Teh Handy Capped: They Come in 2 Varieties

A commenter on Ragen's blog post about the perceived health costs of obeeestity had this to say:

Emotional appeal seems to be a big factor here. Disabled people are divided into the “Thinking about them gives me the warm fuzzies, and I’m not being asked to do anything seriously inconvenient” category of ‘real’ disabled people who deserve help, and the “I don’t instantly get how their disability works, so obviously those people are fakes!” and “I feel icked out or sad contemplating them, so obviously those people are better off dead!” categories for everyone who doesn’t create sufficient warm fuzzies.

I find this a lot with the way people with mental illness are treated even in this day and age. I have several identifiable mental illnesses (type II bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and OCD.) and I am also a health care worker. I have had people refer to those with bipolar disorder as "crazy" when I was standing right there. I had just been diagnosed and was still afraid of people finding out. These days I'd say "that I am, but really, you don't need to compliment me in front of everyone!" or something equally snarky. I've had fellow health care workers say of people who self-injure that "they're just crybabies looking for attention. Hopefully they'll do everyone a favor and do the job right next time." Meanwhile there I was with a bandage on my wrist because I had been cutting myself. This was before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I had been raped a few months before and was having panic attacks on and off for literally 5 hours a day at a time. Nobody was listening to me and I felt horribly lost. I thought all the time about killing myself, but even as messed up as I was I realized that I was the most stable family member my son had. Now, you have full permission to feel really sorry for my son. His childhood was rather chaotic.

People with mental illness scare the nice "normals" so they would rather we'd just go away. I'm both fat and mentally ill so I get the "thing that shouldn't exist" messages from all quarters!

I've always really identified with H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Outsider."

Image by Roberto Parda

The Hair Down There

For the proper double entendre, here are some jungle bushes.

Warning for potentially embarrassing but possibly humorous subject matter and WTMI.

This was a response to a post at The Hand Mirror, which is a feminist blog.

I identify as a feminist, for those that weren't already aware of this fact. Because as they say, feminism is the radical notion that women are people. And I tend to be accused of being a feminist whenever I refuse to be a doormat.

I'm 46 years old, female, and heterosexual. I started shaving my armpits and leg hair when I turned 12, after a classmate referred to me as "gorilla legs." I have very thick hair on my head and tend to be hairy on my arms, legs, underarms, and down yonder as well. I am a nurse and I still can't refer to it as a vagina without blushing when talking about my own, foolish though that may be.

I have been celibate for the past 13 years, in part due to physical issues with my plumbing, in part due to having had a lot of bad experiences in picking the wrong men, which is in part due to my mental issues (bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder.) I stopped having partners about the time when the obsession with shaved pubes started. I only had one partner at about this time (1998) who thought that I ought to shave the old "jungle bush." I did it to please him. On the off chance that I ever got involved with anyone again, I would not do it again. It's uncomfortable when it starts growing back in.

I would never in a million years get one of those damn Brazilian waxes. Ye Goddesses! Really, Ladies? Have the hair ripped out of the most sensitive part of your body to please...who? Maybe I'm just an old fart but I really, really, really don't get it! Of course I'm pretty allergic to pain, so that could make a difference!

In the long run I believe that everyone has the right to do as they please with their own body. But for me personally, I'll keep the hair down there.

Teh Crazeez is all Dangerous and Scaree!

This is a response to a post at Tiger Beatdown. They were not actually attacking persons with mental illness. The article is worth reading.

The one fact that remains constant is that only dangerous people who are mentally ill ever get any press. The majority of mentally ill people are more likely to be victims than victimizers. The majority of mentally ill people are also not delusional. Many suffer with mood disorders such as major depression and bipolar disorder, which comes in varying degrees of severity. Almost all mentally ill people are marginalized. Most of us just want to be treated with respect and to be given affordable, compassionate assistance for the conditions we live with.

This is not to say that there are not any dangerous mentally ill people. Just to say that they're the only ones who get any press. They're much more "interesting" than us run of the mill "nut jobs."

You Can't "Pray Away the Gay"

Michael In Norfolk is an attorney in his forties. His blog is "Coming Out in Midlife." He discusses in this post how the denial of homosexual orientation as valid causes harm not only to people in denial about their sexuality but to their opposite sex partners, who feel betrayed.

