The sentences “you’re crazy”, or “dude, break up with her, she’s insane” are phrases I hear everyday. Social media and twitter culture have formulated a whole new personality trait used to describe girlfriends, boyfriends, and side chicks alike. The words “crazy” and “insane”, in my opinion, are used too loosely and without hesitation in social media, and in casual talk amongst friends. The definition of the terms “crazy” and “insane” are the following: “Crazy: Mentally deranged, especially as manifested in a wild or aggressive way” and “Insane: In a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction; seriously mentally ill.” Before I get into this, I’ll happily address the counteractive argument to the one I’m about to write about; that these words are just adjectives, people should not be so sensitive, and there’s this thing called freedom of speech. While these points are all true, I think the words crazy and insane can easily be taken very offensively, depending who you’re talking to, and what the situation is, and should stop being used with a negative connotation.
The adjectives crazy and insane are both generally used to describe a person or situation that is chaotic or problematic, or anything other than calm and “normal”. No one stops to think however, that the person they’re calling insane might actually have a mental illness; which makes them act in the way that seems out of the ordinary to you. The correct terms for describing mental illnesses and people with mental illnesses do NOT include “crazy” and “insane”. I personally thought that these words were labelled as inappropriate when the government stopped shipping people with mental illnesses off to “crazy houses” and “insane asylums”, but I was let down when I realized the actual definitions of the words do not reflect this. While I no longer hear these terms being used to directly describe mentally ill people, they are, however, used when a someone exhibits a trait that is generally linked to mental illness. To make this easier to understand, I’ll make up some scenarios: The “clean freak” you sit beside in math who washes their hands all the time, and who takes an extra hour to precisely write all their notes, might have OCD. It’s not your fault, you obviously didn’t know that, but “clean freak” is pretty degrading and offensive, and implies that having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is something that that person should be ashamed of. The girl who is super controlling of her friends and boyfriend, and freaks out when she doesn’t know where they are, might have severe anxiety. Being quick to judge that she’s insane is incorrect in this situation, because symptoms of anxiety include senses of impending doom, or fear, and panic attacks. Another one I hear all the time is “they are so rude and bitchy, like what is wrong with them omg”. Ever thought that the person you’re talking about might suffer with depression? Being antisocial and having feelings of sadness and lack of interest in life is not a personal choice, it’s a chemical imbalance in their brain. Bipolar Disorder is another illness that is taken very lightly. I’ve often heard people talking about their friend/girlfriend, and using the term “bipolar” to describe their monthly mood swings. In many cases, being moody is just part of being a teenager, (especially being a teenage girl) and using the name of an actual mental illness to describe a common mood swing is incorrect, not to mention rude, if that person doesn’t actually have bipolar disorder. What I’m trying to say is that using terms like “crazy”, “insane”, “bitchy”, “depressed”, and “bipolar” in casual situations make people that suffer with actual mental illnesses feel like their sickness is a joke, or is not valid. While not everyone suffers with mental illness, many people do. Everyone is fighting a battle you have no idea about, so simply be aware of using words that degrade or lessen the severity of dealing with a mental illness.
