For anyone who doesn't have them, intrusive thoughts are like intense nightmares except that you're awake and you can have them at literally any time of the day. Otherwise, your fears made manifest in your mind and you have absolutely no control of the narrative.

I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

Thanks to whoever tried, but I knew they'd never allow it.

Let's do it the old fashioned way. Spread it far and wide.

On Thanksgiving, I witnessed something I think was one of the best parenting moments I’ve ever seen.

I’ve been adopted by my coteacher’s family, and since I have no family around where I live for the holidays, she invites me to her house. I go to birthday parties, soccer games, family events, the whole deal.

Her young son (he just turned 5) was swinging around a toy on a string in circles. She asked him quite a few times to stop because he was too close to people and it could hurt them, but he still continued to do so. While he was swinging it, it smacked her pretty hard in the leg, hard enough to leave a bruise later.

Right away, her husband ordered him to apologize, and with a rather less than sincere voice, he said “sorry.”

She looked at him dead straight and said, “I don’t accept your apology.”

The kid was floored. He just stood there and didn’t know what to do. Her husband asked her why she said that, and she said, “He’s not sorry. He doesn’t know what he did wrong or how to fix it. He just said it because you told him to. So, no, I don’t accept his apology.”

After a few seconds, she walked away. The kid just stood there, confused and not knowing what to do. So, we at the family dinner table, walked him through what happened.

“She asked you to stop so no one would get hurt, and you didn’t listen. And now, someone got hurt.”

“Do you think saying sorry made it stop hurting?”

“Do you feel bad about it?”

“What can we do to fix it?”

And he agreed he should stop swinging around the toy and went to a different room so no one would get hurt. No more forced apology. Just action.

Eventually, about an hour later, he offered a sincere apology to his mom and gave her a hug. Only then did she accept his apology and told him why. Not because he said he was sorry, but because he stopped once he realized what he was doing did hurt someone, and he went on to fix the problem.

So many parents force their kids to apologize, and she’s told me time and time again it always makes her feel uncomfortable because usually the kid doesn’t regret their actions or want to apologize. Parenting isn’t always pretty words and being gentle. Sometimes you have to prepare them for real-life situations, and unconditionally accepting or being understanding of their actions isn’t always the best way to go.

Not only is this teaching him how to genuinely apologize for his behavior and do better, but it also makes him realize words are just words until action is taken. That’s the only way things get fixed.

Is there gray area? Absolutely. Is this always going to work? Absolutely not. But, is it a step in the right direction to teaching children how to genuinely apologize? Most definitely.

There were adults in my life who needed to learn this fucking lesson.

There were adults in

my life who needed to learn

this fucking lesson.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

I’ve talked a few times about the difference between going “Hey sorry man!” and being cool with someone after a bump in a crowded hallway and the “This is how I screwed up and this is how I will fix it” of a full detailed apology.

This feels like a good sister lecture. Are you sorry for what you did, or are you sorry that your actions have consequences?

Not to be that person, but why was the child allowed to keep the toy long enough to hurt anyone at all? It's one thing if it's just the parents in the line of fire--their kid, their risk--but it sounds like at least several other people, OP included, were present. The child was asked--not told--multiple times to stop without any consequences for not listening until actual incident. And even then (unless it just wasn't mentioned) the kid got to keep the toy after seriously hurting someone. I know that I would have been pissed as Hell if a relative let their child hurt me enough to leave a bruise as some sort of teaching moment. IMHO, the consequence should have been the loss of the toy for not listening long before anyone got hurt at all.

I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

Thanks to whoever tried, but I knew they'd never allow it.

Let's do it the old fashioned way. Spread it far and wide.

I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

Thanks to whoever tried, but I knew they'd never allow it.

Let's do it the old fashioned way. Spread it far and wide.

thinking about things to not think about other things. everyone come sit with me a minute and find one good or fun thing that happened today

i bought a piece of discount cake and it was pretty good.

Hi new friends. Please don’t censor words, especially triggering ones. Seeing trigger words written l!ke th!s doesn’t stop them from being triggering.

It just stops Tumblr’s built in filter (see under settings) from working which many of us have in place to protect ourselves.

This has happened to me multiple times this week, and as someone currently struggling with suicidal ideation, has not been great.

You are not on TikTok or Insta, please use the full words so people can protect themselves. Thank you 💖

“Huh, weird my activity feed is spiking way too much considering I haven’t posted much lately, let’s see what’s oh... Yeah, that tracks.”

