elizabittybear

defining adulthood one day at a time

[naimly]

Outfit design commission for Alana of her halfling witch Rosie~

[victusinveritas]

[elodieunderglass]

Oh bean

[hauntoblogical]

#what was that bean I wanted to grow on the allotment#an American high protein bean#sounded like a vegan orc bean

The beefy resilient grex?

[elodieunderglass]

It was the Beefy Resilient Grex!!!! Well done

[biokitty]

I had a patient come in the other day because she wanted her IUD replaced. It was at the end of it's life and she loved having her IUD, this was her second one. My MA let me know that the patient was very anxious about getting the IUD replaced, she'd had painful experiences in the past with her other replacements and was dreading this visit for that reason.

I spoke with the patient and she was literally shaking with anxiety. I asked her to describe her prior experiences as well as what she liked about her IUD and what she didn't like. She said that she wished she didn't have to get it replaced so often, so I recommended we place a Mirena instead of just inserting a new Kyleena IUD. She was nervous about this because she didn't want an IUD that was big. I explained that the Mirena and Kyleena are essentially the same size but the Mirena lasts 3 years longer and would likely bridge her to menopause given her age whereas with the Kyleena she'd probably need another replacement to get there. She was okay with trying the Mirena.

I then talked to her about pain control during the procedure as this was what she was most worried about. I asked about her prior experiences and then laid out what I wanted to do to try and improve her experience during this procedure. I told her I planned to give her prescription strength ibuprofen, a heating pad, and a very dense anesthetic block in her cervix to hopefully make it a better experience. If she had had someone to drive her home I would've also given her an ativan because we have studies that show patients who report higher rates of anxiety surrounding a procedure also report higher rates of pain associated with it.

She was down for this plan. I gave her a very dense block, she only felt three small injections and then nothing else. She was shocked when I told her that her old IUD was out and the new one was in. She didn't believe me when I told her it was over.

I don't tell this story because I wanna brag about how amazing of a doctor I am because I'm not. I tell this story because this is the way IUD insertions SHOULD go and I want people to know that IUD insertions do not need to be traumatic. And I want other providers who may insert IUDs to know that a paracervical block should be your standard when it comes to IUD insertions.

When people find out I'm an OBGYN, complete strangers, acquaintances, etc. , the two things they like to tell me immediately are their horrible birth trauma story and their terrible IUD insertion story and I'm trying to at least make the latter one a little less common.

If you place IUDs and aren't doing a cervical block, you need to start. This should be the standard but over 90% of OBGYNs in the US aren't doing them and it's unacceptable. We are traumatizing people and it's entirely avoidable. We are scaring people away from one of the most effective and long lasting forms of birth control in a time when people are losing their ability to end unwanted pregnancies all for no justifiable reason.

"It takes too long:" No it doesn't, that visit took me 20 minutes with a highly anxious patient from start to finish.

"It's not worth it for such a short/small procedure." It's worth it for the patient.

"It's too expensive." You can do a paracervical block with just normal saline. You don't even need lidocaine if you use a generous amount of volume. And if you place Nexplanons I know you stock lidocaine in your office, stop being fucking cheap at the expense of women's pain.

"Patient's don't need it, they'll get over it." I'm telling you they do need it and they aren't getting over it as evidenced by literally everyone wanting to tell me about their terrible IUD insertion experience as soon as they find out I'm an OBGYN.

We should do better. The cervix has nerve endings, stop acting like it doesn't.

Make cervical blocks your standard of care, there's no excuse not to.

[selfhealingmoments]

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

“You can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending.”

— C.S. Lewis

[yellowplumfruit]

[the-faultofdaedalus]

I had a dream that the king and the queen of a small country had a daughter. They needed a son, a first-born son, so in secret, without telling anyone of their child’s gender, they travelled to the nearby woods that were rumoured to house a witch.

They made a deal with that witch. They wanted a son, and they got one. A son, one made out of clay and wood, flexible enough to grow but sturdy enough to withstand its destined path, enchanted to look like a human child. The witch asked for only one thing, and that was for their daughter.

They left the girl readily.

The witch raised her as her own, and called her Thyme. The princess grew up unknowing of her heritage, grew up calling the witch Mama, and the witch did her very best to earn that title.

