Do You Have Any Non-fiction Book Recommendations?

UNIVERSITY WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

Mental health and illness is already hard enough, but adding school pressure on top is hard. High school was easier for me since there is a lot more structure and a lot less choice, which is why I'm targeting this towards college and university students.

Firstly is attending class. Getting to class is a major hurdle, especially with a commute like me (1 hour+) broke people problems lmao. Driving that long to go to a class just to drive back home is already exhausting and unpleasant, especially knowing professors will post slides or something after class anyways. But you have to drag yourself there. One thing I do to help is dress up. I'll do my makeup and put on nicer clothes. Why does this work for me? I hate wasting stuff, especially money and to me, putting on makeup is spending money essentially (same logic as using rare items in a video game idk). I can't just sit around the house and waste the money I just put on my face so I gotta go to class. Small things like this to trick your brain works so well. Before this, there was a restaurant I absolutely loved next to campus so if I went to every class for two weeks I would reward myself by going there. Another thing that helps is making plans with people ahead of time. They'll hold you accountable on days that you can't.

Take rest days. Schedule one whole day a week where you don't do school or go to work. It's a day completely off for anything. I use this day to do chores in the morning and then just lay around and do absolutely nothing all afternoon and night. This helps recharge and reduce stimulation and socialization. It gives your brain that little rest it cries for every day. I used to panic so much about this one day because I could be working and making money or studying or doing anything to be productive until I had a week where I couldn't do anything because I broke down completely, mentally and physically. Now I see it as a preservation day. I use this day to recover from everything.

Make your notes pretty. I hate going back and looking at my messy class notes. Everything is scattered and messy and I get frustrated. What I do instead is make a virtual, concise copy that is pretty to me. I'll add little sketches, color, pictures, etc. This helps draw my attention and allows me to study while doing it! Making the second copy forces you to go through the material after a class is over and review the material to decide what is truly important and then organize it all and then rewrite it all. This has been a huge help.

Use class breaks to snack or grab coffee. One thing I have found in many people with high anxiety is that food and drinks really help calm you down. I've found some research suggesting it's because food is a signal that things are safe and therefore makes you more relaxed, though I don't know much about anthropology and psychology fields. I find this really helps to calm me down after I had a very stressful test so that I can be more present for the next class. Gum helps a lot on high anxiety/panic days as well.

Download the notes or slides, especially if posted ahead of time. This way you have access even if you don't have wifi. You can even pull them up in lectures so you don't have to focus on the board the whole time. For my people with autism, this has helped me so much. There are times where you can't focus on the professor and the slides and the sounds and writing, so doing this cuts out having to watch the teacher and the board. Bonus points if you can record during lecture as well so you can revisit parts that you zoned out in or couldn't focus on.

Keep a journal or diary and list your activities, food, weather, etc in it as well as your mood. This can help you find correlations to hack shit. My favorite way of doing this is through the Daylio app (I wrote a post about it here). Like I notice that days when it's rainy, I study and read more and days where I walk more and eat breakfast, I focus better and am happier overall. This information helps so much. If I know it's going to rain tomorrow, I won't try to force myself to study a bunch today and instead save that energy for later. Instead, I'll take care of myself and go for a walk or something. Knowing how you work and why really makes a HUGE difference.

This might just be my autism brain, but finding cool things related to the topic at hand has helped me keep interest in at least a little of the subject, helping me study more. Like I don't like chimaeras (a fish group) BUT for some reason I love fish teeth and these fishes have a very unique tooth set. This at least let's me know something instead of just ignoring and forgetting everything. 20% is better than nothing.

Find a reason to study what you do, even if it's just that you need this class to graduate. Just taking classes for no reason seems like something neurotypical people are able to do. I can't do it. I need a reason and if I can't find one, I just give up. I used to always say it was useless and pointless and didn't understand why it was required. But I realized the reason to take it is because I want a piece of paper that says I traded lots of money and sanity for it. And that reason has to be good enough.

Make study games. Games are more fun than lifeless paper. Matching games, crosswords, coloring pages, whatever you like!

Feel free to add your tips to this post as well!! I always have room for improvement and experimentation, especially for really hard days. I still find myself skipping even online classes some days. No one had all the answers or has everything figured out. This is just an incomplete list of things that have helped me out a bit and made college life a bit easier.

