Failing Finals 

I had a dream last night that I’m failing my finals. So, I’m writing this post on how finals can be a stressful time for college students. With a combination of studying for tests, completing assignments, and trying to balance their social lives, it can be overwhelming to try and keep up. This pressure can lead to anxiety and depression and can be difficult to manage during this already hectic season.

Stress and anxiety can lead to a feeling of being overwhelmed, where the student is not sure where to begin studying and feels like they do not have enough time to do everything they need to. The fear of taking a test and the pressure to perform well can be incredibly intimidating, making it difficult for the student to focus and retain the knowledge they have studied. Difficulties in managing time, getting enough sleep, and managing other commitments can add to the stress of school, leading to increased anxiety around test-taking. With all these pressures, it is not hard to see why managing test anxiety can be difficult for college students during finals.

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Test anxiety can be particularly difficult to manage during finals. It is a feeling of fear and dread that can cause physical symptoms such as a racing heart, sweating, or difficulty breathing. This fear can be so intense that it can cause students to freeze up or blank out during the test, leading to a lower grade despite all their studying. It is important for students to try and manage this anxiety to be able to perform their best on their exams. But the pressure of taking a test, coupled with the fear of not performing well, can easily cause someone to spiral. This can lead to a feeling of helplessness and a lack of confidence in the student’s ability to do well.

It’s never easy to try and manage test anxiety, especially for college students who already have a lot on their plate. It can leave them feeling overwhelmed, out of control, and scared that their academic performance will suffer. Furthermore, it is understandable why finals can be an especially daunting time for college students. Not only do they have to balance their studies and social lives, but they are also faced with the immense pressure of performing well on their exams. This can cause a great amount of stress, as students want to get good grades and fulfill the expectations of their professors and parents. Furthermore, there is not much opportunity for a student to make up for any mistakes made during the tests, so doing well can seem even more important.

During finals, students may even feel a sense of guilt or shame if they are not able to get the grade they desire. This pressure can lead to both physical and emotional stress, making it very difficult to focus on the task at hand. It is important for students to take time to relax and practice self-care to stay focused and manage the stress of their finals. Taking time to step away from studying and engaging in activities like yoga, spending time with friends, or taking a break can help students stay on track and feel more motivated to work hard during this already stressful period.

let’s talk about masturbation

One of the biggest ways that going to Christian schools my whole life traumatized me was when it came to me and my sexuality. Being sexual is natural, but we were taught that it was dirty and sinful. I remember sitting in my religion class and being told that masturbation was “sin of the flesh” and that the first person who should be able to explore our bodies should be our future spouse. Let that sink in. We were taught that we did not own our bodies. Our bodies’ erogenous zones were made for not us, but our future husbands. We were so heavily shamed for sex and even masturbation that I felt too guilty about my own sexual assault to tell anyone. I was so deeply indoctrinated that I would throw up after masturbating for years, and didn’t begin to explore my own body until I was 16/17. I wish I could go back in time and argue with the teachers that taught us that we should be ashamed of sexuality. How could they try and gate keep us from our own bodies, when its so natural that children masturbate. In fact, children only stop touching themselves when they are socialized into knowing that it is not okay to do that in public. We all have erogenous zones, so why were we taught we weren’t allowed to touch a certain part of our own bodies?

When talking about sexuality and its intersectionality with disability, we see similar ideas about how disability cancels out the sexual aspect of people. People are surprised to know that disabled individuals engage in sex or own sex toys. The stigma surrounding disability is so negative that anyone who is visibly disabled is seen as a non-sexual human. When I was in group therapy for my disabilities (ASD and Bipolar) we talked about the importance of masturbation as a way to release endorphins if we are spiraling. It was recommended for us to masturbate or have sex if we are feeling especially depressed or dissociative because the dopamine that is released into our brains as a result may help pull us out of the mental space we are drowning in.

I think that masturbation and its benefits should be talked about more, not only as something normal, but also as a tool for mental health. Everyone has erogenous zones, they’re all over our bodies. We should be allowed to learn about them and explore our bodies (privately) without feeling immense guilt and shame. If we are not visibly disabled, we should reframe the way we view disability and sexuality, being disabled shouldn’t serve as a hurdle to being sexual. 

