Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today is Wednesday, and it’s time for another post in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews. If you’d like to participate in the challenge, you can find the list of topics for 2024 here. If you’re interested in reading other people’s responses to this week’s topic, you can do so here.

Something that’s Improved Since I Was a Kid

Life for LGBTQ+ Folks
Sometimes, I wish I could go back to my childhood because my memories of being safe and loved and taken care of cloud the reality of the world and I remember how lovely it was not knowing how harsh life can really be. But I grew up in the 80s and 90s, a time that was very hard for some people, such as those belonging to the LGBTQ+ community (which I do).

I remember growing up and seeing people beaten up in the street for being gay and hearing awful stories of people getting entirely abandoned by their families for coming out; this kind of thing has such an effect on people. I know it affected me. It made me so fearful of my family ‘finding out’ that I was gay that I started to hate myself. I used to wish to be someone else — anyone else — or to not wake up because I was sure my entire family would disown me (they didn’t, but that’s a tale for another time).

My point is that things were much worse for anyone who showed an ounce of difference, whether that be the LGBTQ+ community or even people whose skin didn’t happen to be white ( I can’t comment on what that was like being so white that I’m almost translucent, but I witnessed some atrocious racism against others growing up). These days, although there is still a way to go, things are definitely better. I find that the new generations of ‘Z’ and ‘A’ are growing up to be more accepting of others, which is fantastic.

Mental Health Awareness
Any mention of mental illness when I was growing up was uttered in hushed, disparaging tones (if it was ever spoken about at all). I remember my mother having some spectacular ‘mood swings’ or ‘episodes’ when I was small. I also remember her being extremely sad or, as was often the case, entirely emotionless. When I was old enough, I came to understand that she had manic depression (now known as bipolar disorder).

The awful thing is, back then, she would sometimes eschew any offers of help from doctors because they always seemed to want to lock her up (and, in one instance, they did), and she couldn’t bear the stigma attached to that. She sadly passed 15 years ago, but thankfully, things had improved a lot long before she died, and she was able to live with some relative stability. Today, I struggle with my own issues and have felt shame and worry over what people might say, so there is still some stigma around mental illness, though it is much better than in the 80s and 90s.

The Internet
Lastly, how could I not comment on the interwebs? How far has the internet come since the 1990s? I remember dreaming about having one of those bulky Mac computers, though we could never afford one back then. I used the one at school to explore the net — which took forever compared to now.

By the time I went to college in 2003 to study ICT (Information and Communication Technology), my parents had scraped enough together to buy a PC by the brand ‘Time’, which ran Windows 98 (anyone remember them?). I thought all my Christmases had come at once.

We quickly became (free) dialup customers of AOL by using those free CD roms they used to give away literally everywhere — until we discovered a broadband provider who wouldn’t bankrupt my already pretty poor family.

That was when the internet really opened up, and it was a revelation. To some extent, it still is, but everything in life seems to revolve around an internet connection. How will we ever survive the apocalypse? Do you think that’s what really ended the dinosaurs’ reign — their broadband went down, and they didn’t know how to live without it, so they just… died?

Anyway, that’s quite enough out of me for now.

What about all of you? What do you think has improved since you were kids?

Thank you, as ever, for reading my post this week. It means the world.

Until next time,

George

© 2024 GLT

Categories: life, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

Tags: challenge, internet, LGBTQ, mental health, Wednesday, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge