Phara's Salon

[NaranjaRa]

just a shout out to All The Ladies
sending lots of

[Phara]

oh hai.

Whenever I come onto the boards... it's into the Salon that i feel safest posting in. Bizarre right? Ninja might have been one of the first "safe spaces" on the net but it's something about my fellow Ninjess that makes confessing and unleashing a torrent of words just a little bit easier. So hear I am, banging away on this keyboard, hoping some of my ladies will understand and help me with this inner dialogue that i'm trying to make public.

Btw... this is strictly stream of consciousness so it might be all over the place.

Aphantasia. Candee and i both have this. As well as being introverts. BTW, i'm so grateful to you girl because it's through our friendship that I finally started feeling less crazy for about my mental neuroses and less alone in my daily struggles, for as trite as that may sound.

I talk to myself all day. I mention this in another post around here called the one-dimensional self I think. My roommate says I was a twin in the womb. (She's a medium/psychic/reads cards/sees spirits)... Something about that statement rings bells. Sometimes I feel I ate some psycho bitch who just sits in my mind trying to shit on me. Um.... she sucks. This inner dialogue between two souls that dont really like eachother or themselves very much. Which is weird, because here comes the triplet that plays the veneer who is the arrogant, cocky, fast-mouthed broad that people seem to see. And where there is legit confidence in a series of areas... there is so much self-doubt and fear of failure in areas that seem so much more important. Career, stamina, discipline... I flounder in these areas and it fuels an undercurrent of anxiety that is probably the biggest reason I find myself in rut after rut. It makes me feel like a sulky child and I hate that weakness. But breaking though it is a constant process that I am far from being successful at. Although this post is an attempt.

I have a self loathing and propensity for self torture that keeps me from ninja. it's like a stockholm syndrome with the evil twin that sits in my brain. this is where I'm most happy but I wonder if there's a part of me that feels I dont deserve it. Or decades under well intentioned but honestly... pretty shitty upbringing... that has me feeling guilty for not turning into what it was my parents wanted, that has me buckling under a crushing guilt. Y'all... I'm an egyptian felon that was once a valedictorian blazing through science on her way to typical egyptian doctorhood. Yea fuck that life for real... but fuck me... not since the height of Ninja have I established myself in my own rebellion. And that shit kills me. If I was to walk away from that world then I need to rise in my own. And I haven't been able to get a grasp on that since my release from prison and it's unsettling to say the least.

Adulthood sucks yall. Being intuitive and aware can be crippling. It has benefits yes. I think. I'm drawing a little bit of a blank. When I think of Egypt is when certain advantages seem very obvious. I live alone, I have the ability to do what i want when I want... although I do nothing... No one is going to call me a prostitute for smoking a cigarette (yea, they're fuckin nuts), and so on and so forth... but I grew up in the Top 1% of the academic scale and when I start thinking of those I know from that world... the ugly whispers start. "not good enough" type bullshit. bah... it's brutal. And then there's the part of me that views all of that and just screams weak over the whole dialogue. So suck. :/ ... anywho, what to do right?

make a more conscious effort to turn the voices off and log in to evolution

not go more than a week without talking to candee

journal/scrap journal more. should do it daily but you know... lazy

exercise. puke.


... those are the plans. I just wanted to lay this out here. make it real. insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. i need to stop driving myself crazy. Fight the shallow dimensions of my life and delve deeper into what i was put on this earth to do, no matter how daunting it may seem.


Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far. I love you ladies. forever.

