Both Men And Women Need A Trusted Space Where Their Souls Are Safe To Be Openly Vulnerable In. Only True

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The Mosquito's Sting: A Tale of Boundaries Challenged

Once upon a time, in an enchanted kingdom, there was a mosquito that carried the West Nile fever. This mosquito bit a wealthy man and a poor one, a Jew and an Arab, a white person and a black person, women and men, hetro cisgenders and LGBTQ+ individuals. The story tells how people created protective barriers and divisions between themselves, but nature, in the form of the mosquito, pierced through these barriers and showed how easily something from each of them could seep into the other, revealing how arbitrary and temporary all these defenses and boundaries truly were.The king of the kingdom ordered the mosquito to be locked in a golden cage and asked the wisest person in the kingdom, a little girl who understood the language of all animals, to talk to the mosquito. The girl listened to the mosquito's story and told the king the moral lesson that the mosquito had taught. Instead of punishing the mosquito, they made it an important minister in the kingdom. The royal physician healed the mosquito, and the kingdom's scientists transformed it into a beautiful prince. The prince married the girl when she became old enough. She was the only one who saw the wisdom in the simple mosquito that had only come to sting.To everyone's surprise, as they did not know enough about science, it turned out that the mosquito was actually a female mosquito. So, the wise girl ended up marrying a mosquito princess who loved to wear princes' clothes. The two of them lived happily ever after, far away from all other humans who were unwilling to give up the barriers and divisions that separated them.When the people discovered that the mosquito was a female who had married a woman, they wanted to punish her. However, the girl, who was once a wise child, ran away with the mosquito princess to the mountains. There, they lived happily, far from people's eyes and the fears that drove society. They talked to animals, studied them, and understood their language. Over the years, they published scientific papers that brought human society closer to their broad worldview.

(via "See i shaved my legs " Magnet for Sale by Queueka)

A Plea for Peace: End the Romanticization of Victimhood

Give Israelis and Palestinians a Chance for Coexistence

Content Warning: Mentions of violence and historical atrocities

For too long, people from the outside have romanticized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a gladiatorial arena, a reality show, or a competition of values. By romanticizing victimhood and choosing sides, you allow governments and dictators to stay in power. Your inconsistent support, favoring one side's victimhood over the other, makes it impossible for those of us, both Jews and Arabs, who want to live in peace to actually achieve that goal.

The West and East have chosen politicians on both sides who oppress the weak, buy warfare from them, and lack empathy. Yet for centuries, Jews and Arabs lived together peacefully in many areas, and there are still those among us who have never stopped hoping for that reality, even in the face of atrocities like the Nakba, Sabra and Shatila and many other horrendous crimes to the one side and bus bombings, rape crimes, and the horrific events of October 7th, where Jewish Arab supporters were slaughtered and burned alive on the other. Brainwashed-hurting-people are hurting people. By dehumanizing each side for its barbaric acts you leave them lonely and hurting, which leads to more extremism.

We are all being brainwashed, and as time goes on, more Jews and Arabs are losing hope, allowing pain and hatred to consume us, and enabling the rise of fanatic politicians who further fuel this cycle. But we are all just people who want to live. If the East and West truly wanted us to find a solution, they would invest in mutual education and acknowledgment of each nation's pain, helping us learn about our shared Semitic Abrahamic roots, rather than selling both of us more weapons.

Many Arabs in Israel-Palestine are not just our cousins, but our sisters and brothers. Not all Jews fled when the Romans came; some of them became Christian and then Muslim. Some of them are the Palestinians of today! And the other part is our closest cousins. Our DNA is so similar; there are no closer ethnicities in the world. The world plays savior while pushing us to fight harder, funding narratives of hate and promoting xenophobia and antisemitism on both sides.

We are all children of the same God, the last remaining Semitic peoples. Please, world, support new leadership on both sides! Invest in peace, not war. Give the Jews and Arabs who want peace a chance to achieve it. Strengthen us, and give the next generations of Semites a chance to live with dignity, compassion, respect, and mutual love.

Since the British Mandate pitted us against each other, as they did in India and Pakistan and so many other places, where colonial empires left the people to fight each other - "proving" the "barbarity of the locals" in comparison to the supremacy of the colonials, the biggest world powers have used our conflict to prove their own strength, choosing a side as if we were gladiators in a ring. Please, stop this game of money, power, and manipulation. No one should have to die anymore. Life is already too short! Palestinians and Israelis should be free together, from this war, from these separative beliefs, from the hatred, to live and move freely, to marry each other freely. To have one shared government that represents us all equally with dignity - with no more brainwashing and separation. This is what I pray for. No occupation nor any slaughter or rape of any kind. We should not fall into traps; if all people open their eyes, politicians lose their power. With the help of decent, honest allies from the world, this is achievable, slowly but surely. This should be the reality. Where all kids know both languages in an Arab-Jewish state, celebrating together, growing and then aging together with the deepest respect for all the mutual and all the unique, beautiful differences. Looking into Arabs' eyes, I see the eyes of my family members. You are not that different. I want peace with you .