Sexuality and disability

There is a correlation between having a mental disability and being queer, but a lot of homophobes use this narrative to push the idea that queer people are mentally ill. The truth is that people with disabilities are more often ostracized by society, leading them to more often go after alternative lifestyles. I am a great example of this. Because of my solitude, it made me realize that I like men a little bit. On late nights, alone I viewed web comics of guys in cute outfits. I tried to justify it by saying that “I’m not gay, this guy just looks like a girl” over time I had a hyper fixation over my sexuality, and enabled me to critically assess who I am. One day I said “forget it, I’m Bi now” and watched gay porn. My mental disability didn’t make me queer, but it led me to that discovery faster than a neurotypical person would. I would love some dialogue about this phenomenon, and I would like to be proven wrong.

Time Under Capitalism

I feel like I’m constantly chasing time. When my grandmother died last semester, time stopped making sense. I started sleeping during the day and staying up all night. I couldn’t get through my classes without crying, so I just didn’t go. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work — I couldn’t. Everytime I picked up my computer, it felt like I was betraying her somehow, like working meant forgetting. I wasn’t ready. I needed time to process, to grieve. But, much to my dismay, time wouldn’t stop. I turned in every one of my finals late. I scraped by with good grades in all of my classes, in large part due to the kindness of my professors, but I still felt like a failure. Capitalism asks us prioritizes our productivity over our mental health, and I couldn’t do that. 

For a long time, I’ve been doing this thing I call “budgeting” — I force myself to be productive in hard times in case harder times are ahead. You can only ask for so many extensions and excused absences before it becomes a problem. You can only have so many breakdowns before you can’t catch up.  But it shouldn’t be this way. I just want time. I want to take days off without the fear of failure constantly looming overhead. I want to ask for as many extensions as I need without feeling guilty or embarrassed. I want to heal without being questioned or rushed. I want — I need — time.

Courtesy of Milan Fakurian on Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/@fakurian)

Sex With Limited Mobility

Growing up, we saw physically disabled people as the odd ones out. I could take responsibility for viewing disabled people that way, but that was how everybody around me viewed them. I had no chance of “knowing better,” at least in that environment and age. That was the case until I was introduced to this class and had a fair share of friends who were open-minded. These people changed my thinking in both positive and negative ways, but the point that they taught me that people are different; not everyone is going to look and act the same as everybody else, and that is okay. I know the previous statement can come out as a very “duhh” statement for most of yall; however, I didn’t use to think like that. It was more of “you are weird! something is wrong with you.” And of course, like most adolescents who are just discovering sex and how it works, I wondered what sex must have been like for people with spinal cord injuries and other disabilities like that. I asked myself, “Do they feel anything down there?” or questions like, “can women who are paralyzed from the waist down give birth?” Most of these questions came from mostly ignorance and a bit of curiosity. 

Sexuality and Disability: The Missing Discourse of Pleasure by Mitchell Tepper opened my eyes to this issue regarding disabled people and sex. An article like Tepper’s is exactly what people like me missed back in junior high. From reading the article, I learned that sex is more than just borrowing some friction from a partner, and there are more ways to derive sexual pleasure that does not involve the privates. I found it heartbreaking that some disabled individuals give up on their sex lives because they believe that there is no point in trying, “nothing will be the same.” And that is when Mitchell Tepper steps-up and encourages people with SCI that their “sexuality is their responsibility.” These people learned more about the spinal cord-injured bodies and embraced their disability. Evidently, disabled people in wheelchairs tend to have a more difficult time finding a sexual partner than abled individuals; most of this is due to the stigma around disability and sex and partially due to self rejecting before they can even try. Self rejection is a problem that we need to tackle. We (teachers and professors) need to teach about pleasure and sexuality in order to shine a light on this topic of sex and disability and hopefully reduce the stigma and misinformation around disability and sex.

Our strange relationship with the internet.