//Phara

[Gwenno]

I'm silent, I don't mean to be. I just have to kick my own butt to get here on ninja and be, read, post.
Or you post on FB and draw me in here, I suck. For some reason I don't feel safe enough to post my shit, not even here in the salon. I don't know when or where it happened, but it started to scare me to post my real shit online, and I hate that.
People that talk to themselves are the most creative ones imo. Talk to yourself all you want, people that do that are most capable of self reflection, and overdo the self reflect part, and come off as weird, cocky, whatever. (I'm just responding and blurting out, feels like a good time for that)
Self doubt and fear of failure, I get that. I see it a lot as well, it's the doom of our generation, we were told we could do anything and everything, and then 'the economy' collapsed, the schooling system did a turnover, jobs went missing and we all failed miserably. And the ones that didn't fail? They got burn outs, depression, CFS, ME, you name it. Fuck, I failed AND had a burn out at 24 and VVS at 29. It's not weakness, we are human, we are very sensitive humans and that makes us fucked. (And you dealt with way worse shit, no you are not weak or childish in my eyes)
Again, you are human.
And I also think adulthood sucks big time, I have to adult around to be a responsible mom. Every time someone tells me to be an adult, they continue by belittling me, so fuck those people, I'm myself and I think I do a good job, even if my laundry isn't folded that well or I don't vaccuum every day, screw that shit. Even if I don't have a paid job and no interest in going back to school to learn for a job that I will hate, I make my own way in the world, thank you very much, now shut up. (I so wish people wouldn't say I act like a teenager when I say that stuff out loud)
another

Let's try to keep eachother here.

[girlapaloo]

Spoiler: show

oh hai.

Whenever I come onto the boards... it's into the Salon that i feel safest posting in. Bizarre right? Ninja might have been one of the first "safe spaces" on the net but it's something about my fellow Ninjess that makes confessing and unleashing a torrent of words just a little bit easier. So hear I am, banging away on this keyboard, hoping some of my ladies will understand and help me with this inner dialogue that i'm trying to make public.

Btw... this is strictly stream of consciousness so it might be all over the place.

Aphantasia. Candee and i both have this. As well as being introverts. BTW, i'm so grateful to you girl because it's through our friendship that I finally started feeling less crazy for about my mental neuroses and less alone in my daily struggles, for as trite as that may sound.

I talk to myself all day. I mention this in another post around here called the one-dimensional self I think. My roommate says I was a twin in the womb. (She's a medium/psychic/reads cards/sees spirits)... Something about that statement rings bells. Sometimes I feel I ate some psycho bitch who just sits in my mind trying to shit on me. Um.... she sucks. This inner dialogue between two souls that dont really like eachother or themselves very much. Which is weird, because here comes the triplet that plays the veneer who is the arrogant, cocky, fast-mouthed broad that people seem to see. And where there is legit confidence in a series of areas... there is so much self-doubt and fear of failure in areas that seem so much more important. Career, stamina, discipline... I flounder in these areas and it fuels an undercurrent of anxiety that is probably the biggest reason I find myself in rut after rut. It makes me feel like a sulky child and I hate that weakness. But breaking though it is a constant process that I am far from being successful at. Although this post is an attempt.

I have a self loathing and propensity for self torture that keeps me from ninja. it's like a stockholm syndrome with the evil twin that sits in my brain. this is where I'm most happy but I wonder if there's a part of me that feels I dont deserve it. Or decades under well intentioned but honestly... pretty shitty upbringing... that has me feeling guilty for not turning into what it was my parents wanted, that has me buckling under a crushing guilt. Y'all... I'm an egyptian felon that was once a valedictorian blazing through science on her way to typical egyptian doctorhood. Yea fuck that life for real... but fuck me... not since the height of Ninja have I established myself in my own rebellion. And that shit kills me. If I was to walk away from that world then I need to rise in my own. And I haven't been able to get a grasp on that since my release from prison and it's unsettling to say the least.

Adulthood sucks yall. Being intuitive and aware can be crippling. It has benefits yes. I think. I'm drawing a little bit of a blank. When I think of Egypt is when certain advantages seem very obvious. I live alone, I have the ability to do what i want when I want... although I do nothing... No one is going to call me a prostitute for smoking a cigarette (yea, they're fuckin nuts), and so on and so forth... but I grew up in the Top 1% of the academic scale and when I start thinking of those I know from that world... the ugly whispers start. "not good enough" type bullshit. bah... it's brutal. And then there's the part of me that views all of that and just screams weak over the whole dialogue. So suck. :/ ... anywho, what to do right?

make a more conscious effort to turn the voices off and log in to evolution

not go more than a week without talking to candee

journal/scrap journal more. should do it daily but you know... lazy

exercise. puke.