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Inspiration for my weekly blogs often come from things I’ve seen, things I’ve learned or heard about, and things I’ve experienced. I write about things I am passionate about, and things that interest me enough to further research. My inspiration for this blog and this topic in particular came from a group of 11 year old boys on the night of Halloween (stay with me, this actually ties into my title). I took my little brother trick-or-treating, and we had wandered pretty far out from our street. It was only about 8:00, so there were a ton of little kids and their parents going from door to door just as we were. As my brother and I were walking down the street, we passed a group of boys who looked only a few years older than my 9 year old brother. There was about 5 of them, and I wasn’t at all bothered when they bluntly stared at me as we walked past them; I smiled and continued talking to Isaiah. It did bother me however, when they collectively started cat-calling, yelling, and groaning really loudly after my brother and I had passed. I ignored the loud and disgusting remarks, but we had walked about 10 feet away from where their group was standing, and they were still directing obscene comments at me. At this point I turned around and told them as kindly as possible that they were being rude and gross. One of them just laughed off my remark, and proceeded to whistle when I walked away again. This is definitely not the first time something like this has happened, but it really stuck out to me because of how young they were, and the setting it took place in. There were toddlers and adorable dressed up kids everywhere, as well as just as many adults trying to enjoy the night like I was. They all stopped and stared while this happened and needless to say, it was really embarrassing. On top of all this, the 5 minute encounter and group of loud boys had scared my little brother, and he wouldn’t let go of my hand as we walked back home. Naturally, I felt really bad that the night had been cut short in a way, and thought to myself ‘if Isaiah had just gone out with my mom or dad, or if I had been wearing sweatpants instead of leggings, or if we hadn’t walked so far past our street, this could have been avoided.’. Looking back, this is where I was completely and utterly wrong. The whole thing could have been avoided if those 11 year old boys had been taught respect. The whole thing could have been avoided if those boys hadn’t grown up thinking that male sexual aggression was a desirable quality. I’m sorry, but being harassed by boys 4 years younger than you while your little brother, other adults, and their innocent kids look on, while TRICK OR TREATING, is absolutely unacceptable. I was angry and embarrassed about what had happened, so I did a google search on the broad topic of sexual harassment when it came to the time this week to write my blog post. A wikipedia article brought the terms “rape culture” and “sexual assault” back into my memory, and I read a few blogs and articles regarding these topics. One blog I loved was this one that clarified “what is rape culture?”. It essentially talks about all the degrading and screwed up things that have been woven into everyday talk and life that I’ve always noticed, but were never pointed out or openly discussed with me or in general ever before. Things like how it is normal for women and young girls to have to worry about: who they trust, who they can or cannot depend on at a party, how late it is, where they’re walking, whom they’re walking with, what time they’re walking at, what they’re wearing, what what they’re wearing means or says about them, whether or not he got the wrong idea, whether or not to let your guard down, whether or not it’s dark, whether or not they know anyone that lives close-by incase they need somewhere to run, etc, etc, etc; the list goes on and on. The author of this blog also blatantly brought up the fact that in today's society, many people imply or simply tell you that If you can’t confidently answer all these questions, or if you didn’t take the time to check where you were, who you were with, how revealing your clothes were, etc.., then you brought the comments, touching, and harassment on yourself. This implication that rape and sexual harassment is as much (if not more) the victim’s fault as it is the perpetrator’s, is what makes me want to scream. You might be thinking “okay, Mikaela, but no one’s enough of an asshole to actually think that”, but I found a real life example of a real life court case where this exact thing happened. I’m talking about the infamous Brock Turner and the Stanford case, where Brock was found guilty of sticking foreign objects into a woman behind a dumpster while she lay unconscious on the ground. This case lasted an entire year, simply because the judge and jury thought it was necessary to take Brock’s successful college swim times, where he was going in life, and the fact that he “couldn’t even enjoy his favourite snack anymore due to the stress” into consideration while deciding what his punishment for the sexual assault would be. He was sentenced to 6 months of jail time, (which in my opinion, is short in the first place) and was also to register as a sex offender for life. He was released from jail after 3 months. A dragonfly’s lifespan is longer than three freaking months. How is a sex offender supposed to learn and understand the impacts of the terrible thing they did to another human being in the time it takes to literally grow out your bangs..? On top of all this wealthy, Caucasian, male privilege, Brock Turner’s father wrote a letter to the jury, where in one sentence he stated that the 6 months of jail time was a “steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action.”