Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.
Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.
You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.
That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?
You really want a human.
Humans also get a reputation for being pants-shittingly insane:
Humans want to go everywhere, you see that black hole? They’re trying to go in that to ‘explore’
Humans jump out of flying vehicles at heights that would most certainly kill them with only a piece of cloth strapped to them to save them, they do this for FUN
Conversely humans, a species that cannot survive without air, plunge themselves into the depths of their planet’s horrifying oceans until their bodies can’t take the pressure then they created vehicles to go further
Humanity didn’t wait to develop a sensible propulsion system to escape their planet’s atmosphere they strapped a metal tube to bombs and shot themselves out into the vacuum of space
If a human says something will ‘be fun’ assume that it’s probably life threatening
A standard portal fantasy where a person falls through time and ends up in medieval times– but they have brightly colored hair.
They walk into the nearest tavern thinking this must be some novelty tourist trap, and as soon as people take one look at them they’re chased out with whatever cold iron tools the locals have on them, cries of “faerie!” ringing in their ears.
aliens: because theres people who think that english is the only language they need to speak
me: thats fair i understand
For some reason I find this all the more amusing because it’s written in English
moi: pourquoi vous détruisez le monde!!! l'extraterrestre: parce que il y a des gens qui pensent que l'anglais est le seule langue pour parler moi: ah ça c'est bien
ich: warum zerstört ihr die erde!!!
aliens: weil es leute gibt die glauben dass englisch die einzige sprache ist die sie sprechen müssen
ich: das ist fair ich verstehe
ég: af hverju eyðileggið þið jörðina!!! aliens: af því að það er fólk sem finnst að enska sé sú eina tungumál sem þau þurfa að tala ég: oh, það er vit í þessu. ég skil.
ik: waarom vernietig je de aarde!!!
aliens: omdat er mensen zijn die denken dat engels de enige taal is die ze hoeven te spreken
ik: oh zo, ik snap het
minä: miks te tuhootte maapalloo?
alienit: koska tääl on ihmisiä joitten mielestä englanti on ainoo kieli jota niitten täytyy puhua
minä: toi on reilua, ymmärrän
私: どうして地球を滅ぼしているんですか？
宇宙人: 英語しか喋る必要がないと思う人がいるからです
私: なるほど、わかりました
me: Wosück maakt ji de Welt twei!!!
aliens: wieldat dat Lüüd gifft, de dinkt dat Engelsch de allenige Spraak weer, de een snacken mütt
me: jo, daar seggst wat. Nu versta ik’t
aniga: dhulka maxaad u burburinaya !!!
shisheeyaha: dadka intiisa badani u malaynayaan in Ingiriisidu tahay afka oo kaliya ay u baahan yihiin inay la hadlaan
aniga: waxaan fahamsanahay. waa wax cadaalad
我：你们为什么在毁灭地球?！！
外星人：因为有人以为他们只会英语就可以了
我：懂了，说得有道理
ako: bakit niyo sinisira ang mundo!!!
taga-ibang planeta: kasi merong mga taong akala nila Ingles lang ang kailangan nilang matutunang lenggwahe
ako: ah, sige naiintindihan ko
Aku : kenapa kau hancurkan bumi!!! Alien : karena masih banyak orang berpikir hanya bahasa inggris satu-satunya bahasa yang terpenting Aku : oh, oke lah..
tôi: tại sao các người hủy diệt trái đất!!!
người ngoài hành tinh: bởi vì có người nghĩ rằng tiếng Anh là thứ tiếng duy nhất mà họ cần biết
tôi: ồ thế thì tôi hiểu
Eu: Por que vocês estão destruindo a Terra?! Aliens: Porque há pessoas que pensam que o inglês é a única língua que eles precisam falar. Eu: Isso é justo, eu entendo.
jag: varför förintar ni jorden!!!
utomjordingar: för det finns folk som tror att engelska är det ända språket de behöver kunna
jag: rimligt, jag förstår
Já: Proč ničíte Zemi?
Mimozemšťani: Protože tu jsou lidé, kteří si myslí, že angličtina je jediný jazyk, který potřebují znát
Já: To je fér, to chápu.
ja: dlaczego niszczycie Ziemię?
kosmici: ponieważ są ludzie, którzy myślą, że angielski to jedyny język, którego potrzebuję
ja: rozumiem, w porządku
io: perchè state distruggendo la terra!!!
alieni: perchè ci sono delle persone che credono che l’inglese sia l’unica lingua di cui hanno bisogno
io: capisco, mi sembra giusto
Yo: porqué estás destruyendo la tierra!?!?
Extraterrestre: porque hay personas quienes creen que inglés es la única lengua que se tiene que hablar.
Yo: te entiendo, es justo.
Я: Почему вы уничтожаете Землю?!?! Инопланетяне: Потому что есть люди, которые считают, что им нужно говорить только по-английски. Я: А, ну понятно, тогда ладно!
I love seeing those posts where people are like “if you have headmates or whatever you should be on meds because that’s not okay” posts. Like neurotypicals just think that there’s some magical pill out there that will ‘cure’ anything they don’t consider ‘normal.’ Meanwhile, in the land of reality, my shrink thinks it’s pretty healthy that I’m finally getting to know my headmates, and has no intention of putting me on magic pills, because as long as I’m not hurting myself or anyone else, who cares what neurotypicals think is ‘normal?’ Actually, let’s be real: who cares what neurotypicals think at all?
It is not a magic pill, it is called “Therapy” and you can even do it in groups!
i… literally mention my therapist… right there… in the original post…
did you not actually read this… do you honestly believe telling someone who has already admitted to being in therapy… to go to therapy… is a “gotcha” moment???
