“I’m laying there, scared enough, not wanting this done, telling her I didn’t want it done. All of a sudden I smell something burning. If I could’ve moved my legs I probably would’ve kicked her.”- Brenda Pelletier on being sterilized against her will
Brenda Pelletier checked in to Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon five years ago to give birth to her baby girl. She left, with her tubes tied. The tubal ligation procedure happened, she says, after she was pressured into it by hospital staff, while she was in a vulnerable state.
And as a Métis woman, Brenda Pelletier’s experience appears not to be an isolated case.
At least three other aboriginal women have come forward to say that they too were pressured to be sterilized at the Saskatoon hospital in recent years.
Ok but this is true!!! I was 19 years old when i went into the hospital to give birth to my first child and while i was laying in bed reading and signing consent forms i came across one that woukd give them.permission to tie my tubes. The nurse kept telling me i didnt have to read them all that they were all about my stay in the hospital and intake forms and when i began to read that particular form the nurse came to me laughed nervously and said well we put that in there just in case you wanted to get your rubes tied. I then asked if they always gave them to woman giving birth she said no, the doctor had asked for thematic be put in there “just in case” I didnt want any future children. The nurse then went on to ask me about my future and if i was really sure i wanted to have more children or not. Until my mom came intimate room to check up on me and the nurse then took all the papers from me and left. For the rest of my delivery the nurses refused to give me medication for the pain or an epidural saying it was too early for that and it might stop my labour. I honestly think they withheld pain medication and the epidural to show me how hard child birth can be. Afterwards when they were releasing me the nurse asked me again if i was sure i didnt want to get ny tubes tied. Which i said no to. She then went on and explained thaf if i did i woukd just have to make an appointment with my doctor and i would be in and out in no time at all. That is my experience with the Canadian healthcare system and being a native woman. It is wrong that anyone would try and force something like that on a 19 year old. Please share. Let it be known what is happening to native woman. We have rights just like any other woman and shouldn’t be pushed into suxh decision at such a young age.
Hey white folks with uteruses who do not want or should not have kids,
you know how you’re outraged about how hard it is to get a Doctor to agree to sterilize you even to save your life?
Guess what else they do? Double your outrage.
And those two issues are not unrelated. White supremacy pushes an idea of who should be having kids and who shouldnt. White, abled women are prioritized especially ones who arent poor, they should have many kids, to further white supremacy, while those deemed “undesireable” (people who arent white, people who are disabled, people who are poor and uneducated and especially people who are more than one of those things) should be kept from having children for the good of society.
So when doctors refuse to sterilize white, educated women who want it, they are functioning within the same thought process as when doctors sterilize non-white women against their will.
Since this article came out in 2016, a class action lawsuit has been filed by two of the victims.
The history of birth control in Canada is riddled with this racism and white supremacy. Some of the first women to get birth control? People of colour and poor white people, because non-white babies were a threat and if you were poor and white you were considered bad stock.
If you were reasonably well off and white, you couldn’t get birth control because it was considered your duty to pump out white babies of good stock.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise it’s going on to this day. Canada and women’s rights in Canada are founded on racism and genocide.
this is why it’s terrifying to be a native woman in canada ://
[Image: Screencap from the above website; you can click through to read the whole thing, but I’m going to copy-paste this same bit because it answers so many questions in my life – mostly related to “Why am I crying about this?”]
Rejection sensitive dysphoria
(RSD) is an extreme emotional sensitivity and emotional pain triggered
by the perception – not necessarily the reality – that a person has been
rejected, teased, or criticized by important people in their life. RSD
may also be triggered by a sense of failure, or falling short – failing
to meet either their own high standards or others’ expectations.
Dysphoria is Greek for “difficult to bear.” It’s not that people with
ADHD are wimps, or weak; it’s that the emotional response hurts them
much more than it does people without the condition.
When this emotional response is internalized, it can
imitate full, major depression complete with suicidal ideation. The
sudden change from feeling perfectly fine to feeling depressed that
results from RSD is often misdiagnosed as rapid cycling bipolar
disorder.
It can take a long time for physicians to recognize that these symptoms
are caused by the sudden emotional changes associated with ADHD and
rejection sensitivity, while all other object relations are totally
normal.