. The victim of this assault wrote a letter to the jury and to Brock directly as well, and the 15 minutes it took me to read it was well, well worth it. It's extremely moving and forces you to understand the real and scary long and short term affects of Brock's actions. The whole statement is here, if you want to read it (you should, it gave me goosebumps). Brock Turner caused a whole lifetime of crushed self worth and self confidence, a whole lifetime of flashbacks, regrets, and self blaming, a whole lifetime of broken relationships, senses of false trust, and “what ifs” for the victim in this case. An 18 year old boy who did all this to another human, was told it was a “mistake”, was told “it was going to be okay", "you were drunk and didn’t know any better”, and was told it was just “a stupid 20 minutes of action”. Rape culture is normalizing small and large scale sexual assaults like these, and THAT, my friends, is what is wrong with society today. Every Sunday afternoon at about 2pm I ask myself a very familiar question, “why is it SO hard for me to focus and write a simple 400 word blog post?”. I mean, I really enjoy writing, and I get to write about things that actually interest me; so why do I find myself wanting to throw my computer off a bridge every time I try to sit down and write my weekly entry? I won’t lie, copious amounts of procrastination play a very large role in me being so frustrated with myself. Today alone, I woke up at noon, watched two movies, took my dog for a walk, drank 2.5 cups of tea while staring at this formerly blank document for about an hour, went down a 30 minute buzzfeed video rabbit-hole, and changed my writing location- twice. Friday and Saturday’s procrastination episodes are whole other stories. I did some research however, and aside from the fact that I have terrible time management skills, I found out that this whole situation could be a result of sleep deprivation. According to every website and every article I read, adolescents from 14 to 18 need a minimum of 8 hours of sleep every night; with 10 hours being ideal for maximum alertness the next day. Teenagers’ bodies and minds develop before, during, and after we go through high school, and surviving off 6 or 7 hours of sleep everyday has many negative consequences that just get dismissed as “itty bitty teenage issues”. Despite popular belief, teenagers actually have a lot of crap to deal with; I know I constantly feel overwhelmed and stressed with the things going on in my life, and I definitely have a pretty easy life compared to those of some others going through high school as well. Many days I find myself not being able to focus on the task at hand, or stay present in the moment, simply because I don’t have the energy to. I get frustrated when I fail to turn in my best work, or fail to have an actual conversation with my parents at dinner just because I’m too tired, and the only fix seems to be to “just go to bed earlier!”. The thing is, academics in high school become more and more demanding as you get older, as well as the social aspects of high school becoming more and more demanding, confusing, and emotionally draining as you enter the higher grades. There simply isn’t enough hours in a day to get school, homework, work, and extracurriculars done, and kids end up using necessary sleep hours to check things off their ToDo list. Teenagers always get pegged as a lazy, moody group of humans, and I personally think that’s pretty unfair. Say you actually put 8 hours aside for sleeping everyday. If you wake up at 6:30am to catch your 7:30 bus to get to school by 8:00 when first period starts; in order to get that minimum 8 hours, you would need to go to bed at 10:30pm. Not too bad, right? You get home from school at about 2:30, so that means you have 8 hours to do everything else happening in your life. However, many, if not all, high school students are pushed to get part time jobs, and you applied for a job a little while ago to start saving money for university down the road. Say your shift at McDonalds starts right at 2:30 and is 4 ½ hours long, that takes you down to 3 ½ hours for everything else. However, as many high school students chose to do, you have sports or other extracurricular commitments to attend. Say those start at 7:30, right after you’re done work, and are roughly an hour and a half long. Now you’re at an hour and a half for everything else. Eating a family dinner, and helping out around the house is definitely a priority in many households, and that usually eats up an hour of time in the evening. Half an hour for everything else before you have to go to bed. Depending on your course load for that semester, homework and studying for tests can take anywhere from a half hour, to 2 hours every night. If you have an hour of homework that night, that leaves you with -30 minutes in your time bank. Another important thing to note: you had to work a greasy shift at Mcdonalds and go