She was taught magic, and how to forage in the woods, how to build sturdy wooden structures and how to make the most delicious stews. The girl had a good life, and the witch was pleased.

The girl grew into a woman, and learned more and more powerful magics, grew stronger from hauling wood and stones and animals to cook, grew smarter as the witch taught her more.

She learned to deal with the people in the villages nearby, learned how to brew remedies and medicines and how to treat illness and injury, and learned how to tell when someone was lying. 

Every time the pair went into town, the people would remark at just how similar Thyme was to her mother. 

(Thyme does not know who and what she is. She does not know that she was born a princess, that she was sold. She only knows that one night after her mother read her a story about princesses and dragons, her mother had asked her if she ever wanted to be a princess.)

((Thyme only knows that she very quickly answered no. She likes being a witch, thank you very much, she likes the power that comes with it and the way that she can look at things and know their true nature.))

The witch starts preparing the ritual early, starts collecting the necessities in the winter so they can be ready by the fall equinox. Her daughter helps, and does not ask what this is for, just knows that it is important.

The witch looks at Thyme, both their hands raised into the air over a complicated array of plants, tended carefully to grow into a circle, and says, sorry.

Keep reading

[mothric]

executive dysfunction is telling yourself for two and a half hours that you need to shower bc you smell like your workplace and you absolutely Cannot do Anything Else until you shower, doing Any Other Thing before showering is illegal!!! but you still haven’t for some reason??? you’ve just been sitting on your bed in a towel scrolling tumblr for 2+ hours thinking “I need to shower right now immediately” and growing increasingly frustrated that you are still not clean and you haven’t eaten or done your laundry either

[mothric]

ok actually no I’m reblogging this because a) I am clean now (and I smell amazing, thank you), and b) I had a heckin Realize and I wanted to share it with y’all in the hopes it’ll help someone else with a brain like mine.

I figured something out about myself a long time ago– it’s only just now occurred to me that I was in fact solving a problem caused by executive dysfunction, and I haven’t been implementing this solution lately because my brain went “that’s a relatively new term to me and therefore a Different problem that requires a Different solution”. thanks a lot, brain.

anyway, long long ago, before I knew these fancy schmancy Official words, the problem, as I phrased it to myself, was such: 

sometimes I get Stuck. I was doing something, or on my way to doing something, and then… I just. got stuck.

“Stuck” looks like refreshing my feed or dashboard repeatedly. or it looks like staring at a spot on the wall. or chewing my fingernails. or picking at a stubborn sticker. all the while, my brain drifts through various unrelated topics I wouldn’t be able to recall if asked. sometimes I can get Stuck for hours before realizing I am Stuck. sometimes I get so Stuck that I go to bed that way (feeling especially bad for being unproductive) and I have to just reset everything by sleeping.

one day I asked myself, “why is this happening? why am I stuck, right now, at this moment in time?” the answer, as it turns out, was pretty simple: I was trying to make a decision, and I got distracted. I haven’t moved forward because I haven’t answered that one question or made up my mind.

let me rephrase this in terms of executive dysfunction: many people have expressed that it feels like knowing you need to do a thing but not feeling “ready” to do it. many with ADHD may also be familiar with the feeling of needing things to be “just so” before you embark on a task- you need your setup to look a certain way, or you need to set a timer, or have the right music playing, etc.

when I get Stuck it’s often because I got lost somewhere in that setting-up process, and my brain took the opportunity to nyoom off into Distraction Town.

getting myself Unstuck is solved, 95% of the time, by tracing my steps back to the original decision I was trying to make- often something small and inane- and then troubleshooting from there. (out loud! verbal processing is totally punk.) 

“what was I trying to do?” 

“was I trying to decide between two things?” 

(the answer’s usually yes.) 

“what were they?” 

“okay, let’s decide. 

