#mod ariel

therapy101:

missmentelle:

Schizophrenia. It’s the big one. The scariest word in mental health. Pop culture has already done a pretty fucked-up job of showing us what schizophrenia looks like; in the movies, people with schizophrenia are violent, paranoid, scary, unpredictable, incoherent, unable to take care of themselves, and, more often than not, permanently confined to mental health institutions.

But that’s not the reality of tens of thousands of people living with schizophrenia. So what’s it really like?

-Schizophrenia has two types of symptoms; positive and negative symptoms. Most people with schizophrenia will experience a few of each. Two people with schizophrenia can experience completely different sets of symptoms; no two cases are exactly alike.

-Positive symptoms are things that are “added” to a person’s normal thoughts. The word positive does not mean that they are good; in fact, they are arguably the most damaging and frightening part of the disorder. Positive symptoms include hallucinations, delusions and disordered thoughts, which are things that neurotypical people do not experience.

-Negative symptoms are things that have been “taken away” from a person’s normal thoughts. This includes things like a lack of emotions, a lack of facial expression, poor motor control, inability to experience pleasure, loss of speech skills and lack of motivation. They struggle to do certain things that neurotypical people take for granted. 

- Schizophrenia is NOT ‘multiple personality disorder’ or ‘split personality’. People with schizophrenia have one personality and one identity. Even if they are experiencing bizarre delusions, they still know who they are.

- Hallucinations are usually auditory. In the movies, they often depict hallucinations as seeing people that aren’t there; that does happen, but it’s rare. For most people, hallucinations take the form of voices constantly saying unpleasant things.

-Schizophrenia often comes with cognitive barriers. Although there are people with schizophrenia who have high IQs and go on to obtain advanced graduate degrees, many people with schizophrenia have cognitive delays, memory problems and learning difficulties from a young age. This makes it a lot harder for them to advocate for themselves and keep up with the complicated treatments they may be receiving. 

- We don’t really know what causes schizophrenia. We know that there’s a huge genetic component involved; having a close relative with schizophrenia substantially raises your lifetime risk of developing it. But there are other risk factors involved, like an unstable early life, violence in the home, lack of proper nutrition, being the victim of bullying, childhood trauma, and hostile or overly-critical parents. 

- Schizophrenia develops suddenly, usually in adolescence or early adulthood; the average age of onset for males is 18, and 25 for women. Although it can develop in childhood, or after the age of 30, this is fairly rare. 

-People with schizophrenia are rarely violent; in fact, they are much, much more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. People with untreated schizophrenia are more likely to end up homeless, addicted to drugs or alcohol, and isolated from family, all of which mean they are easily taken advantage of in their vulnerable state. 

- Schizophrenia affects somewhere between 0.3% and 0.7% of the population, with males being more likely to be affected than females. There are estimated to be around 24 million cases globally. 

- The main treatment for schizophrenia is anti-psychotic drugs. There are no other primary courses of treatment. Getting on the correct drugs can be a long and difficult process that takes months or years. The side effects of anti-psychotic drugs can be severe and unpleasant; this, combined with the fact that 30-50% of people with schizophrenia don’t believe they are sick, can make it very difficult to get people to stay on their medication. 

-The long-term prognosis of schizophrenia is a mixed bag. Around 20% of cases are considered “high-functioning” - they adjust well to medication, resume their normal activities, and some go into remission completely. You might know someone with schizophrenia and not even realize it. On the other hand, people with schizophrenia have a life expectancy 25 years less than the general population, and experience high rates of poverty, unemployment, addiction and homelessness; around 5% commit suicide. 

Schizophrenia is an unbelievably complicated disorder; I’ve barely skimmed the surface of the basics here. You can study it for years and still not know everything there is to know about it. But the point is this: people with schizophrenia are not monsters. They are not something to fear. They are sick, just like people with diabetes, lung cancer, or pneumonia are sick, and they deserve compassion and support as they seek medical attention. 

If you have any questions about schizophrenia, or want to know some good resources to learn more about it, my asks and messages are always open. I’ll do my best to find the answer for you.

Although I really appreciate the intention of reducing stigma, there are a number of inaccuracies in this post. I’m going to address them in bullet point and not use quotations since the original post is pretty long.

• Schizophrenia has either three or four types of symptoms, not two:positive, negative, and disorganized/cognitive (these two are sometimes split up). 
• Positive symptoms are symptoms added across senses, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, not just thoughts.For example, an auditory hallucination is a sensory aberration, not a thought. 
• Negative symptoms are symptoms that include the removal of a sensory experience, thought, emotion, or behavior- again, not just thoughts. For example, flat affect (showing no facial expression) is a disruption in behavior, not a thought.
• It’s true that hallucinations are mostly commonly auditory, but it’s not true that “for most people, hallucinations take the form of voices constantly saying unpleasant things.” For some people, this is true, but it is also common to have a single voice, or voices replaying memories, or voices saying positive things, or voices feeding into paranoia or grandiosity. 
• People with schizophrenia don’t have “cognitive delays.” A delay means that you do catch up, you just do it on a longer time table than average. In cognition, a delay usually resolves itself by adolescence. People with schizophrenia have, on average, an IQ that is at least 1 standard deviation below average. However, keep in mind that 1 standard deviation below average does not indicate impairment. For a significant group of people with schizophrenia, their IQ is at least 2 standard deviations below average- this does equal impairment. Cognition in schizophrenia is typically stable across time (it doesn’t get worse or better), although things like distracting symptoms and low self-esteem can decrease scores on cognitive tests.
• It is true that people with schizophrenia are more likely to be the victims of violence that to perpetuate it. However, it is not true that people with schizophrenia are “rarely violent.” People with schizophrenia are more likely to be violent than people without (especially women with schizophrenia). It is a risk factor for violence but not a determining factor. 
• There are a number of effective treatments for schizophrenia. Psychopharmacology is one often helpful but also quite flawed option.Coordinated specialty care is the best treatment option we currently have, and combines medication management, individual therapy, family therapy, supported education, and supported employment. There are also a range of other behavioral and therapeutic interventions that meet the criteria for empirically supported treatment, like social skills training and cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis. Some people can be effectively treated without medication. 
• The prognosis of schizophrenia follows the “rule of thirds” pretty closely: about 1/3 people have one psychotic episode and then regain full or mostly full functioning with no relapses, about 1/3 have ongoing psychotic experiences without much or any remission, and usually get worse over time, and about 1/3 have intermittent psychotic episodes with variability in their functioning.Research tends to try and target the last 1/3 I mentioned because they are the people who are most likely to need treatment and benefit from it. 

When you read information presented as facts online, make sure you’re comfortable with the source. Ask for references to peer reviewed journals, textbooks, or experts. Especially when take home messages are very dire (”the only treatment for schizophrenia is medication”), make sure you’ve got enough information to trust what you are being told. Don’t be afraid to question if things don’t look right or seem too black and white, no matter for “expert” the source is. I have studied schizophrenia for 10+ years, and although I would never suggest I know everything about it, it is upsetting when misinformation is promoted. 

vindictive-suggestion:

I should have said this earlier

My heart goes out to the people of Mexico who were hit by multiple earthquakes / after shocks (I’m not sure). Please please please I hope you’re okay and if you need someone to talk to, I’m here. I personally can’t volunteer to help, but I ask you guys to donate anything you can.

fackfackfackfack:

tigerarchivist:

shatterpath:

hedwig-dordt:

drst:

gehayi:

galacticdrift:

spikesjojo:

1. Open a bank account or get a credit card without signed permission from her father or hr husband.
2. Serve on a jury - because it might inconvenience the family not to have the woman at home being her husband’s helpmate.
3. Obtain any form of birth control without her husband’s permission. You had to be married, and your hub and had to agree to postpone having children.
4. Get an Ivy League education. Ivy League schools were men’s colleges ntil the 70′s and 80′s. When they opened their doors to women it was agree that women went there for their MRS. Degee.
5. Experience equality in the workplace: Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women produced a report in 1963 that revealed, among other things, that women earned 59 cents for every dollar that men earned and were kept out of the more lucrative professional positions.
   
