May @epple-benene - Tumblr Blog

imagine hating me and i’m just genuinely failing in life professionally, socially and spiritually

u guys omfg can we try feminism again. can we breathe life back into feminism's wounded and perishing body like OMFG she's dying...

anxietyproblem

nasa

Roman is Ready to Go!

After being assembled, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has passed final tests, and is being prepared to move to our Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where teams will work to prepare it for a launch in early September 2026.

With a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble's, Roman can potentially measure light from a billion galaxies in its lifetime. It will also be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

The observatory is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer who made cosmic vistas readily accessible to all by paving the way for telescopes based in space.

Want to learn more about Roman? Check out our #Roman Space Telescope tag and visit our mission page.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

feldfrog

Imagine your bike has been at the Wright Brother’s repair shop for weeks and you see Orville suddenly whiz over your head in a contraption

butchfagminotaur

synnthamonsugar

The pilot -> astronaut pipeline makes complete sense but is also funny to me. There's a secret second sky and if you get good enough at doing sky you can do space.

epple-benene

the concept is leaving your well paid job for a shitty paid job but it’s so worth it because you’re a fucking astronaut literally my dream job id give anything pls

sharpbutsoft

I was so baffled by how grace would dangle his glasses from his face in project hail mary (as a glasses-wearer) and yeah apparently rg just did that and by the time a real glasses-wearer said “hey man why the fuck are you doing that? no one does that” they’d filmed too many scenes of him doing that to take it out. cinema.

epple-benene

as someone who’s almost legally blind i fear my glasses need to stay on my head 😭 im so interested to see this man’s -0.25 prescription

rainbow-volcano

Introducing new fans to Star Wars: Rebels

explicitlyrics

many on here need to be learning this lesson

steadynightruins

shitpostingkats

I feel like I cannot stress enough that so far this Timothy Zahn trilogy seems to be about what if you were on the moon and you found a guy living in the woods all mountain-man style and then the next thing you know you are y/n in a sold-to-One-Direction fanfic except instead of One Direction it's the homeless guy from the moon. Would that be fucked up or what.

gonna-need-you-to-not

leebrontide

Back in the early 2000s there was a whole movement about listening to your body, and being the expert in your body, and then that just stopped because it turns out doctors do NOT like it when patients say they know something.

kelpforestdwellers

Image description: A screenshot of the symptoms of 'factitious disorder,' from the Mayo Clinic. The symptoms are listed below alongside my discussion of them.

This is the 'condition' that used to be known as Munchausen's.

I am not claiming that nobody ever fakes being sick. But it is vanishingly rare compared to the number of people who ARE sick, but doctors refuse to take it seriously.

Let's take a look at some of these. How can they tell if the medical problems are 'clever and convincing' or just... real, if it's one of the hundreds of conditions that don't show up in a clean cut way on imaging or labs ?

'Deep knowledge of medical terms and diseases' is much more commonly a symptom of being forced to do your own research because doctors refuse to help you figure out what's going on. I have deep knowledge of certain medical terms and diseases. Wish I didn't have to.

'Vague or inconsistent symptoms' - you mean like those that occur in, once again, the many conditions doctors like to ignore and dismiss because clear objective diagnostic measures don't exist yet? Like they did with multiple sclerosis before they invented the MRI?

'Conditions that get worse for no clear reason' - sometimes the reason is pretty clear! Medical neglect! And many conditions worsen for no obvious reason. Do they not understand the concepts of progressive,' 'degenerative', or 'relapsing-remitting'?

'Seeking treatment from many healthcare professionals' - it's almost like if a doctor dismisses your symptoms or refuses treatment you might need to look for another?

'Not wanting healthcare professionals to talk to family or friends' - Many chronically ill people live in abusive situations and/or with people who do not believe they are sick.

'Staying in the hospital a lot' - Because you're sick and no one will provide appropriate treatment outpatient. Because they don't believe you. So it escalates to hospital severity.

'Desire for frequent testing or risky surgeries and procedures' - It's almost like people want to find out what's wrong with them? And get treatment for it even if it has risks?

'Many surgical scars or evidence of many procedures' - Sure yeah let's just demonize people for having had medical care. Alright.

'Having few visitors when in the hospital' - Yeah, definitely if a chronically ill person experiences social isolation or abandonment they must be faking. We definitely don't live in a culture that isolates sick people.

'Arguing with healthcare professionals and staff' - And this is the one that inspired my addition to this post. G-d forbid we know anything about our bodies or advocate for ourselves.

Someone I care about very much was recently 'diagnosed' with this despite massive evidence of life threatening, untreated medical conditions. This diagnosis can kill people.

leebrontide, please pardon me if this was more than you bargained for when you made your post. I've been thinking about this a lot recently and you inspired me to talk about it.

leebrontide

No this is pretty much exactly what I’m talking about.