“okay, that’s settled. let’s move on.”

and then I am free as a bird to nyoom in the direction of The Thing I Wanted To Do All Along, in the amazingly disorganized, scattered, yet rapid-fire way that I do many things.

so!!! in the case of my first post, where I hadn’t showered for 2 hours? turns out I had been trying to decide what music to listen to in the shower. (another hack: my chances of getting Stuck while showering decrease by 75% if I have music playing to help me keep track of time.) I couldn’t immediately make up my mind, got lost in thought, got distracted, and drifted. once I stopped and asked- “why am I stuck?”-  then I remembered- “oh yeah! I wanted to listen to music”-  and then decided- “I want to listen to Daft Punk’s Discovery album”- I was finally heckin able to shower. and also eat, and also throw my clothes in the dryer.

and may I add I only zoned out once, during the slow part of “One More Time.” :P

I’m not saying this is a foolproof method. sometimes I don’t have a reason for being stuck, and that’s okay! I’m also not saying this is how every adhd brain works. it’s just how my brain works, and I’m sure there’s at least a few who can relate. for those few, I hope this helps!!

[mothric]

a lot of people are reblogging the original post without the update and leaving frustrated comments and that makes me sad! if I can find ways to hack my brain than so can you! executive dysfunction is a real and frustrating challenge, but don’t buy the lie that there’s no way to work with it or around it!!!

[sometimesyouhavetobebrave]

!!!!

[backuppixiedust]

This sounds really useful and for some reason, I’m also really happy to find out that I’m not the only person who uses music to keep track of time

[butch-ragh-barkrock]

I have a “one sock state of mind” that happens one sock into getting dressed. If the other sock doesn’t follow immediately it’s almost like I go into a trance

[elizabittybear]

Most of my greatest manic depressive episodes have been a result of getting Stuck. When I can't make a move (or an outside actor has changed the initial plan), I tend to get deeply frustrated and fall apart. I've gotten a lot better in the last few years, but I'm still going to keep this close.

[seriousacademic]

How do I dress like a modern witch, but business casual? Pinterest can’t give suggestions that specific…

[deephouseacidbass]

ʜᴀᴘᴘʏ ᴏᴄᴛᴏʙᴇʀ 🕸🕷🍂🥀

[litafficionado]

“If you give children a vocabulary that’s large enough and complex enough to express their emotions and their ideas, you give them access to complex feelings and emotions in themselves. So that if you talk to a teenager and all they can say about how they feel is BAD, and they haven’t got, you know, a larger vocabulary for lonely, abused, insecure, frightened…I mean there’s this huge panoply which…I remember when my daughter was just telling me that she just felt bad, I bought her a thesaurus. I said, “Look up, is it sort of over lonely, or is it insecure…and look up under lonely, you’ll find two hundred words for lonely. Which one?” But what that does is that it makes you feel that there’s this huge complexity of emotions and there are words for all of them. If you want children to feel less frustrated and less disenfranchised and less unable to even feel comfortable with their own emotions, you’ll have to give them a vocabulary that’s as complicated as their inner lives. And one of the things we see in children is this incredibly reduced capacity for reporting their inner lives to the exterior world. One of the things is just teaching them poems, just teaching them to memorize poems in school, they don’t have to interpret them, if they just internalize the language of the poem, the complexity of the emotion in the poems…” -Jorie Graham, in a conversation

[flowerais-deactivated20211031]

you’re not falling behind. you are still young and have a whole life ahead of you. you have enough time to explore things u love and experience your life and make your goals come true and find reasons to live. take things one day at a time and don’t let the fear of falling behind stop you because life isn’t a race.

[real-pcys-deactivated20190118]

hot take: moms need to learn how to listen to and comfort their daughters without making everything about their own traumas

[real-pcys-deactivated20190118]

a classic example

daughter: hey this thing you do bothers me very much and i wish you wouldn’t do it

mom: well my parents abused me and im not even as bad as they were and i had to sit through it so you gotta sit through whatever i do to you too

[daeranilen]

a common variant

mom: well i’m having a really hard time right now and you know that i’m doing my best and that i didn’t mean to hurt you ergo you are in fact the asshole for asking me to consider your feelings and change my behavior during this hard hard time i’m having

[elizabittybear]

OMG

[elizabittybear]

representing femininity

This week is Staff Open Classroom Week, an initiative encouraging staff members of the college to attend a class session on campus in an effort to disrupt the silos we (staff) can get stuck in and to help us engage more fully in the educational mission of the college. I signed up for Media 250: Mediating Gender & Sexuality and the topic for this week was “representing women.” We discussed the ideologies most commonly associated with femininity in our society, the double bind, and policing of women (for female identifying individuals). The conversation was all too timely for me... [Heads up: lady issues & possible TMI to follow.]

