Also, it is really frustrating how much people justify not giving painkillers to women. I recently had an IUD put in, and even though I had taken four ibuprofen beforehand as my obgyn recommended, it was so incredibly uncomfortable that I came home and told my partner that I am never giving birth.

This is such a good and informative read. Thank you for writing it. I had no idea that when I heard about the horror of episiotomies that they had already severely dropped in practice.

For about 30 years of my life, I answered the question of “what does future me need?” with “just stop being such a fuck up!”

Once I started having compassion toward myself I was able to actually do things that were helpful.

It took me a very long time to understand that just because a condition is not always disabling does not mean that you are never dealing with a crushing disability.

I mean, there's a HUGE and important distinction between "this is racist and I wanted it to be" and "this is racist? That's not what I wanted!" but that distinction is not "so actually it's not racist at all you idiot, you moron"

I haven't listened to it yet and so I don't know how good it is, but I just saw on my podcast app that npr lifekit has an episode posted this week about quitting dating apps. Mentioning it in case you find it useful.

New people who bring something new who don’t take time to listen to people who are up to their ankles in the problem are not in fact bringing something new.