I think that the late Anthony Perkins is a great example of how damaging the anti-homosexual propaganda is. Tony tried to be in a straight marriage. He was by all accounts a loving father and his wife described him as her best friend. But he ended up having numerous shame-filled one night stands with other men and contracted HIV. At the end of his life when his wife was asked why she didn't leave him, she said that he had always treated her kindly and respectfully and she would not leave him in his time of need. She understood what many people fail to understand. If he had been able to be true to himself, to find a same-sex partner that he resonated with, his shame wouldn't have led him to these promiscuous affairs.

You can't "pray away the gay" any more than a straight person can "turn gay overnight." Marcus Bachmann and his ilk are doing terrible harm to people who are already conflicted.

Maltreatment of Vulnerable Populations

The following is my reply regarding a post about abuses of developmentally disabled clients at a place called Winterbourne View in Bristol, UK.

Both as a human being and as someone who lives with mental illness, I find this appalling. It was back in the early 80's when I was hospitalized after becoming so overwhelmed that I swallowed several diet pills and proceeded to make what were actually superficial cuts on my wrists. I was 16 years old. I was treated deplorably, including being told by one "angel of mercy" that I was a freak, I would always be a freak, and people like me could never be normal. My retort was "better to be a freak than a bitch like you." I vowed never to end up in a place like that again. It has been very hard for me to get help. The private sector help is too expensive and the publicly provided mental health counseling is pretty well worthless.

Sometimes Teacher Does Not Know Best

This is one of those lazy posts that was an answer to a post about children with special needs and the stigma placed on stay at home parents.

I was told when my son was in the 5th grade that he either had to be medicated "for ADHD" or leave the school. I pulled him out of the school. What was he doing? "Fidgeting in class." The teacher was keeping him in from lunches and by the time she let him go get lunch, well after the other kids had gone, there was often nothing left. She wouldn't let him go out for recess. She said to me "well! We have to discipline him. We don't want him to grow up to be a waitress like his mother!" When I talked to the principal he backed the teacher. 

This "incorrigible" child merely needed a) recess to help get rid of his pent-up excess energy and b) to eat lunch, for fuck's sake! He was hypoglycemic. 

I don't know that he'll ever invent anything as world-changing as electric lighting, but he is currently taking two very difficult science based classes and already understands much more about anatomy and physiology than I ever did. I have no doubt that he will become a pharmacist, as is his goal.

I wish I'd been able to be at home with him more but I was a single parent and didn't have the choice to do anything but work. 

I once worked briefly with a woman who had to make the choice to go back on welfare because without it she couldn't afford the medical bills for her severely handicapped son. Once she started working, the medicaid stopped. 

Hell of a thing to have to make that choice.

And after that rant I will simply say I agree with you that there is no right or wrong answer.

White Trash or Working Poor?

I need to bust a move (I just happen to like saying that) so this will be a quick one. It was an answer to a well-written post on classism, in general, but particularly in the American South.

I guess that I would be pegged as either "white trash" or "working poor" depending on how rude the person classifying me wanted to be. I work full time but live paycheck to paycheck. Most of my money goes into a mobile home that needs a drastic amount of repair but I can't move out of it because I couldn't afford to carry the mortgage on it plus the mortgage or rent on a second place. I do shop at Wal Mart because it's what is available. A lot of the time I don't care but sometimes it is so discouraging that it makes me very depressed.

Post 200: Coming Out of the Attic is Difficult

While reading a post about CNN news anchor Don Lemon's struggle with coming out of the closet, I was struck once again by the parallels of the decision to be open about one's sexuality and the decision to be open about one's mental illness.

First of all, let me say that HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT A FORM OF MENTAL ILLNESS. I believe that one's sexual orientation is hard-wired from birth and I believe that a homosexual orientation is simply a natural genetic mutation. I do not say this as an insult. There are many genetic mutations that are actually positive. Homosexuality is, at worst, neutral. Lest you think I'd be swayed by the "homosexuality is a sin" argument, may I say that intolerance is one of the most deplorable sins. So, don't even try that nonsense on me.

Because of the prejudices that homosexuals endure in this society, there tend to be a disproportionate number who suffer from depression. As for mental illness, I can only imagine that it is horrific to be both homosexual and struggling with the prejudices that one faces in this homophobic society and mentally ill as well. 

