You Have Broken Every Single Fucking Rule And I Have Loved You Like A Fool.

The Ableist, Racist, Classist Underpinnings Of 'Laziness' - The Establishment

The people who get called 'lazy' are working harder than any of us.

Hello, I’m a lazy Millennial.

In other words, I’m from a generation that has worked more hours for less money than any generation before me, but occasionally I eat a granola bar for breakfast instead of pouring myself a bowl of cereal.  According to some, including many writers of online thinkpieces, that’s enough to make me “lazy.”

But the problem isn’t me, or young people in general, or any group that’s historically been decried for its idleness.  Like Millennials, groups that are called “lazy” are often the hardest-working people around.  They’re just subject to ableism, racism, classism, and other bigotry that codes exploitation or exhaustion as “unwillingness to work.”

I myself have had a very confusing relationship with “laziness” from a young age, often being called “lazy” for enjoying reading and video games by the same parents who praised me for always getting my homework done on time.

Needless to say, I became rather confused about the quality of my work ethic.  Was I lazy or not?  In my teens, I developed an anxiety disorder and a perfectionism that made academic shirking impossible, but the constant state of worry disrupted my sleep and left me so exhausted that I would often come home from school and go straight to bed for a nap.  Sometimes, all I could do was lay in bed, awake, ruminating on everything I could possibly worry about.

But because I was in bed, this was called “laziness.”

I worked so little at that office job, I couldn’t believe it.  I could spend multiple hours each day scrolling through Tumblr or playing on social media.  My “work” time involved reading articles vaguely related to my work — mostly because there wasn’t much work for me to do.  Compared to being on my feet all day, being expected to work every moment on the clock, it was nothing.

I worked three times as hard at my food and customer service jobs as I did at any of my digital marketing positions.  And yet contemptuous thinkpiecers keep on describing people who work in those industries as “lazy.”  Why don’t you get a REAL job?  Like reading Tumblr while sitting at a desk, instead of busting your ass at McDonald’s.

According to Dr. Alison Munoff, a licensed clinical psychologist, “laziness” is nothing more than a value judgement.

“‘Laziness’ is not a personality trait, it is simply a matter of a lack of proper motivation and reinforcement, as it is a behavioral pattern rather than a part of who we are,” says Dr. Munoff.   “The ability to actively approach a task in a time-effective manner changes depending on the task and its value in our lives. For example, in a situation of obtaining limited resources, people find themselves quite motivated and resourceful, meaning that this task is simply a priority based on its value and necessity, and has little to do with someone’s personality.  Unfortunately I find that when asked about the first time people were told they were being ‘lazy,’ it was from a parent or caregiver who was unsuccessfully attempting to motivate the child without a good understanding of the way this idea would be carried forward.”

In nature, animals spend a lot of their time being idle.   Most of the footage shot of big cats like lions are of them lazing around.  Part of this is because many of them are nocturnal, but it’s also because animals will hunt, forage, and eat until they’re full, and then most of the rest of their time is spent conserving energy.  Laying around doing pretty much nothing is completely natural.  It’s adaptive.  Yet laziness has this negative connotation in many human societies.  And that negative connotation is often deployed in ableist, racist, and classist ways.

Today, we can all enjoy reasonably priced produce thanks to the many exploited Latin undocumented immigrant workers picking our fruit and vegetables — labor that is so intensive that we “non-lazy” white people simply can’t handle it.  And let’s not forget that all of this land was stolen from the Indigenous tribes that were here before we floated over and laid claim to it all.  Isn’t stealing other people’s hard work supposed to be lazy?

Or is it just that it’s easier to call people lazy than admit that you exploited them?

Even if you’re not racist, you’ve probably used the idea of laziness in a way that hurts a lot of people.  I still struggle with an anxiety disorder and go through bouts of depression, and a lot of what’s involved in these mental illnesses looks like what people call “laziness.”  Depression saps your energy and makes everything seem pointless.  Anxiety is paralyzing, making even some of the simplest tasks (like calling people on the phone) seem daunting, so I avoid them.

