It’s that time again–time to raise the money needed to keep this site running.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know what a unique beast it is. For the past 13 years, I’ve been relentlessly covering the ongoing backlash against women’s rights; now, I also cover the even scarier attacks on trans rights. I spend my time slogging through the worst that the bigots have to offer, so you don’t have to. And I try to do it with an intact sense of humor.
I bring you this coverage without ads or paywalls, or secret billionaire backers. I rely entirely on donations from you, the readers. Many of you donate on a monthly basis, and I appreciate it enormously. But I get the bulk of my operating budget through these pledge drives; without them, I can’t keep the blog going.
So please click on the button below to make a donation, big o small; you don’t have to have a Paypal account to use it.
You can also give by Venmo at David-Futrelle-1.
I want to thank all of you who support this blog in whatever way you can. It means the world to me.
PS: If you’d like to help this blog in a non-financial way, please help to spread the word about this pledge drive on social media; it can really make a difference.
I will try to be brief.
@David,
Sorry mate, I’m broke at the moment. I might be getting some more hours at work doing book-keeping soon, so I might be able to donate next month.
@Elaine and @Mediocrites
I’m so sorry to hear about all your troubles. If you want them, I offer hugs and my deepest condolences.
Please, Elaine, don’t let the dark thoughts win. I’ve been there, too, although for different reasons, and I know how ‘tempting’ they can be. I’m not sure kneeling for hours will help your knees or chronic pain (Don’t take this the wrong way, please, I mean it semi-humorously) – although if it distracts you away from the dark places, the knees can take the ache. Several of my family members have fertility issues and I know it’s a distressing state. I am grateful for their children, but they wouldn’t have them without IVF and it’s available on the NHS here. I curse the terrible health system you’re forced to deal with that prevents you from getting the help you need. My best wishes tom your mum.
I really want to do something practical to help, because that’s what I do, that’s how I show I care (apparently that’s a neurodivergent thing). I have recently learnt that I can’t fix everything for people, and I know that in this case there is nothing practical I can do, so I’m going to have to resort to the normative practice of hugs and words.
@Surplus,
I am so sorry to hear you’re feeling so alone and isolated, I too have been there. I’ve lived in poverty and struggled to survive. It’s hard and frightening and easy to lash out.
We are not here to be lashed out at. We are not here to take your abuse. You have actively hurt multiple people here, Surplus. You need to reflect on why people are angry with you and try to
We have all tried to help you over the years. I think I’ve been reading WHTM for ten years under various ‘nyms, and for most of that time you’ve vacillated between deep, thoughtful, highly intelligent commentary, and paranoid/delusional rants about things that are minor life irritants. My internet regularly goes out when it rains or gets windy, don’t know why, but it’s probably to do with the shallow depth of the cables and the fact my house is 110 year old terrace built on a marsh.
My landlord just upped my rent by £20, which doesn’t sound like much but it is to me and I’m struggling because I’m also doing less hours at my job. And they dropped an inspection on me on Wednesday, with 24 hours notice. My anxiety brain wants me to believe that they’re trying to find ways to get me out so they can charge more to a new tenant, however, my rational thoughts know that inspections happen every six months and they’ve got no legal grounds to evict me, and I can always challenge them if they try.
To respond to your points:
1. Yeah, we all want life to not be crap, but sometimes it is and we just have to cope with it and carry on
2. No one put you here, because there is no purpose in the universe, it just is. We have to make our own purpose in our lives, our own reason for being. Maybe you should talk to your parent about how you feel and your isolation?
3. I have the same problem; I still try. Words can’t always express the depth of my feeling, and I don’t know how to paint well enough to share them. I wish I was a better artist and knew how to share them in a way that gets across the depth of my feelings.
4. You might not feel others’ struggles are meaningless, but your responses are often cruel or ignorant. And you never apologise when you hurt people, even when people tell you directly that you’ve hurt them. This is not a case of putting your own mask on first, this is a case of you being selfish and thoughtless.
@RJDragon
Thank you for saying what I was feeling, in a more coherent and concise way than I was able to express it to Surplus.
Things have been rough since 2016, but I’m getting by. Mostly because I haven’t been searching for a reason why bad things happen to good people, and as a result finding patterns where there are none.
@Elaine
I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. Please don’t let the intrusive thoughts win.
@Surplus
Even in the Bible, there’s multiple passages that more or less state “bad shit just happens, not saying it’s your fault, not saying it’s the work of the devil, either”. What’s the point of my life? I don’t know, what’s the *point* of my sixteen year old cousin dying en route to the hospital, what’s the point of them having existed in the first place, of so many people growing to care about them if they were going to be cut off so soon?
What about the woman I was dating in 2016, whose daughters lost their mother to a drunk driver that December, and lost their father to depression less than six months later, leaving them orphans?
What of all the children slain in school shootings? Were they put here just to meet a tragic end, blood for the Blood God, tiny skulls for his Skull Throne?
What about all the people who died of Covid? Were they all just put here to become sacrifices to Nurgle? Your question implies that their lives have less value than yours or mine, if we’re here for a purpose but they weren’t.
We’re all trying to find our way in this world, and when you try crowdsourcing answers and people say I don’t know, or make suggestions that have worked for us, you insist they won’t help, frequently with responses that sound like you resent them even responding if they weren’t going to give you the solution you need, which leads to feelings of resentment over the bait-and-switch routine they feel you’ve been giving them, and honestly, people have been snapping more and more frequently because we all have been running on ever-diminishing patience with the ongoing dumpster fire for the past eight years, and have had increasingly less patience for ANYTHING as a result.
That being said, I do want to thank you for having tried to at least keep those conversations on older pages.
@surplus
I can’t solve any of your problems, lord knows my life is a mess, but I can keep you company. I’m a bit flaky, but am happy to direct message, listen about your day, gossip, watch movies online, whatever.
I want to thank everyone who has donated so far. (And don’t feel guilty if you can’t afford it right now.)
@Elaine, I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with so many very difficult things.
Surplus
1.There is no point that you do not find for yourself. You are simply the product of millions of years of evolution, just like everything else alive from a virus to a blue whale. It is rather a religious mindset to assume there is a purpose (most religions etc), it is in no way rational absent a religion.
3.It doesn’t matter that you might sound trite or be redundant, the point in that context is to say something to show you “see” the person and acknowledge what they are going through, because what you say is about acknowedging their pain, in that context being smart or original is irrelevant. You might want to consider other peoples attempts to help you in that way, because ultimately as none of us can find a point to life for you none of us can really help you either, but people have put a lot of effort in to trying to help you, what does that tell you about how they view you? And I know that sounds condescending, it isn’t meant to be, it is meant to remind you that many people here have (from my point of view) genuinely tried to help you, you didn’t get The Answer because there isn’t one, you did get answers that others have found helpful in their time of need.
Mediocrities, Dragon,
Sorry you are going through long hard times.