... those are the plans. I just wanted to lay this out here. make it real. insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. i need to stop driving myself crazy. Fight the shallow dimensions of my life and delve deeper into what i was put on this earth to do, no matter how daunting it may seem.

Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far. I love you ladies. forever.

//Phara

Love to all you ladies

I totally struggle with my inner critic / self-talk / whatever you wanna call it.
One piece of advice I'm trying to use: ask yourself a question.
"Your brain is a question answering machine."

"I can't do anything right."
"Should I take you seriously?"
"Honestly, no, I really shouldn't, because your scathing judgments of me are based on a skewed perspective.
It's called low self-esteem. Don't worry, it doesn' t have to be permanent. You're gonna be OK."

"I'm such a loser. I am never going to get this done."
"What's one thing I can do right now to get the ball rolling?"
"Will this matter in a week? a month? a year? 5 years?"

[Phara]

thank you so much for reading gwen and mary. I have to go to work but i'll be back later.

Gwen... no one understands more than me. i don't know if it's years of being ripped apart online or watching my baby get ripped out of my hands, but something in me cringes with the net. and i have to put aside the fact that the rest of the web sucks and not apply that trepidation to ninja. fb is full of hostility as well as all the popular mediums. its tedious to even scroll through my feed. but i dont want that to be what controls me... fuck those shit sites, feel me? but it's a struggle.

[Charmosa]

oh hai.

Whenever I come onto the boards... it's into the Salon that i feel safest posting in. Bizarre right? Ninja might have been one of the first "safe spaces" on the net but it's something about my fellow Ninjess that makes confessing and unleashing a torrent of words just a little bit easier. So hear I am, banging away on this keyboard, hoping some of my ladies will understand and help me with this inner dialogue that i'm trying to make public.

Btw... this is strictly stream of consciousness so it might be all over the place.

Aphantasia. Candee and i both have this. As well as being introverts. BTW, i'm so grateful to you girl because it's through our friendship that I finally started feeling less crazy for about my mental neuroses and less alone in my daily struggles, for as trite as that may sound.

I talk to myself all day. I mention this in another post around here called the one-dimensional self I think. My roommate says I was a twin in the womb. (She's a medium/psychic/reads cards/sees spirits)... Something about that statement rings bells. Sometimes I feel I ate some psycho bitch who just sits in my mind trying to shit on me. Um.... she sucks. This inner dialogue between two souls that dont really like eachother or themselves very much. Which is weird, because here comes the triplet that plays the veneer who is the arrogant, cocky, fast-mouthed broad that people seem to see. And where there is legit confidence in a series of areas... there is so much self-doubt and fear of failure in areas that seem so much more important. Career, stamina, discipline... I flounder in these areas and it fuels an undercurrent of anxiety that is probably the biggest reason I find myself in rut after rut. It makes me feel like a sulky child and I hate that weakness. But breaking though it is a constant process that I am far from being successful at. Although this post is an attempt.

I have a self loathing and propensity for self torture that keeps me from ninja. it's like a stockholm syndrome with the evil twin that sits in my brain. this is where I'm most happy but I wonder if there's a part of me that feels I dont deserve it. Or decades under well intentioned but honestly... pretty shitty upbringing... that has me feeling guilty for not turning into what it was my parents wanted, that has me buckling under a crushing guilt. Y'all... I'm an egyptian felon that was once a valedictorian blazing through science on her way to typical egyptian doctorhood. Yea fuck that life for real... but fuck me... not since the height of Ninja have I established myself in my own rebellion. And that shit kills me. If I was to walk away from that world then I need to rise in my own. And I haven't been able to get a grasp on that since my release from prison and it's unsettling to say the least.

