I had a dream which was not all a dream

Em - they/them - 26 Bisexual - Nonbinary - Chronically Ill

[leebrontide]

Ok so my kid had an ear infection, right? As kids often do.

The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.

I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.

That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."

And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."

And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."

And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.

And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.

Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.

"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.

Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.

May this knowledge find its way to someone else who can use it.

[musefortheages]

This post is super cute and all but like.... This isn't practical advice. I called the AG???? And they got involved over a $200 bill. Maybe because you yourself are a medical practitioner. Not just your knowledge but also your status.

Civics class wouldn't help most people in this case because the AG will not take on all these cases and most people cannot afford an attorney in this instance or more importantly, the hit to their credit.

The issue is not education over the system, it is the system

[leebrontide]

I agree the system is a mess but I think education does matter because people seem not to know that this is actually perfectly routine AG office stuff. I’m not the only person who’s done this- this is just what they do?

Were they going to get into a lawsuit over my $400 bill? No obviously not. But they printed up a letter on fancy letterhead to say to stop and it worked. They followed up with me the next day to be sure, and so ask how much money they had saved me.

They use dinky cases like mine to track habitual misbehavior of large scale companies to build cases they could actually go to court over.

And because people are shocked- I never spoke to the AG of my state directly. He operates mainly by overseeing a whole crew of people. And this is what those people do.

This didn’t happen because I’m special because of my tiny therapy practice.

This happened because this is what the AG office is for.

“The problem is systemic” doesn’t mean “and there’s nothing you can do”.

This is a systemic problem but that doesn’t mean there are no resources to help.

[ktempestbradford]

Thank you for clapping back on this. I'm here to reinforce. Yes, you CAN call your state Attorney General office when an entity is doing something illegal, even if it's "only" for $400. You think they don't care a hospital is doing a crime because it's not a big enough crime?

Then you've been trained well by "The System".

Yes, that System you say can't be fought? Where did you get that idea, huh? Who taught you that "small" acts of illegality don't matter? Who made you think that there's no point in fighting back because it will all come to nothing?

Might it be the same entities that benefit if you believe all that?

Gonna pause and let you ponder.

Never. Ever. EVER.

EVER.

Let companies or corporations or hospitals or organizations or any business big or small get away with screwing you over without a fight. Maybe you personally don't win every fight, but you lose 100% of the time you don't try. You'll win more often than you think you will. I know cuz I've done it.

So have others. Attorneys General offices bring lawsuits against businesses all the time. They do so because citizens contacted them to say "someone is doing a crime" and the crime doers did not stop when told and got into way more trouble than if they'd just stopped. FAFO. The Find Out can't happen if you don't even bother to report the Fucking Around.

On that note, as OP said, please know your rights! And, in a situation where you don't but suspect something is hinky, ask! The people of the internet can help! So can librarians! So can many others. Find out what is and is not okay for them to do. If it's not okay, report them! See something, say something.

Don't let the System win by default.

Fight, damnit!

[themardia]

Additionally, pay attention to State Attorney elections! Here in Minnesota, our AG Keith Ellison has made it a POINT to go after slumlords, has created an entire UNIT in the AG office dedicated to wage theft, and gone after debt relief for people who were conned by those scummy fake universities. And despite MN being a blue state, one of his elections was a fucking NAIL-BITER.

Absolutely fight the system, absolutely go to your AG office if you’re being screwed over, and also pay attention to the people running for AG in the first place.

[sabra-n]

Government of the people, by the people, and for the people only works if the people make it work. That's you! You're the people.

"Don't bother doing anything because nothing will happen" confused cause with effect: it's really "Nothing will happen if you don't bother doing anything." Yeah, I know, it's a travesty that they don't hand you psychic powers when you take your oath as a civil servant, but until we fix that clear defect in our democracy: you're serving the public, too, when you report fuckers like this.

[ktempestbradford]

Not gonna leave this in the tags:

[mxlabradorite]

Suspicion of The System™️ is one of the ways The System™️ perpetuates itself.

If you believe The System™️ is only for Them™️ and not you, it will only ever be so.

Know the rules so you can make them work for you. Or better, how to break them in ways that hurt The System™️ and help you.

