Do these idiot conservatives not understand that Finnish people usually speak excellent English and can clap back to their silly comments? What the hell.

I totally agree. We need simple, concise communication. And a lot of it. We are getting buried by bullshit.

I don’t know how I feel about this. I had a rough birth, and it probably was one factor for why I didn’t have any other children. I was not prepared for how rough it was, and I wish I had heard more stories in advance. I live in a hippy dippy part of the country and the stories that I hear are all “I gave birth in a…

The incongruity of claiming a bacterial cause while drinking raw milk boggles the mind.

I know! At a certain point isn’t it OK to accept that things are the way they are, love your child, deal with your grief over not having a “perfect” child and move on?

You articulate this so well. What happens to these kids when they grow up? Honestly a lot of this feels like abuse. Emotional if not physical with the painful treatments.

I agree, I feel down a pseudoscience hole when I was struggling with postpartum depression and had a baby who would not sleep. Let me tell you, I was at such a vulnerable place with a new baby, little sleep which impacted my ability to evaluate claims. And there are so many claims out there.

This is so sad. So many people say “what’s the harm? for pseudoscience. This. This is the harm.  That poor woman, and her poor kids.

Such a great article! This is why I am passionately against “woo” pseudoscience. The Woo folks prey on people who are desperate. They use vaguely scientific terms, and numbers with no clear origin to part the desperate with their money. The whole thing is so predatory and unethical.

Me too!

I have that too, I love it so much, felt like she was in the room with me having a conversation, telling me stories.

Thanks. Honestly, the only way I was able to break from them is because I have a good partner, and a loving chosen family of close friends. And the toxicity of my family of origin was impacting me so much that it was bleeding into my other relationships, so I had to be honest and now have no contact with the blood…

What a thought provoking article. Thanks. My best childhood friend and I both had turbulent teen years. Both ended up living independently around age 17, me to move away from my parents to go to school elsewhere, she because her parents moved away from her leaving her to finish school alone in our hometown. Our…

I am a child of the 80s. I remember a joke that kids told in my elementary and middle schools: Why did Michael Jackson go to Kmart? He heard that boy’s pants were half off. As an adult it is sickening, but apparently even school children in small town upper midwest had heard about this.

I have been iced out of my family for telling the truth about the abuse that happened in my childhood. Everyone has branded me the liar/troublemaker/disturbed one. I can’t tell you how painful it is. I totally understand the desire to recant to get back the relationships. There is no money or fame in my family. But…

Especially when gaslighting is involved. If people you love and trust keep telling you that your memories are wrong, again and again. Well, after a while, you start to believe them. When you are beat down (metaphorically or physically) it is increasingly easy to believe that you are the problem.

This is so well put. You can struggle with mental illness, act erratically and still speak the truth. But as soon as a woman is branded “crazy” people stop listening.

Yeah, I’m 40. I’ve heard the song a million times had no idea it was R Kelly until I read an advice column on Slate about a parent not wanting her kid to sing the song because it was R Kelly. I’m lame I know.

Good times!

True! I stepped on a nail recently and got the shot again to prevent tetanus as there was a lot of dirt on the nail...