6. Keep her job if she was pregnant.Until the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978, women were regularly fired from their workplace for being pregnant.
7. Refuse to have sex with her husband.The mid 70s saw most states recognize marital rape and in 1993 it became criminalized in all 50 states. Nevertheless, marital rape is still often treated differently to other forms of rape in some states even today.
   
8. Get a divorce with some degree of ease.Before the No Fault Divorce law in 1969, spouses had to show the faults of the other party, such as adultery, and could easily be overturned by recrimination.
9. Have a legal abortion in most states.TheRoe v. Wade case in 1973 protected a woman’s right to abortion until viability.
10. Take legal action against workplace sexual harassment. According to The Week, the first time a court recognized office sexual harassment as grounds for legal action was in 1977.
11. Play college sports Title IX of the  Education Amendments of protects people from discrimination  based on sex in education programs or activities that receive Federal financial  assistance It was nt until this statute that colleges had teams for women’s sports
12. Apply for men’s Jobs   The EEOC rules that sex-segregated help wanted ads in newspapers are illegal.  This ruling is upheld in 1973 by the Supreme Court, opening the way for women to apply for higher-paying jobs hitherto open only to men.

This is why we needed feminism - this is why we know that feminism works

I just want to reiterate this stuff, because I legit get the feeling there are a lot of younger women for whom it hasn’t really sunk in what it is today’s GOP is actively trying to return to.

Did you go to a good college? Shame on you, you took a college placement that could have gone to a man who deserves and needs it to support or prepare for his wife & children. But if you really must attend college, well, some men like that, you can still get married if you focus on finding the right man.

Got a job? Why? A man could be doing that job. You should be at home caring for a family. You shouldn’t be taking that job away from a man who needs it (see college, above). You definitely don’t have a career – you’ll be pregnant and raising children soon, so no need to worry about promoting you.

This shit was within living memory.  I’M A MILLENIAL and my mother was in the second class that allowed women at an Ivy League school. Men who are alive today either personally remember shit like this or have parents/family who have raised them into thinking this was the way America functioned back in the blissful Good Old Days. There are literally dudes in the GOP old enough to remember when it was like this and yearn for those days to return.

When people talk about resisting conservativism and the GOP, we’re not just talking about whether the wage gap is a myth or not. We’re talking about whether women even have the fundamental right to exist as individuals, to run their own households and compete for jobs and be considered on an equal footing with men in any arena at all in the first place.

I was a child in the 1960s, a teenager in the 1970s, a young adult in the 1980s.
This is what it was like:

When I was growing up, it was considered unfortunate if a girl was good at sports. Girls were not allowed in Little League. Girls’ teams didn’t exist in high school, except at all-girls’ high schools. Boys played sports, and girls were the cheerleaders.

People used to ask me as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I wanted to be a brain surgeon or the first woman justice on the Supreme Court. Everyone told me it was impossible–those just weren’t realistic goals for a girl–the latter, especially, because you couldn’t trust women to judge fairly and rationally, after all.

In the 1960s and 1970s, all women were identified by their marital status, even in arrest reports and obituaries. In elementary school, my science teacher referred to Pierre Curie as DOCTOR Curie and Marie Curie as MRS. Curie…because, as he put it, “she was just his wife.” (Both had doctorates and both were Nobel prize winners, so you would think that both would be accorded respect.)

