Bipolar Badass @bipolarcorner - Tumblr Blog

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Trigger tags for this blog will always be tagged as just the content tag. For example if there's a suicide mention I will tag it "suicide", not "tw suicide"/"suicide tw"/etc. I will also tag the post separately with "tw" and "cw". So all together the tags will look something like:

#tw #cw #[insert topic here]

wizardarchetypes

i think avoidance is such a little-recognized ocd compulsion. all the time i talk to people with ocd who are like "i was always having intrusive thoughts about using kitchen knives and harming myself or others but i'm okay now because i just stopped using knives ever 👍 so i'm good now"

and i'm like unfortunately i have bad news.

the-fox-collective

FND is full body disorder. Drop attacks, tremours, gait issues, limb weakness, distonia, tics.

FND is full sensory disorder. Numbness in limbs, feel like limb isnt part of body, visual symptoms such as snow or double vision.

Cognitive disorder. Memory issues, dissociation, focus. It affect brain in entirety.

Speech problem. Physical and cognitive.

Seizures. Dissociative, functional, epileptic. Some caused by FND, some comorbids.

It cause many problems, not comprehensive list.

wheelchairtetris

wheelchair users deserve a minimum of three wheelchairs to meet different needs. like, bare minimum of indoor chair, outdoor chair, and off road chair. chairs that meet different needs for transport, activity, positioning needs, energy levels, etc.

there is not "one chair" that can meet every need. wheelchair users deserve to have multiple chairs that meet specific needs, no matter how complex their seating/positioning needs. we deserve to at least have a backup if our chair breaks that is just as suited to our needs.

wheelchairtetris

wow this blew up

for anyone who doesn't know, wheelchairs are very expensive and insurance will usually only cover one every five years or only cover a new one if your needs have changed significantly. the expense is especially true for anyone who has complex positioning needs (i.e. requiring tilt/recline/elevation in power wheelchairs, general group 3 power wheelchair needs, one arm drive for manual wheelchairs, etc.). as with so many disability related issues, those most impacted by their disability are most at risk of harm when adequate support is out of reach.

this post isn't a joke about how we deserve more for being disabled. this is a very real issue for many wheelchair users, for whom using a wheelchair not suited to their needs can cause very real harm. access to multiple wheelchairs that meet your needs can save lives, and the financial limits placed on disabled people (through insurance, through savings caps, through limited income) prevent that from being our reality!

solusprime987

When most people talk about their ideal, perfect world they talk about money or holidays or buying a new house.

My ideal perfect world would just be having multiple chairs that don't require me to sell my kidneys to afford and a world accessible enough to use them <3

crippled-peeper

“You think every citizen should have access to free and accessible healthcare?”

Wrong!!!

I think that Asylum seekers and Migrant workers and The Undocumented and Everyone Else should get free healthcare too

I love immigration

crippled-peeper

This one made the fascists and the racists really really mad. I get hate mail daily for this post

Imagine getting mad because someone else’s child’s chemotherapy doesn’t cost them 100,000$ .

flowercrowncrip

I don’t know if it’s just me being sensitive, but I feel like wheelchairs and other disability equipment shouldn’t be common centres of small talk. Like, I would massively prefer that people don’t mention my chair unless I bring it up/ it’s urgently relevant.

Even “complements” about my chair feel a bit weird. Unless it’s about something I’ve very clearly chosen for aesthetics (like “I like the stickers on your chair” is okay for me) just don’t mention it please. Even if it’s to say it looks cool and futuristic, it’s just another reminder that people see my wheelchair and disability (things I don’t get a choice in) before they see me and that sucks.

This also extends to other wheelchair users, especially if they don’t use the same kind of CRT powerchair/ otherwise use a wheelchair that isn’t a small manual chair.

musashi

Would it be safe to say that it follows the general rules of complimenting women without being creeps? Like the standard protocol is to only compliment things the woman has control over, ie "your legs are amazing" = freak shit, "I love your hair" = just nice

You mentioned stickers and presumably other mods. I often see wheelchair users with coloured spokes and decorations and stuff and I loooove complimenting them but I don't want to make anyone upset.

Similarly I also have seen some REALLY fun mobility aides (there's a guy with a Segway at my apartment complex and I've asked him about it before) is that the kinda thing that would fall into uncool territory? I'm asking all this genuinely as a person who loves complimenting strangers and wants to hone my technique lol

flowercrowncrip

Speaking for myself I’d say that those are really good rules. Decorations like spoke covers or spoke guards, stickers and decorative patches are all safer territory than the type of mobility aid.

I’d be much more cautious around commenting on “unusual” mobility aids. It might be the first time you’ve seen someone use a Segway or powerchair with modified controls, but that person has probably had that exact same conversation multiple times a week. My powerchair isn’t that unusual and it’s a conversation I have most times I leave the house. And even when people are saying it’s cool or futuristic or technologically impressive it is still a reminder that for most people my wheelchair is the first thing they see when they look at me (and many people don’t look further than that).

It’s also worth bearing in mind that not everyone has a completely positive or neutral relationship with their mobility aid (and that’s okay). And what can look like luxury extras someone has chosen for their chair are often medically necessary features they have had no choice in having. I get a lot of people complement things like my wheelchair’s powered tilt and recline function or my tray mounted controller thinking that they are cool optional extras I’ve chosen to add to my chair to make it more comfy. But for me those things are associated with my health declining and losing the ability to sit upright unsupported and use a standard controller. Those losses take time for me to process and I often don’t appreciate them being pointed out repeatedly when I’m just trying to go to the supermarket or have a nice day out somewhere, even if someone means well by it.

disabled-bug

Idk what person with chronic illness needs to hear this, but you can do things to make your responsibilities nicer for yourself. You can get an ice cream after a blood draw. You can sit down for tv time after an injection. You can pick out the bandaids that have cartoon characters on them instead of the plain ones. Being an adult doesn’t stop you from benefiting from encouragement. Go for whatever fits with your routine/abilities/budget and makes life a little better. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down etc etc

phleb0tomist

are you sensitive to the heat? heatwave tips ahead from your resident bedbound blogger. obviously drink water and get fresh air yadda yadda we already know that. but ALSO:

wear light colours, they basically bounce light n heat away whereas dark clothes absorb heat. also wear looser clothes

apply cold packs on the back of the neck, wrists, and ur stomach which is where your biggest artery is. if you cool the blood you cool the body

try positions where each limb is in minimal contact with other limbs if that makes sense. think starfish, open palms, spacious. you want to minmise the amount of skin touching other skin. ur own body tends to warm itself up whether you want it to or not

check more frequently for pressure sores if youre a wheelchair user, couchbound, or bedbound. sweat is a risk factor for pressure injuries

eat foods with high water content

splash water on the back of the neck and wrists

if the air temperature is above 35c /95f then a fan will NOT help you. try other cooling measures

if it’s humid like if you’re in the uk like me then try a dehumidifier. the humidity is part of what makes uk heat dangerous even when the temperature isn’t that high

phleb0tomist

i stand corrected about fans, turns out they may still help even above 35/95 degrees!

bipolarcorner

You can also hold a cold pack to your elbow ditches

They make wearable fans and that paired with loose clothing can be so nice

So are folding fans if that's more your speed

I live somewhere dry and spritzing with cool water in a spray bottle is refreshing. It's like sweat in that the evaporation cools you off but also the water being cool feels great. I'll keep a spray bottle in the fridge at home or in a cooler if I'm out at the park. Note: this wont work as well in humid environments where sweat doesn't evaporate easily

Lots of meds can effect your body's ability to cope with heat. If you're not sure about it, or if you've started new meds since the last warm season, you might want to look into that either online or calling your local pharmacy/prescriber

Cried a bunch and the thing I'm most upset about is that I'm going to be less hydrated and more tired tomorrow. I love when I cry about feeling like shit, including chronic fatigue, and knowing that crying about it is actively making it worse but I can't stop because feeling your feelings is supposedly important *eye roll* I have a blood draw in the morning and now I gotta rehydrate damn it

#bodies are dumb and I hate it #I just want to not feel like shit #I just want a little break #I don't remember what it's like to feel rested #I don't want to be like this #personal #tw #cw #negative

kosmogrl

never kill yourself. your next mango is closer than you think.