Okay, so there’s a relevant quote from Slatestar Codex here. (The link is to the source; attribution is a Thing.)
Basically, this one obsessive compulsive woman would drive to work every morning and worry she had left the hair dryer on and it was going to burn down her house. So she’d drive back home to check that the hair dryer was off, then drive back to work, then worry that maybe she hadn’t really checked well enough, then drive back, and so on ten or twenty times a day.
It’s a pretty typical case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but it was really interfering with her life. She worked some high-powered job – I think a lawyer – and she was constantly late to everything because of this driving back and forth, to the point where her career was in a downspin and she thought she would have to quit and go on disability. She wasn’t able to go out with friends, she wasn’t even able to go to restaurants because she would keep fretting she left the hair dryer on at home and have to rush back. She’d seen countless psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors, she’d done all sorts of therapy, she’d taken every medication in the book, and none of them had helped.
So she came to my hospital and was seen by a colleague of mine, who told her “Hey, have you thought about just bringing the hair dryer with you?”
And it worked.
She would be driving to work in the morning, and she’d start worrying she’d left the hair dryer on and it was going to burn down her house, and so she’d look at the seat next to her, and there would be the hair dryer, right there. And she only had the one hair dryer, which was now accounted for. So she would let out a sigh of relief and keep driving to work.
And approximately half the psychiatrists at my hospital thought this was absolutely scandalous, and This Is Not How One Treats Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and what if it got out to the broader psychiatric community that instead of giving all of these high-tech medications and sophisticated therapies we were just telling people to put their hair dryers on the front seat of their car?
I, on the other hand, thought it was the best fricking story I had ever heard and the guy deserved a medal. Here’s someone who was totally untreatable by the normal methods, with a debilitating condition, and a drop-dead simple intervention that nobody else had thought of gave her her life back.
It is not a therapist’s job to make you normal. It is a therapist’s job to give you your life back, on whatever terms are acceptable to you. And if your therapist can’t do that, you need to find a new therapist.
For some people, having headmates and/or alters is a debilitating condition. They’re losing large amounts of time, having trouble going to work and/or school, or hurting themselves or other people. In that case, they probably do need help, but I think most people who are getting fucked up by their headmates that badly are willing to seek out help on their own anyway.
Other people who have headmates and/or alters find it to be a neutral thing, or even a positive thing.
Have you ever been in a roommate situation where different people do different chores, because, (say) Kate loves to do the dishes, but can’t stand to vaccuum, and Toby’s the exact opposite? If Kate and Toby are headmates, they can wind up doing the same kind of thing. Headmates can also comfort you when you’re sad, remind you that your depressive or intrusive thoughts are not true, or help you deal with difficult people.
So, if you’re in that kind of situation, where your headmates are helping you to be more functional than you’d otherwise be? A good therapist is going to treat it like the hair dryer on the front seat of your car.
Sure, it is a Weird Thing. It makes you look a bit eccentric, and it’s not normal. But if having headmates keeps you from having repeated nervous breakdowns, helps you hold down your job, or makes it so that you can deal with your abusers? Then it’s a win, and a good therapist won’t try to ‘fix’ that.
It is not a therapist’s job to make you normal. It is a therapist’s job to give you your life back, on whatever terms are acceptable to you.
As an addition to this post, neurotypicals just assume that all medications work, and that everyone responds the same to medicine. It can sometimes take someone months to find a medication that works for them, and even then the side affects from medication can often times be worse than the benefits. For example, I took a medication for my anxiety that while it did help the physical symptoms of my anxiety, and occasionally lowered it, it made me so depressed I was close to killing myself.
And even if you do find a medication that might work, it can still take weeks for the medication to kick in.
Medication can help a lot of people, and for some people medication is the right option. But for some people it is not the right option, and it is not some magical “fix all” solution.
While I was working in the local hospital a few months back, part of the training included a dementia awareness course, and one of the stories I thought was very telling regarded a woman who had kept stealing towels from others in her residential home and leaving them to soak in her sink. After talking to her and her family, they found out she used to make a living doing laundry when she was much younger, so the residential home invested in one of those old washboard-and-bucket setups for her, and would leave some clothes by it in her room for her. The stealing stopped, and she became much more lively and talkative now that she had something to do that felt familiar to her.
With disabilities and mental illnesses, the reality of it is that many of them won’t go away, not with medicine or therapy or wishful thinking. Treatments are there to manage the conditions. And if the condition is being managed in a way that doesn’t cause harm to the person with that condition or their friends and family, then why should anyone look down on that management?
This just tells me what I’ve known all my life; neurotypicals don’t often care about mentally ill/cognitively disabled people living to their fullest, they just want them out of the way. Out of sight and out of mind.
Sure, a person with headmates who deals with them healthily might be living to their fullest and without repression or discomfort, but then neurotypicals would have to suffer them. Stimming might help a dyspraxic or autistic person express themselves and soothe anxiety, but its annoying and embarassing! And we can’t have that can we?
fullyarticulatedgoldskeleton: “Treatment” isn’t a penalty cage you put crazy people in until they’re not crazy anymore
do you want to know something?? I always wondered what the hell kind of hairstyle the Ancient Egyptians were trying to portray with depictions like these
and this
until I did my hair this morning and
oh
welp
you can take the noses off our statues but until you find a way to take Egypt out of Africa we’re still going to find ourselves
I’m reblogging this post without all the salty, racist commentary because I’m sick of looking at it. please spread this around again in its pure form for posterity.
