A Little Bit of Everything

Just a staff psychiatrist with a volunteer firefighting habit, rambling about mental health, military medicine, and ed recovery while navigating this messy thing we call life.

[moveslikekeithrichards]

there is no greater joy on this earth than Making Lists, Categorizing, & Sorting

[flying-lemons]

oh do I have the game for you

[dancing-crow]

I could . not. put. this down for 48 hours - stayed up too late, had weird dreams about it, woke up early, and played it while I was supposed to be doing other things. the last several dozen items took a lot of googling, which I do not even begrudge it.

and then. My partner started it. And the SAME THING happened to him.

surprisingly compelling. start when you have free time. like, yanno, a snow day.

[foone]

oh my god, if you are the kind of person who gets sucked into logic puzzles, do not click that link if you have to do anything/go to sleep in the next couple hours

[psychicbouquetblaze-stuff]

Can confirm, just spent 3h on this (will spend more tomorrow), had to scroll way down on tumblr so I could curse you all too

[spe--vedit-ad--astra]

I reblogged this before I clicked the link because I predicted (accurately) that when I was on the page the tumblr app would crash on me like always and I didn't want to lose the link

I have no clue what's doing on but I'm very intrigued

[mashupofmylife]

Since my sister had her baby, I've found that I can text her "baby?" at just about any day or time and nearly immediately receive new photos of my nephew. I love this shorthand. Still not wishing I had a baby of my own, but I really appreciate a nonstop stream of cute kiddo photos

[mashupofmylife]

I cold quit all of my meds 2 weeks ago after the discussion where I got to relish in just how sick I was because my current therapist didn't know me back then. I'm not sure what I was trying to prove. But, so far I haven't completely crashed out and I told my psychiatrist today. I can never tell what he's actually thinking. He said he wasn't surprised and he was wondering when it was going to happen. I guess its about as good of a time as any, since I've got about another year before I move and life is about as stable as its going to be.

[mashupofmylife]

If anyone was wondering, it took 1.5 months before meds were restarted and another month before the dose was bumped up so I think I've signed myself up for a lifetime of psych meds.

[mashupofmylife]

My little sister had her baby a couple of days ago and it is very sweet and a little strange to see her loving on and taking care of this tiny creature that she created because in my mind she's still my baby sister and not someone's mom.

It made me think about the whole idea that at a certain age all women's ovaries start crying when they see babies, or hear about babies, and all women regret not having children and I know that's changed a lot over the past decade or two and it continues to change, but the vibe is still there. And it was so interesting to hold my first biological nephew, and snuggle him and cuddle him and love him, but also very much not feel a pang of regret or jealousy or longing. I love him, but I very much do not want one of my own. And maybe that would change if I was with someone, but biologically my opportunities are going to start to drift away. And I'm okay with that. I really really feel like I am.

[mashupofmylife]

asked if we could have a meeting at work to clarify apparent confusion about a policy, and next thing I know I'm being put on blast for implying that someone doesn't want to do their job anymore

like, wowwww, way to have this whole conversation without me, so it gets to me through a weird side path, and I'm just trying to figure out what the original question was and what the concerns are

[mashupofmylife]

I was literally out of town for 4 days for a funeral and when I get back to work today I've somehow managed to gain enough weight that I can no longer zip my work pants and still comfortably breathe while wearing them.

what the actual fuck

[mashupofmylife]

I cold quit all of my meds 2 weeks ago after the discussion where I got to relish in just how sick I was because my current therapist didn't know me back then. I'm not sure what I was trying to prove. But, so far I haven't completely crashed out and I told my psychiatrist today. I can never tell what he's actually thinking. He said he wasn't surprised and he was wondering when it was going to happen. I guess its about as good of a time as any, since I've got about another year before I move and life is about as stable as its going to be.

[gahdamnpunk]

American Girl stories were the best tbh

[that-catholic-shinobi]

Dude, read the books, she and her mom freed themselves in Book 1. We don’t disrespect American Girl in this house

[allthefandomss]

Don’t you dare disrespect Addy, or any of my girls for that matter. American Girl used to be legit. Good stories, good dolls, good movies.

[smugkoalas]

Felicity’s story was set in the beginnings of the American Revolution, and addressed the conflict that she faced when her loved ones were split between patriots and loyalists. It also covered the effects of animal abuse, and forgiving those who are unforgivable.

Samantha’s stories centered around the growth of industrial America, women’s suffrage, child abuse, and corruption in places of power. Also, it emphasises how dramatically adoption into a caring family can turn a life around.

Kit’s story is one of my favorites. Her family is hit hard by the Great Depression, and they begin taking in boarders and raise chickens to help make ends meet. Her books include themes of poverty, police brutality, homelessness, prejudice, and the importance of unity in difficult times.

Molly’s father, a doctor, is drafted during the Second World War. Throughout her story, friends of hers suffer the loss of their husbands, sons, and brothers overseas. Her mother leaves the traditional housewife position and works full-time to help with the war effort. They also take in an English refugee child, who learns to open up after a life of traumatic experience.

American Girl stories have always featured the very harsh realities of America through the years. But they’re always presented honestly, yet in ways that kids can understand. They just go to show that you don’t have to live in a perfect time to be a real American girl.

[chaos-in-the-making]

Dont you fucking dare disrespect the American Girls in my house. ESPECIALLY Addy!! That was my first REAL contact with the horrors of slavery, as I read about her father being whipped and sold and her mother escaping with her to freedom, but also how freedom was still a struggle.

