change my mind

for the life of me I can’t understand why everyone loves empress Elizabeth of Austria.  When I was born my mother named me “sisi” because she really liked those Romy Shneider movies where Elizabeth was sold as “the compassionate people’s empress”. Now it’s been years since I started researching her for myself and yet I still can’t understand what the hell did this woman do besides having a tiny waist and nice hair. The more I learn about Elizabeth the more I find her insufferable.  I understand that she lived in a sexist society and science at that point wasn’t developed enough to give her the mental health support she needed, but damn that woman was selfish and self-absorbed to a fault. she had enormous privilege and yet couldn’t turn it into anything good.

Today’s media portrays her as a Diana predecessor.  A woman whose fierce heart contrasted with the stuffiness of the royal court but this narrative isn’t true for either of the aforementioned women.  at least lady D was very good at charity work, Empress Elizabeth was very happy in her fancy villas, traveling around Europe, writing self-congratulatory poems, and being completely oblivious to her children's needs or her duty as an empress.

So it seems to me that she’s still known only because she was pretty, but I'm desperate to change my mind. soooo if anyone would care to educate me on the matter I’d be very happy to learn.

Grave of a Suicide Victim (1900)

— by Wilhelm Kotarbiński

A page spread from the zine I’m working on- Brain School 2: Some Things I Learned 🖤

Bernard thinking of Tim as his good luck charm who always saves him from the terrible things in his life vs Tim thinking he attracts danger to his loved ones just by being around them…this is so fascinating and also so unhealthy for both of them. I’m studying them like bugs.

bidididibumbum to san fernandooo

“Crying is a sign of strength. It is a demonstration of a completely comfortable relationship with the self. Choosing to cry and feel is a choice in the interest of one’s emotional health. Choosing to cry is also choosing not to care about the opinions of others. Since crying is so stigmatized, rising above society’s thoughts is pure authenticity. Crying also helps set an example to others. Especially in recovery when peers are struggling to connect with, articulate, and express their own emotions, seeing someone freely express themselves is inspiring. Not only will they learn from the act of crying, but they will see the transformation that takes place from working through emotions.” source

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. This whole week l have been thinking alot about the Holocaust. So last night I re-read maus. One panel really stuck out to me during this reading. For context this is in Maus 2 when Art is talking to his therapist, a Holocaust survivor, about how he feels he could never measure up to his father who survived Auschwitz. At this point in the story his father had already past. May his memory be a blessing.

The dialogue, “but you weren’t in Auschwitz. You were in Rego Park,” hit me like a punch to the chest. I have no better way to explain the paradoxical guilt I felt and continue to feel as the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. I did not live during the Holocaust. It had ended before my grandmother reached eighteen years old. And yet, the Shoah seems to loom over me. Forever a reminder, that I am alive by sheer luck. My great grandfather’s parents as well as two of his brothers were murdered in Auschwitz. My great grandmother’s twin sister was also murdered in the Holocaust. Despite hours of research, I still have no idea where exactly she died.

Using the term guilty for what I feel doesn’t seem exactly right but there is no better word in the English language. Maybe if I was smarter or more articulate I could find better words.

A key theme of this chapter is intergenerational trauma. This is the same chapter that has this iconic image.

On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, I simply want to acknowledge the real and extremely painful intergenerational trauma and inherited survivors guilt felt by descendants of Jewish survivors. I know I struggled in the past with feeling like I even have any right to feel this way considering I am three generations removed from any of my family that were murdered in the Holocaust. If any other Jews struggle with thoughts like this, I want to assure you that your feelings are valid and real. Intergenerational trauma is complicated and the feelings that come with it don’t simply disappear once a certain number of generations from the event pass.

This post is specifically about the Holocaust and jewish intergenerational trauma stemming from our persecution and genocide. If this post resonates with you as a non-Jew who has intergenerational trauma I am glad, but please do not derail this post.

In fond allusion to this post:

All my female ancestors watching over me like "Look at her... she has time to study art and politics and history... she spends her time writing stories that mean something to her..."

"She can take a pill for pain whenever she wants! A mysterious thing called Advil that eases the Curse of Eve!"

"Forget Eve, our great-great granddaughter doesn't have to go to Mass three times a week! She can say what she thinks!"

"She only sews and bakes when she wants to, when she wants to make beautiful things!"

"Thirty-three and she's young and strong, not saddled with babies and family members to take care of... she's taking care of herself and helping out her parents too--- that's our girl! That's OUR GIRL!"

“the TSH characters are terrible people and Richard is an unreliable narrator”

okay??? Mentally I am still at Francis’s lake house. Nothing bad has happened yet and Charles is making everyone ice-cream floats.

Left: New England Nudibranchs

Right: Pacific Coast Nudibranchs

MS, R. Tucker A., and The New Illustrated Naturalist. 1954. ‘American Seashells’. 1st ed. Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc.

daily reminder ♡

— by silasehrazatyucel

Agnes Richter was a seamstress that was taken against her will to a mental institute in Germany, where she remained during the late 1800s and early 1900s. While there, she disassembled the uniform she was given and reconstructed it into a jacket. She stitched every single surface, including the inside, with text. The text is difficult to decode but it is believed to be autobiographical.

Let's Learn About Mental Illness and Fandom!

ETA: This survey has now closed. Thank you for so many more responses than I expected! I will announce as soon as the data is available to others to use and as I make my own discoveries in working with it.

Thank you so much everyone for your responses to my fanfiction and mental illness survey. As of posting we have 108 responses which is fantastic and very much enough for my own thesis, but I don't just want this data to be for me - I want it to be available to other fan studies researchers to work with and build upon.

This is the work I spoke about when I was on the @fansplaining podcast just a few months ago, and something that we just don't have in the fan stats community - our only related information is on whump, which whilst useful isn't by any means the same thing.

So if you'd like to help us learn more about how we read, write and interact with fanfiction about mental illness, please take the survey & share this post!

The survey will take you just 5-15 minutes, and will help to gather groundbreaking insights for fan studies. You’ll be asked about yourself, about how you read, write and find fanfiction about mental illness, and what interacting with this kind of fanfic has been like for you.

Full data on the study, including consent, privacy and GDPR information, can be found on the survey page.

Submissions will remain open until the 25th June 2023. Thank you so much!

Something that was truly helpful in the way I perceived substances and destructive behaviours was this video that essentially said that you see the problem as the substance or behaviour, but they see that as the solution. It really clicked something in my brain - especially as somebody who has done self-destructive behavioural things. It suddenly made sense why I saw that as the solution and outlet to my problems, when in reality, it was a very temporary relief that added to my pain in the long-run.

I think it's helpful to meet people where they're at - if they're addicts or engage in self-destructive behaviours. Because you'll be in a different situation than they are, you will perceive their issues in an entirely different context than they - don't treat them like they have no sense about them because you're perceiving their situation in a different way than they are.