to soccer practice that night… you smell gross. Some people might argue, but showering after all that is completely necessary. That leaves you with close to -45/ -50 minutes in your time bank, depending on how long it takes you to wash off the day. So you’ve already passed the limit of viable awake hours for the day, and not once have you sat down and had a few minutes to yourself. THAT, my friends, is enough to make anyone unmotivated, tired, and moody. Not to mention all the peer pressure, drama, stress, and conflict that inevitably follows you around everywhere when you’re a teenager. Those negative hours need to be filled with time from somewhere, and teens often have to decide; what is more important?: getting good grades/saving money/maintaining relationships, or getting enough sleep? It’s always the first one. Important fact: as children get older, their biological sleep patterns shift and change into later sleeping and waking times; and many teens find themselves simply unable to fall asleep until 11pm or midnight. When your brain is telling you to stay awake, and you have a dozen important things on your plate that need to be finished, you’re not going to go to bed until you’re fighting to keep your eyes open. Side effects of sleep deprivation can be extreme, and are definitely taking a toll on our developing minds and bodies. Many teenagers experience memory loss, and inability to focus or concentrate on lessons and assignments, feelings of aggression and impatience, and feelings of lost hope and impulsivity. Irregular and too-short sleep schedules can also lead to symptoms of depression, as well as increased risk of obesity, diabetes, and serious mood disorders. So how would later school starting times benefit our generation and possibly get rid of this problem? More math: if students don’t fall asleep until 11:30, and wake up at 6:30 for school that starts at 8, that’s only 7 hours of sleep. If starting times were pushed one hour later, and high school started at 9:00 (not needing to get up until 7:30), teens would be able to stay awake until their brains were ready to fall asleep, and still get the 8 hours they need to function. Schools that have tried this method of adjusting starting times have noticed increased attendance and higher overall test scores. Teachers preach the importance of working hard, focusing, and prioritizing your school work at the top in order to achieve, but seem to set our generation up for failure by starting school so early. Sure, 8am isn’t a painfully early time to be at school, but when you fall asleep AND wake up when it’s still completely pitch black out, there are going to be negative side effects that affect your attitude and outlook. So ask me again, Mom, why I’m so moody at the end of the day. In my opinion, looking at the people around you such as your friends and family, and realizing how you’re different from them is an important skill to have. Comparison like this drives lots of people to do better, be better, and work harder; however, many people get carried away, and this often results in feeling unmotivated and worthless.
To be comparative and competitive is cultural human nature. It was a skill necessary to life when humans and animals had to compete against other humans and animals for food and shelter to stay alive. This is often referred to as “survival of the fittest”. I definitely feel that without competition, a lot of our first world population would never be motivated enough to get things done. Competition is what makes shows like The Bachelor, American Idol, and Survivor so addicting to watch, and what makes sports so fun to play. Society loves being able to root for one person or one team, and watch others fail and them succeed. However, since social media became a priority in so many people’s lives, this quality that was once used as motivation to better yourself, has quickly and abruptly turned into unhealthy comparison and competition, where people are just trying to achieve unrealistic life and relationship “goals”. The innocent “survival of the fittest” saying I used previously, has seemed to evolve into something along the lines of “survival of the richest” or another good one: “survival of the prettiest” since the social media revolution started. Technology definitely plays a big role in this generation’s constant worry about if their life is “good enough” compared to everyone else’s. All it takes is a simple tap of your finger on your phone’s screen to have access to around 2.34 billion virtual lives. Everyone knows that nauseating feeling when you see a selfie or picture that makes you feel like your confidence just hit rock bottom. Comparing yourself to other people’s lives and looks doesn’t benefit you in anyway; it only makes you feel like your appearance, accomplishments, experiences, and privileges are invalid. I constantly find myself comparing my appearance, and life to other people’s; sometimes people I’ve never even met or seen in real life. Here in lies the problem: teenagers get so caught up in the online lives of their peers, and never stop to realize that the person or life they’re idolizing is not at all how they appear. To make it clear for you, nobody is the same person offline as they are online. People showcase the best possible version of themselves. I mean, there are definitely some brave souls who care less about how they