Companies could and did require women to wear dresses and skirts. Failure to do could and did get women fired. And it was legal. It was also legal to fire women for getting married or getting pregnant. The rationale was that a woman who was married or who had a child had no business working; that was what her husband was for. Aetna Insurance, the biggest insurance company in America, fired women for all of the above.

A man could rape his wife. Legally. I can remember being twelve years old and reading about legal experts actually debating whether or not a man could actually be said to coerce his wife into having sex. This was a serious debate in 1974.

The debate about marital rape came up in my law school, too, in 1984. Could a woman be raped by her husband? The guys all said no–a woman got married, so she was consenting to sex at all times. So I turned it around. I asked them if, since a man had gotten married, that meant that his wife could shove a dildo or a stick or something up his ass any time she wanted to for HER sexual pleasure.

(Hey, I thought it was reasonable. If one gender was legally entitled to force sex on the other, then obviously the reverse should also be true.)

The male law students didn’t like the idea. Interestingly, they commented that being treated like that would make them feel like a woman.

My reaction was, “Thank you for proving my point…”

The concept of date rape, when first proposed, was considered laughable. If a woman went out on a date, the argument of legal experts ran, sexual consent was implied. Even more sickening was the fact that in some states–even in the early 1980s–a man could rape his daughter…and it was no worse than a misdemeanor.

Women taking self-defense classes in the 1970s and 1980s were frequently described in books and on TV as “cute.” The implication was that it was absurd for a woman to attempt to defend herself, but wasn’t it just adorable for her to try?

I was expressly forbidden to take computer classes in junior and senior years of high school–1978-79 and 1979-80–because, as the principal told me, “Only boys have to know that kind of thing. You girls are going to get married, and you won’t use it.”

When I was in college–from 1980 to 1984–there were no womens’ studies. The idea hadn’t occurred in many places because the presumption was that there was nothing TO study. My history professor–a man who had a doctorate in history–informed me quite seriously that women had never produced a noted painter, sculptor, composer, architect or scientist because…wait for it…womens’ brains were too small.

(He was very surprised when I came up with a list of fifty women gifted in the arts and science, most of whom he had never heard of before.)

When Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro as a running mate in 1984, the press hailed it as a disaster. What would happen, they asked fearfully, if Mondale died and Ferraro became president? What if an international crisis arose and she was menstruating? She could push the nuclear button in a fit of PMS! It would be the end of the WORLD!!

…No, they WEREN’T kidding.

On the surface, things are very different now than they were when I was a child, a teen and a young adult. But I’m afraid that people now do not realize what it was like then. I’ve read a lot of posts from young women who say that they are not feminists. If the only exposure to feminism they have is the work of extremists, I cannot blame them overmuch.

I wish that I could tell them what feminism was like when it was new–when the dream of legal equality was just a dream, and hadn’t even begun to come true. When “woman’s work” was a sneer–and an overt putdown. When people tut-tutted over bright and athletic girls with the words, “Really, it’s a shame she’s not a boy.” That lack of feminism wasn’t all men opening doors and picking up checks. A lot of it was an attitude of patronizing contempt that hasn’t entirely died out, but which has become less publicly acceptable.

I wish I could make them feel what it was like…when grown men were called “men” and grown women were “girls.”

Know your history.

So this, too, is what they mean saying “make America great again” and/or the good old days.

REBLOG FOREVER.

I attended an all-girls PUBLIC high school in Jefferson Parish, LA (when the school desegregated by race in the 1960s, the high schools segregated by gender) from 1974-1978. We had to FIGHT for physics and calculus classes. Our parents had to go to the fucking school board and demand we have the same classes the boys’ schools had. THAT is why I’m a feminist.

I know a woman scientist who studied the sciences and worked in the 60s as a researcher. (She helped form vaccines! The measles vaccine was in part due to her!)

She had to work in makeup and heels and “the full getup”,* but she also was treated as if she would go back to being a homemaker after she graduated.

She was constantly told to quit. She did not.

