Broken mirrors

"She always did put too much of herself into her creations..." My name is Lavender. I'm chronically ill, neurodiverse, a geek, a sometimes comedienne (intentionally or otherwise), a foodie and I (burnout aside) care a lot about social justice. And the WordPress community. I used to know how to talk about trauma. And, I will …

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Trust in Mental Health Systems #8/ Messages in a Bottle #20: OB-G-WHY?!-N

CW: Discussions of the experiences of one person who has a uterus (aka, me) attempting to receive gynecological care. I never exactly intended to write an entire series on why I joke in my Glossary of Terms that “I know trauma-informed care quite well – in the sense that the ‘care’ I have seen has …

Brevity Is The Soul Of Apathetically #11: Work Burnout

Ugh. The never-ending lessons in how to create a 'trauma-informed' and 'anti-racist' workplace that somehow manage to involve folks having to relive their own personal trauma(s) continue. (Or, as my Partner succinctly sums them up each week: "the beatings will continue until morale improves!") I'm not even just talking about me feeling work burnout in …

My ‘River of Life’ is the River Lethe

Hi all, Eek! I realized today that even though it feels like just "a couple of weeks ago" that I last wrote a blog post, it has actually been a full month! ADHD: it means all time is either "now" or "a couple of weeks ago." I think I alluded to the fact that my …

Pot Meet Another Kettle

Last time I wrote, I promised an honest review of adult psychoactive recreational substances as a solution for election-night anxieties. My review sums up to: I'm not "recreationally" affected, but they do make for slightly less unsettled sleep. My longer report is as follows: "Being the irony magnet scientist that I am, I have had …

Patience is a Mental Health Challenge

Partner (detaching a cat from his shoulder after she had climbed him, lost purchase, and ended up digging in her claws to stay on him at all): “Trauma Kitty, you were doing so well just sitting in my arms. But, for some reason, you have the instinct that when things are scary you need to …

It’s Not Delivery. It’s Depression Pizza!

CW: Discussions of the lingering relationships between food and life events. No specific mentions of disordered eating, but please use caution if discussions of food and/or emotional eating are potentially triggering topics. All descriptions of the related life events are in the past, though they are mentioned in the context of eating those same foods …

Meteorological Misanthropy #8: Rock Me Like a Labor Pain?

CW: Puns worse than my title ahead. Also some vague allusions to where Hypothetical Future Babies might hypothetically come from in some hypothetical future. Tornado Warnings from Tropical Storm Isaias spring up in the Northeast. Lavender: "One and a half hours. There is an actual tornado on the actual ground, and Google says we're a …

Cue the Waterworks

CW: emotional abuse, threats of self-harm (made by others, not me) and references to past childhood abuse (without details) I have a tradition I like to call 'Crying on Christmas Eve.' In the Before Times, when Americans were still welcome in the rest of the world, it was an annual pre-trip ritual I had to …

ACE in the Hole

CW: Discussions of childhood ACES. Mentions of alcohol use and verbal abuse during childhood. Read safely! Partner (on phone): "'Always,' 'Never,' 'I don't know how to answer that. It was 'Always' when we still lived there, but 'Never' now because we have public transportation? Well, okay, not 'Never.' Public transportation isn't perfect out here, and …