There are a lot of people on tumblr who, if you say "lack of empathy can be an issue sometimes," will say "so you hate autistic people then?"

It has baffled me for years, because what I remember from neurodiversity activism back in the day is, like, "no, we have empathy. You just aren't measuring it because you asked if I could read a facial expression from the eyes alone, which is a completely different thing that's about reading cues."

Thank you! That’s what I think too. I really dislike the whole “there is no such thing as narcissistic abuse” thing. Not because narcissistic people are more abusive or fundamentally evil-er, but because if you know that someone is prone to rewrite reality in their own head to make them look good, it becomes a bit less surprising and crazy making when they tell you something was your fault that you remember very differently.

It’s really, really helped me to think about when I want to pick my battles with my mom to reframe what she’s doing in my own mind with “she’s rarely willing to accept a version of events in which she was the mean one. Only insist if it’s really, really lastingly hurtful. Otherwise internally roll your eyes, pass her some main character hair dye, and get on with life.”

BPD too. From what I gather the thing that makes manipulating people super tempting for people who have BPD is fear of abandonment, so if they do get abusive it tends to fall on the “I can’t let you leave, it hurts me too much” spectrum.

A lot of my own trauma was around being coerced not to leave dangerous physical spaces and situations. So I take a bit longer to get close to people with BPD, because if I feel forced to stay it’s gonna hurt me. A lot.

Does this mean people with these disorders intend to be abusive? Not likely! Most abusers are rationalizing things to themselves. Abusers with PDs are probably not different.

But at the same time… there’s a person with BPD out there who I used to talk to all the time who I now interact with only rarely, because when he said “you need to understand how painful it is when someone leaves, and why manipulating people to stay is something anyone would do” I said “well yes but you need to understand consent to ANYTHING can be withdrawn at any time” ad he said “you’re not getting it” so I said “I wish you well but this is where I’m done.”

If you use your disorder to justify arguing against consent culture, some people may well do what I did and stop consenting to hang out with you.

It sucks for you, not saying it doesn’t or shouldn’t, but rights aren’t conditional. You don’t get to tell people they’re only allowed to set boundaries with neurotypicals.

Maybe I’m weird, and maybe it’s just that tumblr isn’t one community but lots of little ones. But I have to say it gives me a bit of whiplash to post to my friends about how people can have mental health issues that are severe enough that makes interacting with them weird and scary, and get support and “that was understandably rough for you, we love you” and then to peruse my dash and see things like “if a disorder has a stigmatized name, we should be advocating that it not be allowed into the DSM at all. No one is actually scary, that’s just ableism.”

…No? Some illnesses do predispose people to do scary things?

Doesn’t mean they’re not people, but man. I really get the vibe on this hellsite sometimes that there’s a subset of users who has no idea what unsafe means unless the unsafe person is a cop.

It’s my GAWD GIVEN RIGHT to get sprayed in the eyes with blood full of virus!

STEVE WHY ARE YOU LETTING THE ZOMBIES GET THAT CLOSE

ppl in zombie media are way too blasé about shooting at close range and getting covered in bodily fluids like. if the bite infects you have to assume fluids are a vector. you can’t be getting covered in thaaattt

"By reorganizing the United Methodist Church in this way, it's far more likely that its ban on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ clergy could be lifted in the U.S while allowing churches elsewhere to make their own rules."

I am very thrilled that my denomination is doing this!

But I am a little uncomfortable with this explanation:

"Yes, it decenters the U.S., but it also dismantles colonialism, giving us sense of agency, a sense of autonomy while still keeping us connected missionally," she said. Rev. Emmanuel Sinzohagera of the United Methodist Church's Burundi Conference said he is pleased with this reorganization plan. "What matters in Africa may not necessarily matters to you, to the U.S. church, and what matters to you as church may not necessarily matter to the African Church," he said.

Saying that allowing the African Church to continue to be homophobic "resists colonialization" stretches words to their breaking point when it was very often colonizers who taught the peoples they colonized that homosexuality was an affront to God in the first place.

I'm okay with this compromise because I've been following this issue long enough to know that if we didn't do this, the answer would still be no globally, because the African churches would insist on it.

But calling this compromise "anti-colonialist" is a bit much for my gay ass.

I need to be taken to the seaside for hysteria

This is so random but if you’re a trans man and you’re alive I love you. Thank you for living.

I was in line at Aldi and this girl with two toddlers in front of me had her card declined and she looked so fucking sad and said “let me call my husband real quick” and it was only 18 dollars, so I just paid for it, and she was very sweet and then as she walked off, the lady behind me said `”You know that was probably a scam, right?” and like, even if it was, like what a sad fucking scam, right? 18 dollars at the Aldi. If you’re “scamming” me for some Tyson chicken and apple juice and cauliflower, then just take my fucking money. 

“A scam” people are fucking wild.  

“Because in Tolkien's mythology, technology represents evil and materialism in contrast to the goodness of nature and spirituality.

The One Ring didn't simply exist through magic; it was forged through craftsmanship, which is the most basic form of technology. Obviously, craftsmanship itself is not evil, but it is easily corrupted; it isn't itself evil, but too prone to evil to be considered neutral.

