#like ill talk to my family and theyll be like 'go to school and focus and listen to your teachers!' meanwhile teachers dont even want to | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

socoollike · 1 year

Text

Sometimes i look back at my childhood and realise there was so much in my head.

Sometimes i wonder if i have all these things like bpd, ocd, asd and adhd but im too scared to talk about it to my parents because from a young age my thoughts and my feelings were pushed aside or treated as a joke. My whole life especially in my early teen years i had a lot happening in my head where i was so intensely depressed and couldnt go outside in fear of my peers seeing me and thinking im weird or i look horrible and somedays couldnt even go to school without having a meltdown. But no. I was a joke to my friends and family. My parents still call me a snowflake when i talk about my friends, problems in the world, if im possibly neurodivergent.

Im scared if im not actually autistic. What if this is just me and theres nothing. What if this is just how my brain works and im just incapable of everything. Or what if i just cant read social cues and everybody just doesnt like me just because?

What if i dont have adhd and i just cannot focus and nothing can fit in my brain? What if i just cant sit still and i have to do something or Ill just explode.

What if i dont have ocd and my brain just needs everything in a certain way and if somebody touches something ill snap. What if my brain just makes up these images in my head of my parents or peers doing things to me or me doing things to them. Me killing people, raping people vice versa. What if i have to do things in fives just because?

Im scared nobody will ever take me seriously. Im scared if i talk to someone about this they’ll just tell me i have nothing wrong with me. Im scared just because i can make five seconds of eye contact (and i have to count to five) im not autistic. Just because my room isnt filled with a specific thing im not autistic. Because im terrible at maths and get bad grades im not autistic. Perhaps i do have adhd ? But ive been thinking i have autism since i was ?? God knows. But nobody did anything.

I was just a quirky kid who had a strange obsession with art ! With collecting dolls ! Putting them in lines by colour and fives ! An obsession with cats that i still have ! You know as a kid i would colour code all the dvds in the living room so much my dad had to sell them ? Too bad im collecting dvds myself now and colourcoding them again and again and again. Even when they’re already colour coded i do it again and again and again.

I was just a quirky kid who sat by herself at break time and lunch because every kid saw something about them that they didn’t see. They saw something in me straight away. Ive always been friends with only neurodivergent people my whole life. They were the only people who didnt see that. Or did they ? Did they subconsciously know i was one of them ? Some kids who werent neurodivergent kept me around sometimes but then would leave me, it didnt make sense. Up to my teenage years one of my best friends was neurotypical, we were compete opposites but i felt safe around her until i would talk about my interests in bands, cats and collecting things then shed go off to her other friends or change the subject or completely leave me in year 10. In year 10 i finally got friends that were neurodivergent and i felt home, i could talk about my interests without feeling like a burden, they were interested. Though i still couldnt read social cues if they were tired of me telling them about my cats origin story or how the nine lives theory came to be. They would still listen and be interested and ask me questions.

I need to tell someone these and get a formal diagnosis but im too scared theyll see me as a weirdo or strange. If j do get a diagnosis ill be so extremely happy because then i actually have something ! Id have something to tell people why im like this, this is why im like this this js me !!!!! This is why you bullied me relentlessly for no reason !!!!!

I need this so bad. I need to stop blaming myself.

0 notes

peckhampeculiar · 5 years

Text

Twerking nine to five

PECKHAM’S KELECHNEKOFF STUDIO OFFERS FITNESS CLASSES RANGING FROM POLE-DANCING TO TWERKING TO YOGA. We meet its inspirational founder – the personal trainer, actress and Peckham resident Kelechi Okafor

WORDS JUMOKÉ FASHOLA PHOTO DILESH SOLANKI

I don’t think you could find anyone prouder to be a south Londoner than Kelechi Okafor. Born in Nigeria, she arrived to join her mother in Peckham at the age of five and the area has been her home ever since.

Describing herself as a ride or die Peckhamite, she not only lives locally, but has also established her Kelechnekoff fitness studio here.

Kelechi is a fierce, fun and fabulous woman, with boundless energy, who sees her remit as one of reclaiming the narrative about what it means to be a strong black female in the age of social media.

Her studio, based in the Sojourner Truth Centre on Sumner Road, offers everything from yoga to pole-dancing to twerking. Why twerking?

“One of the things I wanted from having a space like this,” she says, “is to allow women across the board to be tender and engage fully with their bodies.

“Because society has hyper-sexualised the female body so much, and the black female body specifically, there are women who just want to be as far away from that narrative as possible, not understanding that our power lies in the sexuality and sensuality of being a woman. That’s what I want us to take back.”

