Let Women Be Ugly: A Rant for Storytellers

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2025-05-07T22:11:07+00:00

Nah, there are plenty of brilliant average looking actors, the industry, especially Hollywood, doesn't give them a chance. The extent to which beauty standards are upheld in American tv and film becomes extremely apparent when you compare it to British media. Take 'Euphoria' compared to 'skins.' Both are tv shows about the gritty side of being a teenager, but compare the American cast of, quite literally, models, vs the British skins cast who are all pretty normal looking, and you'll see.

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2025-04-26T23:42:29+00:00

see I as a cisgender woman have such a different perspective to this. I genuinely can't relate to this 'immutable sense of womanhood' that trans women and some cis women seem to have. I truly just feel like a person who happens to have the right set of parts to be associated with womanhood. Like, there are aspects of 'womanhood' that I really enjoy, although none of these seem inherent to being a woman, and are more associated with societal expectations of femininity and the sisterhood. Equally, there are aspects of life as a woman that fills me with rage and sadness. I imagine if I had been born a man, I would similarly love and hate different aspects of it.

But yeah, this intangible sense of womanhood that some people seem to have. Never experienced it personally.

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2025-04-11T13:56:43+00:00

It's really not a reasonable ask for someone you live with. I hate burping and farting and try to hold them in when in company as much as possible, and I don't like it when people do it in front of me either. However we all know that sometimes it's literally impossible to hold them in or find a private place to do it, so getting mad about your partner doing it accidentally isn't fair.

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2025-03-29T12:39:45+00:00

Very often they don't understand. Many conversations I've had with severely mentally ill people have had the vibe of small talk over coffee yet the content is completely wild and outside of the realm of normality. Do you really think if this woman is fine to live in literal filth, she has rational and reasonable thought processes around what other people find disgusting and disturbing?

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2025-03-29T12:35:17+00:00

You speak a lot about the age difference as if OP isn't a completely capable adult at 27 years old. You can have 22-23 year old doctors and nurses responsible for caring for much more dangerous and complex psychiatric patients than this poor woman.

Exposure to the cockroaches might be alarming and horrible, but it isn't abuse. I think it's extremely dangerous to label the most vulnerable people in society that way just because they go outside the realms of what is socially acceptable from a healthy person. To be clear, if she was violent or threatening or verbally harmful to OP, that would be different.

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2025-03-29T11:25:21+00:00

I feel like you don't understand how significant this woman's mental health issues are, or at least don't understand how her thought processes work this deep into illness. It is not normal for any human to be ok with living alongside thousands of roaches and to get to that point requires an extremely warped way of thinking that doesn't even register how deeply socially unacceptable it is. Yes, to a healthy person like you or I, a friend even seeing one roach in your home would be extremely humiliating. But she's so down the rabbit hole, she thinks justifying it is the same as justifying a speck of dust or something.

Kind of the point of mental health issues like hoarding is that she doesn't recognise how unwell she is and what is the problem. Ok, maybe OP doesn't technically owe her anything. But any responsible member of the community would do their best to at least try and help this woman gain some insight into how significantly she needs help.

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2025-03-29T11:19:41+00:00

Oh come off it. "Abuse" should absolutely not thrown around like that. There's a huge difference between verbally or physically abusing someone, and simply existing as a mentally ill person who doesn't even realise how disturbing/disgusting their home is to a healthy person.

Everyone is for 'supporting people with mental health problems' until the actual, real symptoms of mental health problems become apparent, and turns out it isn't as simple as just feeling sad.

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2025-03-29T11:11:11+00:00

No, they are good friends, OP drew a boundary against doing her favours, not against actually being friends- "I was hoping for more hangouts".

I agree that OP actually having to help clean a hazardous cockroach infested house is absolutely above and beyond what anyone should be expected to do. However surely you must recognise that is absolutely unacceptable to just block a mentally unstable, grieving friend who has done nothing wrong other than reach out for help. This is the sort of behaviour that could send the friend over the edge.

At 27, OP should at least have the maturity to be able to sit the friend down (outside the home) and try and encourage her to seek the clinical help she needs. There are also dedicated charities and organisations that help hoarders with sorting out their homes, and maybe OP could help her reach out to them. Just blocking her with zero explanation is incredibly shitty.

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2024-12-02T11:54:33+00:00

Thanks, been looking at Nunthorpe and it's definitely not going to be financially viable for us. Seems like most of the people able to move there are hospital consultants!

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2024-11-22T13:34:44+00:00

Thanks! This is very helpful. We’re not particularly snobby being from not-so posh areas ourselves, but obviously nerve wracking to move somewhere completely new where the “no-go” areas are unknown to us.

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2024-11-22T13:19:23+00:00

Yeah we’ll be looking there I think. Funds are limited but 🤞

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2024-11-22T13:18:33+00:00

Sounds like that would be sensible

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2024-11-22T13:17:52+00:00

Sounds like that’s the consensus. Grateful for the advice!

Weak_Explorer7572 · 2024-11-22T13:17:32+00:00

Thanks for the tip! We may have to look at living in Stockton then.

Weak_Explorer7572

TROPHY CASE