This Is Canon What Are You Talking About???

"The Sins of the Father" Invalidates the Individual

I'm a woman with PCOS, which means I have an excessive amount of body hair, most noticeably on my face. This is something I struggle with a lot, and my mom once apologized to me for it. She told me a story of something she did when she was younger that could have led to this happening as a sort of "Sins of the Father" type thing.

I won't get into the details of that discussion as it was very personal, but it did get me thinking about the concept as a whole, and it's one of the many things I've been taught growing up with religion that, upon reflection, is super fucked up.

Using myself as an example, not only is it unfair that I would be punished for something I had absolutely nothing to do with, but I also don't like what this implies about my personal autonomy. My problems are my own. My struggles, my pain, are my own and not something to be used as a punishment for someone else. I know my mom didn't in any way mean to be invalidating. This is just a part of her beliefs, and I respect that, but it did make me think.

How many people open up about their pain, only to have that pain taken over by someone else?

How audacious to think that you, a person who has not experienced what I have and do not know how it affects me, feel those affects more deeply than I do. And that is what this implies, that this problem I have is somehow more your cross to bare than mine. It's insulting.

It is also so unnecessary. Religion already places so much guilt onto our shoulders, we are born in sin, we live in sin, we die in sin, and the only way to escape is to live our lives constantly apologizing for ourselves. Don't add to that weight by taking burdens that aren't yours.

just crying over how romantic Freddie & Jim were nbd

holy shit

when sherlock said “taking your own life. interesting expression, taking it from who? once it's over, it's not you who'll miss it. your own death is something that happens to everyone else. your life is not your own, keep your hands off it.” i almost cried

Damn I had no idea The Real Housewives of Michigan were so based! Get it, Susan! You take your gay son to soccer practice in your Chrysler Pacific and you hold your head up high when you pass out the rainbow sugar cookies during this month's pta meeting. What a queen🙌

Watercolor dump

me, quietly whispering to the ao3 page of an author who doesn’t even know I exist: I am obsessed with you

Oof.

When I was a (unmedicated, undiagnosed ADHD) kid, like, under 12, my room was a mess all the time. Not shocking.

I struggled keeping it clean.

I struggled getting it clean.

I would sincerely put in quite a bit of effort and be really proud of the progress I made. Then one of my parents would come check and see how I was doing.

"Well, you've still got a long way to go."

That sentence. I was like, 11 when my parents were saying that to me. It was crushing. All my pride and satisfaction with my work was completely gone. All my effort was worthless to them. All they saw what everything I didn't do.

At the age of ELEVEN, I knew that wasn't right. That wasn't fair. I swore to myself I would never invalidate someone's work like that.

Now, at 30, I catch myself thinking 'I cleaned up, but my apartment is still so messy.' and I flashback to standing in my bedroom as a child, hearing those fucking words from my parents.

'No. I wouldn't invalidate someone else's work. I'm not going to invalidate my own. I did good. I made progress.' and I'll list the things that I DID get done to myself.

You deserve credit for all the progress you make.

You deserve credit for all the work you do.

It doesn't matter how much work you have left.

What you accomplish, no matter how small, counts. Even when what you accomplished was taking a day to rest and recharge and give yourself a break.

Never let anyone invalidate your work. Not even you.

I love Josh’s anti-classism so much. I grew up in a single parent household that didn’t have time/the ability to cook. I taught myself as an adult and ended up loving it. I cook with this stuff a lot. Shit, the RealLemon juice ends up in a lot of my cocktails. Sure, I like fancy ingredients when I can afford them and I have things I get picky about using - but I have bad hands, mincing garlic is painful as fuck. There’s a lot to be said for knowing how to work with what you have. Don’t shame people for trying, don’t shame people for feeding their families things that they enjoy.