I was bullied horrifically when I was in school. Interestingly, the rumors that I was a lesbian did not bother me particularly. I laughed those off . I wonder if I would have been able to do so if I actually were a lesbian. I wonder if I would have survived.

I attempted what amounted to two para-suicides during my teen years, once in junior high when I swallowed an entire bottle of aspirin and once in high school when I swallowed several diet pills (speed) and cut my wrists. The aspirin made me sick to my stomach and the cut wrists, although superficial, landed me on a psych hold for a weekend with some really dickish mental health "professionals." Following my treatment by these colossal morons, I have remained very reluctant to seek help for my issues and even when I did, I never felt comfortable being truly open and honest about what was going on with me.

But as we bipolar types with a zillion thoughts racing through our heads so often do, I digress. What I came here to do was compare the challenge of coming out of the closet (being open about one's homosexuality) with coming out of the attic (being open about one's mental illness.) 

The fear in both cases is being judged differently by those one knows.

There is a fear of losing friends. Yes, this happens. But any "friend" who will ditch you in either case was no friend at all in the first place.

There is a fear of losing one's employment. My direct supervisor knows that I have bipolar disorder, as do most of my co-workers. The HR department does not. I did not disclose this when I was hired. I wanted the job and did not want prejudice about my mental health to prevent me from getting it.

I do not date and I will never date again. I am not capable of trusting enough to have the feelings necessary for a successful romantic relationship. What most people don't understand is that I dislike casual sex intensely and it is actually very damaging for me psychologically to engage in such interactions. I am able to turn off my emotions during sex but this ends up being very destructive in the long run. Why the hell would anyone want to do this to oneself?

As someone with bipolar disorder, I do experience periods of hypersexuality. This was actually destructive when I was in a relationship. Oddly enough, my partners accused me of being "too wild," even though they were the only one I was getting wild with. Thankfully as I've aged, the periods of hypersexuality are fewer and further between. They generally involve watching kinky porn involving either group sex or same sex partners, and it doesn't matter if the partners are male or female as long as they are of the same sex. I have decided that this is probably because as a person of heterosexual orientation, heterosexual interactions tend to trigger romantic desires rather than strictly lust, and because I can never fulfill these particular need, it ends up making me depressed. For strictly me, myself, and I interactions to placate hypersexual urges, group or same sex porn is the way to a quick fix. It isn't that I can't write or envision romantic same-sex interactions involving characters, it's just that I don't envision them involving me, and when I've tried to, it doesn't ring true.

I might have been able to work this out when I was younger if I'd had a really supportive partner. But at this point it's too late for that and I really don't want anyone telling me how "you never know, your happily ever may still happen, yada yada." No, it won't. Not in this life. It's not a fight I want to fight any more. That is my decision and not anyone else's to make. I don't want anyone telling me how to feel about this.

When you're gay, it's difficult to take the risk of revealing your sexuality to people who may be narrow-minded and bigoted about something that's simply a normal but misunderstood way to be--something that you were born with, something that harms no-one but the misunderstanding of which can lead to a great deal of harm for the misunderstood gay person.

When you're mentally ill, it's difficult to risk revealing the truth because people will suddenly treat you as if you are stupid or out of control or as if your emotions, thoughts, and wishes are all laughable. 

Is it any wonder that both homosexuals and the mentally ill tend to be at a high risk for suicide?

Here is a favorite song of mine by The Bronski Beat. It is obviously about the author's struggle with being gay in a homophobic social setting. But I relate to it as a mentally ill person who has been rejected more than once because who I am has been completely misunderstood.

Smalltown Boy lyrics
You leave in the morning
With everything you own
In a little black case
Alone on a platform
The wind and the rain
On a sad and lonely face
Mother will never understand
WHy you had to leave
For the love that you need
Will never be found at home
And the answer you seek
Will never be found at home

Pushed around and kicked around
Always a lonely boy
You were the one
That they'd talk about around town
As they put you down
And as hard as they would try
They'd hurt to make you cry
But you'd never cry to them
Just to your soul
No you'd never cry to them
Just to your soul

{ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/bronski-beat-lyrics/smalltown-boy-lyrics.html }

Be A Good Little Cripple And We'll Give You a Bone

This was a response to a commenter named Skeptyk at Dances With Fat.