Adulthood sucks yall. Being intuitive and aware can be crippling. It has benefits yes. I think. I'm drawing a little bit of a blank. When I think of Egypt is when certain advantages seem very obvious. I live alone, I have the ability to do what i want when I want... although I do nothing... No one is going to call me a prostitute for smoking a cigarette (yea, they're fuckin nuts), and so on and so forth... but I grew up in the Top 1% of the academic scale and when I start thinking of those I know from that world... the ugly whispers start. "not good enough" type bullshit. bah... it's brutal. And then there's the part of me that views all of that and just screams weak over the whole dialogue. So suck. :/ ... anywho, what to do right?

make a more conscious effort to turn the voices off and log in to evolution

not go more than a week without talking to candee

journal/scrap journal more. should do it daily but you know... lazy

exercise. puke.


... those are the plans. I just wanted to lay this out here. make it real. insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. i need to stop driving myself crazy. Fight the shallow dimensions of my life and delve deeper into what i was put on this earth to do, no matter how daunting it may seem.


Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far. I love you ladies. forever.

//Phara

I often agonize over posts I make online and how that can be interpreted and taken out of context and seen by people in my everyday real life (employers, stalkers, anyone). Now I'm writing stream of conscious too, because fuck it, we're in Phara's Salon.

I hear you. You're being challenged a lot by circumstance. Given the story so far, you are doing a great job, Phara. Really. Always make changes, always be growing, but don't beat yourself up about where you are at right now. There is no stopping on this ride, so don't worry about your arrival time, the doors aren't opening. Intimacy is accepting you are not anywhere else besides where you are and making peace with that, even if just for a time. Amazing things happen when you give in and focus on who and what is around you. Magic happens then. Picture life like being stuck in an elevator, or a subway car, and you are claustrophobic. That's what it feels like when you look at your life and go why am I here? I need to get out! I need to be out there! But while you are in that elevator/subway car you can focus on you and whoever else may be in there with you. You can panic all you want but it won't make a difference. Maybe with the outside troubles removed and everything centered on just being in this box allows some peace and an opportunity to break down barriers between self and others (other selves?). I'm babbling, of course. But I suppose that's what this forum allows for me to do. If not here it'd go in a notebook, or my phone's memo pad, or god forbid, Facebook.

The way I engage in the internet is much different now than it was back in like 02, 04, even 08. I remember going to websites to read content. Now websites seem to only exist when clicked on from a FB post (or twitter or whatever). I've tried going back to some of the old sites I used to spend hours reading on... It's not the same. Not just because the people aren't there anymore, but the whole vibe of posting online got different. It got worse.

Real life troubles of the month seem to be feeling too much of everyone else's pain. It's tough when you are intuitive to other people's struggle, because then there is a sense of responsibility. I've been in a rough spot where I'm actually doing ok, but I make myself feel bad when other people are struggling and I'm not helping (or not helping enough). Or I'm just not there. Stretched too thin. I know you get that, too, with friends scattered all over the world.

And BTW Phara I'm trying to buy a house down here. You need to come stay with me a while when I get all that together. It could be a little oasis.

I guess I'm going to have to be a little less inhibited in the forum for it to work. Be the content you wish to see in the world, right? No promises that I'll deliver (see above about being stretched too thin), but I'll try.

[Phara]

oh hai.

Whenever I come onto the boards... it's into the Salon that i feel safest posting in. Bizarre right? Ninja might have been one of the first "safe spaces" on the net but it's something about my fellow Ninjess that makes confessing and unleashing a torrent of words just a little bit easier. So hear I am, banging away on this keyboard, hoping some of my ladies will understand and help me with this inner dialogue that i'm trying to make public.

Btw... this is strictly stream of consciousness so it might be all over the place.