For those of you who like the idea of peer respites, I just want to say these are not the only alternatives to the mainstream psych system :] Here's a big ol' list, and many/most of them are peer-run. I live in America, so a lot of this is US-based, but I've tried to make it as internationally accessible as possible!

I'll start with the live-in options. So ya'll already know about peer respites, if you read my latest post about it. There's a few more similar things out there.

Soteria Houses - More long-term (months+) community homes for folks with lived experience of psychosis/similar extreme states, with peer support, that focus on a humane and person-centered approach. Much more freedom & agency than your traditional group home.

Hurdalsjøen Recovery Center - a "medication-free" (aka medication-optional) psychiatric hospital in Norway. Allows patients to choose whether to stay on or taper/remain off psychiatric drugs. Focused on healthy eating, exercise, and recreational therapy options.

Bethel House - Similar to Soteria Houses, a homelike environment in Japan for people with schizophrenia, etc. that focuses on social reintegration.

Organizations, clubs, groups, etc:

Students With Psychosis - A peer support community with programming for students with psychosis

International Map of Hearing Voices/Intervoice networks - Non=pathological support groups for people who hear voices, see visions, etc. US directory, UK directory.

Clubhouse International - Gives people with mental illness opportunities for friendship, employment, housing, educational, and medical services all in one place. Founded by a group of friends who survived a psychiatric hospital together.

Project LETS - A radical approach to peer support and healing that has a disability justice centered approach, giving people with lived experience a voice and focusing on mutual aid. They provide peer mental health advocates, self-harm prevention, and more.

The Mad Society of Canada: A grassroots community of practice that brings together folks who want to provide non-coercive, ethical, survivor-informed mental health services/policy.

Power to the Plurals: Resources and events for people who identify as plural/multiple/systems.

The Wildflower Alliance: Grassroots peer support, training, and advocacy community based in Massachusetts.

Alternatives To Suicide (Alt2Su): Peer support groups that allow people to talk about suicidal thoughts without fear of being committed to the hospital, etc

Trainings:

Intentional Peer Support = Trauma-informed peer support training

Emotional CPR - Trauma-informed mental health support training program for the layperson

Hearing Voices Curriculum: Targeted towards mental health professionals to better understand the experience of hearing voices. Warning: It's expensive!

Cities that have a particularly awesome way of dealing with folks in crisis/with mental illness/etc:

Geel - a farming community where residents welcome people suffering with severe mental illness/distress into their homes and live with them, share work, etc (Edit: apparently Geel is a small city with like 40,000 people and not a farming community lol, I was misinformed. Thanks to @roxbot for the correction!)

Trieste - a city with a community centered system of care that integrates housing and peer support

Warmlines (generally run by peers) and Crisis Lines that don't call the cops: (Most of these are taken from this post by trans-axolotl on Crisis Lines)

Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860, 24/7

BlackLine: 1 (800) 604-5841, has texting options

The Plural Warmline (No number, check the site)

THRIVE: text message line at 313-662-8209, 24/7

Promise Resource Network: (833) 390-7728, 24/7

Project Return Peer Support Network: (888) 448-9777 English or (888) 448-4055 Spanish, hours are Monday through Friday 2:30 PM to 10:00 PM PST and Saturday and Sunday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM PST

Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line: 888-407-4515, hours are 7pm to 9pm EST Monday through Thursday and 7pm-10pm EST Friday through Sunday

Key Consumer Organization: 800-933-5397, hours are 8am - 4:30pm EST, Monday - Friday.

MBRLC Peer Support Line:  877-733-7563, hours are 4 pm-7:45 pm EST every day. 

US Warmline Directory (unlikely to call cops, but check with the individual line first)

Misc:

CommonGround software - A software developed by Dr. Pat Deegan (an individual who was diagnosed with schizophrenia) that allows clients to communicate their needs to their doctors more efficiently to support shared-decision making with medication.

Open Dialogue- An psychosocial approach to psychiatric services that focuses shared decision-making and dialogue between client, providers, and family (if the client wants family involved), and often more minimal use of medication.

Integrative Psychiatry - A holistic form of psychiatry that focuses on nutrition, exercise, therapy, and psychosocial factors, where medication is just an aspect of treatment. US database of integrative psychiatrists here.

I will also give a somewhat honorable mention to Mobile Crisis Teams. They are a fairly new alternative to the usual "call the cops on your local mentally ill person". They are composed of nurses, therapists, social workers, occasionally peer support workers, etc. They hook the individual up with support/resources - which can often mean forced hospitalization/forced treatment FYI - but it is a step up from being killed by cops. Look up "[city] Mobile Crisis Team" to find out if there is one in your city.

A note: Something being on this list =/= it is perfect, just that it is an alternative to what we've got. So don't come at me, lmao. Feel free to add on if you know of anything else!

The Left wants a community where everyone is welcome to be who they want.

The Right wants 'lonerism' where everyone is grinding their lives for shareholders' crumbs.

🥺❤️

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It’s 104% okay to come to your DM and just say, “Hi, can we be friends?” And then start asking you random questions.

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The art of kindness

Question, plz share your Pros and cons of paid promotion for my fav prints? How it effect the general community when i promote, it does any harm?