Feeling

random thoughts, feelings, and reblogs from a lost person, nearly 30 and still just trying to figure out how to be human

[lilcowgirl7-deactivated20210223]

I needed this drag. Let’s change guys and not look back

[user87262893]

working out your brain is a must!!

• hydrate it by drinking lots of water

• eat dark chocolate and blueberries and walnuts and salmon and other foods high in antioxidants!!

• play little brain games on your phone; I like wordconenct! anything that makes you think!

• read books. It’s simple but necessary. Even better - join a book club, or read with a friend, so you can have discussions after. This will improve your reading comprehension.

• do puzzles - it doesnt have to be sudoku, I love playing Beat Saber on the Oculus Rift because it makes my brain have to match colorful patterns to physical movements very quickly!

• learn a new dance - even a tik tok trendy dance. Learning new dance moves are proven to strengthen synapses!!

• go bird watching, or foraging, or anything outdoors that requires you to explore pattern recognition and visual searching

• watch a movie with the intent of analysis - this is best done with a cinephile friend!! talk about tropes and symbolism and character growth

• cross stitch, or sew, or do anything that requires matching nimble hand movements to patterns

• play or learn an instrument!

• develop a consistent sleep schedule (or as close to consistent as you can get!)

• when eating, try to identify the ingredients and flavors you’re perceiving!

I hope this helps :)

[moonlightwaterhealing]

I like how this went from me feeling like “hm why is this attacking me 🤨” at first, but feeling grateful seeing an added guide on a genuine expansion on a “ how to” work out the brain. This genuinely helps a bunch. People find solace in doing activities that get them through life by doing said activities of phone/tv or if that’s all they’ve ever known in their life to get them through things + etc tho. However, this was very impt to point out. Slowly beginning incorporating things to work the brain in ones own time.

[theknightlywolfe]

There was a study that showed sommeliers had lower, or later appearing, instances of dementia. It was because they didn’t just drink wine, they analyzed what they were drinking, looked for specific notes, comparisons to other fruits and wines, took notes, and the process engaged multiple senses as well.

So you can exercise your mind doing every day things you already do if you add a couple extra moments and steps.

[socialmaya]

[orwellsunderpants]

[image description: tweet by Netchimen’s Reverie that reads “Tolkien describing places that are evil: no trees grow there” /end description]

This is doubtless because of his experience of the trenches in the Great War.

Like, this is what things looked like to soldiers who fought in that war (image in black and white of a solitary soldier walking across a muddy wasteland pocked with puddles):

Here’s Delville Wood, the site of a battle in 1916 (sepia image of a wasteland dotted with broken and dead trees):

Here’s an image from the Battle of the Somme, in which Tolkien participated (image of soldiers standing above and inside a trench or earthwork in a grey wasteland; smoke from artillery is on the horizon)

So yeah: no trees = evil was Tolkien’s own direct lived experience. It’s precisely why Mordor and the wastelands around it look like they do in his books.

[brunhiddensmusings]

the plateau of gorgoroth, the heartland of mordor, is described as being scarred by countless pits dug by orcs the true seat of evil is full of foxholes and trenches

[khantoelessar]

There’s a lesson to be learned here.

[purlturtle]

I hope Tolkien would be happy to learn that a hundred years on, trees grow again here:

From The Atlantic.

[nightbringer24]

I think that Tolkien would be very happy to see that.

[igavemylifetospace]

No, don't you dare stop rambling. The more you talk, the more I learn about you. The more I learn about you, the larger my database on you grows.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

I like having a phone but I'm not so sold on having a phone number. people are calling me

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

why r u attempting to use my portable communication device to communicate with me. that's not its function

[traumasurvivors]

what happens after you start wanting to live again? when you're out of the suicidal period, now what? how do you start a future you had no plans for? how do you begin to realize what you're doing with your life?

apologies if youve answered something like this before, tumblr search feature is really bad and i wasn't able to find it

This part is talked about far less than the crisis itself, but it is very real.

When you come out of a suicidal period and start wanting to live again, it can feel disorienting. You look around and realise you stayed alive, but you did not plan for a future. You were focused on surviving the moment, not building a life. That does not mean you failed. It means you did exactly what you needed to do to stay here.