[beanytuesday]

what the hell did I just read

[dustbunnyaac]

I think any time anyone has a migraine $2,000 should be directly deposited in their bank account as compensation

[bespangeled]

In the 1960′s Legally a woman couldn’t

Open a bank account or get a credit card without signed permission from her father or hr husband.

Serve on a jury - because it might inconvenience the family not to have the woman at home being her husband’s helpmate.

Obtain any form of birth control without her husband’s permission. You had to be married, and your hub and had to agree to postpone having children.

Get an Ivy League education. Ivy League schools were men’s colleges ntil the 70′s and 80′s. When they opened their doors to women it was agree that women went there for their MRS. Degee.

Experience equality in the workplace: Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women produced a report in 1963 that revealed, among other things, that women earned 59 cents for every dollar that men earned and were kept out of the more lucrative professional positions.

Keep her job if she was pregnant.Until the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978, women were regularly fired from their workplace for being pregnant.

Refuse to have sex with her husband.The mid 70s saw most states recognize marital rape and in 1993 it became criminalized in all 50 states. Nevertheless, marital rape is still often treated differently to other forms of rape in some states even today.

Get a divorce with some degree of ease.Before the No Fault Divorce law in 1969, spouses had to show the faults of the other party, such as adultery, and could easily be overturned by recrimination.

Have a legal abortion in most states.The Roe v. Wade case in 1973 protected a woman’s right to abortion until viability.

Take legal action against workplace sexual harassment. According to The Week, the first time a court recognized office sexual harassment as grounds for legal action was in 1977.

Play college sports Title IX of the  Education Amendments of protects people from discrimination  based on sex in education programs or activities that receive Federal financial  assistance It was nt until this statute that colleges had teams for women’s sports

Apply for men’s Jobs   The EEOC rules that sex-segregated help wanted ads in newspapers are illegal.  This ruling is upheld in 1973 by the Supreme Court, opening the way for women to apply for higher-paying jobs hitherto open only to men.

This is why we needed feminism - this is why we know that feminism works

[galacticdrift]

I just want to reiterate this stuff, because I legit get the feeling there are a lot of younger women for whom it hasn’t really sunk in what it is today’s GOP is actively trying to return to.

Did you go to a good college? Shame on you, you took a college placement that could have gone to a man who deserves and needs it to support or prepare for his wife & children. But if you really must attend college, well, some men like that, you can still get married if you focus on finding the right man.

Got a job? Why? A man could be doing that job. You should be at home caring for a family. You shouldn’t be taking that job away from a man who needs it (see college, above). You definitely don’t have a career – you’ll be pregnant and raising children soon, so no need to worry about promoting you.

This shit was within living memory.  I’M A MILLENIAL and my mother was in the second class that allowed women at an Ivy League school. Men who are alive today either personally remember shit like this or have parents/family who have raised them into thinking this was the way America functioned back in the blissful Good Old Days. There are literally dudes in the GOP old enough to remember when it was like this and yearn for those days to return.

When people talk about resisting conservativism and the GOP, we’re not just talking about whether the wage gap is a myth or not. We’re talking about whether women even have the fundamental right to exist as individuals, to run their own households and compete for jobs and be considered on an equal footing with men in any arena at all in the first place.

[gehayi]

