isolation

Seeing You With A Perpetrator Hurts. Here's Why.

Grace is a survivor who has something to ask of you: she's asking you not to spend time with people who have abused me or any other survivor you know. And she's also telling you quite a lot about why.

Connecting with LGBTQ+ Elders

There’s this feeling of smallness - that your world is confined to secrets you tell in your diary, or to the few people you know in real life that are brave (or perhaps foolish) enough to come out - that I identify as a part of my theory on queer orphanhood. You spend so much time contemplating your identity that you don’t have time to wonder about people out there. There’s a kind of spiritual displacement in being queer and young.

Seven Things to Do If You’re Alone During COVID-19

Being single or otherwise on your own during the pandemic can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be awful or without benefit to you. There are probably lots of things you can do right now to help yourself cope and make the most of this time.  Here are seven ideas to get you started.

Self-Care and Social Distance

Some tips and a lot of support for thinking through how you might best care for yourself in this new era of social distance.

The Quiet Voice: How I Stopped Listening to Emotional Abuse

Some forms of abuse, like physical abuse or some kinds of sexual assault, are more easily identified by victims or witnesses. Conversely, gaslighting is a type of non-event, a toxic presence that chips away at a person’s wellbeing over time. Gaslighting is a powerful abuse tactic, although a lesser known one. It is notoriously difficult to understand and recognize, especially for a victim.

You’ll Grow Out of It

This is a guest entry from I, Asshole for the month-long blogathon to help support Scarleteen!

I was raised in an environment where I felt like I didn’t belong. This wasn’t really anyone’s fault. I just really didn’t belong. I was given some innocuous labels: outgoing, loves to entertain, a social butterfly. There were the less-positive ones, too: wasted potential, weirdo, voted by my graduating class as Most Likely to Relocate to Mars (hey, it turns out Seattle is Mars). I did not know what to call myself, I just knew that I was a little different from all my friends. My precocious age-inappropriate-novel-gobbling self even knew from reading that this feeling was kind of part of the human condition: everyone feels like they are alone sometimes.

I'm her one and only...and I don't think that's a good thing.

somethingeasytoremember
asks:
My friend wants to be in a relationship with me, but I am afraid to because I am her only means of support (that's not me being full of myself, she's actually said that) and if things were to turn sour I have two parents and countless friends and trusted adults whom I have no problems talking to, whereas she would have no one to talk to, me being her only confidant, and she can't very well talk to...