Blog 4 Unfiltered TV

Today’s post is on a random thing that happens, just one of so many insane things in my present life.

So for a while I was doing (sort of) mentally okay, but then something happened that really made my head go into some toxic thinking.

Actually, my mind has already off for like six months, but this latest phenomena impeded my daily functioning. Filling the kettle with water? Bad thought. See something on the tv? Bad thought. Want to do something? Can't, bad thought!

Here is what happened: Last weekend I watched too much of a show called House Hunters. It was a current season and it was the 30-minute format episodes. Watching this show (without filtering what episodes go on) for 8+ hours with the people I live with was the best way to avoid pain that weekend: It kept them still.

But watching such a mainstream show and seeing people on tv, seeing men on tv, really messed with my already displaced mind. In order to watch such a people-involved show, you need to have a very strong mental defense. On that day, after a mentally exhausting week, I was just too tired, and didn't have what it took to uphold that defense.

We could’ve watched anything mainstream that day, and it would have had the same effect on me: Messing with my mind, undoing my undoing of patriarchal programming, making me work extra hard not to let pro-male thinking slip into basic everyday tasks, like filling the water kettle. On tv, the men did the heavy lifitng. You can’t hold the heavy kettle full of water as well as a man, it whispers. I answer back to myself, Yes I can, I am literally stronger and can lift more weight than the average man. That is a fact. It tries to sink its claws into you any way it can. You get swept up in comfortable old and familiar messages. These messages lead you to the central vein, the main patriarchal message. It is easy to get swept up in the current. And it is hard, constant, deliberate effort to go against it.

Once in a while, I actually enjoy House Hunters, but I specifically seek out the few lesbian couples. But any of them can end up being toxic to watch. This mental detoxing concept is very difficult to explain, and so against the grain, but hopefully I’ll get better at explaining it.