This is from 2022 but it's still vital Tumblr etiquette. Please don't self censor the way TikTok has taught you to. You can say kill, fuck, sex, murder, suicide, rape etc etc

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been exposed to major triggers recently because people are tagging rape as “grape.”

Please don’t do that. Just say the word so those of us with the filters in place can protect ourselves. Thank you 💖

ICE raids are starting on Tuesday in Chicago.

Yell “ICE” and “LA MIGRA” to disrupt them. Notify people and use your privilege as a citizen to make ICE’s job as difficult as possible.

Fascism has been here. It’s just loud now. Time to be loud too.

If you cannot attend protests in person, it’s time for you to organize with your community and educate yourself.

Donate to bail funds in your city now. Find the sanctuary cities near you.

Go to libraries. There are groups organizing. Do not let the censorship of TikTok allow these communities to go silent.

What they’re doing to TikTok and the timing of it, whether Trump saves it to make himself look better or he censors it on the doorstep of his new reign, it is intentional.

Trump is expected to issue an emergency executive order regarding the southern US border tomorrow after inauguration.

California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, be ready for ICE and border patrol.

#WTF isn’t Chicago a sanctuary city?

Yes. Trump is targeting sanctuary cities. This report on Chicago was originally a leak, so all sanctuary cities are on alert.

Midwest Immigration Bond Fund (IL, IN, WI, KY)

Border Angels Familias Reunidas Bond Program

it's easier to apply for jobs than ever! so what if you lost your insurance, anyone can get a job these days, even without meds. everyone is hiring! there's a "good employee" shortage!

well you just need to revamp your resume, here's a paid app subscription that can read it for you. rewrite the cover letter they won't read. google jobs in my area and then scrawl through Monster/Indeed/worbly. did you want to save the search? this was posted 98 days ago. over 1 billion applicants! this position is trending.

jobs i actively like doing and get paid for. your search returned no results. easy-apply with HireSpin! easy apply with SparkFire! easy apply with PenisFlash! with a few short clicks, get your information stolen.

watch out! the first 98 links on google are actually scams! they're false postings. oopsie. that business isn't even hiring. that other one is closed permanently. find one that looks halfway legit, google the company and the word "careers". go to their page. scroll past brightly-lit diversity stock photo JOIN US white sans serif. we are a unique, fresh, client-focused stock value capitalism. we are committed to excellence and selling your soul on ebay. we are DRIVEN with POWER to INNOVATE our greed. yippee! our company has big values of divisive decision making, sucking our dicks, and hating work-life balances. our values are to piss in your mouth. sign here and tell us if you have gender issues so we can get ahead of the sexual harassment claim. are you hispanic although let's be real we threw out the resume when we saw your last name.

sign up to LinkHub to access updates from this company. make a HirePlus account to apply. download the PoundLink app. your account has been created, click the link we sent you in 15 minutes. upload that resume. we didn't read the resume, manually fill in the lines now. what is your expected pay grade. oh actually we want hungry people, not people driven by a salary. cut a zero off that number, buddy, this is about opportunity, and we need to be thrifty. highest level of education. autofill is glitching. here is an AI generated set of questions. what is your favorite part of our sexy, sexy company. how do you resolve conflict. will you get our company logo tattooed on your person. warning: while our CEO is guilty of wage theft, we will absolutely refuse to hire a nonviolent felon.

thank you for your interest at WEEBLIX. we actually already filled this position internally. we actually never had that posting. we actually needed you to have 9 years of experience and since you have 10 years we think it might be too many? we'll be texting you. we'll email you. we'll keep your resume. definitely absolutely we won't just completely ignore you. look at your phone, there's already a spam text from Bethany@stealyouridentity. they're hiring!

wait, did you get an interview? well that's special, aren't you lucky. out of 910 jobs you applied to, one answered, finally. and funny story! actually the position isn't exactly as advertised, we are looking for someone curious and dedicated. it's sort of more managerial. no, the pay doesn't change - you won't have any leadership title. now take this 90 minute assessment. in order to be a dog groomer, we need you to explain cell biology. in order to be a copyeditor, write a tiny dissertation about the dwindling supply of helium on the planet. answer our riddles three. great job! we just need to push this up to Tracy in HR who will send it to Rodney who is actually in charge. and then of course it's jay's decision and then greg will need to see you naked and if you survive you'll be given a drug test and a full anal examination.

and of course you'll be hungry this whole time, aren't you, months and months of the same shit. months of no insurance, no meds, no funding, barely able to afford the internet and the phone and the rent - all things you need in order to even apply for our thing. but do it again! do it again and again and again, until you flip inside out and turn into a being of pure dread!

you're not hired yet because you're lazy. there's over one million AI-generated hallucinated jobs in your area. don't worry. with zipruiter, hiring and firing is easier than ever. sign up. stay on-call.

in the meantime, little peon - why don't you just fucking suffer.