Sometimes I wish life was as easy as being on the internet, imagine a place where I could just pick apart every aspect of myself and remove those that I hate. It could be like an online marketplace that I scroll through “ooo”ing and “ahhh”ing at every little flaw I came across. It could be like a dating app where I swipe right and left on my best and worst qualities. I think most people would want to do the same, growing up in this current generation has been a rollercoaster, from social media platforms pushing unhealthy and unrealistic material toward young kids to not even being able to feel completely safe within our own rights as humans to not knowing if our home will last long enough. Is there a day in my life when I don’t overthink? Probably not. The internet is such a large haven, even if it’s to some questionable communities, people will usually find their own place online, places to share their interests with others or to just seek community. As I said though, there are questionable things online. It can be too easy to find alarming content, some people online can be taken advantage of so easily, and negative views and influences are able to spread so quickly and widely. With the internet being so powerful, is it becoming too cluttered with negativity and only aimed at financial gain or is it still about its people?

I wonder if I would’ve turned out differently if I wasn’t online so early in my life, it’s possible I wouldn’t feel so pressured to look and act a certain way, I wouldn’t have dealt with the weirdness of certain groups, and I wouldn’t have tainted my mind with things that honestly I had no business involving myself with. It’s not like it’s all bad though, I got to learn about different communities, and made some pretty great friends who even if I don’t talk to them anymore, I had great experiences with them. The internet also allowed me to become comfortable in my sexuality, think about it, I come from a religious family who follows the “not in my backyard” form of things. That basically just means that they’re okay with certain things as long as it’s not in their own home or family. I was in elementary school, crushing on girls while a lot of people around me in my environment and in my family were very much against the idea of gay and queer people, I had no one to talk to and no one to guide me. The internet provided that for me.

Now, yes I do blame the internet for a lot of my weird and cooky phases like the “I desperately need a snapback and big black frame glasses” phase or my “pastel pink and blue” phase but now as I’m a bit older I long for those days. I remember finding so much comfort in coming home from school and immediately going onto Youtube to watch a new video from someone I was obsessed with or just going onto a flash/browser game and probably playing a scuffed version of Flo’s diner. It gave me so much comfort and honestly, it helped me through some of my toughest times. When I was dealing with terrible mental health during all of middle school, I only truly ever felt understood by the posts I would read online and by those who were so open on the internet. I think it allowed me to cope and gave me an outlet when I felt like those closest to me wouldn’t understand. That kind of internet doesn’t seem extremely available anymore though. You have to dig to find spaces that do not become clouded with constant advertising or constant mouthfuls of hateful rhetoric but we can’t deny that those communities still existed before now, there has always been something looming, even if it wasn’t directly in your space.

During my favorite era of the internet, slurs and hateful speech were used openly, as a child I didn’t really go looking for it but when I looked back, I learned of many of these things. Rules were less strict and didn’t exactly prevent this from expanding, now platforms like Youtube have extensive and extremely strict rules, possibly so strict that many times their creators are wrongfully stripped of their channels. These rules are made in order to protect the community of watchers and creators, it also helps prepare those most susceptible, children. I think it’s great for them to protect the children, I sure do wish I had been protected from seeing things as a child but many platforms now go about it the wrong way.

The internet is changing constantly, it seems uncontrollable at this point but continuously I see people online longing for the return of the internet they got to experience when they were younger. Society is full of corporations that aim to only profit not protect the people, and that’s why so many platforms will not prevent from false ideas being spread and from misleading advertising and so many things persist and have a place to grow. As we continue to become more connected with social media and the internet, we must also push for more genuine approaches and for protection. There are so many communities online that deserve their space and platform, some people solely make their living off of the internet, think content creators and SWs. The internet is also home to those who need spaces to open up about what they feel and deal with. The internet has had both a positive and negative effect on society, from the moment of its creation but it doesn’t have to continue that way, it could possibly become a positive environment for people who seek people, information, and content of all forms. It just genuinely needs to be more for the people and instead help foster healthy change. This probably made no sense but trying to understand the internet makes no sense.

