2000s got HUGE that fast. It really did. I was there. Ask me.

So dev and ops must find common ground. There are not enough ops any more to run the web and there never will be again because the web got so big so fast and keeps expanding at about the same rate as fuck I have no idea nothing I have ever seen. Like a rainbow kaboom this web we built kind of mostly on accident if history be known.

Oh.

There's that troublesome idea again. History.

Narrrative. Let's get back to talking about how to leverage the insight that software is at its heart a narrative.

Part Three

For the sake of argument

For the sake of argument let's say that I am right and that all software is at its heart a narrative?

Wait I take that back. I can prove I'm right. I don't need you to suspend your disbelief for this to make sense. Although in the future if you keep reading I will teach you how selectively suspending your disbelief (and that of others) can be advantageous.

For the sake of argument JUST LISTEN TO ME HERE

If software were in fact composed of stories that are shared between people, then we could easily decompose software into stories and indeed the software industry fairly blossoms with different options for doing so. Story-driven-development and ideation run amok in silicon alley, to mostly good effect!

If software were narrative then it would be possible to get just the idea of software funded and valued as if it were a real existing software (whatever that means do you start to grok me yet?)

We all know things get funded that don't get built

Things get funded because someone likes the story. Things don't get built for all kinds of Reasons. That a software thing was not built at all does not in any way imply that no work went into trying to build the thing. A common tragedy in the programming profession is that we build a word processor in place of what was actually needed I am not entirely making that up.

That software can be almost built for years but never actually work supports my point. If effort went into the software and the software never worked (to take an extreme case for the sake of argument.)

If that were the case, what do we have, the non-working stuff of the project? Well literally a developer will tell you "we have what's in Git history." Literally we have a story.

Git stores histories which are stories which is what narrative means. Game set match.

Part Four

Software is narrative: so what this is old news.

Great question!

Narratives have certain essential characteristics. All software methodologies to date have failed to reduce software to any certain set of essential characteristics.

To view software as narrative is an application of the Theory of Constraints: by applying the constraint that software must at some level be viewed / viewable as narrative, we reduce all software to simple essential characterstics.

Further we advantage ourselves of the multitudinous perspectives from 3 million years of proto/human evolution that led to having minds that can carry complex things like stories, even stories about how processors are supposed to interact with strange fictional beings we tell each other are called "the Integers."

If you accept that the digital realm is narrative first

If you accept that the digital realm is narrative first then you realize quickly that you can still capitalize on the True Promise of the Web.

This is quite an exciting insight since it means there are numerous ways of getting mad paid on the Web, that have been overlooked because no one was looking to monetize narratives-as-such. But narratives certainly exist as such. And I have now rationalized their value.

In fact I have state and will continue to state that all my success, my career, my talks, Etsy, Barnes and Noble iOs automated builds, all my stuff, it worked (and some of it continues to work in production to this day, amazingly enough!) because I always subscribed to this vision of software as narrative.

This insight is the thing that makes my solutions stand up where others' don't.

It has taken me many years and much talking in private to more people than I can thank (although obviously MY WIFE deserves a big round of applause) to arrive at a place in my life where I can explain how I did what I did at each of those famously successful job sites.

Because I always felt I was carrying out a repeatable process and I was right. It just took time and self-reflection to arrive at a place where I could start to attach allegories and case studies to these: the central insights of my career.

Part Five

How do you use software to control the narrative?

youtube

You should be so lucky as to have a month of vacation saved up and a ticket you can buy to some isolated terrain where you can meditate upon this:

> Given that software products are composed of competing/interacting > narratives, how do I use software to control the narrative?

Because code in a very fundamental way determines the laws of what is and is not possible within a network of people thinking about the same problem.

The insight that code is narrative enables new ways of thinking. If you can go away and meditate on how to monetize and / or make benefit to your fellow beings with this insight you should do that. I sort of already I have I guess. It was cool. You'll like it. Great excuse to take some "me time" and come back with a new startup idea.

Part Six

The Software Development Life Cycle reconsidered as a story cycle

A trilogy. Part the first:

First of all young'n, have ye never yeven heared of ye olde SDLC?

Why then read ye of the s, the d the l and the c fore I whack ye with my specially reserved get-off-my-lawnHammer-of-doom+4!

For I have been a hax0r yes! A hax0r of yore, in the days when bases were belong to us and yet before. When the bases belonged to no one yet.

I am long in tooth and hot of air and I speak for the cats of the internet. And the lolcats say: go forth and do not break the Web. And the cats say: we serve the will of Sir Tim Berners-Lee: break not the Web for it is already yet just a little bit broken. Let none seek to break it further and that's QA or something. Thanks goodbye.

Part Eight

Fix All Errors And Warnings: A Narrative Perspective On The ROI Of De-Noising Logs

Before its use in computing the word log referred to a journal kept by a human: a log is a record of events in the real world. Logs recount histories and by doing so logs participate in the multiple narratives of success and failure in intractably complex sociotechnical organizations.