I don't know if you have read the Silmarillion, but this is why the Noldor, the most skilled among Elves, are the ones who suffer most from Melkor's deceit. It is why Dwarves and Men are more easily corrupted than Elves, Tolkien's ideal race. Khazad-dum unleashed the Balrog because the Dwarves delved too deep in their search for more metals and gems, substances of little worth without technology to shape them. Númenór fell when Men's technology advanced enough for them to wage war against Valinor, and they were defeated by the Valar--that is, powers of nature.

What marks Saruman's descent into wickedness? That he destroys Fangorn to fuel his machinery, and he uses his technology to breed the Uruk-hai. The Spoiling of the Shire is its industrialization. Even the palantiri work some evil.

So the reason that technology didn't advance between the end of the Second Age and the end of the Third is that Middle-Earth is naturally good. There was no evil force powerful enough to drive innovation, so it remained as it was. If the Fellowship had failed, technology would have advanced under Sauron's rule.

EDIT: For anyone interested, my response draws heavily from Patrick Curry's Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth, and Modernity.”

See such comments as “he has a mind of metal and wheels” about Saruman:

“I think that I now understand what he is up to. He is plotting to become a Power. He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment. And now it is clear that he is a black traitor.”

Also remember that Sauron taught the Elves how to forge the Rings.

You know, it's kinda funny how much of high fantasy centers around kings and nobility and courtly intrigue considering that the archetypal high fantasy, Lord of the Rings, had the rather explicit moral of "saving the world is up to this backwater hick and his gardener because no politician, least of all inherited nobility, would have the ability to see past their own ambition and throw away a weapon". Oh sure, Aragorn is a great king and all, but there's a reason he's over there running a distraction ring while the hobbits do the real work. Sauron loses because he gets distracted by kings and armies and great battles (i.e. typical high fantasy stuff) letting Frodo and Sam sneak through his back door and blow it all to hell.

Just saying, maybe old Jirt knew what he was saying when he said that the small folk doing their best and holding to each other was more powerful than a dozen alliances and superweapons and we should respect him for it.

All I can figure is they do laundry a lot.

this does not apply if you wear exclusively leggings. Those things tear all the time you need like a million on standby

Top-Tier Villain Motivations

They will be safe. It doesn't matter who else or what else burns as long as They will be safe.

I will be safe. The hunger and the cold will never touch me again.

Fuck any bitch who's prettier(/cooler/better-liked/better at making dumplings) than me.

Yes, Master

Love me. Love me. Love me. Love me. LOVE ME!

I know the terrible things these so-called "heroes" will do if I don't stop them (<- is absolutely wrong)

I don't want a better future, I want a better past!

No other way to get performance art funded these days

Let no one hold that newborn!

Just watched a cis woman argue for banning trans men from birthing wards because, and I quote, "some women have been SAed"

That’s the thing I’m talking about, yeah! I can be really stubborn and forceful, so when this meets situations in which my emotional regulation is poor, I can say things that hurt people. (I’m not physically violent but some people can be.) Especially if I miss the signs that I’m going into one of those states. (If I catch it early I generally avoid people until it passes, say by playing a video game.)

The thing isn’t that I have to be perfect and never have that happen. I have a mental illness. It happens.

The thing is that I have to fix it afterward, and if I’m in a more healthy place I have to work on myself so it becomes less frequent and less severe.

If I say to myself, “I’m mentally ill. What are they expecting?” that’s an excuse. Use it too much and too intensely and it becomes straight up abuser logic.

Whether or not I meant it I did it, and whether or not I apologized the person I did that to still has a disconcerting memory of me lashing out. Even if I handle it perfectly, I can’t erase that or undo the way it made them feel or pretend that wasn’t me. Sick me is a version of me.

There’s a lot of rhetoric on here sometimes about personality disorders, about how this or that thing (impulsiveness, grandiosity, lack of empathy) is just who a person is, so you can’t demand they stop doing something without fundamentally attacking who they are.

I don’t have a PD, so I can’t speak to that. I do think if people’s posts sound like they’re asking you to alter your personality itself that would feel very threatening.

I don’t have a good solution, other than to say that I still think this applies. If it has to do with your illness and it hurts people, they get to ask or even just plain expect you to make it up to them in whatever way you’re able.

If you don’t, if what you did is your true self because your illness is you, then they can legitimately decide that means they dislike you.

Maybe I’m weird, and maybe it’s just that tumblr isn’t one community but lots of little ones. But I have to say it gives me a bit of whiplash to post to my friends about how people can have mental health issues that are severe enough that makes interacting with them weird and scary, and get support and “that was understandably rough for you, we love you” and then to peruse my dash and see things like “if a disorder has a stigmatized name, we should be advocating that it not be allowed into the DSM at all. No one is actually scary, that’s just ableism.”

…No? Some illnesses do predispose people to do scary things?

Doesn’t mean they’re not people, but man. I really get the vibe on this hellsite sometimes that there’s a subset of users who has no idea what unsafe means unless the unsafe person is a cop.

I mean okay, but if the OP is about underwear, only owning 3 sounds like being in laundry hell to me.

this does not apply if you wear exclusively leggings. Those things tear all the time you need like a million on standby