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Pexels.com

“Sexuality and Disability”

Learning about sexuality and disability it was interesting to learn about how many myths there are about people with disabilities. People should be able to express themselves One of the sources we examined in class the website “sexuality and disability” was enlightening to learn of how its a website to help young woman with disabilities learn about and ask questions about or involving in their sexuallity. Learning that people with disabilities were never taught about sex education I am really happy that something like this exists. Exploring the platform learning about this is extremely important to stop myths from forming and happening constantly in society. Not only is it harmful for people but completely ignorant. As we progress more as people and as a society I hope we all are more educated in the topic and continue to myths from forming.

A Note to My Partner

“When I met you (thanks Tinder), I had no idea you would become so important to me. You have taught me so many things, and helped me grow immensely in the short amount of time I have known you. And I foresee much more growth to come. Not just with myself, but with us. 

I am so excited and fortunate to have you in my life, and to have the opportunity to get to know all of you. It’s easy to see your wit, and kind heart. Do I even have to mention how physically attractive you are? Ugh, and you have the sweetest and most pure soul. You have shocked my unfamiliar system with your support and care, and especially with your patience. All of those amazing things, and yet there is still more to discover. More characteristics and quirks; little details that make you uniquely who you are. I am so lucky.

You have made me feel more loved in six months than I have felt in years. I am so grateful for you, and everything that you are and do. I can only hope that I make you feel as amazing as you are.”

This note was written over a year ago. My partner and I are about to celebrate our two year anniversary in a few months. I thought posting this note and commentary was fitting for my last blog, as I would not be where I am without all of the love and support he has given me. I have suffered with my mental health severely, especially since starting school this fall. He has continuously lifted me out of the darkness and cheered me on in my times of need (which has been often). I never knew something so pure and extraordinary would come out of a dating app like Tinder.

we are more similar than we think

for as long as we’ve been around, there has been this sort of separation that each of us has instilled in one another. we are human beings first before anything else. yet, we factionalize based on slight differences in shade, geography, or even ideas. why? for, we didn’t choose to be here just like our neighbors to our left and our right – we just are and that’s okay. the problem is, we’ve always been seeking some sort of answer, and everyone claims they have one, but each of us is as clueless as the rest. because I don’t think there is any answer. or one we can even begin to fathom. I’m just happy to be here now, present in this moment – typing on my keyboard, thinking of nothing else but this lingering thought.

it’s bittersweet that the semester is ending and I’m glad to have been able to share my thoughts and collaborate with you all. if you’ve made it this far I want you to know that you’re amazing and I truly, truly, wish you the best in all your endeavors – wherever they may take you.

Unruly Body

I write this on my phone at 10:03 pm I was so excited to do this weeks assignment for nothing more than to share a anecdote about my coming out or to share some sappy poem that I think is rather deep and meaningful (it isn’t but like i can pretend) while others are counting the number of periods i didn’t include but unfortunately I can’t not because i lack the time i’m a quick thinker and could cobble something decent together and for sure not lack material (it’s funny how much there would be to use) but because my mind won’t let me it won’t let me do more than just talking into a void a void with like 9-10 people also talking into it but a void all the same so here it is me unfiltered and slightly tired and really overworked It’s all very topical i guess my last post for unruly bodies sabotaged by my unruly body In this class we learn about bodies in so many different ways wether they are queer bodies pregnant bodies or just all in all over worked bodies and in that i’ve found that we as people have so many things that we put ourselves through to make life easier when in all honesty all it does is make life more varied we talk about what we need and how it will fix things for us like who hasn’t thought that right it’s natural to want more for yourself but at the cost of our own bodies we work to hard or put ourselves through the ringer to conform right like the new year new me people you know the ones with the new year glasses that has the year on them and the noise makes and hats these people say one Dec 31st they will listen to their bodies more eat only when your hungry or understanding when you need time off to relax these same people on jan 1st will be peeling themselves off a carpet if theyre lucky hungover and craving cheese at 7:20 in the morning will they follow that impulse no because they have a shift in 40 min and bills to pay now i’m not shaming them more power to them to have that sorta turn around what i’m saying is your body is complex and the logically we couldn’t possibly give it everything it wants when it wants it but we can do our best to do better for ourselves and our unruly bodies anyways thanks for listening to me ramble on