Skeptyk said: "As long as you are a cheerful, uncomplaining striver, TABs can pat you on the head and tell you, with unconscious condescension, what an inspiration you are, how great it is that you, even broken, messed-up you, can actually do xxx. If you don’t play along, you are a bad crip, ungrateful."

Yes indeed!

I have both physical and mental challenges. My physical challenges are comparatively pretty minor: sciatica, fibromyalgia, mild hypothyroidism, mild hypertension. I can deal. Even with the degree of urinary incontinence that I "enjoy" ever so much, if these were my only problems, I'd be a pretty happy camper. But then we have my good old pals bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and OCD. Now these dear old chums put my life on hold for a long time before I finally learned how to wrestle them into some semblance of submission. HOWEVER this does not mean that I am asymptomatic. The depression part of bipolar (I have type II, which tends to be more prone to depression) can still slam me into powerful suicide ideation, and I am not always a "good crazy" being ever so positive and happy-slappy in spite of the fact that I quite literally am fighting the urge to kill myself. I am also not a "good fatty" because even though I am trying to eat more healthy foods, I flat out refuse to eat die-t food. That crap either tastes like cardboard or they add a shit ton of sodium to make it palatable. 

But yeah, like you said, as long as you're a Happy Cripple (in whatever sense) then you get pats on the head from the Perfect People who are secretly feeling smug that they don't have to be so flawed.

Faycin Goes Nuclear

I usually try to be polite and educate the general populace about the fallacy of stigma against the "freaks" of society, but the crotch who wrote this so-called "article" really rubbed the old crazy beeyatch the wrong way. I suppose my missive to her may be a tad juvenile and is definitely sarcastic but damned if I didn't want to slap her upside her so-superior "dynamo" head.

Well, so glad that you're not bipolar, Ms. Dynamo, because as everyone knows people who are mentally ill are lesser and just plain suck. I always hate it when the so-called "normal" populace takes a superior tone when it comes to mental illness. I have bipolar type II and was misdiagnosed for years because most counselors don't look for the more subtle signs. Bipolar II does not present with full-on manias, and while these "lame" quizzes may seem oh so trite to a perfect "dynamo" such as yourself, they might help a sick-o loser like myself seek for a better explanation than "you're just a little depressed and anxious and need to stop thinking the way you do."

Then again, it may just be that people like you are the reason that people like me need medication.

People like you are definitely the reason that I'm considering stopping receiving Blisstree in my feed. The articles here piss me off more often than not.

First Annual Blogging Against Disablism

I heard about the Blogging Against Disablism at Fat Heffalump's blog. She was addressing the hatred and scorn of fat people in general as well as the fear of fat disabled people and the diatribe thrown at fat people about how being fat is going to MAKE them disabled. I have a whole 'nother blog about being a Chubster in a thin-centric society. Of course on the whole I do not see being fat as a disability, it's just a body type. There are fat people of varying physical ability levels including Fathletes, just as there are thin and mid-size people of varying ability levels and I for one think it's time that society stopped treating a large body type as a disability or character defect. It's just a body. Get over it, you jackasses.

But that's not what I came here to talk to you about.

I came to talk about mental illness.

To me, disablism means treating a disabled person with hate and fear, or patronizing them. This does happen to physically disabled people. People act like they're going to "catch" the person's disability, or treat the person like they're stupid. This is also done to people who have conditions causing mental retardation, and it is surely done to individuals with mental illness.

Since being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I have learned that there are far more people with mental illness than society wishes to acknowledge. The reason that the numbers would come as a surprise to most people is that a mental disability, unlike a physical one, cannot necessarily be seen. Many people with mental illness are perfectly able-bodied, and unlike the media would have the public believe, most people with mental illness do not project it. The person wandering around shouting or talking to people no-one else sees is not the average mentally ill civilian. 

Most people with mental illness do not suffer from psychosis or delusions. Violence is also not the norm, whether or not psychosis or delusions are present. There are a small number of people with conditions such as paranoid schizophrenia who believe that they are being threatened by certain other individuals and react violently in order to protect themselves from an imagined threat. Persons with antisocial personality disorder (sociopaths) may also visit violence on animals or other humans. But in fact most persons with these disorders are not violent either.

I have said before and I will say again:

MOST PEOPLE LIVING WITH MENTAL ILLNESS SUFFER IN SILENCE.

