I have a few important things to say:
- Having a mental illness does not excuse you from being an asshole, and it does not free you of the obligation to really apologize and make it up to a person when you have caused them harm.
- You are allowed to terminate a friendship if a person’s mental illness is aggravating your own mental illness or personal issues and stressing you out.
- This has nothing to do with ‘dropping a person once they become an inconvenience’, it’s literally not being able to handle a person anymore because their health issues are negatively affecting your health, and you are not obligated to put up with that.
- You are permitted to remove toxic, stressful and abusive people from your life. Them being mentally ill does not make them not responsible for the bad things they do to you.
Here are some interesting facts about him, though:
- He basically saved public television. In 1969 the government wanted to cut public television funds. Mister Rogers then went to Washington where he gave an amazing merely six minute speech. By the end of the speech not only did he charm the hostile Senators, he got them to double the budget they would have initially cut down. The whole thing can be found on youtube, a video called “Mister Rogers defending PBS to the US Senate.”
- “Certain fundamentalist preachers hated him because, apparently not getting the “kindest man who ever lived” memo, they would ask him to denounce homosexuals. Mr. Rogers’s response? He’d pat the target on the shoulder and say, “God loves you just as you are.” Rogers even belonged to a “More Light” congregation in Pittsburgh, a part of the Presbyterian Church dedicated to welcoming LGBT persons to full participation in the church.”
- According to a TV Guide piece on him, Fred Rogers drove a plain old Impala for years. One day, however, the car was stolen from the street near the TV station. When Rogers filed a police report, the story was picked up by every newspaper, radio and media outlet around town. Amazingly, within 48 hours the car was left in the exact spot where it was taken from, with an apology on the dashboard. It read, “If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it.”
- Once, on a fancy trip up to a PBS exec’s house, he heard the limo driver was going to wait outside for 2 hours, so he insisted the driver come in and join them (which flustered the host). On the way back, Rogers sat up front, and when he learned that they were passing the driver’s home on the way, he asked if they could stop in to meet his family. According to the driver, it was one of the best nights of his life—the house supposedly lit up when Rogers arrived, and he played jazz piano and bantered with them late into the night. Further, like with the reporters, Rogers sent him notes and kept in touch with the driver for the rest of his life.
While every disabled person will have their own take on this for themselves, i am not “differently abled” and i kindly ask that you not insist on calling me that. It may seem like a trivial thing, but it’s not.
When you call me “differently abled” (in most cases this is regarding your perceptions and interpretations of my body), you are obscuring (however intentional or not) the reality that what is actually going on is in part just an ableist social construction made architectural: some people are actively ENabled to be part of their communities/ neighbourhoods/ spaces/ etc, and some of us are actively DISabled from doing so specifically because in general those who are ENabled to do so are the ones making the decisions about how and when and where the constructed environment is created and DISabled folks just have to suck it up because, yknow, ableism.
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| — | Building Radical Accessible Communities Everywhere, dis/diss/differently/abled by Sprinkles McGillicuddy (via fabianromero) |
My favourite tragic love story is that of an artist and their art
to be reblogged by every artist on tumblr eventually, for sure
Daily struggle.
body positivity is a really great thing!!! but please remember that being thin is not a guarantee of self-confidence, or an excuse to insult someone.
Unconvincing
I’ve been struggling with chronic depression and generalized/social anxiety for many years (though I’m only 19), and I’ve only just recently been seeing doctors and a therapist about it. I’ve ceased therapy for the time being, however.
My therapist at the time was a woman, who was generally very kind and understanding (though on the whole not very helpful to me). It was a difficult time for me as I’d been having trouble at home with my dad who is emotionally abusive, and my moods were all over the place—so bad it was starting to look like I was bipolar. During one of our sessions, we talked about my medication and how I’d like to see a psychologist to get a second opinion (my current prescription was given to me by an ordinary doctor and it wasn’t giving satisfactory results). She suggested I talk to a guy who worked in the same building, as he might be able to give some advice. She didn’t tell me much about him, just that he worked with a lot of girls with eating disorders and problems with self esteem and body issues as well as bipolars.
When I arrived to the appointment I was early, and had to sit in the waiting room. A man wandered in and said something fairly quiet and indistinct, then left. I waited for quite a while before my therapist showed up downstairs, surprised to see me there. She took me to meet him and immediately he gave me a condescending look and said, “Oh, it is you. I called you a long time ago”. Flustered, I said I was sorry and I must not have heard him. He gave a quiet snort which I believe was supposed to pass for a laugh and pulled out a clipboard.
What followed was one of the worst experiences with therapy I’ve had so far. He asked me a plethora of very invasive, personal, and almost accusatory questions (for example, he asked if I post pictures of myself nude on the internet for attention) claiming these were important questions related to bipolar disorder. Needless to say it was pretty uncomfortable.
At the end of this interrogation, he read over his notes for a time before stating with a smirk, and I quote:”Well, as far as bipolar disorder goes, you haven’t convinced me.” As if it was some sort of prize I was aiming for.
The rest of the appointment included him trying to explain psychological terms to me as if I’d never heard them (I took basic psych courses in school and did lots of research in my own time), and acting utterly astonished and almost angry when it turned out I did understand them, acting a bit as if I’d cheated on a test.
I feel sorry for the disordered girls he deals with on a regular basis, I really do.
Oh my god what an asshole!
I am so sorry. that is so unprofessional and sadly I’ve heard similar horror stories. Some people in this field just shouldn’t be. Therapist’s top priority is supposed to make the client feel safe. I’m glad that you knew enough to leave and never go back. I’m very sorry for everyone who ended up with him and can only imagine what his sessions have done to people’s self esteem.
Because telling fat people that they are in fact humans that deserve dignity and respect automatically means you’re ~*GLORIFYING OBESITY*~
By the way, don’t dribble on to me saying you worry about a fat person’s ‘health’. That’s just a bullshit excuse to voice your unwanted opinion on a fat person’s body considering you wouldn’t give a single flying fuckadoodle about someone’s health if they were skinny. Besides another person’s health is none of your damned business anyway. Run along now and preach to a choir that actually cares.
I’m going to be honest, so long as you’re not hurting anyone, you can eat soy sauce and milk duds all day long for all I care.
thank you so much for this comic imp.Reminder: Body image does not equate to actual health.
YEESSSSS!!!!!
Dedicated to every TITP troll. Look at those widdle puffs of anger! Adorable.
-ATL