no joke this is the best thing anyone has ever said to me. you just changed my life

sailermoon

having unwashed hair will have you believing shit like i can’t be saved

birdsareblooming

succubusboyfriend

practicing self care less out of self love and more for the sheer logical reasoning of it’d be kinda stupid of me to expect myself to be able to function without proper maintenance

succubusboyfriend

“oh i don’t deserve rest and relaxation, i haven’t done enough, i haven’t earned it” and my car’s breaks don’t deserve break fluid because they aren’t breaking well enough to earn it. that’s what you sound like!!!!!

oscarwildeboytoy-deactivated201

Hey, unpopular opinion, apparently. But people don’t just “have pain for no reason” doctors say this all the time (especially to women and chronically ill people) and the truth is, Thats literally not possible. Even if your pains are psychosomatic (a word I hesitate to even use because of the way its used so often) there is a reason you are having those pains whether its mental illness, abuse, etc. If your doctor consistently tells you that “well some people just have pain for no reason” get a new doctor. That’s a doctor who is not going to give a shit what your actual symptoms or experiences are.

kamorth

I just wanna add to clarify the psychosomatic thing.

That word DOES NOT MEAN you’re making it up. It doesn’t mean you’re imagining the symptom. What it means is that the symptom ISN’T DIRECTLY CAUSED BY ANY OF THE THINGS THAT WOULD NORMALLY CAUSE IT.

I fought to get a PCOS diagnosis for 2 and a half years. For the ENTIRE time I was fighting, I was dealing with 3 cysts that were not going away by themselves and eventually required surgery to remove. At one point close to the end of the battle, I suddenly went blind. I was visiting my parents and was standing on the veranda looking out over the tree we had planted in memory of my dog and suddenly I got one of the shooting pains that I was quite frankly used to at that point and my vision started to go dark. It was like the sun was setting while being completely hidden behind storm clouds but it was 2pm in the middle of Summer on a clear day. Within about 30 seconds I couldn’t see ANYTHING. I was 27 years old and I was screaming for my mother.

My mum raced me to her doctor (he was a 15 minute drive away as opposed to 45 minutes to the nearest hospital) and he quickly worked out that there was nothing wrong with my eyes and what had happened was totally unrelated to them. Then he said it was psychosomatic and I freaked out, yelling that I was NOT making this up and I definitely wasn’t imagining it. Very quickly he calmed me down and said he believed me and I had misunderstood. He explained that whatever was going on with my abdominal pains (he suggested PCOS which I hadn’t even heard of at that point) had been ignored for so long that my body was starting to do things other than the normal pain response to try to draw my attention to the problem. My sight going was my body basically jumping around in front of me going “HEY ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME HELLLOOOOOOO??????”

He gave me some prescription strength painkillers and my sight started to come back as soon as they started to kick in. About 45 minutes after it started I could see well enough to walk around without help and within a day and a half I was back to normal. On top of that I finally had a scan booked to figure out what the hell was causing all the pain.

Psychosomatic symptoms are NOT imagined or fabricated or happening for “no reason”. Experiencing them DOES NOT make you a liar. It makes you someone who has been battling with something serious for so long that your own body has started to get impatient with you.

oscarwildeboytoy-deactivated201

I completely agree. Thank you for sharing this.

antique-scarecrow

Psychosomatic symptoms are literally your body flipping random alarm switches just to get any alarm blaring because you’ve been ignoring the regular ones

charl0ttan

truly i think im the way i am out of a benevolent spite

charl0ttan

hope is a weapon

wholeheartedsuggestions

there aren’t many “wrong ways” to do life. go easy on yourself.

toastbutteregg

gotterhag

This is an EXTREMELY blessed post! And accurate! When I first moved out I was so excited for my new place I slept on the floor and had my tv there and that was it. Loved it. You grow and you build and you gain and you lose. I lost that place and everything in it. Now I have a new place with new things and it’s very much home.

dexdefyingstunts

In the future, there is a small, quiet room that is just yours, where you are safe and you are free. In that room your shoulders will finally start to come down from around your ears. Nobody can come into that room unless you let them. In that clean quiet place, you will work and you will study. You will love and you will heal.

-Captain Awkward, “Should I Move Away From My Abusive Family?”