The instant one tells people that they are mentally ill, everything changes. Were I to tell someone I'd just met that I had bipolar disorder, they would likely start to treat me differently. 

"She's a ticking time bomb," they'd think. "When is she going to explode and go off on a tangent about nothing? Is she going to start acting like Charlie Sheen and talking about tiger blood and being a warlock? These people with bipolar disorder are nothing but crazy!"

Charlie Sheen's illness is complicated by drug use, which exacerbates certain symptoms. His struggle is very public because he has the money to do things that most people do not. He has been jailed in the past when his behavior turned violent, but never placed in a psychiatric facility which may have been capable of assisting him. He is also in denial about his illness and might not be able to benefit from help until he acknowledges his issues. Charlie Sheen is the kind of mentally ill person that gets press. The average Jane or Joe does not.

There are also different degrees and presentations with any mental health condition. I can speak about bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder because I live with all of these. I can also speak about depression because depression is a big part of bipolar disorder, at least for me. I have type II bipolar disorder, which has hypomanias rather than manias. I tend to go into depressive states more often than I experience hypomania, which is unfortunate because I am extremely productive during hypomanic states. My moods are not only controlled by my brain chemistry. Outside influences can push my mood in one direction or another--just like happens with Normal People. Surprise! And these days, in this economy, there are far more circumstances that will push the Depression Button than the Hypomania Switch.

I have rapid cycling bipolar disorder. My cycles between depression, hypomania, and baseline states tend to average 7-10 days each. Other people may experience a given state for months or even years. I tend, as I said, to go into depression more readily. Someone like Charlie Sheen may be more easily triggered to mania, and his time in a given state may last for a much longer time than someone who rapid cycles. When he crashes, it's going to be bad. What sickens me is that a lot of people will see his decline as nothing more than further entertainment for themselves. It is a sorry thing when people see the misfortune of another as entertainment.

That being said, I fully support the 999 Eyes Freak Show. These folks have taken their "disabilities" and "abnormalities" and turned them into a platform to entertain and amaze. Many of the old-time sideshow performers were not happy when laws came into place to protect them from exploitation. The laws that were supposed to protect them ended up preventing them from earning a living. But that is a different story altogether, and you can read more about it here. My point is that it is fine to celebrate our uniqueness and utilize what might otherwise be seen as a disability, turning it into a unique ability.

Is being mentally ill a disability? I would say from my perspective, yes it is. There are many things I fear doing. I fear having people know too much about me. I have come to realize that it is really not possible for me to get very close to people. If I am behaving in a way that someone perceives as abnormal, rather than pointing out to me what I'm doing, the person generally rejects me wholesale. This rejection hurts me months and years later. So I fear letting people in. This exacerbates the loneliness and isolation that I feel. I realized many years ago that I could not be involved with anyone in either a romantic or sexual fashion. This bothers me a lot less than the fact that I really can't be very close to people in a platonic manner either. It seems that I am doomed to a life of isolation, where I work and come home to my pets, having a little interaction here and there but generally being very much alone. That above all things is the worst part for me of living with mental illness.

Most people who meet me do not know that I have any disability. I don't believe that a slight limp qualifies as a disability. Most people meeting me for the first time would simply see a fat, somewhat frumpy, un-hip middle aged woman. I might present as socially awkward, but you'd never know I was one of THEM! The crazies, the Attic People, The People Under The Stairs, the rejects. I have accepted my disability, I have become outraged by the stigma placed on people with all disabilities but because I know how it feels, I focus my attention on ending the stigma on those of us who suffer in silence. 

If my disease could be eradicated tomorrow, would I go through with the change? It would be nice to not have to worry about my brain making me feel suicidally depressed. It would be nice to not struggle with hoarding objects (OCD) and it would be nice to not have rejection be so devastating that it turns me into a useless lump. But I have lived with these patterns for so long that even if the chemical imbalances could be eradicated, I'm not sure I could ever be "normal." I'm not even sure I'd want to be. Because if I were, then I wouldn't be me any more. 

Maybe who I would be if my mental illness were removed would in fact be better. Maybe she'd be content to work as a nurse or a secretary and not have crazy ideas about being an artist or writer. Maybe she'd fit in better. Maybe I'd be happier being her because she wouldn't be an outcast. But my knee jerk reaction is "run away fast! I don't want to be just like Number 12!" 