Combine the two and you’ve got me huddled into a ball on the bed, unable to do anything but listen to Netflix playing in the background.  It looks like laziness, but I’m actually engaged in an exhausting war in my own head.  Anxiety is like pushing a giant boulder in front of you wherever you go, and depression is like dragging a giant boulder attached to your legs by chains.

People with physical illness and disability are also prone to being accused of laziness, especially if that illness or disability is not visible to others.  There are people who are nearly constantly in pain or constantly fatigued, but you would never know by looking at them.  These individuals work much harder than able-bodied and “healthy” people.  Not only do they often have to work to survive because disability payments (if they can get them) are not nearly enough, they have to navigate a world that caters to able-bodied people, and they have to navigate that world while their bodies work against them.  But article after article decries the “laziness” of people who use motorized carts or take elevators up one floor instead of using the stairs, not for a second thinking that there are people who wouldn’t be able to shop or go up floors at all without these “conveniences.”

It’s easier to think of someone as “lazy” than to face the fact that school costs too much, that better jobs are inaccessible, that childcare is unaffordable, that people are forced to work so hard for so little that there’s no way they could have enough energy to attempt schooling or finding better work, and that what we give to people who can’t work is insufficient to the point of being shameful.  I could say that calling people lazy is, in itself, lazy, but it’s not just an intellectual shortcut.  It’s a defense mechanism.

Everyone has a finite amount of energy.  Some of us have greater drains on our pool of energy than others, whether it comes from the stress of racial microaggressions, the stress of poverty, or mental or physical illness.  Needing more time to recover isn’t laziness.  Having less time or energy to make breakfast than the previous generation isn’t laziness.  When you take a second to look into the reasons behind the behavior, you’ll never end up finding laziness.  Because laziness isn’t real.

^^^ THIS

reblog if dogs

baby arctic fox tries to eat a man alive

I have a raging hard on for medieval/armor inspired fashion

motivation. @obey-xx

So the Russian ambassador to Turkey was just assassinated in Ankara, and Turkey is in NATO, which means other NATO members must come to its aid in the event of a shooting war, and the U.S. is ~a month from swearing in an unintelligent, uninformed, pro-Russian, ham-fisted asshat as president, so I’m pretty sure this is how WWIII starts.

word-vomit on depression and seeking treatment for it:

I was asked about seeking treatment for depression.  I don’t want to out anyone or share somebody else’s story, so I replied privately.  Here’s what I told them, just in case anyone else is thinking of asking but not sure how:

I would definitely recommend therapy as a first step.  Finding someone that you can talk to who is IMPARTIAL and TRAINED is really freaking great BUT - you’ve gotta find someone you can click with.  I have spoken to a handful of therapists over the years and in my experience when you walk out of the office of a good therapist, you feel 10,000x better than you did when you walked in.  Conversely, I left the office of a bad therapist (she might not have been bad at her job, but she was bad for ME) and basically cried for the next hour.

SO!  Finding a therapist (I’ma walk you through all the steps I took to get my mental health on track, bear with me)!  I’m going to assume that you are over 18, so you can go looking for health things on your own.  Look in your local area for free clinics/places that refer.  Most areas with a semi-decent population will have some sort of free mental health clinic or at least a good starting off point for you.  When you find one, be specific about who you are and what you’re looking for in a therapist.  I said that I wanted a woman, someone who was used to talking to people about LGBT issues, etc.  The first couple of meetings are odd because you’re telling all these personal things to a STRANGER but luckily (hah!) for me, I tend to be word-vomity when nervous and therapy is the IDEAL PLACE for word-vomit, so that worked out well.  You should never feel 1) pressured, 2) judged, 3) patronized by, or 4) UNCOMFORTABLE with your therapist.  If you experience ANY of those things with a person, then don’t see them again.  Just don’t.  This is about YOU and YOUR health.

