Tag: Stories

Pride as Sacrifice

In the early hours of June 28, 1969, a woman named Stormé DeLarverie was unjustly handcuffed, arrested, and imprisoned. While she was only one of many people treated that way by law enforcement that night, Stormé’s unjust arrest and public humiliation became a pivotal moment in the fight for gay rights. The events of that night ignited the Stonewall uprising and changed the course of LGBTQIA+ history.

Paradigm Shifts

One week ago I was officially diagnosed with ADHD. It’s been a couple of years of questioning whether I might have ADHD, and about 15 months of actively pursuing a diagnosis (don’t get me started on that whole long process!). During this time I began identifying as ‘ADHD-adjacent’ and found that much of the language for common ADHD experiences, like object impermanence or hyperfocus, were helpful ways to describe what I was experiencing. Those who are close to me probably got sick of hearing me talk about ADHD experiences constantly, and as my housemate put it last week, “we all knew/suspected.” But as soon as the diagnosis became official last week, something strange happened.

When Trauma Protects

Often we treat trauma responses as though they are the problem, and we overlook the actual problem behind them which is the threat to safety that warranted that bodily alertness to danger. My body intuitively being on high alert is not the problem. My bodily tension and my nervous system's alertness to danger are good and healthy instincts that ensure our safety.

Sanctuary

A few months ago, I got to see the Australian premiere of one of my favourite musicals: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the musical). Now there’s so much I could say about why I love this narrative and the depth of insights it offers into so many dimensions of the human experience, from exploring the social model of disability, to the relationship of church and state, to critiquing purity culture (quite literally!), but perhaps the most prevalent theme that stood out to me that night was the concept of sanctuary. This theme of sanctuary runs throughout the entire show and carries a number of meanings, including both the Medieval practice of fugitives claiming ‘sanctuary’ in the Catholic church and also the broader meaning of ‘sanctuary’ as a safe space to be protected from the world’s harms.

4 Ways Christians Burden Queer People: Language Policing (1/4)

Today I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ warning against hypocrisy to the religious leaders of his day in Matthew 23. At one point he says, “They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matt 23:4 NIV). It’s not … Continue reading 4 Ways Christians Burden Queer People: Language Policing (1/4) →

Heavy Burdens: Book Review

Dear readers, It's been a few months! A number of you have been quietly nagging me to do some more writing, and while I can't make any promises for the future, I do hope I'll be in a position to share more of my writing soon. I have a lot of things I'd like to put into words and many feelings I'd like to share, but the truth is, I can't. Not right now. There are a few reasons for this, but most of all I'm just so emotionally depleted.

Learning Family

When I first started this blog about a year ago, one of my main goals was to share stories. By nature, I tend to intellectualise a bit and default to sharing ideas rather than stories, but I’m becoming more and more convinced that there’s a deeper kind of learning that happens through embodied experiences and stories. Some learning is more caught than taught: especially the kind of learning that involves character growth and worldview shifts. So I wanted to share with you a story of how my church family taught me about family.