Results for: you need help
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The Soft Butch That Couldn’t (Or: I Got COVID-19 in March 2020 and Never Got Better)
Is a soft butch a soft butch if she can barely hold even herself together? Is a soft butch a soft butch without her swagger?
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The Illusion Of Safety
I don’t want to be caught parading around in last generation’s false sense of security. I’m kicking off Autostraddle’s first Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) Heritage month by exploring the values my own South Asian and Japanese American parents and grandparents imparted to me, to learn to carry them forward.
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Such Softness in the Harsh World
Stacy asked what she could do, how she could help, all she wanted to do was be useful, and I said nothing, nothing, I’ve got everything under control. And so she held me on the nights I was pretending to be able to sleep and whispered “I’ll take care of you” over and over without ever expecting an answer.
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I Never Meant for My Hair to Be the Way Back to the Lighthouse
“I thought changing something on the outside would change the wrecked ruin of me on the inside. I thought somehow the inside would get a memo from my outside and get into shape. It didn’t, but my hair is the first way I was able to gain autonomy over my body.”
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My Virtual Brunch With Dolly Parton
“Dear Editor: You are cordially invited to have brunch with country music icon Dolly Parton this Sunday, August 7th.”
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Love Non-Orgasmically: She’s Not Coming But We’re Still Here
“I came. You didn’t. I’d kind of expected it to happen because of our connection – hoped egotistically anyway. I was disappointed but figured I’d give it time.”
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If I’m Queer But I’m A Preacher, Maybe He’ll Love Me
“My father has very few admirable qualities when it comes to our relationship: he doesn’t follow through on his promises, he doesn’t compromise, and he has a God complex. “
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Donor Siblings: The Happy Unexpected Bonus of Lesbian Parenthood
“Suddenly I was looking at all these little boxes online, little question marks where the faces would be, each one representing another human that shared half of my daughter’s DNA.”
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Taco Tuesday: Finding Home Again
In the very first edition of a biweekly column all about tacos, Yvonne writes about her personal connection to the delicious, Mexican super food and her search for damn good tacos far away from home.
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Panic and Parenthood: Having A Baby, Being Torn Apart, and Putting Myself Back Together
“In one of my college psych courses we had to try to use conditioning to get rid of bad habits. My classmates tried to stop biting their nails. I tried to stop panicking during sex.”
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Adventures in Baby Making as a Single Black Lesbian
So maybe my pregnancy path isn’t as simple and straightforward as baby books would have you believe it should be because I’m a poor QPoC with anxiety, but it has been an interesting worthwhile journey so far. I can’t wait until I can take the next step.
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This Is A Dead Mom Essay
“Not being an asshole” to myself meant admitting that my mom’s death and her illness permeate every single part of my being, and always will.
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Me, Piper Chapman, the Psych Ward, and the Incarcerated 2.2 Million
“Real human change requires space to be honest with yourself, honest with others; a space that doesn’t exist when you’re trapped by necessity behind a fortress of self-protection. As the inmate Poussey in Orange replies when a correctional officer pressures her to speak openly during a group therapy session: “Does it ever occur to you that actually feeling our feelings might make it impossible to survive in here?”
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Fat-Booty Butch Buys A Suit On A Budget
There are moments when if we can, we want to wear the articles of clothing that bring us close to joy. My suit isn’t that thing, not yet, but it did bring me closer to feeling sane and on top of this thing called adulthood.
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To Be Queer, Black, and “Sick”
My family used to joke that only white people need therapy. Meanwhile, white academics told me that African-Americans merely fabricated ungrounded stigma around psychiatric help. No one ever tells you that the healthcare system is sick.
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The Language of Comedy: On Defensiveness and Being Wrong
“LANGUAGE MATTERS. In the same way a racial slur brings back a SLEW of painful memories for me and a reminder of the entire history of those words and what they have meant to people and how they have been used to hurt people. I was wrong and it’s important to accept when you’re wrong.”
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Beyond Definition: On Queer Black Love and My Kaleidoscope Identity
“My queerness was exactly the durable and malleable fabric that brought me here to this love. I am so grateful to finally have this powerful Black revolutionary in my life, I am thrilled about the quickly manifesting potential of our combined energy that nurtures creativity both for ourselves, our kin and our community.”
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Before You Know It Something’s Over
“He didn’t feel any pain. He died instantly.” That was how she told me that my father was dead. I was 14.
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The Disappearing Act: Fighting Disordered Eating as a Masculine-of-Center Woman
I got a taste of something I had never known — shopping in the men’s department afforded my body the opportunity to take up the amount of space it actually takes up.
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Reclaiming Abuelita Knowledge As A Brown Ecofeminista
“We pass down traditions and knowledge that are unintentionally green or sustainable. We do not call them ‘eco-friendly’ practices, we just do them. I call this passed down knowledge, Abuelita Knowledge because so much of this ‘new age’ practices are the ways in which my grandmas and elders live their lives.”