there has been quite a bit of discussion about the merits of exercising to improve your mental health of late. I wanted to add my personal experience without calling out any of the other people who’ve posted on this subject, who I generally like but disagree with on this point.

I used to believe with absolute conviction that running was improving my mental health. Research backed me up, my family and my doctor encouraged me. I used to run every other day, somewhere between 4 and 8 kilometres.

At the back of my mind, I think I always knew that my motive was mainly vanity, and that I was punishing myself and obsessing over my appearance.

Then, following the breakup of my final hetero relationship, my anxiety became a lot worse. Running didn’t ease my negative thoughts, instead, it gave them time to breed. (Running is really boring, you see). Anxiety does things to your body, things that aren’t conductive to exercise. So I would often end up hyperventilating.

My times and distances got worse, I berated myself for it and panicked about my weight, thus my anxieties multiplied. 

Here’s the thing - running hurts. (It also made me throw up in my mouth sometimes, but I was always too embarrassed to find out if that was universal). In order to get better at it, you have to carry on when it hurts. I don’t think we should be encouraging mentally ill people to do something to themselves that’s painful, especially when so many of us have problems with self harming behaviors  in the first place. I think it sends a confused message. 

I don’t run anymore. I think it might help with mild anxiety, but then so does watching old episodes of Father Ted on 4OD, and that doesn’t carry any undertones of control and self-flagellation. When my anxiety is really bad, no self-care panacea is going to help, and running makes things a lot worse. 

I’m willing to believe other forms of exercise might be better, but most other things cost a lot more and/or take up a lot more time.

I just found this font and installed it! First on the list here: http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/flotsam/font/cat-fonts.html

(Source: little-audrey, via punkkimono)

astronomy-to-zoology:

Happy Birthday to David Attenborough!!

87 years and still going strong!

(via lemursforworlddomination)

I have booked my accommodation in Innsbruck! I’m renting a room with airbnb. This involves the potential awkwardness of staying with a person I’ve never met before, but at least I have a room to myself at a price I can actually afford. I need more solitude than is offered by a hostel and hotels are way out of my price range. This was £200 for the week, which seems pretty reasonable to me.

This is Innsbruck:

I’m going to have to fly sadly… the journey by train would have taken about 15 hours. This is stressing me out a bit because I am terrified of flying. Not the being in the air bit, the going through security bit. I’m also always convinced I’m going to miss my flight. Still, I find it easier travelling on my own because I can make sure I’m in the departure lounge two hours before the flight leaves, and generally do the things I need to do to stay calm without worrying that the people around me don’t think I’m spontaneous enough.

thesaddesthomo:

It means a lot to me that there are a lot of women (lb/q) on this site that speak of internalized homophobia or many fears and thoughts that i thought i was alone on. it’s why i made this account and without getting this affirmation and understanding i don’t know where i’d be. i never get to talk…

FACT is the UK’s best online music magazine and home to the weekly FACT mix series.

FACT is my favourite music news & reviews site. This is a nice piece they did about sexism and also not pitting different kinds of female acts against each other.

When I last used music forums I remember a lot of the conversations used to be about which female indie musicians people wanted to bang. vom. 

gaymakeouts:

lifeofmammals:

gaymakeouts:

• Don’t ask a girl out unless you have a minimum of 15 character references attesting to her homosexuality and unless she has “gay” tattooed on her forehead. Otherwise you are preying on a straight girl.
• Don’t flirt with a girl unless she initiates it by walking up to you and saying “hello I am gay.”
• Don’t attend gym class at school because changing in the same locker room as other girls is a sure sign that you are being predatory. If you absolutely must attend gym class, either don’t change for gym and fail the class or keep your eyes closed the entire time you are in the locker room.
• Do not look at other girls, ever. This sets back feminism because by looking at girl while being attracted to them you are looking at them with the male gaze.
• Don’t compliment a girl on her looks. Don’t compliment a girl on anything at all because you could be complimenting her in a lesbian way and this is predatory.
• It’s probably best if you never leave the house.

cannot express how happy I was when this turned out to be a parody

ALSO please can we always remember that ‘male gaze’ is a term intended to describe the phenomena of films that give the audience the perspective of a heterosexual man. It does not mean ‘men looking at stuff’. 

ik but i’ve straight up seen women describing lesbians as looking at women through the male gaze

oh my god I KNOW. They obviously mean women objectifying other women. Why they don’t just say that idk.

I mean I am perfectly happy to talk about how women loving women can avoid objectification in their actions and words, but the misuse of the term ‘male gaze’ makes it sound like we’re doing something wrong by just walking around being lesbians and looking at people. 

gaymakeouts:

• Don’t ask a girl out unless you have a minimum of 15 character references attesting to her homosexuality and unless she has “gay” tattooed on her forehead. Otherwise you are preying on a straight girl.
• Don’t flirt with a girl unless she initiates it by walking up to you and saying “hello I am gay.”
• Don’t attend gym class at school because changing in the same locker room as other girls is a sure sign that you are being predatory. If you absolutely must attend gym class, either don’t change for gym and fail the class or keep your eyes closed the entire time you are in the locker room.
• Do not look at other girls, ever. This sets back feminism because by looking at girl while being attracted to them you are looking at them with the male gaze.
• Don’t compliment a girl on her looks. Don’t compliment a girl on anything at all because you could be complimenting her in a lesbian way and this is predatory.
• It’s probably best if you never leave the house.

cannot express how happy I was when this turned out to be a parody

ALSO please can we always remember that ‘male gaze’ is a term intended to describe the phenomena of films that give the audience the perspective of a heterosexual man. It does not mean ‘men looking at stuff’. 

(via grrrlfever)

realsocialskills:

Facebook is difficult to do right because it’s a new form of interaction, and it keeps changing. it’s a weird new ambiguous social space. There aren’t clear rules for it, and it’s messing up some social rules that used to exist.

So there isn’t really one right approach. But here are some…

And for those people who you’re obliged to be “”friends”” with who you don’t really want responding to your statuses, (eg. ‘I’ve got a spare ticket to this gig, who wants it’… oh god not you), make them “Acquaintances”. Go to your friends list, hover of the box that says ‘Friends’, and select ‘Acquaintances’ from the drop down menu. Then change the privacy setting for your statuses to ‘Friends except acquaintances’. There, much better.

My favourite spangly gay gif is feeling very relevant today

(Source: dyke-digest)