Aphantasia. Candee and i both have this. As well as being introverts. BTW, i'm so grateful to you girl because it's through our friendship that I finally started feeling less crazy for about my mental neuroses and less alone in my daily struggles, for as trite as that may sound.

I talk to myself all day. I mention this in another post around here called the one-dimensional self I think. My roommate says I was a twin in the womb. (She's a medium/psychic/reads cards/sees spirits)... Something about that statement rings bells. Sometimes I feel I ate some psycho bitch who just sits in my mind trying to shit on me. Um.... she sucks. This inner dialogue between two souls that dont really like eachother or themselves very much. Which is weird, because here comes the triplet that plays the veneer who is the arrogant, cocky, fast-mouthed broad that people seem to see. And where there is legit confidence in a series of areas... there is so much self-doubt and fear of failure in areas that seem so much more important. Career, stamina, discipline... I flounder in these areas and it fuels an undercurrent of anxiety that is probably the biggest reason I find myself in rut after rut. It makes me feel like a sulky child and I hate that weakness. But breaking though it is a constant process that I am far from being successful at. Although this post is an attempt.

I have a self loathing and propensity for self torture that keeps me from ninja. it's like a stockholm syndrome with the evil twin that sits in my brain. this is where I'm most happy but I wonder if there's a part of me that feels I dont deserve it. Or decades under well intentioned but honestly... pretty shitty upbringing... that has me feeling guilty for not turning into what it was my parents wanted, that has me buckling under a crushing guilt. Y'all... I'm an egyptian felon that was once a valedictorian blazing through science on her way to typical egyptian doctorhood. Yea fuck that life for real... but fuck me... not since the height of Ninja have I established myself in my own rebellion. And that shit kills me. If I was to walk away from that world then I need to rise in my own. And I haven't been able to get a grasp on that since my release from prison and it's unsettling to say the least.

Adulthood sucks yall. Being intuitive and aware can be crippling. It has benefits yes. I think. I'm drawing a little bit of a blank. When I think of Egypt is when certain advantages seem very obvious. I live alone, I have the ability to do what i want when I want... although I do nothing... No one is going to call me a prostitute for smoking a cigarette (yea, they're fuckin nuts), and so on and so forth... but I grew up in the Top 1% of the academic scale and when I start thinking of those I know from that world... the ugly whispers start. "not good enough" type bullshit. bah... it's brutal. And then there's the part of me that views all of that and just screams weak over the whole dialogue. So suck. :/ ... anywho, what to do right?

make a more conscious effort to turn the voices off and log in to evolution

not go more than a week without talking to candee

journal/scrap journal more. should do it daily but you know... lazy

exercise. puke.


... those are the plans. I just wanted to lay this out here. make it real. insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. i need to stop driving myself crazy. Fight the shallow dimensions of my life and delve deeper into what i was put on this earth to do, no matter how daunting it may seem.


Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far. I love you ladies. forever.

//Phara

I often agonize over posts I make online and how that can be interpreted and taken out of context and seen by people in my everyday real life (employers, stalkers, anyone). Now I'm writing stream of conscious too, because fuck it, we're in Phara's Salon.

I hear you. You're being challenged a lot by circumstance. Given the story so far, you are doing a great job, Phara. Really. Always make changes, always be growing, but don't beat yourself up about where you are at right now. There is no stopping on this ride, so don't worry about your arrival time, the doors aren't opening. Intimacy is accepting you are not anywhere else besides where you are and making peace with that, even if just for a time. Amazing things happen when you give in and focus on who and what is around you. Magic happens then. Picture life like being stuck in an elevator, or a subway car, and you are claustrophobic. That's what it feels like when you look at your life and go why am I here? I need to get out! I need to be out there! But while you are in that elevator/subway car you can focus on you and whoever else may be in there with you. You can panic all you want but it won't make a difference. Maybe with the outside troubles removed and everything centered on just being in this box allows some peace and an opportunity to break down barriers between self and others (other selves?). I'm babbling, of course. But I suppose that's what this forum allows for me to do. If not here it'd go in a notebook, or my phone's memo pad, or god forbid, Facebook.