What did you read in September? 💗

the hunger moon, marge piercy

the world’s wife, carol ann duffy

(re-read) the unabridged journals of sylvia plath & her collected poetry

mysteries of small houses, alice notley

gods & mortals: modern poems on classical myths, edited by nina kossman

a strangers mirror, marilyn hacker

aftermath: poems, sandra m. gilbert

someday, i wanna wear a starry crown, jasmine ledesma

incarnadine, mary szybist

stay, illusion, lucie brock-broido

rhapsody in plain yellow, marilyn chin

selected poems ii 1976-1986, margaret atwood

thus were their faces, silvina ocampo

one day less, clarice lispector

& so many more essays & research based pieces but i didn’t bookmark them/have a pdf for them :-( 💛

HEY! STUDENTS LOOKING AT THE AP EXAMS RIGHT NOW!

Crash Course LITERATURE.

Crash Course CHEMISTRY.

Crash Course PSYCHOLOGY.

Crash Course BIOLOGY.

Crash Course ANATOMY/PHYSIOLOGY.

Crash Course WORLD HISTORY. AND WORLD HISTORY II.

Crash Course US HISTORY.

Crash Course BIG HISTORY.

Crash Course US POLITICS/GOV.

Crash Course ECONOMICS.

Crash Course PHYSICS.

AND HERE ARE SOME BLOOPERS FOR YOU TO RELAX TO.

YOU’RE WELCOME.

:/ Black and diasabled lives really don't matter in the USA or any other countries.

http://chng.it/5Nd5TDgFKD Here's is a petition you can sign to get some justice for AJ and his family.

EDIT: GUYS WE'RE ALMOST THERE. KEEP SIGNING

ALSO HERE IS MALIK WILLIAMS'S PETITION ANOTHER DISABLED BLACK MAN MURDERDD BY THE POLICE. SIGN IT TOO

http://chng.it/5KZRQrpxdd

some things i read in january:

although it’s not quite the end of january here is most of what i read this month. various essays, interviews, works of fiction, poetry etc. 

In the Storm of Roses: Selected Poems, Ingeborg Bachmann

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli’s Field

The Seeker & Other Poems, Nelly Sachs

Our Men Do Not Belong To Us, Warsan Shire

On Evil & Suffering in Modern Poetry, Anne Carson

Beloved, Toni Morrison 

Bringing Together, Maxine Kumin

You But for the Body Fell Against, Nathalie Stephens 

Conversation/s with Toni Morrison

 War on a Lunchbreak, Ana Božičević

The Grownup, Gillian Flynn

Wade in the Water, Tracy K. Smith

I Watched You Disappear, Anya Krugovoy Silver

Veils, Hélène Cixous

An Interview with Audre Lorde (Adrienne Rich)

An Interview with Toni Morrison

The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector 

I Can’t Get That Monster Out of My Head, Joan Didion

Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde

Milk and Filth, Carmen Giménez Smith

Sharks in the Rivers & The Carrying, Ada Limón

The Moon is Always Female, Marge Piercy

Silver Water, Amy Bloom

Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart, Alice Walker

The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector

The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch

“Did you really go out of your way to stop me? What about all those other villains? Am I that special to you?”

“Some people have really hard decisions to make, such as what book you’re going to read next, so like. Leave me alone.”

“I believed in you from the start. Remember that when you find yourself doubting, okay?”

“I was never meant to be here, but I carved myself into this. I made it my own.”

“When we get home, I’m burying myself in ten blankets and having a good cry. You gonna join me?”

“Of all the hearts you decide to steal, you choose to take mine.”

study for your future. study to prove others wrong. study to make your parents proud. study to change something. study to reach your goals. study for yourself.

guys bad grades are not a sign of weakness and should never make you feel bad enough to slide into depression. 

bad grades are just reminders for us to learn that content to the point of easily retrieving that information. it is a sign of us not knowing that information well enough to spit it up from our memory.

bad grades should serve as a reminder that there is this bottom that i’ve hit and should use that as the bottom of the pool to push off of and reach the top. break the surface and breathe. don’t let the bad grades drown you.

when we fall to the bottom and succumb, we are not letting ourselves live. we are letting ourselves fall.

that being said, you define a bad grade. a 70 could be bad for person a but be spectacular for person b. so don’t base your definition of a bad grade on other peoples’ expectations/standards/goals . you make your own goal and live for it.