When this emotional response is externalized, it looks
like an impressive, instantaneous rage at the person or situation
responsible for causing the pain. 50% of people who are assigned
court-mandated anger-management treatment have previously unrecognized
ADHD.
Capslock translation from above: “Wow Im so glad my doctor told me about this” said none of us ever
One more reblog for the road. I’ve seen at least eight people go “There’s a name for this?” as a result of sharing this link, and I want to try and reach even more. It’s so meaningful to me to know that there’s something going on, and that it’s not just me being inadequate at dealing with my emotions. When you consider the level of horror I feel over even minor screwups, my reactions are completely understandable. My feelings are valid.
For anyone else out there who cries over spilled milk, or at the drop of a hat? This might be worth a read.
This is your irregular reminder that Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria Is A (terrible, horrible, no good, very bad) Thing.
Alternately, this is your notice that There’s A Name For That Horrible Experience.
Support to all of my fellow ADHD-ers out there; RSD is made of terrible.
just once i wanna put the blade of my sword under a pretty boy’s chin and tilt their head up so i can see both fear and arousal in their eyes is that too much to ask
and at no point has anyone thought “maybe we should not build a giant flammable goat this year”
They tried fireproofing. And armed guards. And fences, and cameras… Sadly the wikipedia page has been cut down by super srs folks to remove all the awesome Keystone cops tales of the goat’s history (emphasis added by me)
1966 Stig Gavlén came up with the idea of a giant goat made out of straw. But it turned out that Gavlén organisation did not have enough funding for the goat. Then Harry Ström, who at that time was the chairman of the Södra Kungsgatan Ideella Förening (a non-profit society), decided to pay the whole cost for the goat out of his own pocket. The goat stood until midnight of New Year’s Eve, when it went up in flames. The perpetrator, who was from Hofors,Gästrikland, was found and convicted of vandalism. The first goat was insured and Ström got all his money back.
1967 Nothing happened.
1968 The goat survived. A fence was built around the goat. Previously it was popular for children to play hide-and-seek inside and around the goat. There was also a rumor that one night a couple had sex inside the goat. In subsequent years the inside of the goat was protected by a chicken-wire net.
1969 The goat was burnt down on New Year’s Eve.
1970 The goat was burnt down only six hours after it was assembled. Two very drunk teenagers were connected with the crime. With help from several financial contributors the goat was reassembled out of lake reed.
1971 The Southern Merchants got tired of their goats being burned and stopped building the goat. The Natural Science Club (Naturvetenskapliga Föreningen:NF) from the School of Vasa (Vasaskolan) took over.
1984Burnt down on 12 December, the night before Lucia.
1985 The 12.5 metre (41 ft) tall goat of the Natural Science Club was featured in the Guinness Book of Records for the first time. Even though the goat was enclosed by a 2 metres (6.6 ft) high metal fence, guarded by Securitas and even soldiers from the Gävle I 14 InfantryRegiment, it was burnt down in January.
1986 The merchants of Gävle decided they were willing to build the goat once again. From 1986 on two goats were built, the Southern Merchants’ and the School of Vasa’s. The big goat burnt down the night before Christmas Eve.
1987A heavily fireproofed goat was built. It got burnt down a week before Christmas.[21]
1988 Nothing happened to the goat, but gamblers were for the first time able to gamble on the fate of the goat with English bookmakers.
1989 Again, the goat burnt down before it was assembled. Financial contributions from the public were raised to rebuild a goat that was burnt down in January. In March 1990 another goat was built, this time for the shooting of a Swedish motion picture called Black Jack.
1990Nothing happened. The goat was guarded by many volunteers.
1991 The goat was joined by an advertising sled, that turned out to be illegally built. On the morning of Christmas Eve the goat was burnt down. It was later rebuilt to be taken to Stockholm as a part of a protest campaign against the closing of the I 14 Infantry Regiment.
1992The goat was burnt down eight days after it was built. The Natural Science Club’s goat burnt down the same night. The Southern Merchants’ goat was rebuilt, but burned down on 20 December. The perpetrator of the three attacks was caught and sent to jail. The Goat Committee was founded in 1992.
1993 Once more the goat was featured in the Guinness Book of Records, the School of Vasa’s goat measured 14.9 metres (49 ft). The goat was guarded by taxis and the Swedish Home Guard. Nothing happened.