For a while, the goal is not to “figure out your life.”

The goal is to stabilise.

You start small. Smaller than you think you should. You rebuild routines before you rebuild dreams. Eating regularly. Sleeping when you can. Keeping appointments. Letting your nervous system settle after being in survival mode for so long. Wanting to live again does not instantly give you energy or clarity. Those can come later.

It is also very common to grieve at this stage. You might grieve the years you did not plan for. You might grieve the person you thought you would be. You might feel behind everyone else. None of that means you made the wrong choice by staying alive. It means you are waking up after a long period of pain.

You do not have to suddenly know what you are doing with your life. Most people do not, even the ones who look like they do. After crisis, the work is often about curiosity instead of certainty. What feels tolerable. What feels neutral. What feels a tiny bit less heavy. You build a future the same way you rebuild trust. Slowly, with room to change your mind.

You are allowed to build a different life than the one you imagined before. Surviving changes you. Your priorities shift. Your capacity changes. That is not a failure. That is adaptation.

You do not need to have a five year plan.

You do not need to know your purpose.

You do not need to feel grateful or hopeful all the time.

Sometimes the answer to “now what?” is simply that you learn how to live again, one ordinary day at a time.

And honestly? That’s enough right now. It might not feel like it. It might feel like you’re behind when everyone else is moving forward. But you aren’t. We’re all at different places and it’s okay to not know yet.

It’s okay to just live right now. Get familiar with yourself. Try new hobbies. Push yourself to try new things. Figure out who you are now.

Try not to put pressure on yourself. You’ve survived so much and it’s okay to just breathe a little.

When you start feeling ready to look forward instead of just survive, a helpful place to begin is values, not goals.

Goals can feel overwhelming when you have never planned to be here. Values can be softer. They are questions like:

What do I want less of in my life?

What feels safe or grounding?

What do I want my days to feel like, even if I do not know what I want them to look like?

You do not need to pick a career, a purpose, or a grand direction. Sometimes the first step is noticing what does not hurt as much anymore, or what brings a small sense of calm or interest. That curiosity is often the beginning of figuring out what you want in life.

[titsay]

[alwaystiredshark]

More of my art @alwaystiredshark

Support me on: Kofi | Instagram | Youtube

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

"are you gonna take those pills the rest of your life?" you mean my molecules? why surely you wouldn't deprive me of my molecules. they are shaped exactly just so, you see. my molecules

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

do you know how hard someone had to work to make my molecules into their molecule shapes??

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

they invented a new shape of molecule just for me and you want me to what, not absorb it???

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

reblog to remind somebody about their molecules

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

people who shape molecules at their jobs found this post and they're in the notes being happy to be appreciated. go take your fucking molecules

[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

[softness-and-shattering]

Therefore if you cant find another reason for a weird symptom, *keep investigating* especially if your health/functioning is worsening. *something* is wrong you just need to find it.

[krisrisk]

The somatic nervous system is literally an entire system (!) that is built into your body. It is a nervous system that, as far as we currently know, controls all voluntary muscular systems within the body, and the process of voluntary reflex arcs.

That means: every muscle you can move, it controls.

And that is why so many pain disorders are calles “somatic”.

Now “psychosomatic”? That’s a whole new level. Psychosomatic pain very often has one “triger”: Stress.

And a lot of times, the pain people feel is their brain trying to get them to stop being stressed. Similarly to your mum stopping you from running around as a kid so you wouldn’t trip and hurt yourself. (I said similar, not same.)

If you have chronic stress, you will get chronic somatic pain.

The source of the stress is usually not so straight forward. It can be noise. It can be sensory overload. It can be time-stress. It can be “bad food” (your body having problems with foods you’re eating).

This is also thought to be why so many autistic people suffer from chronic pain; it’s somatic. It’s literally a nervous system pulling the handbreak, yelling “Stop!” and holding up a sign.

It’s not the cause for every chronic pain patient. And not every autistic person has it.

But if you are chronically stressed, you will at some point develop chronic somatic pain.