Logs Contain Historical Evidence

On the Web when something fails the server and application logs are the source of truth about the chain of events. Logs are the primary evidence that we use to reconstruct the chain of failure and then present a new narrative where the system works again.

Logs Contain A Lot Of Signal

The actionability of error messages is of direct business value. The faster a Web product can recover from an incident (MTTR) the less impact that incident is likely to cause. In the best case incidents are detected at the precursor stage and no production impact whatever takes place. Such is the power of high-signal logs.

Now add noise

Now to this high ROI first-responder log capability, add noise. Why?

Right.

There is no value in allowing noise in logs. Noise here can only impact the hard-won ROI of actionable service logs.

Don't add noise to logs, it screws up the narrative

At best a collection of service logs during an incident (and here I include RRD services and StatsD, Splunk --- they are all ways of logging) is a trigger for that eureka moment where an impending incident becomes a simple matter of fixing misconfiguration.

Ignoreable Errors Are A Cargo Cult

There is no logical reason to allow errors in your logs that you can safely ignore. Just filter the spurious errors using grep -v it's that easy. Kill the noise.

#devops #continuous delivery

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psychicwolftraveler-blog · 6 years

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Bipolar and the stigma

Bipolar and the stigma against mental illness

When people hear mental illness they tend to shudder with fear and smugness as if there better than anyone who suffers from something. When people hear Bipolar they run a mile! Some may say I am exaggerating but I am not. Iv seen it first hand. I myself suffer from Bipolar Type 2. Now i emphasise the type as thats important. When people hear Bipolar they think of manic, mania, psychosis, hyper, unhinged...the list goes on. But I am none of those things. Type 2 sufferers tend to have long bouts of low periods and very intense anxiety, in all honesty the anxiety can manifest into paranoia-so there is an element of psychosis but nowhere near as much as a Type 1 sufferer.

I was diagnosed 3 years ago at the age of 27 going on 28. Prior to this, Id only ever had one other breakdown and that was 10 years before hand in my late teens. I had always suffered from some form of anxiety but i had always managed to control it. My job as a manager kept me mentally busy and challanged and i thrived on stress, in fact in one interview i even said i loved it! but in the end it was stress that broke me down, and now sadly that aspect off any job i do in the future will be a no no for me! But since my diagnosis iv noticed a wave of stigma attached to mental health. People are geniunly scared of it! There scared of what it means and what it can do. they dont realise the effects that can have on the person suffering!

I myself have never told any of my employers about my illness for this reason, because a lack of understanding on their part can make them nieve, and regardless of how qualified I am I wont be fit enough for the job because my brain ever so slightly works in a diffrent way to others! I know my triggers and I can control it to a point...the only thing that stops me having control is pregnanacy, because adding those hormones to an already altered mind makes for very confusing times! I spend weeks indoors not talking to anybody or seeing the outside world-but its all for the greater good, and though i can turn into a hormonal nightmare when pregnant, having a baby is a blessing and ill take all the bad that comes with it!

I recently wrote an open letter on twitter to many celebrity ambassadors for mental health, including the young royals- below is the letter i wrote:

I am writing to you today as I have been reading about all your work that you are doing surrounding mental health namely the stigma surrounding it. I am writing to you in a capacity of desperation to get my voice heard. You both are the voice that can speak for the millions so I figured it was worth a shot so here goes. Let me give you a background on myself. I am 31 and am a freelance journalist/poet and a manager within the NHS. I has my first mental breakdown when I was 16 at the time people thought it was a mixture of hormones and family factors, none the less I had to leave 6th form and was medicated for a few years. When that fog lifted I returned to college and went onto university to study new media journalism. To support myself I had to work in the post room within a NHS trust. I worked my way up that corporate ladder very quickly and after graduating kept the journalistic side to freelance and continued to work my way up in the NHS, iv worked in A&E as admin manager, iv worked as unit managers for CNWL's Addiction services, and even ended up managing the admin team at the same unit that treated me when I was 16 within west London mental health trust, which was ironic really but also showed how far I had come and accomplished! The same doctor that treated me still worked there too! I went from being her patient 10 years before to drinking with her in a pub at 26 a fully fledged cured adult who managed the admin team including her secretary! The signifance of me telling this will become apparent soon.... In november 2014 I suffered a severe break down and voluntarily went into a low secure mental health unit just to rest and get the treatment I needed! Again it was west London mental health I was treated by, but this time I had two perspectives, one the patient and two the employee! The same doctors and nurse I had been drinking in a pub with 2 years before now saw me as a patient, some wouldn't even say hello. The only people to acknowledge me were the patiebts who rembered me from the services they attended, but now i was one of them. This was my first experience of the stigma of mental health, I was no good anymore I was just another patient. It was at this point I was diagnosed with Bipolar type 2, I would like to emphasize the type 2 as that's another stigma I get. The difference between type 1 and 2 is vast, there is no mania with my type and more anxiety and depression. It was a hard diagnosis but it hadn't come from nowhere I had it since 16! It made sense all the times I'd have down patches I just put down to environmental factors, a bad relationship, argument with friends, stress at work etc... I just thought it was what the doctors had said when I was 16..hormones and family factors, but it wasn't it was bipolar.. So the entire time I had been working I had bipolar and nobody had known, not me, not my colleagues not even the doctor who treated me at 16 and drank with me on Friday night and now wouldn't even say hello to me after seeing me in hospital! Stigma is stigma and even employees and doctors have them. Knowing that keeping busy controlled it and stress made it worse I went straight back to work in a brand new job at the RNOH in stanmore in January 2015!! I took a step back and went in as a EA to the hospitals operations director....not an easy job but less stressful than managing things myself but it wasn't long before I got the urge to take the reins once more and within 9 months I was unit manager of paediatrics at the same hospital! Again nobody knew until I fell pregnant in March 2016, I was not on any medication apart from calming pills to stop my anxiety flaring up but I stopped all these when I found out. I had my first and only encounter with perinatel who are a great team and service, unfortunately I miscarried at 20 weeks, and within 3 days I was discharged from the perinatal service and was on my own. The pregnancy hormones and lack of medication had made Me very edgy and anxious more so than I had ever been, then losing the baby caused more emotions which were hard to deal with. I had to finish at my job in the June of 2016 as the stress and the commute were making me sick again and being pregnant I had to make that my priority not my career. It was the first time I hadn't worked since I was 18 and being at home made my illness worse. None the less me and my partner tried again and I fell pregnant in may 2017 but again lost it at 6 weeks. This sent me into a downward spiral and I had to make a decision to try again or go back to work but we tried again and here I am 11 weeks pregnant and everything thus far going well and being monitored everything but my mental health. Iv had no further contact from a perinatel team and am on no medication. When I do see my midwife my mental health always gets used as a weapon. Iv been told I must have a cesarean for my own health but I also must have meeting regarding mental health to see if I could cope with a baby and what my support network is. That is what has pushed me to write to you both.... The stigma. Just because I have a diagnosis does not mean I am not capable or of sound mind! I went 12 years with nobody none the wiser not even the doctor who had originally treated me at 16, but now they can name my problem I'm not a worthy and am treated a second class citezen. People Dont talk about mental health because of this reason, and things need to change. If I had another invisible illness like epilepsy would I have the same stigma... Probably not. With my corporate mindset I ask you, when you work with mental health issues, departmentalise each issue.... Suicide, depression, psychosis, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders . within each of these things there is a stigma and within each of those boxes is a person like me who can control, hide and survive through my issues everyday with nobody knowing, working in high level jobs too scared to say anything because when I do I become somebody everybody is scared of abd treat differently just because I'm labeled with a mental illness and as the voice of the many I do hope the work you all do goes someway to helping the case I have put to you today because this is an issue that needs changing and changing fast.I have enclosed copy's of 2 poems I have written about mental health which are also published online, I look forward to your response Yours faithfully

Needless to say I never got any replys-which made me more determined to start a blog, to have my voice and get it heard!!

Iv recently read in the news today that they believe the grand old president of the USA, Mr Donald J Trump is apparently suffering from a mental illness-which could in effect cost him his job! According to the BBC, experts believe he is suffering from narcassistic personality disorder- now hes the kind of person that gives people with genuine mental illness a bad name! He's not mentally ill, hes an egotistic old man who is too twitter happy and obscessed with big red buttons. Everything he says is pathetic and he cant be taken seriously, the way the USA can justify thier horrific mistake of electing such a gorrilla is to brush it off with, "we didnt realise he was mentaly ill"!! cop out if you ask me!!! Just take his tweets with Mr Kim Jung un- iv seen 3 year olds in nurserys have better arguments than that!! Thats not a mental illness its a child in a 70 somethings body!! Hes the human real life version of Tom Hanks's character in Big, just not as nice or as clever or as entertaining!! I defenitly wouldnt want to play the big piano with him in a toy store-god forbid you were better than him- you'd be banned from America and called a loser on twitter before being handed a shovel and some bricks to go and build his mexican wall!

My point is, mental illness is a stigma and when its used to describe somebody like Donald Trump its no wonder people get scared!! We should be allowed to talk about it more freely and openly without the fear of being judged-but if that will change who will know...Until then all we can do is live on and fight the big fight that is mental illness which ever one it may be..... we'll talk more on this subject... but until then take care...

The typist behind the screen xxx

www.gogsworld.net

#blogger #bipolar #stigma #donald trump #strong

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