1994 Nothing happened. The goat followed the Swedish national hockey team to Italy for the World Championship in hockey.
1995 A Norwegian was arrested for attempting to burn down the goat. Burnt down on the morning of Christmas Day. Rebuilt to be standing before the 550th anniversary of Gävle county.
1996 The first time the goat was guarded by webcams, nothing happened.
1997Damaged by fireworks. The Natural Science Club’s goat was attacked too, but survived with minor damage.
1998Burnt down on 11 December, even though there was a major blizzard. Was rebuilt.
1999Burnt down only a couple of hours after it was erected. Rebuilt again before Lucia. The Natural Science Club’s goat was burnt down as well.
2000Burnt down a couple of days before New Year’s Eve. The Natural Science Club’s goat got tossed in the Gävle river.
2001 Goat set on fire on 23 December by Lawrence Jones, a 51-year-old visitor from Cleveland, Ohio, who spent 18 days in jail and was subsequently convicted and ordered to pay 100,000 Swedish kronor in damages. The court confiscated Jones’s cigarette lighter with the argument that he clearly was not able to handle it. Jones stated in court that he was no “goat burner”, and believed that he was taking part in a completely legal goat-burning tradition. After Jones was released from jail he went straight back to the US without paying his fine. As of 2006 it was still unpaid. The Natural Science Club’s goat was also burnt down.
2002 A 22 year old from Stockholm tried to set the Southern Merchants’ goat on fire, but failed, the goat receiving only minor damage. On Lucia the goat was guarded by Swedish radio and TV personality Gert Fylking.
2003Burnt down on 12 December.
2004Burnt 21 December, only three days before Christmas Eve. The fire brigade quickly arrived on the scene, but the goat could not be saved. No new goat was built.
2005Burnt by unknown vandals reportedly dressed as Santa and the gingerbread man, by shooting a flaming arrow at the goat at 21:00 on 3 December. Reconstructed on 5 December. The hunt for the arsonist responsible for the goat-burning in 2005 was featured on the weekly Swedish live broadcast TV3’s “Most Wanted“ (”Efterlyst”) on 8 December.
2006 On the night of 15 December at 03:00, someone tried to set fire to the goat by dousing the right front leg in petrol (gasoline). The red ribbon on that leg was slightly burned and fell off. The lower part of the right leg was scorched, but the rest of the goat failed to light. The leg was repaired that morning. The Natural Science Club’s goat was burned at about 00:40 on 20 December; the vandals were not seen and got away. On the night of 25 December, a drunken man managed to climb up on the goat. Before the police arrived on the scene the man climbed down and disappeared. He did not try to set fire to the goat. The Southern Merchants’ goat survived New Year’s Eve and was taken down on 2 January. It is now stored in a secret location.
2007 The Natural Science Club’s goat was toppled on 13 December and was burned on the night of 24 December. The Southern Merchants’ goat survived.
2008 10,000 people turned out for the inauguration of one of the goats. No back-up goat was built to replace the main goat should the worst happen, nor was the goat treated with flame repellent (Anna Östman, spokesperson of the Goat-committee said the repellent made it look ugly in the previous years, like a brown terrier). On 16 December the Natural Science Club’s Goat was vandalised and later removed. On 26 December there was an attempt to burn down the Southern Merchants’ Goat but patriotic passers-by managed to extinguish the fire. The following day the goat finally succumbed to the flames ignited by an unknown assailant at 03:50 CET.
2009 A person attempted to set the Southern Merchants’ goat on fire the night of 7 December. An unsuccessful attempt was made to throw the Natural Science Club’s goat into the river the weekend of 11 December. The culprit then tried, again without success, to set the goat on fire. Someone stole the Natural Science Club’s goat utilizing a truck the night of 14 December.[36] On the night of 23 December before 04:00 the South Merchant goat was set on fire and was burned to the frame, even though it had a thick layer of snow on its back.[37] The goat had two online webcams which were put out of service by aDoS attack, instigated by computer hackers just before the burning.[38]
2010 On the night of 2 December, arsonists made an unsuccessful attempt to burn the Natural Science Club’s goat.[39] On 17 December, a Swedish news site reported that one of the guards tasked with protecting the Southern Merchants’ goat had been offered payment to leave his post so that the goat could be stolen via helicopter and transported to Stockholm. Both goats survived and were dismantled and returned to storage in early January 2011.