I was a child in the 1960s, a teenager in the 1970s, a young adult in the 1980s. This is what it was like: When I was growing up, it was considered unfortunate if a girl was good at sports. Girls were not allowed in Little League. Girls’ teams didn’t exist in high school, except at all-girls’ high schools. Boys played sports, and girls were the cheerleaders. People used to ask me as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I wanted to be a brain surgeon or the first woman justice on the Supreme Court. Everyone told me it was impossible–those just weren’t realistic goals for a girl–the latter, especially, because you couldn’t trust women to judge fairly and rationally, after all. In the 1960s and 1970s, all women were identified by their marital status, even in arrest reports and obituaries. In elementary school, my science teacher referred to Pierre Curie as DOCTOR Curie and Marie Curie as MRS. Curie…because, as he put it, “she was just his wife.” (Both had doctorates and both were Nobel prize winners, so you would think that both would be accorded respect.) Companies could and did require women to wear dresses and skirts. Failure to do could and did get women fired. And it was legal. It was also legal to fire women for getting married or getting pregnant. The rationale was that a woman who was married or who had a child had no business working; that was what her husband was for. Aetna Insurance, the biggest insurance company in America, fired women for all of the above. A man could rape his wife. Legally. I can remember being twelve years old and reading about legal experts actually debating whether or not a man could actually be said to coerce his wife into having sex. This was a serious debate in 1974. The debate about marital rape came up in my law school, too, in 1984. Could a woman be raped by her husband? The guys all said no–a woman got married, so she was consenting to sex at all times. So I turned it around. I asked them if, since a man had gotten married, that meant that his wife could shove a dildo or a stick or something up his ass any time she wanted to for HER sexual pleasure. (Hey, I thought it was reasonable. If one gender was legally entitled to force sex on the other, then obviously the reverse should also be true.) The male law students didn’t like the idea. Interestingly, they commented that being treated like that would make them feel like a woman. My reaction was, “Thank you for proving my point…” The concept of date rape, when first proposed, was considered laughable. If a woman went out on a date, the argument of legal experts ran, sexual consent was implied. Even more sickening was the fact that in some states–even in the early 1980s–a man could rape his daughter…and it was no worse than a misdemeanor. Women taking self-defense classes in the 1970s and 1980s were frequently described in books and on TV as “cute.” The implication was that it was absurd for a woman to attempt to defend herself, but wasn’t it just adorable for her to try? I was expressly forbidden to take computer classes in junior and senior years of high school–1978-79 and 1979-80–because, as the principal told me, “Only boys have to know that kind of thing. You girls are going to get married, and you won’t use it.” When I was in college–from 1980 to 1984–there were no womens’ studies. The idea hadn’t occurred in many places because the presumption was that there was nothing TO study. My history professor–a man who had a doctorate in history–informed me quite seriously that women had never produced a noted painter, sculptor, composer, architect or scientist because…wait for it…womens’ brains were too small. (He was very surprised when I came up with a list of fifty women gifted in the arts and science, most of whom he had never heard of before.) When Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro as a running mate in 1984, the press hailed it as a disaster. What would happen, they asked fearfully, if Mondale died and Ferraro became president? What if an international crisis arose and she was menstruating? She could push the nuclear button in a fit of PMS! It would be the end of the WORLD!! …No, they WEREN’T kidding. On the surface, things are very different now than they were when I was a child, a teen and a young adult. But I’m afraid that people now do not realize what it was like then. I’ve read a lot of posts from young women who say that they are not feminists. If the only exposure to feminism they have is the work of extremists, I cannot blame them overmuch. I wish that I could tell them what feminism was like when it was new–when the dream of legal equality was just a dream, and hadn’t even begun to come true. When “woman’s work” was a sneer–and an overt putdown. When people tut-tutted over bright and athletic girls with the words, “Really, it’s a shame she’s not a boy.” That lack of feminism wasn’t all men opening doors and picking up checks. A lot of it was an attitude of patronizing contempt that hasn’t entirely died out, but which has become less publicly acceptable. I wish I could make them feel what it was like…when grown men were called “men” and grown women were “girls.”

[drst]

Know your history.

[hedwig-dordt]

So this, too, is what they mean saying “make America great again” and/or the good old days.

[shatterpath]

REBLOG FOREVER.

[toooldforthissh--stuff]

I am 70. I remember all those things. I was a student nurse from 64 to 67 and we were not permitted to “finish” a bed bath on a male or insert a catheter in a male. Seeing male genitals might cause us “harm” or upset our delicate sensibilities. Imagine when we graduated and were “thrown” to the wolves. Imagine if you were a male patient who had to be the first to be “practiced” on by a graduate nurse. (Ha!) At the school I attended no student nurse could be married. Only one school in my city (Atlanta) would even admit married women and Male Nurses weren’t even thought of. What man would want to be a nurse when he could be a Doctor. In all my training I only remember 3 or 4 Women who were Doctor’s and a very few, (less than 5 or 6) female interns or residents (and this was a teaching hospital) and most of those were OB/Gyns and one was a pediatrician.

