Here and Hanging On

I have a chronic case of Dumb Bitch Disease 23, they/them

[dungeonmastersconsortium]

I'm very taken with this metal vocalist that has a parrot who wants to participate

original by reebz_uk

[mikkeneko]

[willgrahamscock]

something that made me sit down and stare at my wall for an hour

[just-your-average-cryptid]

point of reference from an able-bodied person: standing in one place for an hour kinda makes my feet/legs hurt. longer than that is when it really hits but it takes an hour to get there.

if you are in pain within minutes or seconds, that is not normal. that is a Symptom. poke your doctor into finding out what it is or connect with disabled and chronic pain groups.

if you are in extreme pain, not just "ugh my feet ache" pain but "i am going to pass out" pain, that is not normal. that is a Symptom. poke your doctor into finding out what it is or connect with disabled and chronic pain groups.

I know some people try to rationalize as "well it's not excruciating compared to my baseline" and I am gently reminding you that the baseline is zero. zero is normal. this ^ is not. be kind to yourself.

[junequeer]

AN HOUR???????

[just-your-average-cryptid]

"walking for 15 minutes makes the bones in my calves hurt for 2 hours"

buddy... that's the Symptoms...

[alpaca-clouds]

... Wait, what?

I mean, I can walk just fine, but standing in one spot for like 15 to 20 minutes will leave me in pain for days.

That is... not normal?

[willgrahamscock]

I love how everyone is still asking hey so my symptoms are actually symptoms? Even if I feel only x amount of pain after x amount of time? BUDDY THE NORM IS FEELING MILD DISCOMFORT AT MOST AFTER STANDING FOR AN HOUR AND THEY RECOVER WITHIN A FEW HOURS TO A DAY

[geekyoldlady]

So, I talked to my doctor and she suggested weight loss drugs

So that didn’t help

What do I do now?

[findingfeather]

I mean ideally get a new doctor.

Meanwhile document the actual effect the pain/etc has on your life. Document how it impacts your ability to cook; your ability to clean; your ability to clean yourself; your ability to sleep; your ability to work; document all attempts to be more active and how the pain interferes with them. If you have to do something other than just go stand in the kitchen for ~1hr to cook a meal, that's something to write down; if you have to choose not to have a shower because it'll hurt, write that down. If the pain prevents you from going for a walk, write that down.

Every single time you make a decision about what you're doing based on the pain, you document that; every time you have to endure the pain for a necessary activity which then impacts what ELSE you can do, write that down too, with a direct connection.

(Warning: this will probably be depressing as all fuck and you will probably hate it. You are almost certainly ignoring the impact of pain on you way more than you think you are, and having to face it will feel bad in the short run. Very bad.)

And then you bring it either to your new doctor or if you MUST, to your current doctor, and you say: this is how the pain currently affects my quality of life. This is what I would be doing if I weren't prevented from doing it because of the pain.

Say that you would like to find the reason for this pain and you would like them to order relevant diagnostic tests. If they refuse, or hem and haw, ask them to document clearly in your records that you requested this and both that they refuse and their reasons for refusing.

If you must deal with the same doctor, document the concerns you have with the weight-loss drugs, and ask your doctor to be explicit about why she thinks that these risks are worth something that does not directly address your actual concerns. Ask why this is their first line treatment for the rest of what you've described, and why they are more concerned with pushing an overprescribed treatment than actually investigating the cause of your pain and addressing it appropriately based on an evidence-based diagnosis.

This isn't a guarantee, but it's part of the process.

[findingfeather]

…. Also yes, I AM serious that you should be able to be in the kitchen for about an hour, on your feet and doing Cooking Things, without pain and without needing Recovery Time, in order to make yourself dinner and if you CAN’T - if that long results in Pain or Dramatic Fatigue or extended recovery - that is a Symptom. A big symptom.

[gregorvorbarra]

A while ago, I started keeping a pain journal to log my chronic pain and other things, so that I could take it to my doctor’s appointments. I go into detail about it in this post if anyone is interested. My doctor is fantastic and actually listened to me and bothered to investigate my pain, but the pain journal was still a huge help in communicating my health issues clearly. I highly recommend logging your pain (and anything else you feel might be relevant).