“A thought occurred to me today – so obvious, so always obvious! It was absurd to suddenly comprehend it for the first time – I felt rather giddy, a little hysterical: – There is nothing, nothing that stops me from doing anything except myself… What is to prevent me from just picking up and taking off?”

— Susan Sontag, Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

List of Black Lives Matter and Racial Equality Petitions to sign:

Justice for George Floyd

Justice for George Floyd 2

Justice for George Floyd 3

Charge the Officers Responsible for George Floyd’s Murder 

Charge the Officers Responsible for George Floyd’s Murder 2

Justice For Ahmuad Arbery

Justice For Ahmuad Arbery 2

Justice for Breonna Taylor

Stand with Breonna

Charge Officers Responsible for Breonna Taylor’s Murder

Justice For Tamir Rice

Justice For Joāo Pedro

Justice for Alejandro Vargas Martinez

Justice for Belly Mujinga.

Justice for Rashad Cunningham

Justice For Tony McDade

Justice for Dion Johnson

Justice for Jennifer Jeffley

Justice for Young Uwa

Justice for Elijah Nichols

Justice for Tete Gulley

Justice for Tazne Van Wyk

Justice for Michael Dean

Justice For Amari Boone

Justice for Darrius Stewart

Justice for Shukri Abdi

Justice for Ashton Dickson

Justice For Darrius Stewart

Justice for David McAtee

Justice for Cameron Green

Justice for Crystal Mason

Justice For Zinedine

Justice for Regis Korchinski-Paquet

Justice for Christopher Josey

Justice for Amiya Braxton

Justice For Emerald Black

Justice for Andile Mchunu

Justice for Cameron Green

Justice for Tamla Horsford

Justice for Collins Khosa

Free Siyanda

Reopen Sandra Bland’s Case 

Free Willie Simmons who has served 38 years for a $9 robbery

Get Washington State to Hold Police Officers Accountable for Police Brutality

Arrest Officer Jared Campbell for macing a child 

Demand Jail Time for Dylan Mota and Jacob Robles

Demand Jail Time for All Police who Murder Innocent People

Fire Racist Criminal Michael J Reynolds from the NYPD

Petition for Nationwide Police De-Escalation Training

Petition for Nationwide Police Required Racial Bias Test

stop immigrants being poisoned by ICEBan the use of inhumane rubber bullets

Demand a retrial for Angel Bumpass wrongfully convicted 13 year old with a life sentence

End Police Brutality and Violence Against BIPOC in the USA

Ban the use of rubber bullets for crowd control

Join Campaign Zero

Drop All Charges Against Incarcerated Trafficking Survivor Chrystul Kizer!

Reopen Kendrick Johnson’s Case

Abolish Prison Labour in the USA

Require Dash and Body Cameras for the King County Sheriff’s Office

Donation Links

A thread of Youtuve videos you can stream to donate to BLM

Official George Floyd Memorial Fund

OFFICIAL Gianna Floyd Fund (George Floyd’s child)

Black Lives Matter

We Cant Breathe

43 Bail Funds to Support

Homeless Black Trans women fund

Split a donation between 70+ community bail funds, mutual aid funds, and racial justice organizers

Minnesota Healing Justice Network

Women for Political Change

Spiral Collective

When We All Vote

National List of Bail and Mutual Aid Funds/Organizers/Black Owned Businesses

Venmo names of black trans people that need help

Latino Community on Lake Street

Black Immigrant Collective

Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha

Atlanta Black Owned Business Relief

Al Maa'uun

Remembering Shana Isuroon 

Fundraising for destroyed black owned businesses

Joyce Preschool

Black Table Arts

Northside business support

Du Nord Riot Recovery Fund

Unicorn Riot

Donate to Destiny Harrison & her daughter Dream’s Legacy

Pimento Relief Fund

Southside Harm Reduction

West Broadway Business and Area Coalition

Division of Indian Work

TC Care Collective

Justice for Breonna Taylor

Justice for Jamee

Justice for David McAtee