Getting Better

Back in March I wrote a post about anxiety and seeing a new psychiatrist, and I wasn't particularly charitable about the psychiatrist. I was annoyed and scared that he was trying to get me to do stuff and I didn't want to do it.

It's now three months later, and I owe him an apology; for the first time in at least 8 years I feel hopeful that I'm going to recover. He referred me to a service called Enabling Independence and I was terrified that they were going to try to make me jump straight into looking for a job or something, but of course they didn't. I'm seeing a lovely woman called Molly every two weeks, and in the couple of months we've been meeting I've started to think about what I want to do with my future, something that seemed like a ridiculous thing to do back in March, and I've started volunteering at my local library for a couple of hours every two weeks, something that felt impossible not very long ago. I've started an online CBT course with a therapist as well which I'm also finding incredibly helpful.

It might be the medication, it might just be the right time for this, but something has changed. I feel more able to do these things than I did a couple of months ago. I know I've got a long way to go yet, and I'm bound to have set-backs, but I'm so thankful that things have started to improve.

Dairy Free Iron Man Birthday Cake

Tomorrow is Andy's birthday, so I spent today making him a birthday cake (and he spent today washing up the piles of stuff that I left all over the kitchen). He's a big Iron Man fan, so I decided to make him an Iron Man birthday cake using this technique. It's essentially tracing a picture onto greaseproof paper with buttercream icing, freezing it and placing it onto the cake. When you peel the greaseproof paper off the icing it leaves the picture on the cake! If you want detailed instructions (with pictures) I suggest you check out the post I linked to. I'm far too tired and sticky to write a long blog post tonight.

Anyway, because of Jack's milk allergies I had to make the icing without using dairy butter and I honestly wasn't expecting it to work. I was convinced that the icing wouldn't freeze properly and the paper wouldn't peel off cleanly (even though I substituted some of the dairy-free spread with vegetable shortening). As a result I really didn't put much effort into making the tracing neat, or checking that all the gaps were filled and the icing was smooth. It didn't seem worth it when I was so sure that it would fail. I don't know if that makes it more annoying that it worked perfectly. Everything froze as it should, and the paper peeled off without the slightest smudging.

I wasn't terribly careful with the placement or the plain icing either. I was so sure I'd have to scrape it off anyway.

You can see here that the icing was bumpy, but that was totally my fault for not being more careful with piping it.

This is the first time I've ever attempted to decorate a cake with buttercream like this, so I'm really pleased with how it turned out! And now I know what to do (and what not to do) for Adam's birthday in July.

You Are Not The Victim

[Disclaimer: I have white, cis, and straight privilege. If I fuck up anywhere in this, please tell me.]

When did it become worse to be called racist / sexist / transphobic / classist than to actually say racist / sexist / transphobic / classist shit? I suspect that the answer is that people have always considered this to be the case, but I still don't understand why. Why do people think it's worse to have their prejudices pointed out to them, than to be on the receiving end of the prejudiced abuse?

I recently had some issues with my sister on Facebook. She has a tendency to post things that any not-racist person would consider to be racist (as do a lot of my family unfortunately), and when she does I usually point out that it's racist. I don't ask her to remove it, I don't call her a racist, I just point out that it's racist and explain why when she defends it (because she always defends it). I'm not talking subtle stuff here either, it's stuff that is very obviously racist. Apparently this makes me the worst person in the world. She recently used this as an excuse to try and make me feel ashamed of taking anti-depressants when I was pregnant and then cut off all contact with me. Completely blocked me on Facebook, and hasn't responded to the email I sent her.

Now, I'm not saying this just to whine about my sister (although I am mightily pissed off, and pretty upset), but to show that again it's the person perpetuating the oppression who is claiming to be the victim when their oppressive bullshit is pointed out.

I have a friend who recently accused me of 'policing Facebook' and asked if I thought my right to not be offended was more important than his right to say offensive things. He's a middle class man who posted a classist picture and didn't have a problem with it being classist, presumably because he has class privilege and doesn't need to worry about people thinking he's stupid because of the way he pronounces certain words, or thinking he's untrustworthy because of the area he grew up in. I dearly love this man, he's one of my best friends, and I was so upset when he didn't get why this was a problem. We still haven't talked about it, because I'm frankly terrified that if I do I'm going to lose another friend. (I have borderline personality disorder and one of the ways it manifests is a conviction that if I express anger with someone, or show then I'm upset with them in any way, they'll leave me. Obviously the situation with my sister hasn't helped this feeling.).

Let me be clear on this: this is not about being offended. I say shit that will offend people all the time. I swear a lot, I criticise religion, I recently called Chris Grayling a cunt on Twitter, I regularly make comments about certain politicians that a lot of people would find very offensive. The difference between these things and saying something racist or sexist or classist is that they are punching up, not down. The people I say offensive things about are the people who already have all the power and privilege. The offensive stuff I say is not further marginalising an already marginalised group. If you're saying something offensive about a group of people who are already treated badly you are not just being offensive, you are doing actual harm and contributing to a society where the oppression of that group is normalised and accepted.

If you don't like it when people point out that you're saying something oppressive, maybe you should stop saying oppressive stuff. Otherwise, stop whining about people pointing it out because you are not the injured party here.