When I graduated and was going to get married I wanted to go on birth control pills. You needed to be on them for a least one cycle before they were effective. I won’t go into what hoops I had to jump through to get a prescription from my Dr. (a man, natch) but when i went to the drug store to get the prescription filled I ended up having to get my future husband to “accompany” me so the pharmacist “interview” him and see if it was okay with him for me to be on the pill.

Even when we went to get a marriage license I had to get my Father’s signature and we had to go before a Judge because I was not yet 21 (I was 20 and 9 months).

I could go on and on, getting a credit card in MY name, etc., but I will tell you that WE MUST RESIST.

[casper-the-friendly-being-blog]

The number of people I know who romanticize gender inequality is frankly terrifying. A world never existed in which the lives of women were simplified by benevolent men who saw to her every want and need. That was not a thing. A world never existed in which women were all ladies, men were all gentlemen, & everything was some great big cishet fairytale. Feminists aren’t a bunch of upstarts who want to destroy a perfectly wholesome and non-harmful system. Just…look at history. Look at the posts above. We. Must. Resist..

[rivergst-deactivated20191102]

About 8: The State of New York only added No-Fault Divorce as an option in 2010 (!!!)

[systlin]

I want to repeat here. 

This is what they mean, when they say “Old-fashioned values”

When conservatives start waxing lyrical about the ‘good old days’, this is what they mean. They are fully aware how much things blew for women, and they would like to return to that. 

[leyfin]

sobbing and crying at the woman who stole a meth addicted kitten from her dealer and then she and the kitten got clean together

[leyfin]

thats love baby!!

[styro-sometimes]

TUMBLR STORY TIME.

I volunteer for my local shelter and when the weather's good, we do a free vaccine clinic every Friday. Free distemper, free rabies, cats and dogs. We hand out free food from the pet pantry, we give people leashes and collars, we do whatever we can to keep people's animals at home and healthy. Every animal that can stay home and be fed and be vaccinated is an animal that we can keep out of the shelter.

We get all kinds of folks, sometimes we even get backyard breeders but we don't do any judgment, because we want people to come and get their dogs vaccinated, because one parvo case costs $7000+ and the whole year of Parvo vaccines for hundreds of dogs costs less. It's just harm reduction, everything we do is harm reduction.

So anyway, this one day this woman comes up to the vax clinic and she is high as fuckin' hell, just obliterated fucked up, smoking a joint in line, and she has this TINY pibble puppy with her, maaaaybe four weeks old. This thing is so fuckin tiny and wormy and lethargic, and she's like, "Hey I heard I can get her shots." and we're like, oh fuck this puppy is gonna die. Like straight up, we were all like, fuck that dog is gonna die. So we gave her wormer, we gave the first distemper shot, and I put together a whole care package: wormer to take home, puppy milk replacer, puppy wet food, a leash, a harness, some blankets, toys, we gave her instructions on how to get the puppy eating food, and we told her to come back in 3 weeks for the follow up vaccine. And we were all like, well fuck, that puppy's gonna die, goddamnit, that's so fucked up. But you know, we did our best, and we hoped we'd see her again.

And in three weeks, you guys, she showed up. And she was still high, but like, half-high this time. Smoking a cigartte in line but like, could focus, could ask and answer questions. And she'd taught that tiny puppy how to SIT and had her walking on a leash. We found out that it took her three buses to get to the clinic, and she told us all about how she got the puppy eating right, got her stool solid, she was taking her on walks... The puppy looked so good, you guys. I almost cried, it was so big. Really happy puppy. At the end of the visit, we were like, ok, see you in three more weeks for the next distemper.

So three weeks later, she shows up, and she's sober, and she told us, "You know, I was really fucked up the day I bought that puppy, I wasn't sure I was going to live, and I bought that puppy and she was too young, and I didn't know what I was doing but y'all were so nice to me, and you helped me so much, and I knew that I had to give this puppy the best life I could, so I moved back in with my grandma, and I'm getting clean, and I'm on methadone, and I'm going to rehab next week, and when I get back, I'll come back and visit you guys again."