The way I engage in the internet is much different now than it was back in like 02, 04, even 08. I remember going to websites to read content. Now websites seem to only exist when clicked on from a FB post (or twitter or whatever). I've tried going back to some of the old sites I used to spend hours reading on... It's not the same. Not just because the people aren't there anymore, but the whole vibe of posting online got different. It got worse.

Real life troubles of the month seem to be feeling too much of everyone else's pain. It's tough when you are intuitive to other people's struggle, because then there is a sense of responsibility. I've been in a rough spot where I'm actually doing ok, but I make myself feel bad when other people are struggling and I'm not helping (or not helping enough). Or I'm just not there. Stretched too thin. I know you get that, too, with friends scattered all over the world.

And BTW Phara I'm trying to buy a house down here. You need to come stay with me a while when I get all that together. It could be a little oasis.

I guess I'm going to have to be a little less inhibited in the forum for it to work. Be the content you wish to see in the world, right? No promises that I'll deliver (see above about being stretched too thin), but I'll try.

i appreciate all of this. girl, you know you're one of my closest friend in real life so when you speak I actually tune in rather than the oppposite. I have the same problem where I used to spend hours browsing and learning and having fun. It is the entire vibe of the net that has changed. I'm embracing this idea of conscious behavior where I try not to get overwhelmed by some big picture nonsense and just aim to do something small everyday. Coming from the background I do, it makes me twitchy to have to do these mental tricks, but c'est la vie. I'm an american, not an egyptian who grew up without shoes that will work to the bone. There has to be a balance in my life or what the fuck is the point of living it. I see my parents and their workaholic selves and that's not the life I want at all.

Empathy is a bitch. Life was a lot easier when I was a self absorbed early 20 some.

[Phara]

Men... we've talked to Raven and we're laying it down one last time in here. Unless you were directed here by either Me or one of the other Female Admins, posting in here is a ban level offense. this is a woman's space and I barely like them reminded that men can read this board, let alone post in it. I'd rather the salon was quiet for a time then it be taken over. RAven, so much love always, if you want to bump my salon, go to one of the women in staff and ask for it.

[NaranjaRa]

well there is one thing we can discuss to keep guys away....*drumroll*...

MENSTRUATION!!!!!11!!

no but seriously

i'm (surprise) one of the ladies of the world blessed with extremely ridiculously CRIPPLING periods (i lovingly refer to as Shark Week) that have been going on since i was 13 years old. in fact, i started having to get a prescription for a few days worth of pain medicine every month just to deal. over the years as i got older, they've just become worse and worse. nowadays the pain just cuts right through heavy doses of narcotics. i was diagnosed with a condition called adenomyosis, basically a cousin to endometriosis. so instead of extra uterine tissue growing around the body outside the uterus, it just all stays in there. and from everything i've read, women who have had kids claim the condition causes pain not unlike what they felt during childbirth. except it happens every month. now, i don't have kids, but i can surely testify that for the past 10 years, once a month for the first 3 days of my period i am writhing in my bed and stumbling back & forth to the bathroom. it often involves a lot of crying. over the past few years i've started to puke a lot, too, which is extra fun.

i have fought with many OBGYN through the years, each one turning me down when i beg them for a hysterectomy to end the monthly hell i'm forced to endure.
"but what if you want to have a baby"
i don't and i won't
"you don't know that...things change over the years"
yeah my man and i already made this decision not to
"well you're too young"

i'm about to turn 42 now and i don't foresee them being able to use this same reasoning with me now. i always felt it was more of a selfish motivation, anyway, to be honest. they are in the business of bringing babies into the world. and i was a potential customer. well, that time has passed and tomorrow i see a new GYN to once again start the conversation of how i can be rid of this torture that just keeps changing and getting worse. i've literally been in the ER on multiple occasions because i couldn't stop bleeding. i've lost jobs because of sudden vomiting during work calls. i know...every woman complains that her period is bad, but believe me when i tell you that it fucks me up, HARD. hard enough to make me want some pretty major surgery just to end it.