However, while she was at college, she had to get PERMISSION FROM THE COLLEGE to get married. Because upon getting married, she needed to be allowed to live with her husband. The college could have denied her this. The college could have denied her having children.

*Imagine having to do labwork in this. Standing all day. Plus the general fear that if you’re not presented correctly, how this affects your research or your ability to work. It must have been ATROCIOUS.

greeneyespurpleheart:

writing-prompt-s:

writing-prompt-s:

imthedoctor12:

coltrer:

thecrystalfems:

rabbittiddy:

writing-prompt-s:

earth-ruins:

pizzaalle:

xdvisyrx:

tikalgirl:

xdvisyrx:

Farewell online privacy

What happened?

Trump happened.

just get a VPN?

You can’t just tell people to ‘get a VPN (Virtual Private Network)’. Buying a VPN is like buying a house. It’s very very important. Having no VPN or having a ‘wrong’ one can seriously damage your life. Especially for Americans because their privacy laws are garbage. I am going to try explain why you should get a VPN but bare with me, I am from Germany and my English is far from perfect. 

Let’s start with a simple test.
Click this link here: https://whatismyipaddress.com/
It will tell your IP adres, your ISP (internet service provider), and your location. The location might not be very accurate, but then again, it’s just a simple website. Imagine what the government can do!

So basically, everyone can find out where you live. But there is more danger. Your ISP. Your ISP logs your every move online and they are required to keep it in case the government wants access to it (or if a 3rd party wants to buy your data (yikes). They have everything. What websites you visit. How long you stay on a website. What you download. Your search terms. European laws are more subtle on this but if you are from the US you are #@*#&, especially because Trump doesn’t support the open internet. It’s scary but maybe in the future you can’t get a job because the recruiter knows your searched on ‘how to deal with depression’ or anythings else that’s supposed to be private because it’s your f*cking right. Or you get a $100k fine because you pirated a movie 15 years ago. You need a VPN. You’re dumb for not using one. but what does a VPN do?

A VPN encrypts all your data so if it were be intercepted no one can ‘crack the code’ and damage your privacy. 

Usually being online goes like this (simplified): Your computer —-> ISP (—–> keeps data —–> sells it)

But with a VPN it goes like: Your computer —–> VPN (encrypts data)—–> ISP (ISP can’t see shit)

Furthermore, a VPN hides your IP address and location by giving you another IP address located in Spain for example (you can often choose from a list and change as many times as you want).  

Now that you know why you should get a VPN and what is does it is important to educate yourself because people often choose the wrong VPN. VPN providers are also businesses and have to obey the law. If you choose a VPN provider located in the US then you are throwing your money away because the laws in the US shits on your privacy. If the US gov wants the provider to give all their logs they have to obey.  The ISP  still can’t see what you are doing online and sell your data but the US gov can interfere with your VPN provider so NEVER CHOOSE A PROVIDER LOCATED IN THE US. 

I just wanted to make that very clear so my followers don’t buy falsesecurity.

There is still more danger! 
Who says your VPN provider isn’t selling your data? You need to check their logging policy. Do they keep logs? If yes, what for? For how long do they keep them? Tip:Choose a provider who doesn’t keep logs

More about law 
The US is part of the Five Eyes program (the worst):  

The Five Eyes, often abbreviated as FVEY, is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries are bound by the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence (source)

There is also a Nine Eyes (bit better) and Fourteen Eyes Program (better). 
You don’t want a VPN provider who is located in one the Five Eyes countries. 
If you had to choose go for a provider located in a country that’s part of the Fourteen Eyes Program or even better, go for a country that isn’t part of any program! 

I know this is a shitty explanation and please pardon my english but now it’s time to do your own research. Take your privacy seriously. Maybe WWIII breaks out and you get killed for liking the ‘wrong’ FB-page.  

Go to this website: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/simple-vpn-comparison-chart/

Make sure that your future VPN provider both has green boxes for Privacy Jurisdiction and Privacy Logging. 