So I just wanna say. Sometimes it's hard to find a reason to get clean for yourself. Sometimes you gotta do it for a little critter that depends on you.

[lastoneout]

[xochihuacoyotl]

so. not to doxx myself (i've talked about this here before though) but i live in Kansas. and my license was just revoked very suddenly and immediately because i'm trans and had changed my gender marker.

so now i cannot legally drive or vote until/unless i let them force me to carry around a card that misgenders me and outs me as trans, because i certainly don't look female anymore.

[xochihuacoyotl]

so hey if you have the means and want to help with any of this, please consider donating to the ACLU of Kansas because they are at least going to try to do something to push back against this, and i'm such a panicky wreck that the only thing i can do to get through my immediate gut reaction to having my license revoked tonight (i cannot stress enough that i received the letter today saying that my license is no longer valid tomorrow) is focus on the fact that there's at least one entity trying to protect me and my fellow trans kansans.

Support the ACLU of Kansas Foundation

[faggotfungus]

More info on what's been happening in Kansas:

Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses

"The legislature did not include a grace period."

[briannyssey]

everything surrounding the id laws that just passed in Kansas is fucking horrible

[briannyssey]

[terramythos]

Hey Bri I hope you don't mind me sharing this on your post but in case anyone reading this is in Kansas or knows trans people in Kansas, Colorado is nearby and considered one of the safest states for trans & queer people. I know relocating is logistically expensive and challenging for many reasons, especially for people in a vulnerable situation, but if it is an option anyone is considering, there is a nonprofit here that may be able to help.

Steps These steps are intended to be a linear process to get you out of there and resettled here. But we get it, you’re a big kid and can do

[thememedaddy]

[idratherhavefreedom]

[bogunicorn]

I turned all that fucking shit off. I can't have Copilot scraping my files because they contain CONFIDENTIAL LEGAL INFO. I'm not handing Microsoft the ability to doxx people, fuck off. I otherwise refuse to use Word. I've also stopped using Google Drive/Docs, and just finally sucked it up and switched to Proton (for mail/storage/docs/spreadsheets - I pay the sub for extra storage and multiple email addresses) and usd Obsidian to actually write in. Proton stuff is less convenient and Obsidian has its flaws, but I'm not worried about them fucking spying on me.

[saywhat-politics]

Minnesota toy shop hit with shock audit by Trump officials after criticizing ICE on TV, owners claim

Minnesota toy shop claims DHS began auditing it after owner criticized ICE on TV

Toy store says it was hit with an audit notice hours after one of its owners said ICE had ‘terrorized’ Minnesota

[writing-relatedactivities]

This is our local toy store, they posted today that they received legal help to comply with the insanely short deadline on the audit. They're a great store and an important part of the community. They've gotten a lot of support (had to shut down online orders because they were overwhelmed) and are directing folks to donate to immigration nonprofits instead.

[rederiswrites]

History will remember you today, Minnesota. Well done.

[leebrontide]

IN NEGATIVE TWENTY DEGREES!!!!!

Please spread this around. Don't let ANYONE lie and say my community is anything but ASTONISHINGLY UNITED in rejection of ICE's behavior. This crosses generations, race lines, party lines, class lines. THAT is how bad ICE is. THAT is how bad we want them gone.

THAT is how loudly we are DEMANDING they leave!

Do you understand what a crowd like this means in a small city like Minneapolis??? In weather that hurts to breathe???

Can you imagine what that takes?

[irishyuri]

a kiss to take with me

[mariacallous]

[perfectlyvalid49]

I want to be very clear on this. You can be out drinking with your friends on Friday night and dead on Sunday because of meningitis. Does that sound a little specific? Guess why I have such a specific scenario in mind.

And getting vaccinated is an easy way to prevent that. There is no medical reason to stop recommending that vaccine. There's no new study that shows that it's unsafe, there's no replacement that's better. This is literally the government making its citizenry less safe for no reason.