Oh, but don’t forget that several of these can also come about due to people having deep shame about their health after being repeatedly dismissed, degraded or basically called hysterical for asking for help!

kelpforestdwellers

Absolutely. And I'll add that they even have one for if they DO acknowledge you're sick, but don't like your attitude about it.

Image: Mayo Clinic screenshot, overview of 'somatic symptom disorder.'

"Somatic symptom disorder involves focusing too much on physical symptoms such as pain or tiredness. This focus causes major emotional distress and makes it hard to function. You may or may not have another medical condition that causes these symptoms. But how you think, feel and behave because of the symptoms can be extreme."

"You might often think the worst about your symptoms. You may seek medical care often, searching for a reason for the symptoms, even when other serious conditions have been ruled out. You also might spend so much time and energy focusing on your symptoms that it's hard to function, sometimes leading to more challenges in your life."

So... if you find your symptoms of an actual real diagnosed medical disorder 'too' distressing, seek 'too much' medical care, and want to find out why you're sick, they can just diagnose you with 'Never take this person's medical problems seriously again disorder'.

The 'even when other serious conditions have been ruled out' part is especially absurd. Which other serious conditions? Sure, if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras - rule out the most common possibilities first. But if you're still having symptoms that don't fit your existing diagnoses? Then yeah, you might want to rule out less common causes!

And the idea that it's not the symptoms themselves that cause the problems, just that you spend too much time focusing on them... I've noticed a strange phenomenon in my personal experience where I spend a lot less time and energy focusing on my symptoms when they are treated to the point that they aren't severely debilitating. Idk, maybe that's just me.

And the symptoms list... how do they not hear themselves?

Image: List of symptoms from same Mayo Clinic page.

Symptoms of somatic symptom disorder may include:

Specific symptoms, such as pain or shortness of breath.

General symptoms, such as feeling very tired or weak

Symptoms not related to any medical cause.

Symptoms related to a medical condition but that are more severe than usually expected.

One symptom, many symptoms or symptoms that change over time.

Mild, moderate or severe symptoms.

It's literally... any symptoms? Mild, moderate, severe, general, specific, related or unrelated to a diagnosed medical condition. With the clear implication that if it's not diagnosed yet or if it's unusually severe, it's fake.

We never moved past 'hysteria' or 'hypochondria.' They just realized those terms have become unpopular and dressed it up in cleverer clinical terminology.

paulgadzikowski

Periodic reminder that your doctor is not your boss, your doctor is your paid consultant. All due respect to their education and experience but their job is to enable you to make informed decisions, not to make the decision for you. When they don't supply information you ask for then they're not doing their job.

capricorn-0mnikorn

Louder for the people in the back:

When they don't supply information you ask for then they're not doing their job.

Society™ has, for centuries, framed physicians as the ultimate Authority Figures (to the point where they internalized it, and become authoritarian).

Authoritarians hate being challenged. Especially when the person challenging them is marginalized (women, queers, p.o.c, children, the disabled, the chronically ill ...).

naamahdarling

I hate that I tick so many of these boxes because I've had to advocate for myself and others so hard and do so much health care for my cats and so much research for writing that I KNOW a lot of shit! I shouldn't be punished for curiosity or pushing to understand what the fuck is wrong with me.

God only knows what is in my file. Mostly they seem to respect me but boy howdy do they love to just say things where they think you won't see.

epple-benene

idk Mayo has been the first place to do additional testing and provide me with good no judgement care. Most times the answer is “there’s no cure or treatment” and yeah that sucks but looking at the physiology and psychology of it (as someone who is chronically ill and also a healthcare worker) focusing on all the bad that’s happening because of your symptoms does make them worse that is a real phenomenon! This is why Mayo offers programs like cognitive behavioral therapy, their Pain Rehab program, and their fatigue management programs because believe it or not lifestyle and thought process changes ARE A BIG PART OF HEALING YOURSELF!

I’m not saying holding hands and singing kumbaya about it solves your health issues by no means. but they do want to see you get better… no one goes to school for 10 years with a desire to watch their patients stay sick. No one wants to write “fictitious symptoms” on a patients chart they don’t get joy and whimsy from it. And trust anyone who writes that is not throwing it out left and right there’s usually a reason (and will have consulted with psych). This is fear mongering and putting down the clinically accurate information on a website and organization that fights for the needs of chronically ill people every day!

I feel like i see so many in the chronically ill community undermining their doctors and demanding answers until they get a magic solution but coming to terms with the fact “it is what it is” has helped me enjoy my life so much more than when i was deep diving in a depressive hole, going from doctor to doctor. looking for a nonexistent solution to my auto immune disease and chronic fatigue syndrome. You know your disease is not in your head, so don’t let it take over your head. I def feel like people online need to hear that. self love is real love guys ❤️ mindset changes can be the biggest hurdle to jump but can be the most beneficial.

but whatever that’s my 2 cents to my non existent followers