des! (she/her)  🏳️‍🌈Verified account

95% of American mass shooters: "I am a nazi and I do this because I want to ethnically cleanse the world. Here is my manifesto where I detail all of my nazi beliefs." The media: The mentally ill lone wolf had a rough life. No one wanted to be his friend.

No amount of DEI trainings can protect Black people in America.

Before they start calling the Buffalo shooter mentally ill... Racism is not mental illness. Racism is not mental illness. Racism is not mental illness.

Tomorrow is Friday the 13th so don’t forget to leave out two camp counselors having sex for Jason tonight.

In graduate school, I worried that someone might find out that I was seeing a therapist. As faculty, I tweet about it. It’s time to reduce mental health stigma and increase access - *especially* for graduate students. #MentalHealthAwarenessMonthhttps://twitter.com/ajshackman/status/1525153595183747072 …

The Catholic Church will not baptize a full term still born child that a mother gave birth to. Not only they won’t baptize the baby they WILL NOT allow the baby to have a funeral mass. Reasons is the baby never took a breath. Tell me how the CC believes life begins a conception.

My mother's story had a happy ending--but only because abortion was legal and accessible. If she'd had to drive to another state because all the clinics were closed? If it had been illegal past 6 weeks? This is why politicians shouldn't be allowed to legislate our bodies. /End

I don't know that I convinced my friend. I'm sure the answer is 'no' but it's my hope that she will at least think twice before making blanket statements about the immorality of personal decisions. They are personal for a reason. (And yes, btw, my mother was on the pill)

But we aren't supposed to talk about it. And right now, with talk about retroactively pressing charges, they clearly don't want us to. But my mother has since passed away, so good luck with that: I'm going to talk about it.

We cannot let the narrative be controlled by people claiming that abortions are murder. (I promise you that my mother's abortion at 12 weeks doesn't qualify.) I very much doubt that I'm the only person out there whose life was likely saved because my mother had this option.

She couldn't tell me it was the wrong decision, just that she wished it could've worked out differently. Believe me, my mother wished that too. And I'm talking about this because we HAVE to talk about this. We have to share these stories.

And she didn't have an answer. She'd known how poor we were. She'd known my mother was working as a housekeeper. Suddenly the abstract idea of the sort of woman who'd get an abortion smacked against reality. How the situation would've looked on paper versus our lived experience

What anti-abortion law, even the nice polite ones that allow for abortion in cases of rape or incest, would allow a married woman to have an abortion without her husband's permission? My friend was very quiet. She'd known my stepfather, you see. It wasn't difficult to imagine.

My stepfather was a violent man. I can't know for sure how bad it would've gotten, but I have no reason to think he wasn't capable of killing one or both of us. Instead, my mother was able to escape him, get help, start over. But tell me, I asked my friend:

She was in her forties, so it was unlikely there wouldn't be health issues, and giving a baby up for adoption without her legally married husband's permission was not happening. If my mother had been forced to give birth, I told my friend, the results would've been terrible.

Tell me, I said, a scenario where my mother, already the sole support of the house (he was disabled from years of fiberglass work) was supposed to escape that man after she'd had his baby? Tell me how we were supposed to survive her taking the time off?

My mother was afraid of this man, not without cause. I still remember the day he was served the divorce papers and my mother and I had to sneak out the back and hide in the empty apartment down the hall overnight until we could escape and stay at a friend's.