all of this brings about a huge conflict in me...in the sense that as a woman i will never be able to fully bury that *Thing* inside that calls out for a child. i am literally in tears as i type this. i don't WANT a kid. logically i know this, every part of my conscious being knows this. honestly, i can't stand most kids. and as much as i know i'd be an awesome mom, it's just not me.

yet for some reason, it is still painful to consider that i will never be a mother. but i don't know if this is *all* necessarily coming from me. i cannot always tell if i've just been responding to cultural programming more than biological programming.

that's because there is this constant push from the world...and women can be some of the worst offenders. what i am referring to are the countless articles, references, hell even dialog in movies that tells us over and over again:

You're Not a Real/Valid/Complete Woman Until You Experience Childbirth

mothers out there, you don't know how hurtful this attitude is to your sisters. how it shames us. makes us feel Less-Than. attacks the very fabric of Us as Women...that somehow it all just comes down to our fucking genitals and this - Having Babies - is really what we females are built for.

well i'm sorry, but i was built for SO much more.
.

[NaranjaRa]

by the way, the OBGYN's who always refused to help me surgically....
well of course they're all men
men
having a say
over my body
telling me in not so many words
i should be having babies

[Charmosa]

It's tricky, that last part. I think nearly all women have some inner conflict about it. I'm having it right now. I'm putting off this decision for later because time will allow me to... but only for so long. At some point a decision will need to be made. It's tempting for me now to think about motherhood because I have a husband. That in itself is a subconscious signal to my uterus that it's time for babies. But some women succumb to the desire for children (internal/external) whether they are in relationships or not. Some regret it, relationship or not. Some don't. It's hard to tell until it happens and then there's no taking it back. That's the scariest part. The fact that we are ultimately in charge of this decision, and that it comes with such a short adult life before the time to breed is over... think about it. If you graduate college at 22 and need to breed before 40 (but really 35) then how many LONG TERM relationships can you have? 2? Maybe 3? Is that enough practice? Did you settle for the wrong guy or are you still single because you won't settle for any guy? Perfect men don't exist and there is NO settling down without settling FOR. I think that's the source for a lot of resentment towards men. Men can decide at age 80 to have a baby and will have limited expectations of involvement in the care of his child. When men abandon their children they are irresponsible. When women abandon their children they are monsters. The mythos of motherly love. The responsibility of being woman. All of which can be terrifying and rewarding and enough to make you crazy. We acknowledge the crazy so men and children can laugh at our expense but they'd be crazy too if they were woman.

[NaranjaRa]

The mythos of motherly love. The responsibility of being woman. All of which can be terrifying and rewarding and enough to make you crazy. We acknowledge the crazy so men and children can laugh at our expense but they'd be crazy too if they were woman.

your whole post is so spot-on...but ^ that really got me.
yes, the mythos...

it's like, i don't regret my decision one bit
but i acknowledge that at times, like now, it makes me deeply sad and tough to shake this kind of melancholy
it's like an ache
not of something missing in my life...it's larger than just me
i ache for all women
especially as a man is about to sit in the white house who would be happy to see us return to the 50's in regards to a woman's place in society

[NaranjaRa]

i also wanted to add...two incredible documentaries (currently on Netflix) that every female needs to see:

Miss Representation
Explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, and challenges the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman

She's Beautiful When She's Angry
A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.

both make me weep openly...for what has been done to women through the ages, for the courageous ladies who fought to break the mold, for the continued fight we all take on daily...those walls we have no choice but to put up as we go out into the world...and for the little girls growing up now who will undoubtedly need to carry the torch into the future...