As an actor, director and personal trainer who specialises in twerk and pole-dance fitness, it’s been a challenging road to get to where she is today – from the homelessness she experienced as a teenager to supporting her mother and brothers, to depression, therapy, having to integrate into a new family when she first arrived in the UK, childhood sexual abuse and a lot more.

She has survived and is very open about her personal journey to date, particularly on social media. No topic is off limits – black issues, police brutality, mental health, her own recent miscarriage.

She has amassed a following of almost 35,000 people on Twitter, with a further 12,400 followers on Instagram. Where did her fascination with social media start?

“It was probably around 2013, when the shift started happening and I just felt that we had something here that allowed us to communicate with everybody, worldwide,” she says.

“I’ve always been a writer, and when Twitter came along I just took to it, because I thought, ‘This is a space where I can say what I’m thinking and I can put it out there as a form of microblogging.’

“I joined it when hardly anyone else was on there and I remember when the influx of celebrities started joining us. I thought, ‘There goes the neighbourhood, they are going to ruin everything!” she laughs.

“But it has changed and I’ve changed with it, as I saw how it allowed us to have our own voice separate from the narrative that we were getting from the media.

“I feel that this is where the power is. It’s an opportunity for me, Kelechi, to give you an alternative narrative to what you’d normally get from the mainstream.”

But in being so outspoken across her social media platforms, has there been a cost? “Yes, there has been, but I think that for anything that matters to you, there is always a sacrifice,” she says.

“Occasionally I will go online and there will be someone calling me a black b**** or a black this. Sometimes I save the tweets. Perhaps one day I’ll take it to court and then they’ll have to show up and explain that email or tweet they sent. But it hasn’t really got there.

“I did have horse manure sent to me in the first small studio I opened in Clapton, though,” she remembers ruefully.

“I had been speaking that weekend about the appropriation of black culture by mainstream pop artists.

“I was pointing out that when it’s ‘appropriation’, there’s always someone with more power who benefits from it financially. If it was ‘appreciation’, the person who has less of the power should be benefiting from it but they’re not.

“I was explaining that and someone got extremely upset with something I said, because soon after, I got horse manure posted to me anonymously.

“Although,” she laughs, “it didn’t even offend me because it was so well packaged and 100 per cent organic.”

What was the response to that experience from her social media followers?

“I have a lot of black female followers who care about my safety and care about my wellbeing. So, someone wrote an article for BuzzFeed about it, which basically helped promote my studio.

“Many people, men and women, sent me flowers and books of poetry including one by Maya Angelou. I just received so much love.”

Whatever the challenges she has faced in life, keeping fit has always been her way of working through issues.

“I’ve always been active and into sports”, she says. “Growing up, I played football and netball. It was stuff I didn’t have to try hard at, it was just a skill that I had.

“I had wanted to be head girl at school but my teacher thought I was too boisterous for that, so she said I could be sports captain instead.”

Her love of sport comes not just from her innate ability, but also from the discipline that it requires.

“When I was in secondary school I joined the air cadets. All I’ve ever yearned for, after not seeing it in the family home, is discipline. I like routine and structure.

“I think we were in year eight when we had a talk from the air cadets. And I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s it, I’m becoming an air cadet.’”

True to form she worked hard at it and for her, “the psychological part of the training gave me a break from being the one who did everything at home and having to be in control of everyone. I wanted and needed that break.”

Alongside fitness, her other passion is acting. It was a choice of career that her mother was dead set against.

“I can understand why,” she muses. “If you’re losing your home and don’t have a regular job, what you want for your children is a steady job. You want to know that they will never suffer or want for anything. Mum was like, ‘Just be a lawyer, you are such a great orator’.”

As a compromise, Kelechi found a course that would allow her to study both drama and law at Liverpool Hope University.

“I’d never been to Liverpool before,” she says, “but that’s the only place which was offering that degree.”

Coming back to London, she started working at a call centre and found it soul destroying.

“I remember going through London Bridge one day and just thinking, ‘There has to be something I can do where I’m not at the mercy of this corporation’. And I just thought, ‘I’ll become a personal trainer’. Fitness was the thing I loved most after acting.

“I saved up my money from my job, paid for a distance learning course and then I did lots of work experience in different gyms.”

Her business took off straightaway, courtesy of her followers on social media.

“When I did qualify, there were already women on Twitter and Instagram who were like, ‘Just come and train me’.

“So I went into that and that’s when I started to see the kind of freedom and flexibility that I could have access to without being at the mercy of big corporations.”