Still, there is a temptation, just like it would be tempting to be beautiful even at the cost of ten or twenty years of my life if such an option were available. I've never been beautiful--never even been close. And while I think that everyone should be treated with kindness and dignity no matter their physical appearance, part of me can't help wishing that I were thin (because it's socially acceptable) and beautiful. 

Being mentally ill hurts enough without the rejection and stigma that comes with it. In most ways I am pleased to be the middle finger flying on high at those who think themselves so perfect that they reject those who are different. But I regret every day of my life that I will never know how it feels to be loved.

"For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men. This I have known ever since I stretched out my fingers to the abomination within that great gilded frame; stretched out my fingers and touched a cold and unyielding surface of polished glass."

--H.P. Lovecraft

The Outsider

Faycin's Expert Opinion: Charlie Sheen and Bipolar Disorder

Take a look at this post on Pink is the New Blog to see the latest out of control behavior in Charlie Sheen's meltdown. As well, the news outlets have already prepared an obituary for him "just in case." I really feel for his family.

This was my commentary:

If Charlie isn't type I bipolar, possibly with psychotic features, I'll eat my own shorts after wearing them for a week! He may have been bipolar all along, which pushed him towards self-medicating that spiraled out of control, or the substances may have triggered the bipolar disorder. If the code is in the genes, this disease can be triggered at any time. He really needs help to get his life into balance or he is going to end up dead, no joke. He is manic, and these hangers-on in his life don't care if he ends up dead. I suppose he will have to hit rock bottom before he ever gets help--if he does then. It's really sad watching someone implode this way.

By the way, bipolar disorder is not funny, nor is it fun. I have the type II version which does not present with full manias but can throw one's life into turmoil nonetheless. Once the disease is recognized it can be controlled and a person can live a productive and reasonably balanced life. I hope that this can happen for Charlie.
The people he surrounds himself with don't give a rat's ass about him, they just want to be taken along for the ride. It is part and parcel of both addictive personalities and bipolar disorder to desperately crave more excitement than life on this planet tends to deliver. He really needs to be on a mood stabilizer. Of course that takes away the highs, but it also evens out the irritability and paranoia that are also part of both bipolar disorder and addiction. He needs to get rid of these parasites in his life. Of course he won't do that until he hits bottom and they scurry away to find a new host.

Oh look, more fat jokes. Yawn!

Brooke of the Dumb Blog pulls the old "ha ha look at the fatties make fools of themselves" card. This is not the first time Brooke has hated on large people. Witness her post regarding her belief that it is "good for" chubby children to be bullied in gym class because it will "force them to become healthier."

This was my response to Heavy Hatin' Brooke on this occasion.

In other words chubby folk can make asses of themselves too. Would these individuals really look any less stupid if they were thinner?

People come in all sizes, shapes, colors. Some have deformities. Some are missing limbs. I for one am very tired of all the hating on larger people. How is all the hate making the world a better, or "healthier" place? Hate is not healthy.

Faycin's Crazy Pot Got Stirred

Here is my response to a post that uses a lot of stigmatizing language towards the mentally ill regarding the recent tragic murders by the individual in Arizona.

While I agree that Palin's gun fanaticism is misplaced, I would like to point out that most persons with mental illness are not a danger to others and are more likely to be victimized than to be victimizers. Violent individuals such as this attacker are the minority, but every time such a tragedy happens, the majority of mentally ill people are further stigmatized. I also take exception to the term "mental defective." I am mentally ill, but I will no longer remain silent about being referred to by such terms as "defective" and "crazy." I am aware of what constitutes reality, I am aware of my own problems, and I would never gun down a crowd of people or commit any other such violent act. I wish that people would choose their words more thoughtfully. The millions of mentally ill individuals are people deserving of respect as much as those who have not been so diagnosed.

Step Down From your High Horse Please

Atchka at Fierce Fatties was incensed by a commenter whom he felt was being condescending and telling people what to eat. I must say much of their diatribe was rather condescending. You may read the post and decide for yourself. Here was my assessment.

It reminds me of how incensed I got when the uber privileged Gwyneth Paltrow made the remark that she "can't be expected to live like people who make $25,000 a year." Or how very rich enlightenment gurus tell people that if they "just relax" everything will be okay. Well, I only make $25,000 a year and thus it's very hard to "just relax!"