Side note: I found the pain journal experience to be really enjoyable because I got to pull out my colorful pens and my cute stationery supplies and make something pretty every day. I decorated my notebook with stickers. I did have to face the way my pain was impacting me, but I got to do it in a fun and colorful way. It helped a lot.

[vaspider]

When I stopped being able to stand up without pain, it was because there was a slow-growing tumor crushing my spinal cord.

Don't ignore your fucking symptoms.

[woolwildflower]

Leafling Bandana

Find the pattern here

This designer is delightfully fairycore, and should definitely be checked out for whimsy

[quasi-normalcy]

So...how much of the bad discourse surrounding Steven Universe is just because people were really hoping that the Gems would beat up Andy DeMayo in "Gem Harvest"?

[quasi-normalcy]

I was astonished to learn that there was controversy around this episode, because I felt like it was just kind of a normal children's cartoon about getting along with difficult relatives; and then I looked it up and learned that it had the extremely inauspicious timing of airing right after Trump's 2016 victory, and, yeah, okay, I can understand why a children's fantasy about reconciling with your obnoxious conservative relatives and getting them to accept your alternate family structure would play rather poorly at the time.

[quasi-normalcy]

I think that Rebecca Sugar probably assumed, like most of the world that wasn't my specific flavour of extremely online in 2016, that Clinton would crush Trump and that this episode would maybe help to smooth over divisions; but of course what ended up happening is that an episode about how you should be empathetic towards your bigoted relatives ended up airing just as your bigoted relatives were going around victoriously hate-criming people in the street.

[quasi-normalcy]

Watching it now, though, it ends up feeling wistful more than anything. Like, yeah, sure, it doesn't work like that, and we all know that now...But wouldn't it be nice if it did? It feels like a pleasant dream.

[livingauthorssociety]

Steven Universe is fundamentally a power fantasy—but the fantasy is being able to get through to people and heal things. The power is love instead of strength.

[lilly-kittyeyes]

"Like, yeah, sure, it doesn't work like that, and we all know that now...But wouldn't it be nice if it did?" Yeah....

[sunflowers-and-scales]

“this character did not act in the most objectively logical way possible!” is not ! actually valid literary criticism

[sunflowers-and-scales]

i have trust that the media literacy enjoyers will find this one idk

[acceptableduraz]

[apatheticfluorescence]

some hyper famous artists like Van Gogh transcend overratedness and become underrated because they're so normalized. Like I'll look at a van Gogh and I'm like wait this really is amazing you guys don't get it

[headspace-hotel]

Shakespeare is like this

[insufferablepirate]

Every time I see a Van Gogh that’s not one of his better known pieces it absolutely blows me away

Have you seen this shit my liege? smh unreal

[theblackparadeisdead]

That post I made over new years had people at my THROAT for saying I only buy real leather. Sorry I really do think that wearing textured plastic that will fall apart in under 5 years and go on to irreparably poison the environment is the worse option here.

[theblackparadeisdead]

if you look into the mushroom leather or apple leather or cactus leather or any other plant-based alternatives, they're all still about 50-75% polyurethane. They'll still fall apart fast and then they wont decompose except into microplastics. They're just not sustainable. I thrift pretty much all my leather garments and some of them are 30 years old and still hold up like they're new. Like there's no contest.

[cyborg-squirrel]

Also as a welder, leather gear is like the only safe option we have for PPE. Like coated cotton welding jackets exist, but they fall apart in less than 5 months and still can lead to injury (source: my broke ass had to survive 3 semesters with one and I got burned several fucking times). The only other option for gloves is kevlar, but that's also plastic and insanely fucking expensive (and apparently most on the market still have leather in them!). Most other synthetic fibers would be really fucking dangerous to wear in this field too cause that shit will melt to your fucking skin with enough heat.

Leather is kind of unavoidable in this field.

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

when we were kids my godsister bemoaned the fact that her future dating pool was limited to around 1% of the world’s population because she’d need to marry someone else with red hair to make sure their kids were redheads and I was like. girl that’s insane. and she encouraged me to find a red-haired husband since my dad being a redhead means I’m heterozygous for it and our children would be homozygous.

anyway she’s got a redhead boyfriend now and I think they’re engaged so I guess she’s staying true to her mission to increase the world’s red haired population.