[pnglove]

pie pngs ♡

[peniswakt-deactivated20210717]

this may be an Unpopular Opinion (even on tumblr) but like the 8-hour workday is just Too Gotdamn Long

like even sitting in an office for eight hours a day isn’t particularly pleasant (or healthy, as we are beginning to see) but when we’re talking about doing *actual work* for that same amount time it gets pretty fucking brutal

doing literally *anything* (even leisure activities) for eight hours straight tends to be less than enjoyable but when we’re talking about things like construction, landscaping, factory work, and hell, even foodservice and retail, eight hours is a fucking ETERNITY

i might just be a lazy weak-willed bitch but honestly i think i’m not entirely wrong

[tyrannosaurus-rex]

this was being worked towards by leftist labor unions way back in the day after the time of FDRs new deal. people in the 40s and 50s were already starting to realize that we no longer actually needed an 8 hour work day or even a 5 day work week.

even with the comparatively primitive factory tech of the time we were already creating a huge amount of excess production back then and companies were making massive amounts of profit. So it already stood to reason that companies should either let their employees work less and thus each employee could work a shorter shift without lowering the yearly compensation of each employee, or in cases where businesses provide an active service they would shorten the shift but hire more people to cover the necessary operating time. but of course that would mean less money for people at the top so companies fought back hard and we ended up with nixon’s bullshit and so on and now its considered the norm for us to spend the vast majority of our lives doing work that really just amounts to waste. 

[dreamer-of-centipedes]

The IWW realised this and were fighting for it all the way back in the 1930s. This is a take with a lot of historical and theoretical grounding, OP, so you’re standing in good stead.

[aztechnology]

I’d also like to add it’s also been studied and scientifically proven that after 6 hours, we have an extremely noticeable drop in productivity. Sweden saw nothing but benefits from a 6-hour work day, including worker productivity, happiness, and half the amount of sick-leave used when applied to nurses.

https://onlinemasters.ohio.edu/the-six-hour-workday/

[laughterkey]

Just gonna add that the IWW is still kicking and basically anyone who is not an employer can join.

[ralfmaximus]

Whistleblower on Reddit rage-blogs about how the food delivery company he worked for as a developer is ripping customers AND drivers off.

Main post screenshotted here in case it gets yanked; the whole thread is worth a read.

Posted January 2026.

[the-big-mood]

Homeland Security uses Pokémon theme in social media post to highlight apprehensions

The Department of Homeland Security stole a page out of a famous Japanese anime in its latest social media post showing apprehensions.

United States Homeland Security is comparing catching human beings to pokemon. What timeline are we living in?

2 hours ago

[rebel-at-heart713]

Hey Nintendo, you know what would be absolutely hilarious?

[ruinedchildhood]

Link to tweet

[lizluvscupcakes]

So Pokemon CAN’T sue ICE because their employees might get revenge-deported if they do.

What the fuck.

[mxtomituck]

Honestly, I think it’s really, really cowardly of Nintendo to not act on this.

DHS didn’t “use a Pokémon theme”, they explicitly violated the same copyright laws that Nintendo uses to go after people who try to make fun video game projects with their IPs.

Nintendo has no problem suing regular-degular people into poverty for the same thing DHS is doing.

Now, they’re saying they would rather 1) LEAVE THEIR OWN EMPLOYEES IN A PRECARIOUS IMMIGRATION SITUATION, and 2) allow fascists to use their IP for free and without consequences.

Nintendo isn’t protecting any of their employees by doing this. Bending the knee to fascists never works. Nintendo is kicking the can of deportation down the road and plugging their ears while capitulating to Fascism.

[iamatinyowl]

The thing about chronic pain is once you’ve had it for long enough you can’t remember what not being in pain felt like. You only recognize it as ‘not as debilitating as usual’ or ‘very much more fucking debilitating than usual’ so you have no grasp anymore of what it’s like to do things without factoring your pain levels in.

People who aren’t in constant pain think that if you’re having a ‘good pain day’ it means you’re not in pain and should be able do to things. But having a good pain day doesn’t mean you’re not in pain, it means you’re in less than excruciating pain. Maybe your pain is low enough that you can ignore it.

But people who don’t live in pain don’t understand that ignoring it takes energy, and even if it’s low enough that we can ignore it doesn’t mean it’s gone and it doesn’t mean we want to go out and do a bunch of things that will make it so bad it cannot be ignored.