As far as having a parent who is potentially in denial about their child’s mental wellbeing goes?  OH HONEY, LET ME HUG YOU!  IDK if you’ve seen my other depression posts but yeah, I FEEL YOU.  Here’s the thing though: your parent will never be able to remove themself from the situation (ie: BEING YOUR PARENT) enough to judge this accurately.  There’s a massive conflict of interest there.  There’s also the fact that no parent WANTS their child to be depressed.  People who know what depression is want it even LESS.  Do not let their opinion stand in the way of you seeking answers FOR yourself ABOUT yourself.  This is your body, your brain, and YOUR LIFE.  You’re the one who’s living it.  YOU DO YOU.

Finally, the big thing everybody talks about: medication.  Not everyone needs it.  Not everyone goes on it.  Currently, I need it to remain functional and healthy.  You may not need it at all, it’s really up to you (and your doctor).  You will, obviously, need a diagnosis before you get medication.  You can either go to your GP, or - if you go to a clinic - there will likely be someone on staff in the same building as the therapist who can prescribe meds.

Personally, when I started on my treatment, I went in this order: 1) GP for basic prescription of antidepressants, 2) referral to free clinic, 3) therapy, 4) started seeing a psych nurse at the clinic to deal with my meds, 5) continued with therapy for over a year - basically until I moved away from the area.

The reason I went in that order is because I was suicidal.  I had plans, I was actively thinking about it every day, and I finally got to a point where I realized that was either going to get help or I was going to die.  As you can see, I went for help.  I do not recommend the MEDS FIRST route to ANYONE, but I was desperate, and I needed to feel like I was doing SOMETHING while I got all the therapy shit together so I could talk shit out.

For me, one of the best things therapy did was it detached my depression from my daily thought processes, so instead of going “you didn’t do that assignment, which was bad, and you did a bad thing because you are fundamentally a bad person, and because you are a bad person you deserve to feel awful and be treated like shit” I was finally able to sort out ME from my ILLNESS.  All of the negative feelings that I had always attributed to being a shitty person who sucked at life and deserved all the bad things were/are actually my depression.  Think of depression as being like a big sticky ball of taffy that floats somewhere over your left shoulder.  A bad day, a mistake, anxiety, all of the things you don’t like about yourself: depression latches onto that and feeds it.  Therapy can cut those cords.  I’m not saying it’ll cure your depression, but MAN is it a lot easier to ignore that freaking ball of taffy when it’s just floating there and not actually wrapping itself around you.

Gee, can you tell from my overuse of analogies that I was an English major?

ANYWAYS, sorry if this wasn’t helpful.  Please let me know if there’s anything I haven’t addressed or answered that you’re curious about!   TL;DR

1.  Look up free clinics in your local area.  Focus on ones that offer counseling as well as medication if possible.  Consider going through your GP, if you have one, for a referral.

2.  Finding a therapist/counselor - it might take a while but it’s worth it.  If you’ve ben bullied or abused then it will DEFINITELY be worth it.  You may, if you’re anything like me, find that you’ve been misdirecting a lot of your negative feelings inwards and getting to shed that is like losing twenty pounds of emotional baggage and GOD is it good.

3.  Medication - NOT PART OF EVERYONE’S JOURNEY.  Do not feel pressured to go on meds.  Conversely, do not feel guilty for needing or wanting them.  If meds take you from “surviving” to “thriving” then they’re FUCKING WORTH IT.

I don’t know if I answered all of your questions, but please feel free to ask me follow-ups.  I’m sending you all the karma/good vibrations I can.  *hugs*

Congratulations, you beautiful amazing person! I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU GUYS! Such a happy day for you...

So um I’m ENGAGED!!!! He totally surprised me and planned this all. Prepare for lots of pictures and ugly crying 💍💍💍 #engaged #wizardworldchicago #cosplay #comiccon #chicagocomiccon

is 2016 over yet