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It’s Eleven Days Until Christmas in this Weekend Open Thread

Let’s all have a big glass of egg nog, a gingerbread cookie, and…

A SPONTANEOUS DANCE AND .GIF PARTY!

Animated .gif from 2011 Doctor Who Christmas special. The 11th Doctor is rubbing noses with a snowman.

By [E] Selena MacIntosh*

Selena MacIntosh is the owner and editor of Persephone Magazine. She also fixes it when it breaks. She is fueled by Diet Coke, coffee with a lot of cream in it, and cat hair.

26 replies on “It’s Eleven Days Until Christmas in this Weekend Open Thread”

Okay. So the shooting. Seriously depressing and seriously everywhere and totally worth talking about.

But for the sake of balance, what are some good things that have happened this week or are coming up?

For me…

1) My semester is over tomorrow! Thank goodness. Over it.
2) I’m driving to see my family and friends up north(ish) on Tuesday!
3) The silly love triangle drama situation with my friend and a dude is resolved! I have my friendship back, along with her (genuine) blessing to hang out with the dude. Which I have done. And damn if I don’t seriously really like him.
4) One of my friends is getting married in a couple weeks, and it is going to be THE MOST FUN.

How about y’all?!

Yay! I’m so glad the love triangle of bad is working out for you. :)

My good news of the week:

1) My winter break starts tomorrow after my one exam that I feel mostly prepared for
2) I’m down to one last Christmas present to get
3) I have a date tomorrow for the first time in about 10 months. I’m kind of excited.

Oh yay! So many good things.

My good things from this week are:
1. I found a book my mother has wanted for years, at a reasonable price, that will arrive in time for Christmas! It only had a short run and is no longer in print, so the only copies I’d found were like $300USD OR MORE. Seriously. But I found it for a normal book price! I’m so happy, it’ll be the best Christmas present for her (well, I hope so anyway).
2. I received an awesome birthday/Christmas present from my friend in the UK, which is full of delicious things and cute things.
3. New perfume. I smell like vanilla!

Let me preface this by saying the shooting in Connecticut was fucking tragic and I am just as appalled as anyone else is about it and am in no way defending what the shooter did.

But the Facebook statuses that I’ve seen posted have been making my blood boil. Particularly my own father’s post that called for everyone who is mentally ill to be locked away from the rest of society because “the ‘compassionate’ model is clearly is not working”. This coming from a guy who not only is an alcoholic with anger issues himself, but who lost his ex wife to schizophrenia and has two daughters who have battled mental illness in less severe forms themselves. Oh and he also refused to ever let me see a therapist even when I was cutting myself daily by 8th grade and let my more severely mentally ill younger sister decide if she wanted to continue therapy or not (guess which answer he got). Even after she had to be evaluated at a psych hospital after running away from home (the first time), he didn’t make her go to much needed therapy despite recommendations from Child Services.

I love my dad dearly but I am fuming right now. I can’t even try to provide a counter argument (that mental health care in this country is far from compassionate and that most people who need it and/or want it, can’t even afford it or have access to it because their states have pulled funding) because he’s the type of person who just will.not.listen. once he’s made up his mind about something. Sometimes I really really really can’t stand gut reactions that have no basis in fact.

I wish that you had more friends like mine, who are arguing for easier access to mental health aids. Cause locking people away doesn’t work, and we do have the resources to try to help people now if they could get access to them. Plus, my friends yelling about that instead of other political rantings, helped me see more good than bad in humanity these last few days.

I wish that was what I was reading on my newsfeed. Luckily my best friend is on the same wavelength as I am so we’ve discussed this country’s mental health care in depth in the last day or so.

I just don’t understand how the people calling for the mentally ill to be locked away are usually the same people who freak the fuck out if they feel like ANY of their rights are being threatened. I guess their rights are way more important and more valid than someone who has messed up brain chemistry. /eye roll

In case it’s of interest, I wrote about violence not long ago: http://persephonemagazine.com/2012/11/06/caregiving-violence/ Reason for mentioning this, is a fantastic link from MIND that I included: http://www.mind.org.uk/help/research_and_policy/dangerousness_and_mental_health_the_facts#Key%20facts

I would love to have something more comforting to say, but alas, the views of getting people who are mentally ill “locked away” are far from rare. Recently I came across a person suggesting people with mental illnesses should be “warehoused”.

Either way, I think we need to acknowledge that the system is utterly broken. Not only the mental health system, but the gun control system as well. And it is our duty to fix both. Because the fact of the matter is, if we don’t start paying more attention now, more people will die — in horribly needless ways. We can’t afford to keep turning a blind eye to these issues. Too much depends on what we can achieve today — not only the welfare of the present generation, but all future generations to come.

I can’t even conceive of Christmas, much less that it is 11 days away. I’m in no way one of those people who celebrates weeks upon weeks of Christmas. It was always tradition in my house that we didn’t get a tree until just two days before Christmas, then Christmas Eve was for decorating it. I don’t even wrap any presents until Christmas Eve either, but that’s more just me being lazy/busy with other stuff.

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