tip for healing via tumblr: blacklist everything from things that trigger you to only things that have just been annoying to look at. unfollow people you don’t want to see on your dash. unfollow that mutual that posts depressive shit that doesn’t help your mental health. block people who piss you off. etc. blacklist guilt trippy phrases. go to lengths to make your experience on tumblr more enjoyable and doesn’t have a negative impact on your mental health. you get enough of being annoyed and negative emotions in real life and during the day, but this is tumblr. it’s meant for fun, not to make you feel worse or affect how you see yourself. give yourself a break
Tag: advice
Adulting tip: before you move in with someone, sit down and have a discussion about what a clean living space looks like. Doing this would have saved me so much aggravation in my life.
“But Jaqui,” I hear you asking, “why should we have to talk about it? Clean’s clean, right?” No, it’s not. And thinking cleanliness is a self-evident concept is a great way for screaming fights to happen down the line.
Here’s an example: to my mom, clean means that all the things in the space are not actively dirty, and are free of crumbs and food stains and the like. It doesn’t matter to her where you put your shit, so long as no one has to worry about bugs or stains or diseases. To my once-stepfather, clean meant that everything had a place where it belonged, and things were neat and organized, and there was no visible clutter. He gave less of a shit about crumbs under the microwave than he did about random papers on the coffee table. So she could spend all day working to make sure you could eat off every surface in the kitchen, and he would come home and be upset because she’d spent all that time and as far as he could tell, nothing was clean. Meanwhile, his obsessive organization drove my mom batshit because he would blithely organize away things that weren’t clean by her standards. Needless to say, that relationship did not end well.
So yeah. Have the talk, and figure out what your “augh, this is unlivable, we need to clean!” points are. You may not always be able to get a shared living space exactly as clean as you want it, but if you figure out what everyone needs to feel like they have a reasonably clean space, you’re much more likely to correctly conclude that, when someone makes an offhand comment about the mess getting to them, you’ll know they mean the dishes in the sink are bothering them, and that they don’t give a shit about the dust on the bookshelves, and can act accordingly.
Honestly? Shoutout to those of you who are completely fucking lost in life. Those who don’t know what they want to do with life. Those who are stuck in a certain part of life and can’t get out. Those who are reaching for dreams they feel are impossible to reach. Those who feel like they’re accomplishments are being overlooked. Those who feel like their enough just isn’t enough. It is. You can make it. You will make it. There is an opening at the end of the tunnel.
be so completely yourself that everyone else feels safe to be themselves too
i can’t think of much that i aspire to more than this
Tip:
When it comes to stuff like racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, I’ve found it’s usually way better to think to yourself ‘I don’t want to be’ than ‘I’m not’.
I.e. if someone goes ‘that thing you just did is ableist’, instead of going ‘I’m not ableist, I don’t hate disabled people!’ it’s usually a lot better to go ‘I don’t want to be ableist, I should rethink what I’m doing/saying/etc in light of that fact’. Because that shifts your thinking so rather than jumping straight into denial and attempts to defend your character, you’re instead more inclined to look at how your actions could be misrepresenting your intentions. Or whether you’ve overlooked something, been callous, or acted in ignorance.
Good thinkin
STRAIGHT. UP. sometimes the only way to do art is to not give a shit

Can i get a step by step on how to do this?
So far for me it’s been something like:
1. Become aware of how and when you tearing yourself down.
2. Now that you can catch yourself doing it. Offer counters to the negative self talk. A really useful thing I read was to talk to yourself almost the way you would child. Gentle and patient. Even when they fuck up.
3. Take time to celebrate your small accomplishments. You’ve been attacking yourself for every little mistake. Apply that same fervor to the positive things in your life. Did the dishes even though you didn’t want to? Fuck yeah! Got up and took shower? YES!!! You are taking positive steps to feeling better. Celebrate it.
4. Make lists of things you’re good at/ like about yourself. The first time I did this the only two things in my list we’re that I liked my hair and I had good friends. It was start.
5. Don’t beat yourself up if you screw up steps 1-4. It’s counter productive. When I catch myself calling my self stupid for some mistake or other my response now is,“We don’t talk to ourselves like that anymore. What’s something constructive that could actually help solve the problem.”
Most of the time that seems to work. Not always. But more and more Everytime.
I hope any of that made sense.
This is great advice @catastrofries
[ID: Tweet by punk @NUEPORTS: i took the same energy i used to hate myself and turned it into confidence that’s how you recycle]
take chances with people. if you want to get closer to them, make sure they know you want to spend time with them. go to have coffee with them, text them first, make them feel loved, tell them little things that you love about them. most people find it hard to make the first move, both in friendships and romantic relationships, so a lot of potential relationships never happen. life is too short. so go for it, because more often than not it can make life brighter and softer and happier.
It’s almost as if nobody wants to admit that they might not be prepared to do the work it takes to love somebody. And it can be laborious. To be intimate with someone who is flawed (which is the standard) requires us to expose our own flaws. We don’t talk about the heavy responsibility of that. We don’t talk about how we’re too lazy or too cowardly sometimes. We instead accuse love of being elusive. It isn’t. It is omnipresent. It asks us to be better people. And sometimes we flat out refuse.

[Image 1: Hard to swallow pills.
Image 2: “You’ve come a long way since the parts of your life that you were toxic! You don’t have to hate yourself anymore! It’s okay for you to be happy!”]
