You Are Valid!!

Queer Jews Project Day 25 - Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer

Edie and Thea first met in 1963 on the dance floor of a Greenwich Village restaurant. Edie was a computer programer at IBM, and Thea was a clinical psychologist. They started dating in 1965, and got engaged in 1967. Thea proposed with a circle diamond brooch because a ring would have led to questions and possible outing. Over the next several decades, they lived happy but hidden lives.

But Thea’s health started to decline.

So Edie and Thea got married in 2007 – in Canada – because same-sex marriage wasn’t legal in the United States. Thea died in 2008. Edie found herself with a literal broken heart – and a massive, unjust tax bill.

The Defense of Marriage Act prevented Edie from claiming the spousal inheritance tax exemption that heterosexual couples received. So Edie sued the United States Government. The case eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court – and Edie won. DOMA was struck down in 2013, and that set the stage for same-sex marriage to be legalized across the United States two years later.

Queer Jews Project

Pain and hope

For those of you who like the idea of peer respites, I just want to say these are not the only alternatives to the mainstream psych system :] Here's a big ol' list, and many/most of them are peer-run. I live in America, so a lot of this is US-based, but I've tried to make it as internationally accessible as possible!

I'll start with the live-in options. So ya'll already know about peer respites, if you read my latest post about it. There's a few more similar things out there.

Soteria Houses - More long-term (months+) community homes for folks with lived experience of psychosis/similar extreme states, with peer support, that focus on a humane and person-centered approach. Much more freedom & agency than your traditional group home.

Hurdalsjøen Recovery Center - a "medication-free" (aka medication-optional) psychiatric hospital in Norway. Allows patients to choose whether to stay on or taper/remain off psychiatric drugs. Focused on healthy eating, exercise, and recreational therapy options.

Bethel House - Similar to Soteria Houses, a homelike environment in Japan for people with schizophrenia, etc. that focuses on social reintegration.

Organizations, clubs, groups, etc:

Students With Psychosis - A peer support community with programming for students with psychosis

International Map of Hearing Voices/Intervoice networks - Non=pathological support groups for people who hear voices, see visions, etc. US directory, UK directory.

Clubhouse International - Gives people with mental illness opportunities for friendship, employment, housing, educational, and medical services all in one place. Founded by a group of friends who survived a psychiatric hospital together.

Project LETS - A radical approach to peer support and healing that has a disability justice centered approach, giving people with lived experience a voice and focusing on mutual aid. They provide peer mental health advocates, self-harm prevention, and more.

The Mad Society of Canada: A grassroots community of practice that brings together folks who want to provide non-coercive, ethical, survivor-informed mental health services/policy.

Power to the Plurals: Resources and events for people who identify as plural/multiple/systems.

The Wildflower Alliance: Grassroots peer support, training, and advocacy community based in Massachusetts.

Alternatives To Suicide (Alt2Su): Peer support groups that allow people to talk about suicidal thoughts without fear of being committed to the hospital, etc

Trainings:

Intentional Peer Support = Trauma-informed peer support training

Emotional CPR - Trauma-informed mental health support training program for the layperson

Hearing Voices Curriculum: Targeted towards mental health professionals to better understand the experience of hearing voices. Warning: It's expensive!

Cities that have a particularly awesome way of dealing with folks in crisis/with mental illness/etc:

Geel - a farming community where residents welcome people suffering with severe mental illness/distress into their homes and live with them, share work, etc (Edit: apparently Geel is a small city with like 40,000 people and not a farming community lol, I was misinformed. Thanks to @roxbot for the correction!)

Trieste - a city with a community centered system of care that integrates housing and peer support

Warmlines (generally run by peers) and Crisis Lines that don't call the cops: (Most of these are taken from this post by trans-axolotl on Crisis Lines)

Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860, 24/7

BlackLine: 1 (800) 604-5841, has texting options

The Plural Warmline (No number, check the site)

THRIVE: text message line at 313-662-8209, 24/7

Promise Resource Network: (833) 390-7728, 24/7

Project Return Peer Support Network: (888) 448-9777 English or (888) 448-4055 Spanish, hours are Monday through Friday 2:30 PM to 10:00 PM PST and Saturday and Sunday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM PST

Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line: 888-407-4515, hours are 7pm to 9pm EST Monday through Thursday and 7pm-10pm EST Friday through Sunday

Key Consumer Organization: 800-933-5397, hours are 8am - 4:30pm EST, Monday - Friday.