present themselves online, like posting double chin selfies on their snapchat, or tweeting about how they just ate half their body weight in McDonalds, but even they are still only showing what they want everyone else to see. Ever watched anyone take a selfie? The process of taking a million photos and choosing the one deemed most fit for the eyes of your followers sometimes takes hours, and multiple opinions from your friends in your group chat. Everyone sees the beautifully lit, perfect hair, perfectly posed photo that you decide to post, but no one sees the recently deleted album in your photos, with dozens of the exact same picture; each one of them with a different “flaw” that just couldn’t possibly be shared with the internet. Ever seen those #relationshipgoals pictures on twitter? Sure, those are cute, but everyone sees the smiley, gorgeous couple posing in front of the sunset, and no one sees or takes into consideration the possible secrets, fights, and manipulation that goes on behind the scenes of that relationship. After not being on social media for a while, I really realized how little reality is portrayed in almost any personal photo of people our age. Unplugging and taking time to focus on things that make you genuinely happy can improve your overall mood and outlook immensely. Social media is an amazing platform for raising awareness about issues, and expressing yourself! I’m not saying that everyone should be sharing 100% true updates of their lives, (that would be overwhelming) but every time I hear someone complaining about their own life or how they look compared to someone else, I get pretty sad for them. Comparing your looks or even personality traits to someone else, or getting competitive about who’s living the most exciting life are little forms of self destruction, and it’s frustrating to think that many people in this generation sometimes make decisions for themselves based solely on what other people are doing, wearing, or saying. Always remember not to compare your behind the scenes to somebody else’s highlight reel. With all that has been going on in the United States lately (think police brutality, and just politics in general), it’s easy to look to Canada and see a Utopian society. Canada is an amazingly free and peaceful place to live compared to the rest of the world. I thank my lucky stars everyday that I was born in a country with so many amazing opportunities; but that doesn’t mean we don’t have problems of our own that need to be worked on. This topic was never brought to my attention until recently in history class, and I think that’s part of the problem here. The Canadian government has been treating First Nations people like nothing, basically since Europeans first “claimed” Canada as their own. Aboriginal people, as well as their culture, were just seen as a nuisance or an obstacle; simply in the way of European settlers turning Canada into a whitewash of one religion and one way of life. Sure, the topic of residential schools and the conditions of First Nation reserves has come up in the news, and even in politics when things have gotten bad, but from what I’ve learned, this whole population of people is still being treated as an afterthought. Raising awareness about how First Nations people are suffering needs to become a priority for more than just a few weeks. One of the most appalling things that Aboriginal people have been put through is residential schooling. Approximately 150,000 children were ripped away from their families and communities, and forced to stay at a church based school/building where they were taught how to “act properly”. Their hair was cut, and they were forced to learn and speak only the English language. Actual education was not a huge priority, so children were used to do practical work to keep the school running. Girls were taught to clean, cook, do laundry, and sew, and were expected to do these jobs for the teachers and other children. Boys were mainly used to do general maintenance and farming, and they often grew a lot of the food that the teachers and nuns ate. Children were underfed, overcrowded, and lived and slept in very poor conditions, so sickness was very common. Since their education was part time, many children only had a grade 5 education level by the time they were released from the schools at the age of 18. Emotional and psychological abuse was always apparent, and physical punishments for breaking any rules included being beaten, strapped, shackled to beds, stuck with needles for speaking their native language, and denial of meals. Rape and sexual abuse from teachers and other students was very common as well. This abuse scarred thousands of children up until 1996 when the last school closed. I find it ridiculous how people nowadays (including myself) complain about coming to school and writing notes in class everyday. I never realized how much I take school for granted. Long term effects of residential schooling and assimilation are obvious in Aboriginal families and communities today. Communities and tribes are severely underfunded, and everything is overpriced because of how much money it takes to get goods and services up to reserves. Quality of life for many people is very low, and citizens turn to drugs, drinking, and gambling to forget their problems and their past. As a result, 27% of all deaths are suicides in Nunavut