[visorforavisor]

I think disability justice would be easier if abled people understood that being disabled is a mixture of all three of

I can’t do that without negative consequences

I can’t do that unless I have support for it

I can’t do that

and that trying to treat one of these as if it’s another one will get you nowhere.

[iplaywithstring]

can I add 4. I can't do that now even if I can at other times

[curingourhearts]

It can be so heartbreaking to receive a diagnosis for something, even if you were suspecting it. On one hand it's so nice to know what I have because now, I know what's wrong, I can use the tools that are designed for this diagnosis to help myself along but it's also a confirmation of something that I've been denying for years, to myself and the outside world. Something I can't escape anymore and it keeps dawning on me more and more. It's scary, but it is the first step. It is the beginning of this beautiful and exhausting journey that will take forever, but it's something you'll eventually be glad you went on.

[autistichalsin]

It's tax season in the USA and that means it's time for a yearly PSA for fellow USAmericans!

Don't be fooled by bullshit like Turbotax. If you make less than $89,000 a year (I'd say confidently that's 99% of Tumblr), you are entitled to use the IRS free file tool for your taxes. This page from the IRS lists all the software providers they have partnered with to provide this service. I have only used one on the list, but it was as good as or maybe better than Turbotax, and I repeat, free for the federal tax return. You MIGHT still have to pay a fee to file a state tax return, but it should be nominal. If you don't want to do it online, you can also go to the IRS to print out the forms directly and turn them in.

DO NOT let Turbotax trick you out of money. Drop them like a hot potato. This is a "fuck Turbotax" account.

[jrhojrho]

Also, if you made less than $69k last year, you are likely eligible to have volunteers prepare and file your taxes for free.

Check this IRS site to find help near you.

The IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and the Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) programs prepare tax returns for free for qualif

[pcmuumuu]

FreeTaxUSA® - Free Online Tax Filing for Federal Returns

100% free federal tax filing. E-File your tax return directly to the IRS. Prepare federal and state income taxes online. 2025 tax preparatio

[purr-in-ink]

[unwelcome-ozian]

[rosefinchie]

how it all feels lately

[i-am-a-fish]

fuck that year, I need everyone to hit the showers

[i-am-a-fish]

hitting the showers for like, decontamination purposes. you've done nothing wrong, you actually did something amazing making it through this year. which is why we should hit the showers as soon as possible. been a disgusting year

[elldritch-horror]

I am holding your face in my hands so gently when I say this:

You cannot optimise your way out of being human

You can take every supplement, superfood, and nootropic going, and you'll still have days when you're ill, when you're tired, when you make stupid mistakes for no good goddamn reason.

You can read every book on non-violent communication, or gentle parenting, you can go to therapy, and be ever so mindful about the people you fill your time with, and you're still going to experience conflict, and misunderstandings, and grief.

You can plan your schedule 24/7 in carefully calculated 3 minute increments to ensure maximum productivity, but that train will still be late, that project will still run over, you'll somehow still never get around to learning that language, or that instrument, or that sport.

You can do your cardio, and track your macros, you can carb-load, or keto, or whatever the fuck dumbass extreme diet is this week's fountain of youth. You can do crosswords, and sudoku, and keep up a 12-step nightly beauty routine, but you're still going to age. You're still going to live through the gradual dissolution of the self, both physical and mental - and that's if you're lucky.

There is no one right way to live your life. Everyone you look at who is somehow managing to live the life you imagine is perfect for you has sacrificed something important to you, or has resources you don't.

I get it. I do! This mortal coil is wrapped so tight around you that you can't breathe if you stop a moment and let yourself be aware of it. There is a book on the shelf in your local library right now that would change you as a person if you read it, but you never will, because it's one of a million and there just isn't enough time.

You are an animal, just electricity in meat. The product of millions of generations of 'just good enough'. Let yourself be that. Learn to be just good enough. Let yourself lie in a sunbeam like a cat. Let yourself search for small pieces of joy like a magpie. Feel every transcendent and wretched inch of your humanity and howl at the moon like a wolf when there's too much of you to fit inside your skin.

You don't have to be perfect, but please, let yourself be you.