I loathe McDonald's myself for a variety of reasons. But if that's all a person has money for and all they can muster the will to get, then I'll be damned if I'm going to tell them not to.

People are poor for a variety of reasons. The mentally ill (myself included) have often had difficulty getting and/or keeping any job, let alone one that pays well. Sometimes it's all a person can do to get up and get anything done, let alone much in the way of cooking.

Sometimes you just gotta do what you can do to survive.

I hate when people get on their high horse. Which it seems that this person was doing.

Teasing in Gym Class Good for Kids? WTF?

Kids shouldn't be allowed to opt out of gym class because it'll inspire them to lose weight if they are teased about being fat. Hmm.....

I enjoy "Dumb as a Blog" when it's about dumb criminals, not so much when the writers take on social issues. Because they tend to come up with poorly thought out opinions and slap it out on the computer. That there are more overweight kids in the United States today? True. That more schools are allowing kids to opt out of gym class? I'll buy that. But that it would be good for the "little porkers" to be forced to take gym and endure the taunts of their more slender classmates because it would inspire them to lose the chub? ARE YOU INSANE???

This was my response to this Crazy Train of thought.

I have to say you are dead wrong on the account that having other kids "taunt" a chubby classmate is good for them. I wasn't chubby but I had some neurological and movement disorders and was taunted mercilessly. I am nearly 50 years old and am still very insecure about my body. Bullying should NEVER be allowed. Also, although I wasn't overweight, when I hit my teens I developed a rather prominent booty and thick thighs and also developed BULIMIA! Please rethink your assessment of this. A lot of kids might be more inclined to take gym class IF THEY KNEW THEY WOULD BE SAFE FROM TEASING!

I never do the caps-lock thing, so let me tell you, I feel extremely passionate about your choice of wording on this subject. Gym class was torture for me, and I wasn't the only one that felt this way.

Hey Douchebag: Hate is Not Okay

This is a response to the rant on Fat and Not Afraid about the attacks her size acceptance thread endures.

What we need to keep fighting for is to push the idea that hate is never okay. These jerks just want to have a scapegoat. Currently, big people are the scapegoat.

I am always fighting to lose weight (I weigh 275 pounds) but I need to be able to be okay with myself at this size. There is a chance that I will always be this size. I am not, in fact, unhealthy. I don't have hypertension or diabetes. The only thing I really worry about is the stress on my knees and ankles from carrying around excess weight. 

I have always been accepting of people of all sizes. I don't hate skinny people. What I hate is the assertion that skinny people are somehow angelic simply for being the size that they are while large people are demonized.

I just love the "free speech" argument in a private publication of any kind. No, you do NOT have "free speech" rights here, douchebag. It's a privately owned publication--blog, thread, whatever.

Superstitious Fools

A young Pagan friend has started a blog about her journey through discovering the Old Path. It's a fairly new blog so the Fundies haven't had a chance to come attack yet. I want to share the word about her new blog, and also present my own thoughts that I shared on her most recent post.

They have a general meditation room at work and I work graveyard shift. I do my thing there although it is nothing elaborate. All I have is a scented candle because burning incense would be too obtrusive. I don't have any of the other stuff. I don't do it at home because my plethora of cats would knock it over. 

I have to laugh at the superstitious fools (and I'm pissed off right now so sorry for being so disdainful) who think there's something oooh so scary about a Pagan altar but there's nothing wrong with whatever they're doing in their church because that's been dubbed "Christian." It's all labels. 

When I was younger I used to get so upset when such people labeled me a "Satan worshiper" even though outside I laughed at them and threw them the horns. These days I don't care a thing if someone tells me I'm "going to hell." I'm a grouchy old curmudgeon who has suffered a lot with mental illness and I say "hell? Ha! Bring it on, beeyatch! Oh yeah, and kiss my bipolar pagan ass!"

Keep doing what you're doing and don't let the superstitious twats with their brains in the middle ages get you down. Those bastards did more harm than any Pagan ever did. Killing people for their peaceful, Nature worshiping beliefs, killing harmless black cats, suppressing women--I hates 'em! It isn't that I hate all Christians because I do know some good ones, and Jesus is fine by me because he's a good guy, but those types just need to screw off. They don't have a monopoly on the truth by a long shot.

End of rant!