2011 The inauguration of the goat took place on 27 November. The fire-fighters of Gävle sprayed the goat with water to create a coating of ice in the hope of protecting it from arson. The goat was burnt down in the early morning of 2 December.
2012 The inauguration of the goat took place on 2 December. It was burnt just ten days later in the hours before midnight of 12 December, one day before Lucia.
2013 As in 2006 and 2007, the straw used to build the goat has been soaked in anti-flammable liquid to prevent it from burning in the event of an arson attack. The inauguration ceremony took place on 1 December. But despite the anti-flammable liquids the goat was burnt down on the early morning of December 21.
Any history of plots involving a DDoS attack on the security cameras, a plot to steal it with a helicopter and flaming arrows shot by people dressed as Santa and the Gingerbread man is just plain hilarious in my book.
I’m laughing so much about this goat. obviously if you build something big enough people are going to have sex in it and burn it down. obviously
what the fuck is going on in sweden
how will the saga continue this year
fascinating
The saga of the goat is the best part of the season.
i feel like. those gay boys who do makeup literally hav no idea how harmful makeup is to women because. theyre not expected to wear it they didnt grow up with that so its just a fun hobby to them. like this one time i was talking to this friend of a friend twink who has MUA in his instagram bio at a concert and he had like obv spent two hours doing his whole face highlight contour all the cut crease or whatever stuff and he was being real nice and then he was like “you have such good facial structure! i could do your makeup sometime itd be real fun!” and i was like thank you but nah i dont wear makeup anymore it fucked me up for a long time and made me feel real bad abt myself and. i swear he looked like a lost puppy he was glancing around like he was doing math equations in his head like he Could Not Process how my wearing makeup would hurt my self esteem bc? he does it to feel good and express himself! its 100% a personal choice for him! and i feel like these guys just have no idea how bad it is for women because its never been expected or required of them
im gonna!! add a lil something here bc ppl are misinterpreting this so reblog this version instead if ud like
-gay men are very brave and it is very hard for them to wear makeup. i didnt put this in this post because it’s not what it’s about, i didnt wanna make the post any longer than it was, and i feel like the mainstream media has done a relatively good job of showing that gay men are Very brave for wearing makeup and its something that does get talked abt
-the empowerment that men can feel through makeup creates a very different point of view from it than women who are expected to wear it. i think this leads them to not fully be aware of the harms it can cause women because while its talked a lot abt on tumblr not everyone. has tumblr and the mainstream media has done a Terrible job of showing this
-gay men who wear makeup arent at fault for not knowing abt it i just think it isnt talked abt like at all in their makeup communities specifically because they are makeup communities. its not their fault for not knowing but its def def def something we need to talk abt more and in general because that’s really a topic that often goes under the radar
-im not attempting to pit women against men here i just think men who wear makeup need to be aware at the difference in the ways makeup is defying the norm (men wearing it goes against society’s expectations, women not wearing it goes against society’s expectations) and thats def a thing men and women can unite over i dont want anyone thinking that this is a Men vs Women Whos Right Should We Wear Makeup Or Not thing
-terfs/radfems/transmisogynists don’t touch this post it’s not for you and trans women are fully included in all mentions of “women” in this post
like yes it’s better if you try to shower and brush your teeth and clean your room and eat
when I made efforts to do those things my life got marginally better
but I still was mentally ill and suicidal and suffering
and I had very limited capacity to try new things or get tasks done
then I started therapy and then I completed dbt
as I recovered I went beyond basic self care to like…furthering life goals and no longer hating myself and effectively coping with negative emotions and having a healthy base line where I was happier by default
but without dbt I wouldn’t have been able to do that stuff. no matter that I showered everyday and had a decent job and stayed relatively on top of chores
self care is good but falling short on self-care sometimes doesnt mean you’re to blame for your suffering. and honestly staying on top of self-care isnt going to translate to recovery on its own. I know Tumblr is kind of obsessed with self care and it IS important but like…its not the sole measure of your quality of life.
Firebird Scratches 