Hey everyone

If you can swing by Innovation Village in Ntinda to know your blood type, get free sickle cell screening, donate blood, and learn more about that and genotype testing.

Do share widely. Never know who may benefit.

Thanks

My daughter using her period tracker to work out which of her A level exams she's gonna be in pain for. Never seen a single mention of this factor in any discussion of exams anywhere

All I'm gonna say about MH Awareness Week is that, on the topic of 'movement'; last time I was in my local swimming pool I overheard the only other person in the pool having a conversation with the lifeguard about how my scars made him feel uncomfortable :)

There's a lot of critique about how we're focusing on self-management and general mental well-being while people with mental illness are dying from a lack of care. But also, we can't even do basic shit like exercise without being harassed or ostracised.

Last year, when it was sunny, I went out for a walk by the river. A fully grown man with two young children stared at me and said, 'Did you escape from the ward?'. Like I would LOVE to do more movement but unfortunately mental ILLNESS stigma+discrimination+harassment exists

I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of my scars but facing harassment because of what my body looks like is still an upsetting experience that makes me want to avoid most fitness spaces. There's maybe one place I feel comfortable and know I won't be stared at or experience abuse.

And I'm super thankful for that ONE place, a charity offering a supportive and trauma-informed environment where I can JUST DO EXERCISE. But it's one place and also prone to all the uncertainty that is third-sector funding.

I don't know what my broader point is here really. I actually do like exercise and movement but most exercise spaces aren't accessible to me. How many of us actually have the support we need to engage with exercise in a way that is helpful for us?

'Mental Health Awareness' is a farce and we know it, no one involved in the campaign wants to think about mental ILLNESS and that's not a new thing but jfc. It's so patronising to be told 'exercise is good for your mental health :)' while ignoring the many barriers to exercise.

Like when I was in the psych ward and my only form of 'exercise' was pacing up and down the corridors, something I got told to stop because it was distressing to other patients. Which is fair enough! But then I asked if I could go for a walk outside and was told no.

The other day folks were discussing how people should not leave marriages for feckless reasons, but the reason I support trivializing marriage is because things happen and the response is ' you think its so easy to tell someone to leave a marriage?' NO. But it SHOULD be.

'its easy to say, yen yen yen' but marriage being so idolized and raised as this pinnacle of holiness is really quite literally fucking killing women. Cos you have to experience grievous bodily harm to not be shamed for leaving a marriage or to be encouraged to leave.

Folks will literally look the other way in every other instance than save someones life when they are clearly cohabiting with someone who wishes them all the worst things.

Like I can never give a fuck if someone left their marriage cos they were bored. Please leave. Anyone who wants to leave, leave. You should always be able to end a legal contract. Marriage being so revered is y'alls religious hangover.

America is falling, but I don’t feel like Black and Indigenous People should have to deal with it. We’ve done our time. Put this shit solely on the shoulders of white folks.

And you will find that quite a bit in academic or theoretical writings...but it's not so much 'inaccessible' as it is simply poorly written, even if you know all the words. Too cluttered and erratic. That can definitely happen.

Now some reading is just very dense, like when it has too many clauses.

So each sentence, of which there are many, of course, is broken up by clauses, like this one, for example, which give even more information, to the point where you lose track of where the sentence even began