Boy if THAT ain't prophetic :-/

For those who are wondering, she says in the TikTok as I'm in Canada and can still access the app:

"And remember kids, it was Trump who started all of this. And if he comes back on the 19 of January, saying that he is making sure that tiktok is not getting banned, coming from a German, this is exactly what a certain painter from 1933 did back then to get the sympathy of the masses.

"I beg you, I beg YOU, to not sympathize with him. This is all a plan, this is all, the only thing that they didn't consider was all of you marching over to Rednote. It TikTok stays because of Trump, this app will be run over by Republican propaganda. Fascist propaganda, the same as it happened back in 1933 in Germany. Our version was burning books, their version is deleting every information that is not serving their worldview.

"Please don't let history repeat itself.

"Sincerely, A German"

And here, the final act in a Long Con, in which everyone got played like a fucking fiddle.

Use the Trump-simping app if you guys are that addicted to the shitty dopamine hits, but I think it'll be at your own fucking peril, especially if you utter any kind of overt or covert Trump/Trump Admin/Musk criticism. Also, I'll block you just because this Administration not only wants to limit your freedom to protest, but also wants to fill the US government with MAGA sympathisers and militarize police against citizens and I'm not fucking around with this kind of bullshit. You shouldn't either, but at least as of today, you can still do whatever the fuck you want.

Trump is probably going to remove the TikTok ban shortly after his inauguration and secure a chunk of the youth vote.

Lol…literally lmao. Enjoy the propaganda👍

Saved this from a different post, it belongs here.

And don't forget, he decided to ban tiktok after kpop stans trolled the shit out of his 2020 Tulsa rally, making the campaign team expect a million people to turnout and only getting a few thousand.

The next few weeks are going to be hard for many of us in the US. The new regime is going to come out of the gate in full attack mode. The LGBTQ community, people of color, immigrants, women, the poor and even our (already broken) health industry are going to be targeted.

This is an attempt to exhaust us with a game of civil rights whack-a-mole, and there is no doubt that some of us are going to feel absolutely wrecked every time we look at the news.

Here is my advice on surviving the next four years

Limit your exposure to the news, it's fine to check the headlines, but

Order a big roll of postcard stamps from the USPS and buy some cheap, blank, postcards.

Sending physical mail can be more effective than signing online petitions, and it has the added benefit of getting you away from the computer. I personally prefer writing postcards because it feels more like I am taking tangible, physical action.

If you are especially organized, you can pre-print address labels for your representatives. I am 100% not that organized.

The ACLU has a guide on what to say here: https://www.aclu.org/writing-your-elected-representatives

Most importantly, don't fall into despair. You are not alone in this, there are millions of us out here who want to see a kinder world.

We've got your back.

Boy if THAT ain't prophetic :-/

For those who are wondering, she says in the TikTok as I'm in Canada and can still access the app:

"And remember kids, it was Trump who started all of this. And if he comes back on the 19 of January, saying that he is making sure that tiktok is not getting banned, coming from a German, this is exactly what a certain painter from 1933 did back then to get the sympathy of the masses.

"I beg you, I beg YOU, to not sympathize with him. This is all a plan, this is all, the only thing that they didn't consider was all of you marching over to Rednote. It TikTok stays because of Trump, this app will be run over by Republican propaganda. Fascist propaganda, the same as it happened back in 1933 in Germany. Our version was burning books, their version is deleting every information that is not serving their worldview.

"Please don't let history repeat itself.

"Sincerely, A German"

ooooh, so we're not even a LITTLE bit gonna pretend it wasn't all a political stunt

just. as a reminder.

Oh yeah. This was 100% some kind of stunt. The very direct mention of the orange fucker isn’t subtle.

Trump isn't president [again] until tomorrow. He doesn't have the legal power to do anything until then.

As president, he can't unilaterally overturn a law that the Supreme Court - somehow - ruled isn't unconstitutional, but he could be really lax about the execution of the law.

I'm thinking it's going to be really important these next few years to emphasize what the president can and cannot legally do.