[Phara]

oh thanks for the docu recommendsations. So many "good" posts. where to begin.

the mythos of motherly love is one of those topics that i think can be discussed for ages although its discussed pretty much never. There's quite a few ninjas who can talk quite intensely about this topic.

men ob/gyns have always been irritating to me.

one of the reasons i wont go off depo is because i dont want my period and i dont know if that's shallow or not. i'm not a big fan of what i consider pretty unnatural dosages of hormones but i'm even less of a fan of the hell that my period is. so i get it anna. ugh.

more thoughts soon

[NaranjaRa]

Women Don't Need to Have Periods

...A brief look at the language used to talk about menstruation reflects how closely it’s tied to the concept of female identity. “You’re becoming a woman!” people exclaim to adolescents experiencing their periods for the first time. “Feminine products” is the euphemism of choice for pads and tampons at the drugstore though there are plenty of aisles worth of feminine-coded products available—razors, makeup, and shampoos marketed toward women with the design of helping them look “feminine.” (This focus on the “femininity” of periods also completely ignores the existence of trans men who menstruate.) All of these products have the purpose of eliminating or disguising those functions of the body that have been deemed “unfeminine” like growing body hair and sweating, just as menstrual products are designed to make the period as undetectable as possible. Periods can be painful and messy, and while they are considered a marker of female identity, there are also social pressures to keep them invisible on account of their “ick” factor. So there are some who find eliminating periods altogether to be their best option.

“There is no medical reason why a woman has to menstruate every month,” said Alyssa Dweck, an assistant clinical professor of OB/GYN at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. “And there is nothing wrong with tweaking the system if bleeding is difficult for women.”

full article: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/arch ... ds/403894/

[girlapaloo]

*sigh*

My thoughts are with you, ninjesses. Life is shite right now and I wish I could find the words - for anything.

[NaranjaRa]

one of the reasons i wont go off depo is because i dont want my period and i dont know if that's shallow or not. i'm not a big fan of what i consider pretty unnatural dosages of hormones but i'm even less of a fan of the hell that my period is. so i get it anna. ugh.

then definitely read that article i posted about not having periods!

the only reason i can't stop mine using BC is because the hormones IMMEDIATELY and FURIOUSLY make me gain weight. medications in general have done that to me over the past decade, so while i might be fixing that problem, i'm then making it worse for my back and knees.

so my Shark Week was so bad i could not make the obgyn appointment i'd be waiting all these months for. and then they tell me they can't get me in again until JUNE. fuckkkkk why is it so hard to get to the lady doc?!?! i'm now hunting for someone else to take me sooner.

good news is i found i might not need such a serious operation such as a hysterectomy. i've been researching endometrial ablation and talking to some who've had it done. it's starting to sound like it might be just the thing i've been needing!

LOVE TO ALL TEH LADIES

[NaranjaRa]

welp, it's January 20.

gonna be holding onto my pussy just a lil bit tighter today...
:|

[NaranjaRa]

was just watching a discussion about art between Patti Smith & David Lynch and she made a comment about becomming aware of her aging and getting silver hair. and it just made me think about how women are so obsessed with these signs....always adding stuff to their faces to try and smooth wrinkles, getting fucking botulism injected into their faces to look younger, covering grey hair....all this stuff.

well first of all, makeup and too much skin product will make you age faster. i don't care how natural it is. i've literally only washed my face with water for all my life and rarely use skin makeup or any other product on the skin. never had acne issues. i'm 42 and i still get carded for smokes. o_O i know genetics plays a role, as both my parents have aged "gracefully" and people still think my mom is my sister.

but i always thought it was really fucked up that women are basically not "worth" much once they show signs of aging, yet men are considered to get sexier over time because it shows "experience". how retarded is that thinking?!?!

also, i can't wait to get grey hair...i have some but not enough! i'll be able to dye my hair every color in the rainbow without having to bleach it first anymore!

[NaranjaRa]

OH AND HERE'S SOME REALLLL HEAVY BULLSHIT RIGHT HERE:

New Arkansas law allows rapists to sue victims seeking abortion

fucking filthy animals