reservations alone. Children of residential schools never received love or nurturing growing up, and many lack proper parenting skills to raise their children. The damage done in residential schools has created a long line of abusive families, and no amount of money that the Canadian Government gives as an “apology” can reverse that. Once again, WHO decided that catholicism and christianity was the “superior” religion? WHO decided that caucasians were better than any other race, and that in order to be happy, you must conform to a list of rules set in place by a bunch of obviously biased white men? At what point in time did so many people become so misinformed about what was an acceptable way of treating others? Stereotypes and rules that seemed to appear out of thin air molded history for hundreds of years, and just in the past couple decades has society started to become more accepting of different races, religions, genders, and sexualities. I feel fortunate to have as many opportunities as I do at 15 years old, because I know there are many kids my age who are in the exact opposite situation right now. The stigma and abuse has gotten to the point where people are ashamed of their own culture, and other Canadians are just glad it’s “not their problem”. Religious differences should be celebrated! Everyone forgets about the rights of the humans that were actually the original inhabitants of this country... I consider Canada to be a very diverse, accepting place to live, but the way our beautiful Aboriginal people are still being treated is absolutely unacceptable. I believe if something big isn’t done soon, a whole population will be gone before Canadians can say “Eh!”. Here’s what I hate, inequality. How would it feel to be someone else’s property? This person would decide who you married, where you could go, how you could dress, whether or not you had a job or education, whether or not you had kids, and pretty much any other decision every human being should have the right to make for him or herself. This is called male guardianship, and it affects thousands of women in Saudi Arabia everyday. Women’s rights are almost non-existent in this country, and something needs to be done about it. Girls and women who are fed up with being treated so unfairly have started tweeting posters and messages to the public with the hashtag #TogetherToEndMaleGuardianship to raise awareness about this issue. A quick rundown on what exactly Male Guardianship is; there is a law in Saudi Arabia that every woman and female child must have a male guardian to make decisions for them on a daily basis. Your guardian could be your father, husband, brother, uncle, or even son. Girls can’t do anything without consent from their male guardian including (but definitely not limited to) traveling anywhere, applying for jobs or education, and the worst one in my opinion, have any type of surgery or medical treatment done. Wives are trusted to have many responsibilities around the house like cooking, cleaning, keeping their husband happy, and raising children, but apparently can’t be trusted to make decisions for themselves??? The lack of logic behind this law blows my mind; women are expected to take care of their next generation of children, but aren’t being entrusted with taking care of themselves. Anyone who is not male is legally considered a minor. These intelligent, capable women and girls are being treated like toddlers, and are stuck in lives and relationships that they didn’t even choose for themselves. The lack of freedom is not the only problem with this male guardianship law. Since your father/brother/uncle gets to choose who you’re going to marry, priorities like social statuses and wealth get in the way of your right to be in a happy marriage. Brides and their guardian receive money (it’s called a mahr) from the groom for getting married. How much the bride is worth is determined by her family’s wealth, social status, and whether or not she is a virgin. In 2008, a Saudi Arabian man arranged a marriage between his EIGHT YEAR OLD DAUGHTER, and a FORTY SEVEN YEAR OLD MAN just so he could receive a large mahr that he could pay off his debts with. You don’t have to be too into feminism to understand and realize that that is not in any way okay. On the same note, treating people equally is not hard, and I find it ridiculous that humans have fallen into a habit of thinking less of anyone who is different. At what point in time did women become less valid human beings? Did the very first civilization just decide that women were incapable of doing the same things as men? This is a problem all over the world, and while there has been a lot of progress throughout history, many countries still have laws in place that prevent a whole 50% of the population from doing things, just because they have different sex organs. The fact that inequality has been so prominent, that it’s gotten to the point of being worked into religions and laws, grinds my gears. There is no reason that everyone being given the same chances at life should be so difficult. It’s the 21st century, and there are still misinformed people all over the place, who refuse to accept that all humans are human. #TogetherToEndMaleGuardianship #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen |
peace, love, and eternal grooviness
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