I just think it's very rich that people who do NOT suffer on a daily basis from mental illness have opinions on what you're allowed to do to stop suffering.

When I finally started taking a antidepressants in my mid-20s, I was going through a horrible marriage and losing my faith: it was the first time I ever experienced real sadness that was not accompanied by absolutely smothering depression. It was revelatory.

Whenever I hear someone saying depression doesn't need to be treated—you can just stop being depressed—I think about how much of a relief it was to *just* be horribly sad and hurt, and I realize that to those people "horribly sad" is the worst thing they can even imagine.

@gwynnion
"You shouldn't depend on drugs..."

Okay, so what? Should I go to a faith healer or...?

I hate that my company "wellness" program seems to assume that I am unhappy with my body and appearance (I am participating for reduced insurance premiums).

"Take a 'before' picture so you can see how far you've gotten."

Um, okay, so you want me to look at my body and feel critical of it? Are you sure this is for my health? LOL

@FlashMobOfOne
Oh yeah... They constantly go all Darth Vader on us.

@FlashMobOfOne
Yeah, I'm finally realizing I may want to *own* the media I care about, and subscription services and digital "purchases" that—under their licensing—don't really belong to me are not going to cut it.

Although according to copyright laws and the DMCA, the government asserts that I don't *really* even own the physical media I possess. Corporations will do anything to not allow people to own anything.

I am slowly building my "apocalypse collection" of DVDs/Blu-ray, buying stuff second-hand, and it's an interesting thought experiment: what will I still want to watch in the near, dystopian future.

There are a lot of shows and movies that I like and would still watch now, but I think will become galling in the progressively worse capitalist hellscape.

I'm not buying The Office even though I've watched it several times. It's funny, but it's a nothing show, and it wouldn't bring me any joy.

Not possible to get a good photo because she's partly under my desk but when she's sitting on my lap trying to get treats, Kiwi basically lies down with her back half while her front half is still sitting up, and I find that an impressive display of flexibility.

#CatsOfMastodon

She lives a relaxed life.

Hilariously I would probably say if asked that "no, I don't really experience religious guilt," but it turns out that is a lie.

So... Is it true that not everyone believes that they must constantly make the most moral choices, always be sweet and kind, always help when asked, and never burn out or give up even for a moment?

I think this is what's really killing me right now. I'm terrified of the future, and it feels like the "right" choice would be to immediately dedicate myself to activism and do nothing but fight and struggle for the rest of my life and that if I won't or can't do that, I am a failure of a human being, weak and apathetic and uncaring.

Maybe I'm alone in this... There's just been a certain element of the response to latest chaos that has made me feel like a sinner. Like I have sinned by not fighting the system with my every breath. Like if I'm not doing all the things, it's a sin.

I'm a sinner because I should be getting involved with my community, and not having energy or time & having other things going on & just trying to survive each day is not good enough.

I think that's my baggage though.

@jonny
Yeah, I mean look at the college encampments and the amount of state violence that such relatively harmless resistance was met with (and mob violence allowed/encouraged by the agents of the state).

Not to mention that our police are better supplied and kitted out than most countries' actual militaries.

The worst thing about finding love and a life you want to live when the world is on fire is that now you have something to lose.

It seems like a lot of evangelical churches and denominations as a whole have been undergoing a far-right takeover over the last few years

"Weren't they already far-right?" You may ask.

Why yes, in many, many ways they were very, very much so.

But there's something going on in the evangelical world now that is really concerning, and I see the more principled and sincere-believing evangelicals themselves beginning to get worried.

It seems to me the pattern is that people who are fairly new to their church or denomination will quickly embed themselves deeply into its structure and community and then force a white supremacist and violently anti-LGBT agenda, radicalizing the people who are open to it and purging those who won't go along.

At least, that's what it looks like to me. Does anyone have their ear to the ground in the evangelical world? I would love to get deeper insight.

Again, I'm not trying to let anyone in evangelicalism off the hook for the ways they already promote white supremacy, patriarchy, and LGBT-hate, but there are people in evangelicalism who do try to live by some principles of general decency and there are people who don't. And the people who don't seem to have gained a lot of traction and power lately.

A few years ago my parents left the church they helped found when I was a kid. That church already had deeply embedded issues, but a couple years before my parents left, the church got a new pastor.

My parents were on the selection committee. My mom carefully quizzed this guy on some key issues & his feelings about the extremists in their wider church community. He impressed her. The church called him as pastor.

And later he admitted to her that he had lied to her about those questions.

We opened ONE window, and she went around the house to each of the other windows, demanding we open every one.
#CatsOfMastodon #CatPix

Same with people adding "eth" and "est" to verbs to make them sound old regardless of how the verb is functioning in the sentence.

I'm just a spoilsport I guess.