MBRLC Peer Support Line:  877-733-7563, hours are 4 pm-7:45 pm EST every day. 

US Warmline Directory (unlikely to call cops, but check with the individual line first)

Misc:

CommonGround software - A software developed by Dr. Pat Deegan (an individual who was diagnosed with schizophrenia) that allows clients to communicate their needs to their doctors more efficiently to support shared-decision making with medication.

Open Dialogue- An psychosocial approach to psychiatric services that focuses shared decision-making and dialogue between client, providers, and family (if the client wants family involved), and often more minimal use of medication.

Integrative Psychiatry - A holistic form of psychiatry that focuses on nutrition, exercise, therapy, and psychosocial factors, where medication is just an aspect of treatment. US database of integrative psychiatrists here.

I will also give a somewhat honorable mention to Mobile Crisis Teams. They are a fairly new alternative to the usual "call the cops on your local mentally ill person". They are composed of nurses, therapists, social workers, occasionally peer support workers, etc. They hook the individual up with support/resources - which can often mean forced hospitalization/forced treatment FYI - but it is a step up from being killed by cops. Look up "[city] Mobile Crisis Team" to find out if there is one in your city.

A note: Something being on this list =/= it is perfect, just that it is an alternative to what we've got. So don't come at me, lmao. Feel free to add on if you know of anything else!

(via "Oh sheep! What is the time? " Magnet for Sale by Queueka)

We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us. Rumi

(via "A lady with her spirit at a full moon " Mouse Pad for Sale by Queueka)

People said that Tumblr isn't a great place to post original art that isn't fanart, but I'm doing it anyway because I haven't got the motivation to draw anything else

Happy pride month lads! 🧡💛🤍💙

from an aroace potato :)

A computer science student named Priyanjali Gupta, studying in her third year at Vellore Institute of Technology, has developed an AI-based model that can translate sign language into English.

Thank you and everyone who got me to 50 reblogs!

The Mosquito's Sting: A Tale of Boundaries Challenged

Once upon a time, in an enchanted kingdom, there was a mosquito that carried the West Nile fever. This mosquito bit a wealthy man and a poor one, a Jew and an Arab, a white person and a black person, women and men, hetro cisgenders and LGBTQ+ individuals. The story tells how people created protective barriers and divisions between themselves, but nature, in the form of the mosquito, pierced through these barriers and showed how easily something from each of them could seep into the other, revealing how arbitrary and temporary all these defenses and boundaries truly were.The king of the kingdom ordered the mosquito to be locked in a golden cage and asked the wisest person in the kingdom, a little girl who understood the language of all animals, to talk to the mosquito. The girl listened to the mosquito's story and told the king the moral lesson that the mosquito had taught. Instead of punishing the mosquito, they made it an important minister in the kingdom. The royal physician healed the mosquito, and the kingdom's scientists transformed it into a beautiful prince. The prince married the girl when she became old enough. She was the only one who saw the wisdom in the simple mosquito that had only come to sting.To everyone's surprise, as they did not know enough about science, it turned out that the mosquito was actually a female mosquito. So, the wise girl ended up marrying a mosquito princess who loved to wear princes' clothes. The two of them lived happily ever after, far away from all other humans who were unwilling to give up the barriers and divisions that separated them.When the people discovered that the mosquito was a female who had married a woman, they wanted to punish her. However, the girl, who was once a wise child, ran away with the mosquito princess to the mountains. There, they lived happily, far from people's eyes and the fears that drove society. They talked to animals, studied them, and understood their language. Over the years, they published scientific papers that brought human society closer to their broad worldview.