I recommend ovpn.se and trust.zone. ovpn is located in Sweden so they are part of the 14 Eyes Program and they keep minimal logs. Their business ethics, however, are alright. 

Trustzone is located in the Seychelles. No country can interfere and their privacy jurisdiction is the best you can get. The US want your data but needs to get it from Trustzone? The Seychelles will simply give them the finger and wave them goodbye. However, this makes this provider very appealing for people who torrent and criminals because they keep no logs (and that is how it shoud be) Also,  there are almost no marketing efforts so this provider is one the cheapest)

Also, often providers such as ExpressVPN are being called ‘The Best’ on websites about VPNs but know that this is just marketing which also makes those provider more expensive (and they too shit on your privacy)

This must be the worst article you have ever read but please, please take your privacy very seriously.

EDIT: I got many people asking me which provider I use. For those who want to know, I use Trust Zone.They offer a free 3-day trial with no strings attached. But still do your own research! 

I am also with Trustzone but I think you forgot to explain one of it’s most important features. It protects you when you are using someone else’s Wi-Fi.
If you are at Starbucks and you use their Wi-Fi your privacy is at risk. Anyone with ill intentions could steal your information. Especially if you are using an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot. With a VPN your data gets encrypted so no one can steal it. 

Wait, what’s going, on? Did trump destroy internet privacy with a bill or something? Where’s the news? Oh wait, why am I getting visions of Alex Jones and selling water purifiers?

He hasn’t yet but he says he wants to. And if he is serious about it it would be really easy to do. Since all our data is already recorded, as the person above explained.

Trump wants more surveillance of Muslim Americans. This in a country where internet privacy is already close to non-existent. 

Trust.Zone has a free trial. Use it. 

btw this post only has 11k notes? That’s quite disappointing for something this important. 

Don’t reblog this post to save a life.
Reblog this to protect an entire family!

@earth-ruins@writing-prompt-s Should I get trustzone for my mobile device?

If you use public Wi-Fi, then yes. Which VPN you use is up to you, amigo. Take @earth-ruins advice. Do your own research first. 

@elvesfromthedeep​ just brought the current situation in the US to my attention (March 30, 2017). 

Sources

• Anger as US internet privacy law scrapped 
  
• Congress just voted to let internet providers sell your browsing history 
  

To all my friends in the US, please read this entire post. Making everyone aware of VPNs is going to be my mission. Your privacy matters. Please reblog this post.

Don’t tell me you just wanted to scroll past this. Stop looking at pictures of cats for a moment, okay? Don’t you realize how important this is? This is dangerous! ‘America, the best FREE country in the world’ my ass.

With this new law your ISP can sell your Internet history which could include passwords, usernames, religion, credit card numbers, race and much more to the highest bidder. So here is what I want you to do.

You are going to read the whole thing and before you think ’this is so important. Let me reblog this real quick and go back to admiring cats again-’NO! Don’t reblog this. Take action first. Then reblog. Sign up for a free trial! Trust.Zone offers one (here). Yes. It might be difficult to set up a VPN for some people. But is that going to stop you from protecting yourself and your family? 30 minutes. 30 minutes is all that it takes. 5 if you know how to install software. The problem with some of you is that you see ‘difficult’ as something negative. I want you to see difficult differently. I need you to push through this stuff. You are going to protect yourself. There is nothing negative about that.

VPNs are fun and costsaving too! A VPN bypasses geographical restrictions so you can access websites you normally can’t or you could start Netflix’s one month free trial over and over again- forever. And it’s legal! (unless you use it to buy weapons etc.,)

Don’t tell yourself that you are too tired and that you will do this tomorrow. Because that isn’t going to happen and you know it. You have to do this right now. You only have to click on it. Don’t let this/shit/life just happen to you. Take yourself seriously. Get a VPN.

Privacy is not a privilege, it’s a fundamental human right