Her personal background means that she has a real desire to see women embrace who they truly are, not just physically but also emotionally and spiritually.

“What I really want for women to understand, especially when it comes to our bodies, is that we only have this one body,” she says.

“When I start training people, I want them to understand that there’s nothing I can do that’s going to make them more beautiful.

“I can get you slimmer if that’s what you really want. I can get you more toned, but none of these things are actually going to make you more beautiful, because it’s not really based on what you look like.

“[It’s about] getting my clients to understand that to me, personal training is 80 per cent psychological and emotional, and 20 per cent physical.

“You didn’t come to me because you care about your fitness, not really. There’s something else that’s happening there. What is that thing?

“If we talk about that ‘thing’, then the fitness doesn’t feel so bad. I’ve had women and men break down into tears when we’ve been having a session because I will say things like, ‘I just feel today that you’re holding a lot in’.

“I can feel it and then they let that out. And that’s what they needed. Then they feel safer because they know that I will spot it if they’re holding a lot that day and we taper the session to create space for them.”

She’s irritated by men who try to dominate in gyms. “I’ve had it myself when I’ll be training at the gym and a guy who clearly knows nothing about fitness comes up to me, just because I’m a woman, and says, ‘So when you’re doing this you really want to do it like this.’

“Wait, you’re telling me, the actual professional, how to do it?! And then they often have the temerity to say, ‘Don’t grow too much muscle though, because you don’t want to look like a man.’”

She dislikes the way Christmas and the new year are promoted to us commercially.

“It’s interesting to me how around Christmas time, the focus in adverts is on massive turkeys, chocolates etcetera, pushing a form of gluttony on us.

“Then as soon as January hits, it’s ‘You, disgusting fatty, get to the gym, get fit’, and I just think that we have to pull ourselves out of that. We are being sold one thing while being beaten with another. What does that do to your self esteem? We never know where we stand because companies were just telling us five minutes ago to eat all of the food!”

What’s on offer at her own gym is a way, according to her, of connecting women to the “divine feminine” through dance.

“With the twerking classes at the studio I wanted to celebrate my African-ness while still paying homage to the ways in which it has changed and how it’s now become linked with hip hop culture,” she says.

Also available at the Kelechnekoff studio are very popular classes in pole-dancing and also yoga, which she is particularly keen to make accessible to all, especially those on lower incomes.

She hopes in 2019 to include a few more aerial disciplines, such as aerial hoops and also Wing Chun defence classes. Primarily though, whether it’s a twerk hen party or a pole-dancing class, her dream is that the studio continues to be a fun place that celebrates all women.

On a personal level as we approach the new year, she’s living by her own mantra: “Don’t stop striving for that thing that makes your heart warm. You deserve it. You can achieve it.”

1 note · View note

perfectionistincrisis · 7 years

Text

Day 73

Most stupid day ever!!!!!!!! So i got out of bed at SIX today. YESSS! Six. Six in the evening i mean. Its cause there was no water and basically for me if there is no water, i feel like i have lost the vital resource for my existence. I mean wth, i cant function knowing theres no water in the taps.

The last time i worked out for 3 hours and then the next day i couldnt cause my legs were aching but then i was supposed to get working again the next day which was yesterday but the water went and it wasnt there today too.

Ok when i say no water, its kinda like no water running through the taps only but like theres plenty and plenty of stored water that can be used but TO BE HONEST that doesnt count for me!!!!!!!

So i couldnt stand the idea of not being able to get on the treadmill today too, so i thought idc id still workout despite not being able to shower after that but i just walked for roughly ten minutes and it hit me! i mean im going to sweat and then there is no water to shower so that will make me feel uncomfortable and idk how ill be able to act or feel normal or fresh at all. UGHHH(#*)(&*(@^*%(Q&)$(**W)(

So this water problem ALWAYS comes up when our stupid neighbor who spend the entire year in bd come to renew their iqama or whatever in the summer every year. I mean God! What do they do with all the water... Every year i start getting worried when i hear theyll be here in a few days and this year was no different. it really gets to my nerves.

Also. Im done with all 6 season of Suits. now theres just episode 1 of season 7 which came out LAST Wednesday. that means in 2 and a half weeks i caught up with the series and now i can spend day and night watching it whenever i want but instead i have to wait for 7 days as with Greys anatomy except that Greys anatomy is not running right now! New season starts on September with my uni. So ‘not’ cool! :) Anyways I prioritize the series a tinyyyyyyy bit more than my studies, and that came with experience and new episodes out on friday which is weekend so its cool.