I am a woman, the bread winner of my otherwise hetero-normative relationship, ambitiously working on my master’s degree, and currently planning my wedding. FWIW, I am also currently trying to slim down for my wedding, which is a whole other femininity issue, but w/e. All of this all at once. 

But I am also currently undergoing hormone therapy for fertility issues that are already presenting. Sunday/Monday I had tapered off the hormone and was supposed to begin my cycle. (I haven’t had a natural cycle in ten years). After cramping for a week and a half during the treatment, I was enthusiastically looking forward to greeting Aunt Flo. But as the day progressed and the discussion of performative femininity played in a loop in my thoughts, the absence was deafening: was motherhood totally out of the cards for me? 

I’d been passively mulling over the motherhood debate for a while now, thinking that it would ultimately be a choice, not a fixed circumstance. Yeah, I was kinda looking forward to the opportunity, while knowing my history may throw a wrench in my parenting plans, but I still always assumed I’d miraculously be fertile when I needed to be...

Then I thought about my fiance. A man who was anti-marriage and anti-fatherhood for years until the night we met (and both realized we’d eventually be getting married. true story). He had opened his heart to fatherhood. To seeing a human manifestation of our unity and love. He was also aware of my medical history and fertility concerns and so incredibly loving about it. But what if I really couldn’t give him our child?  What if I couldn’t give myself our child?  

I’m already a very career-driven and ambitious woman completely by accident, but if I really was infertile, without thousands of dollars spent on additional treatments to become a mother, what kind of woman would I be? That it very likely isn’t a choice I get to make for myself after all tears me up that much more. 

Yes, I recognize that I am legitimately coming off of a hormone therapy, so my emotions are completely unregulated and I could be worrying unnecessarily, but it still hurts me to my core right now and nothing -not even a pint of Ben 7 Jerry’s- is really helping dull that pain... or the cramping that has persisted for nearly two weeks without a payoff. 

I called my doctor’s office this afternoon to let them know that the treatment didn’t work. I have no idea what her next steps for me will look like. And I have no idea when these cramps will subside or when I’ll get my energy/motivation back. But I do know that I appreciate you reading this and allowing me to vent. 

[elizabittybear]

Life stuff

My body is kinda out of whack right now. Maybe more than usual, but then again it's kinda hard to say either way. Yay hormone therapy.

Anywhooo. I have too much piled on my plate and have gained weight that needs to come off (both aesthetically and for my health), but I haven't had the time to dedicate often enough to exercise and cooking.

I feel like I'm spinning my wheels right now and perhaps I am. The weight lost over the last couple of months was actually kind of a fluke thing and unsustainable. Oh, also, I'm probably insulin resistant and should totally reset my diet (which would help w/ the weight loss obv) but again, I hardly have the time to buy groceries, much less meal prep and the delivery plans I've looked at are out of budget.

Yep, spinning my wheels.

[yournewapartment]

“Trick friends into thinking you have your shit together”

Singlehandedly my favorite life hack compilation, below I’ve included my favorites. Read the whole compilation: http://imgur.com/gallery/5991n

1. Put a bunch of shit in jars

You know when you buy rice, pasta, or grains, they come in perfectly good plastic packaging? Well throw them out, pour the contents into big jars, and put them on display. Voila! Oppan cottage-style.

2. Put a hardcover book on your piece of shit bedside table with a bookmark in it.

You were never going to read Crime and Punishment, but you may as well make it look like you did. If you really want to seal the deal, put a pair of glasses that you haven’t worn since high school on top. They’re back in style now, anyway.

3. Get the biggest bowl in your house and fill it with some fucking lemons.

“Better get this out of the way,” you can say just before you sit down for dinner to make sure everyone has seen it, and then never mention it again. Everyone will assume you have jars of homemade lemon curd in your pantry. But I know the truth.

[samiholloway]

I like this one:

15. Overwhelm your guests by offering them many types of tea.

“Tea? Sure! We’ve just got green, peppermint, chamomile, lady grey, irish breakfast, elderberry, lemon and mandarin, licorice, jasmine, rooibos, cinnamon, or lemongrass.” Just make up the first 10 and end up with the three you actually have in your cupboard; they’ll have forgotten the others by then.

[southernsideofme-deactivated201]

Good dads that will make you smile