[drarry]

Imagine being the gays at a pride event in 2004 living their lives when someone grabs the microphone and announces to the room that Ronald Reagan was pronounced dead. Can you even imagine the hype, the celebration, the pure elation

[drarry]

This is the Pride Month that It will happen. I feel it in my gay bones

[broken-horn-of-equius]

[unconventiononthelawofthesea]

men and women are literally the same but unfortunately everyone's crazy so we are forced to pretend they're different in some ways.

[itsabear]

Humans do have a surprisingly small amount of sexual dimorphism. On average more difference can be explained by culture more than biology. The horrible youth diet culture has a huge impact on height. Most people can train to lift a surprisingly large amount of weight, it's only at the upper competative level that differences become important... And even then ease of getting funding is significant.

[thegenderienvy]

I genuinely think this is most evident in the fact that it is SO easy for us to change sex. Like our bodies are similar enough that a perisex male can become female and a perisex female can become male just by using HRT!

[dragon-in-a-fez]

when a government bans young people from using social media, and then categorises messenger apps like Signal and WhatsApp as "social media", they are pushing those young people toward using text messages, a fundamentally insecure form of communication. texts are not encrypted in transit and can be read by both the sender's mobile carrier and the recipient's. that also means they can be leaked in data breaches, subpoenaed, or just handed over willingly to law enforcement at the carriers' discretion.

hmm. I wonder why governments might want this

[dragon-in-a-fez]

this is not JUST about destroying kids' privacy by the way, although that is bad on its own! but think about it: if you can push everyone to spend their formative social years communicating through an insecure protocol, most of them are not going to do the work of moving to a secure one the moment they're legally allowed! banning everyone under 16 from Signal and WhatsApp creates a whole population of people more likely to continue, for the rest of their lives, to communicate using a tool the government can access at the drop of a hat

[systlin]

In 38 years of life I have learned 1 thing;

If anyone is ever training you to replace them in a position and tells you 'its an easy job I don't do much' what this means is that you are about to spend six months to a year catching up on all the stuff they didn't do and sorting out the stuff they did poorly.

In related news I finally managed to finish un fucking my predecessor's lack of a filing system.

[hungrymilliek]

And if they start a sentence with "You're not supposed to do it this way but...", you're about to learn some shit to make OSHA go:

[systlin]

My job is literally in safety and emergency management and that phrase makes me break out in hives. Which is to say that you are entirely one million percent correct.

[bisquid]

Alternatively by 'an easy job where they don't do much' what they mean is that they've got so much unwritten knowledge and experience stored up in their heads that they *genuinely believe* it's an easy low effort job and then leave you with a learning curve like a rocket launch and frantically spawning spreadsheets of all the shit they know off by heart

[moghedien]

I feel like I need to share this because idk if Europeans are familiar with the presence of Aldi in the US, but at least especially in my area they’ve been growing a lot recently. Like Aldi bought out some local failing grocery chains where I live (Louisiana) and have opened Aldis in all these somewhat rural communities and small towns, which for the record I’m fine with

But as a result of this they are advertising a lot more in my area and also in many cases, the people in these areas have never been confronted with Aldi or any European grocery store. So the ads that Aldi is pushing out to its new US customer base feature a cowboy shopping at Aldi who is explaining to new Aldi customers how Aldi works. Like this cowboy is explaining you gotta put a quarter in the shopping cart and why there are very little name brands. A cowboy is how they want to reach their American customer base. They gave us a cowboy

[moghedien]

Here he is, the Aldi Cowboy

[a-book-of-creatures]

Stop saying “like” as a space filler in sentences. Use “reblog” instead.

[sourdough-seal]

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

[orbitalmirror]

"how did you get into writing" girl i've been tormented by the visions since i was eight years old

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[anistarrose]

if you are a parent, or may become one, or you are otherwise likely to arrive in the situation of caring for a child while they eat, promise me this: if a child doesn't like a certain food or food group, you will ask them WHY. and specifically, you will pay attention to either confirming or ruling out "it makes my mouth itch" or "it makes my stomach hurt," both of which are medically important info that children may not provide unprompted. which i know because this PSA has been brought to you by "i spent my entire childhood and much of my early teens eating peas and lentils while wondering why everyone else liked the Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation so much, like were they a bunch of legume masochists or something, before i finally realized that Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation was in fact a sinister demon appearing only to me, and her true demonic name was: Legume Allergy"