Anyways sooooo I do have a new show in mind. “Mr Robot”. I guess ill only start or even stick to it if its as cool as i heard it is and if it helps me with walking on the treadmill. Cause like i said last time, if im watching something while walking, its way more easier to do 60 minutes in one go! Sometimes i do prefer not doing anything while walking though, but that is to exercise my “mind” - you see, when i walk on the treadmill, it is not just physical. it is “mental” too. infact both the factors affect me almost equally. I really need to stay patient and breathe and stay calm and blabla. But then since my heads empty, it fill up real fast and then the rest of the time kinda goes depending on what invaded my mind. Like if its something that pisses me off, its kinda easier to walk. If its something random, I kinda stay distracted to some extent. And if my heads empty than i turn into a human clock and count every second I am walking.

Okay next thing. So my brother going to leave in about 5 weeks. or in other words. last week of August. And we have almost everything, all big stuff done. Visa, basics, clothes, luggage blabla. I just realized that when he leaves, thats it! I mean I feel like when I graduated from high school, i kinda put a ‘pause’ or more like ‘delayed’ this step which comes in almost every family normally. its more like a natural step in everyones life. when someone from your family has to move away. When it was my turn, I kinda of ’paused it away’ and I swear I am so happy i did it. But then i believe, this moment is still inevitable in ‘everybodys’ life and here it is!!!!! I mean he will leave and the next time we 5 are together, or anytime we are, it will be --temporary-- and we’ll know it! Define temporary?? Caue everything is temporary right? this life in itself is!!!! But what i mean by temporary is! This was home for all 5 of us and now he is moving to study in another country. and he has a visa for the nest 4 year Alhamdulillah and for now he will be in the dorm - so definitely not “home” but then his ‘studies’ is and should be his focus right now! And thats not here anymore! so whether its a dorm or whatever it is. That place is his home. and what define ‘home’? Well by -home- i dont mean to say where his heart should find peace emotionally and all that stuff but home!!!!!! i mean thats where his next big step in life is going to take place. And yeah it may start with him, but then thats how every one including myself have to take steps and yeah! I mean from now on, its more like, in our head we should be “MORE” open to changes. More accepting about them!

I dont want to talk more about it because it just reminds me of how hard life is. But then thats what we do -

“we fight to live another day” or “we live to fight another day”

Soooo, right now i dont really like how this water bullshit is affecting my life. I mean ok it is uncomfortable and all for everyone, but i have to accept it, i just take it way to seriously and i just cant feel normal at all knowing theres no water in the taps. and idc if theres stored water bleh! So, idk what ill do.

And. i miss him.

And tadaa :)

1 note · View note

pygmeys · 7 years

Text

ok so this might be kinda weird but ive been thinking that i tend to focus too much on the negatives of my life and that it ends up in me not appreciating the good things i have i wanted to make a small post of aporeciation for some of the most important people in my life and the ones that have helped me get through last year and hopefully this one too. since im kinda too awkward to actually tag them and some of them dont have a tumblr accout ill just put up an emoji for each person, theyll know who they are.

🐇 - ive honestly never expected us to become this close, especially considering ive been trying to talk to you for two years without any success, but we are and youre one of the best things that happened to me in 2016. youre talented, beautiful, smart and amazing, you make me laugh every time and you honestly give me so much more love than i ever thought i deserved. you support me and undertstand the stuff im going through, having you here with me helps me go through a lot. spending time with you is probably my favorite thing to do, even if its just laying down on our pajamas all day or making lunch at 4 pm. i love being around you, seeing you smile and hearing you talk about all the random things you know about or the stuff youre passionate about, it all makes me fall so much in love with you. i hope we can be together for a long time because you make me so happy and theres still so much i want to experience with you. ps. i love that youre reading homestuck because of me.

♦ - we’ve been friends since we were kids and its been honestly kind of amazing growing up with you. ill always be thankful that you still stuck with me through my phase of being a shitty teenager and the times i just kind of disappeared. im sorry i dont always tell you whats going on with me, i think i wanna protect you from it, i see you as some sort of younger sister even though we’re basically the same age and youre way more mature than i am. i know you hate the fact that you stutter but i always think that everything that comes out of your mouth feels so intelligent and elaborated. youre one of the smartest people i know and as cheesy as it sounds its an honor to have you as a friend.

