So last weekend at Skepticon I have been having an absolutely fabulous time hearing speakers, going to workshops and hanging out with generally awesome people. Over the course of the weekend, I noticed a couple of themes cropping up, and one of them is extremely important to me. Stephanie and James led a panel about irrationality and ethics, and the topic that we focused most on was emotions and t... »
Fat. What a nasty word. It has all sorts of negative connotations and so much baggage, but it certainly gets a point across. I am fat. No, I’m not skinny and think I’m fat. I’m fat. In May 2012 I was at my heaviest… 289 lbs. At 5’4” this is fat (obese, even) by anyone’s standard. I weighed this much because I had a certain type of eating disorder. Yes, “had”. I beat this eating disorder… by develo... »
When the idea of a series of posts about eating disorders came up, I was pretty excited. I am diagnosed with EDNOS, depression, and anxiety. I’ve experienced them all in very different ways at different times, and so I have a lot to say about my experiences of them. This post comes with a HUGE TRIGGER WARNING for depression, eating disorders, anxiety and perfectionism. »
When I committed to writing in the Teen Skepchick Eating Disorders series, I said I’d write about personal experiences. After all, I do already. It wasn’t going to be too hard to do it again, right? But that’s not true, and it never works like that. I told this story yesterday. Unexpectedly. I’ve never told it in its entirety before. It is, ultimately, why I quit dancing. [... »
So some of you might have noticed that there was a presidential debate a couple of days ago. It’s been kept pretty quiet, so I’d understand if you hadn’t seen it. There are any number of things that happened in the debate about which I have many opinions, but there was one off-handed comment in particular which isn’t generating much conversation and that I think is extremely important to address. ... »
Here at Teen Skepchick we strive to write about things that are relevant to our lives, and thus (we hope), relevant to the lives of other young women. As we’ve gotten to know each other, we’ve come to find that a surprising number of us have struggled with or are currently fighting an eating disorder. Oftentimes, eating disorders are viewed as disorders of the unintelligent or the vain... »
What does it mean to be ableist? What does it mean to have prejudice against mental health? Oftentimes, people view these kinds of labels as “PC gone too far”, and they suspect that we really don’t discriminate against those people who have physical or mental illnesses. I can’t address the full complexity of these issues in a single blog post, but I’d like to bring some of my own experiences to be... »
Last week I started reading a book suggested by my therapist called Eating In the Light of the Moon. She told me that it “might get past your rational side and speak to you from an emotional place”. Well it certainly didn’t speak to me from any rational place, but it also was a book that perpetuated some horrible gendered stereotypes, offended logic and reason, and ignored some basic facts. I’d li... »
