Joni Edelman

It's #STDAwareness week here at Ravishly. We're kicking it off with this handy chart!

They will 

The Interent is ugly sometimes. And raising kids using it doesn't always make it easier.

In honor of World Bipolar Day, I present a sample stream of consciousness based on my experiences living with this disorder.

So you fed your baby some formula instead of breast milk. His future is not shot. Really. It's not—and The Guilt serves no one.

It doesn’t get any more difficult to insult ourselves, regardless of how old we are. It would be ideal if it got easier to respect ourselves, but it generally doesn’t do that either. Every year you age, and every year the aging you looks at the you of the years before and thinks, I can’t believe I thought I was fat/ugly/etc.

Misogyny is pervasive. And my three boys are living it all.

Suffering is America’s favorite thing to do. We starve ourselves to lose weight, and we’re a success story. We don’t sleep, and we’re just getting SO MUCH DONE. We do a thousand things a day and involve our kids in a thousand activities, because somehow, in some perverted way, that makes us successful.

I am tired of taking medication. I am tired of relying on the manufactured versions of the chemicals and hormones my body could — should? — make for itself.