STEM Students Who Don't Refer To Their Living Areas As "stem Cells" Are Wasting An Opportunity And Need

It's Not Just You, Supporting Your Suicidal Loved Ones. They're Supporting You Too.

I'm going to toot my own horn here, indirectly remind others with depression how great their work is, and directly tell those who are not suicidal to appreciate the work we do. Conversations about the relationships between suicidal and non-suicidal people are almost always framed as what *you* are doing to support *us.* That's an important topic, but talking about it to the exclusion of what *we* do for *you* is detrimental. There's an important element that suicidal people are constantly attacked for non-adherence, but when we *do* adhere to this unofficial "rule," we don't get recognition, much less respect and appreciation for it. We work our asses off to keep the struggle going FOR YOU. We don't want the people we care about to be sad. So we continue to live a life that is bad enough to prefer death (or, for many, not prefer death per se, so much as we want something to end, and death is or seems like the only way to achieve ending it). We could be doing this for a single day or several years, and everywhere in between. It's exhausting, mentally and physically. I have never had a job that was as hard as staying alive when I have an illness that literally makes me want to die. It's WORK. I don't have to put that work in. None of us do. If you have an at-risk loved one still hanging on, odds are it's because of the intensely difficult labor they put in to make sure you don't have to deal with loss just yet. Treat them like who and what they are. Treat them like someone who is immensely considerate of you, who routinely sacrifices what they want for you. Treat them like someone who has a hard job with long hours. Treat them like someone who has a chronic illness that is more manageable at some times than others.

People love to say variations of “you have to love yourself first in order to be loved,” and lament over how people who’ve killed themselves or tried to kill themselves “have people who love them, even if they didn’t know it.” Fuck you. Figure this shit out. Stop telling people that no one will love them if they don’t love themselves. You’re hurting a lot of people by perpetuating the myth.

"I'm a woman." "But gender isn't real!" "Well, my label, identity, and peoples' reactions to my physical attributes which they also label "woman" really affect me, but that's cool bro."

I was watching An American Tale with a friend, and to my delight, he pointed out that, as a Native, I can call most people "My Little Immigrant."

*Looks at my own butt in new jeans* "I would hit that."

Eye contact = too much intimacy. Touching hair= ah, perfect.

If you ignore your child's mental illness, you have zero right to complain about how they act.

What Am I Overlooking?

Overlooked reasons for going to hell: Carrying on a conversation with someone after they have said goodbye (or other widely accepted sign-off term), as if you didn't hear them when you did. "Fixing" things about a person's appearance (bra strap, hair, etc) without asking. Answering the cellphone you didn't bother silencing in a library. Constantly putting other people's cups in the sink when they're not done using them.

You're not straight, you're just bi-curious.

But I’m Special!

A lot of people seem to think they get a pass on problematic arguing tactics because they're a minority or an activist or what have you. You don't get a pass. It's not going to fly if you say "there are multiple bad things/reasons for a bad thing, don't try to focus on one." You don't get to say " *I* don't experience that problem" when someone says a problem exists, and not get called out on it. You don't get to badger someone who has made it clear that they don't want to talk to you about a subject, and have it be okay. I'm not buying it when your response to being called out is a tired variation of "I guess you're not capable of talking about things rationally" when someone doesn't put up with your tactics. Not only will your behavior be called out, but your hypocrisy will be called out as well.