🍔 - i think youre one of the first internet friends ive had, we bonded over a stupid icon i was using on tumblr and its been one of the best things that happened to me. i always think youre one of the coolest people i know, youre pretty talented at a lot of things but youre also really funny and have all these crazy stories about getting high in the desert, i honestly dont know how you do it. youre so nice and considerate and i really appreciate how youre always there for me no matter how much of an idiot im being or how long i take to reply. despite all the shit i do and how i act i love you a lot and you mean so much to me, i hope you know that.

🚀 - we dont talk that often but thats okay, i still enjoy every conversation we have. youre really sweet and i think its cute how youre always so excited about everything, sometimes youre more hyped about the stuff going on in my life than i am and i honestly love it, it always puts a smile on my face. youve supported me through a lot of stuff and helped me get on with some hard times and i appreciate it a lot. youre one of the nicest people ive ever met, youre pretty much a cinnamon roll and im always hoping that whatever is going on in your life that youre safe and happy because you really deserve it.

🌚 - youre one of the few people from high school that im still cool with and keep in touch with and im really happy about that. going to script classes has been really great and i honestly wish that you could come along with me to college too. i love how you always seem to be up to something new and that you know all kinds of crazy people and go out to do weird random shit all the time, i love coming along sometimes. youre always supportive even when you dont fully understand whats going on with me and it makes me so happy that i know i can count on you so much. youve taught me to be more laid back and just let things happen and youve helped me be more open in social situations. i dont say it enough but i think youre amazing and i love you a lot.

🍥 - i think its crazy that youve known me pretty much since i was born and i think its crazy that we`re still friends. we dont talk or hang out a lot and that sort of sucks because we dont get to keep up with each others life that much, but its okay because we still manage somehow and i still love spending time with you. i love how youve always called me your twin or sibling and how youre always cool with me falling asleep when we`re hanging out. i think youre really clever and talented, especially when it comes to coloring your drawings, hopefully ill be able to do something like that some day. youve been through the neverending stream of crazy shit that is my life and i wouldnt have it any other way. i honestly consider you family and i hope we can still be like this for a long time.

#these are in no particular order btw #i really wanted to get this out there im happy i did #long post #bird talk

5 notes · View notes

chaisexuality-archive · 7 years

Note

!! hi sorry its the leverage anon again im rewatching it with my parents right so ill have someone to talk abt it with (also if i start talking abt it randomly then theyll know i havent been doing school shit during the time it took me to watch all eps and we cant have that nooo) but anyways ive figured out that hardison is my fave character and one day i was disassociating and realized other than the fact that we know his foster mother was his grandmother and he was with her from around 12/14+

more under the cut !

i got to wondering what exactly happened for him to have family but not all of his family and why she couldnt adopt him right away and whatnot and tHEN i saw some gifs of the black panther movie (hoooly shit it looks good) and it got me thinking like what if he has a backstory not exactly like black panther-esque but similar in a way that his parents were big in their homeland but someone ‘overthrew’ them for power and so they had to create new identities and move to the usa but they were

found or discovered or whatever so they knew they had to go back esp bc they just gave birth to hardison and they dont want him involved so they put him in the system (the grandmother is brought over before their cover was blown and she has her own new identity and whatnot) and so shes there ready to 'adopt’ him and the parents go back to make sure no one goes looking for nana and hardison but maybe something happens to her husband so she cant adopt hardison until a long time later??

sorry my thoughts are all over the place its just maybe im projecting or i like pain and suffering but out of all the group he was the first one ready to “switch sides” and also wanted them to stay a team like i just wonder what happened that he was put into the foster care system and why was it his grandmother who adopted him and god i wish we got more seasons for the info (like we got a bit about eliots father and that parker had a brother) but i mean also because there isnt much info we’re

free to come up with our own headcanons and for some random reason (or maybe not so random i saw somewhere that hardisons actor expressed interest in playing the black panther and i couldnt stop thinking abt that lol) i just thot id be interesting if he had a pretty gruesome past+a lot of power to his real name?? like maybe like parker alec hardison is the name he gave himself (like maybe his name is alex hardman its close but not the same best way to disguise oneself right?????)

anywHO sorry abt that word vomit i just love this damn show ive been reading fics (mostly ot3 fics bc im a big gay) and paired with the rewatch for me to catch more details and focus on the little things (like in s2e5 in the end scene eliots chopping veggies and feeds some to parker while hardison drinks orange soda out of a wine glass i love them??? so fucking much??????) okok i keep getting distracted sorry i just want to say thanks for indulging me and answering my asks anwyas love u bye

AHHH omg this is a Lot but im glad u noticed the smaller stuff! i do the same too fewkjbfwfw ilu

#i got mail #nonnies

0 notes