kaijuhearmenow:

pinkmistletoe:

pinkmistletoe:

pinkmistletoe:

being touchstarved makes u absolutely buckwild when someone does smth simple like .share a chair with u

like having someone touch your hand with the tips of their fingers shouldn’t feel like So Much it shouldn’t feel like your whole body is going into anaphylactic shock but here we are. here we are.

ok 2 many of u relate

Someone gave me a compliment and reached out and squeezed my hand and I fell in love and couldn’t speak for several minutes

I was just gonna type this in the tags but I have to say this.

Growing up in North America is surreal.
Every tiny little blip of physical affection is deemed as sexual interest.
Boys aren’t allowed to hug eachother because “that’s gay.”
Girls can’t hold hands because “are they going out?”
And GOD FORBID a female friend hugs a male friend.

Having lived in the Netherlands, and reading up about shit like this, Canadians and Americans are starving.

I went to Japan for a school trip in 2012. I went to a highschool there.
There were boys hugging, lounging on those blue gym floor mats, holding hands, trowing their arms around eachother.
I was startled by how shocked I was.

This mentality of “if you’re touching you must have sexual interest in the other person” is so fucking disgusting. Hug your friends. Hold hands with them. Touch their hands when you want to reassure them.

venuselectrificata:

not sure if this will make sense to anyone besides me but: the antidote to negativity is not positivity, its warmth

positivity tells a sad person that there is no reason to be sad. warmth asks the sad person if they want to go get some ice cream

affectionatesuggestion:

keep talking, i’m listening, i want to learn

“it’s easy” can make scary tasks scarier

autisticeducator:

realsocialskills:

When people are struggling or afraid to try something, well-meaning people often try to help them by telling them that the thing is easy. This often backfires.

For instance:

Kid: I don’t know how to write a paper! This paper has to be 5 pages long, and we have to do research! It’s so hard!

Parent: Don’t worry. 5 pages isn’t that much. This isn’t such a hard assignment.

In this interaction, the parent is trying to help, but the message the kid is likely hearing is “This shouldn’t be hard. You’re failing at an easy thing.”

If something is hard or scary, it’s better to acknowledge that, and focus on reassuring them that it is possible. (And, if necessary and appropriate, help them to find ways of seeing it as possible.)

For instance:

Kid: I don’t know how to write a paper! This paper has to be 5 pages long, and we have to do research! It’s so hard!

Parent: It’s hard, and that’s ok. You can do hard things.

Parent: What are you writing about?

Kid: Self-driving cars. But I can’t find anything.

And so on.

This isn’t unique to interactions between parents and children. It can also happen between friends, and in other types of relationships.

tl;dr If something’s hard for someone, telling them that it’s easy probably won’t help. Reassuring them that they can do hard things often does help, especially if you can support them in figuring out how to do the thing.

They have actually done research on this. In cultures and households where kids are told that to struggle with something is a good thing, the kids are more likely to continue to try to do the thing before giving up. In their minds, they are thinking “This thing is hard but if I keep trying or try a different method, maybe I will succeed at it.”

Telling people that things should be easy or that it should come natural (aka talent), actually inhibits their willingness to try as they think that if they can’t do a task that is “easy”, something must be wrong with them.

mypsychology:

For more posts like this go to @mypsychology

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

Henri Nouwen (via milkboydotnet)

toosmallortootall:

meredithmeri:

You can’t love someone’s mental illness away.

#this is one of the hardest things to learn #and one of the most painful things to accept #you can’t love someone’s mental illness away #but you can love them through it and with it #and you can love them on bad days and good days and nothing days and everything days #and that’s more important really

italeteller:

setmyfaceonfire:

Don’t invalidate people’s struggles because you’ve been through worse. If someone is tired after working for 5 hours and you worked for 7, it doesn’t mean that they’re not allowed to be tired. It doesn’t mean they can’t feel what they’re feeling just because you’ve had it worse.

don’t play pain olympics. don’t be that person

zachabee-deactivated654323:

have you ever stayed up late with someone texting or chatting and known as the hours ticked by that you’d be ridiculously tired in the morning but it didnt matter because it was really fun and totally worth losing sleep over just to laugh with someone and enjoy their company maybe and then the next day you keep tiredly recalling how much fun it was while you’re falling asleep in class and that makes it not so bad that you’re tired anymore