A slave doll. Please. Read the books.

[ironwoman359]

Don’t forget Kirsten, the Swedish immigrant who had to deal with balancing her own culture and learning the english language and customs of her classmates, or Kaya (full name Kaya'aton'my, or She Who Arranges Rocks) , the brave but careless girl from the Nez Perce tribe, or Josefina, the Mexican girl learning to be a healer.

And then there are the later dolls, that kids younger than me would have grown up with (I was just outgrowing American Girl as these came out), like Rebecca, the Jewish girl who dreams of becoming an actress in the budding film industry, or  Julie, who fights against her school’s gender policy surrounding sports in the 70s, or  Nanea, the Hawaiian girl whose father worked at Pearl Harbor.

These books, these characters, are fantastic pictures into life for girls in America throughout the years, they pull no punches with the horrors that these girls had to face in their different time periods, and in many cases I learned more history from these series than social studies at school. And that’s without even mentioning the “girl of the year” series where characters are created in the modern world to help girls deal with issues like friend problems, moving, or bullying. We do NOT disrespect American Girl in this house.

[razzleberryjam]

American Girl is probably going to be the only exposure young girls are going to get to history from a female perspective. This is actually kind of important considering that in history classes we dont really get that exposure. We dont hear about what women felt and endured during these time periods cause schools are too busy teaching us about what happened from the male perspective, which is not unimportant, but we need both. Girls need both.

[star-linedsoul]

These books were such a crucial part of my childhood and shaped my love of history, which still ensures today. These books can be a young girl’s first lessons in diversity and cultural awareness (hopefully burying that insensitive “we’re all Americans” tripe) and looking at history from more perspectives than just that taught in school. They also are an example of how women have ALWAYS been part of history, which some people would rather us not believe.

I think Kit and Kaya were the newest American Girls when I started “aging out” of the books, but hearing about some of these kinda makes me want to revisit them!

[breezeinmonochromenight]

I wasn’t gonna say anything, but you know what?

Nah.

OP (of the tweet thread) was either a actively trying to start shit or is just a huge fucking moron. Probably both.

I’d like to point out that the company that makes American Girl dolls actually doesn’t skimp when doing their research and they don’t make the dolls with the intent to be offensive in any way:

[physicsandfandoms]

And they departed from the norm in Kaya’s doll to fit her culture! The other dolls all show their teeth, and Kaya does not because that is considered rude in the Nez Perce culture!

It is absolutely true that these books covered the stuff in history that was absent from our history books. I still distinctly remember reading about Addy being forced to eat bugs she missed on tobacco plants, and that started me out from a different perspective and made it easier for me to know to reject the sanitized version of the slave trade we’re taught in school. And these books are targeted at ages 8+, which is a pretty critical time for developing your own thinking and morals.

[lunacorva]

Reblogging for general awesome

[hey-marlie]

when i was in 3rd grade i was reading the Meet Addy book at school & a couple boys made fun of me for reading a “doll book” - my teacher overheard & started reading Meet Addy to the class after every recess. everyone became extremely invested & by the end of the year we had read the entire collection of Addy books & did a presentation on the civil war at the end of the year that we all presented to the class one by one.

i think back on this & realize that as third graders we were talking about how awful slavery was & because we were simply innocent kids without any societal or institutional influence yet, all of us could kept saying “why would you treat a HUMAN like that ?!” this one girl for her birthday invited all of us for her party & she got the Addy doll - every single one of us (boys included) held her & was in awe of this doll - it was such a touching experience.

i went back home about a year ago & ran into my third grade teacher in the grocery store. she said that year opened up a whole new teaching structure for her. she now reads american girl stories to her students starting day one of class every day to calm them down after recess & she’ll get through maybe four or five sets of books a year. she has the dolls in the room with packets on information from the doll’s time period that her students can “check out” to take home for weekends to care for them.

we oftentimes overlook how powerful toys can be in influencing young children & american girl honestly knew that kids could read intense moments in history & synthesize the issues to learn how to be a better person. my grandma bought me my first doll, molly, when i was only six & the dolls became a huge part of my childhood. when i turned 21 a couple years ago - we were living in minneapolis - she took me to have lunch for my birthday at the american doll place in the mall of america & bought me the Addy doll for my birthday. it was such a powerful moment i hasn’t expected.

i’ve since gotten rid of majority of my childhood toys, but i still have every single one of my dolls & all the books that i plan on gifting to my future children.

[iamthecutestofborg]

I’m white and my first real introduction to slavery and the underground railroad was Addy. She was a young girl like me I could connect to and care about her story. American Girl does a great job of making history relevant to kids.

[boldlygoing-nowhere]

Also American Girl sells all sorts of books unrelated to the dolls. The Care and Keeping of You books were super important as I started puberty and were the most comprehensive, non judgemental account of what was going to happen.

They also have “the smart girls guide” series which covers topics like crushes, worry, middle school, drama and gossip, sports, friendship, the digital world, communication, money, confidence, etc.

[iamthecutestofborg]

Oh I had those too and I loved them!

[fishfrommars]

I want to say I think there was an American Girl Doll magazine series that came out, but don’t quote me on that. there were lots of helpful girl guides that used the American girls as examples for doing good or learning lessons or trying to understand why girls did what they did

I learned a lot of my core beliefs from these girls.

I remember being very invested in Molly, Addy, and Kaya. Mostly cuz I look like Molly, and the other two had a lot of information on two of my favorite time periods. But I owe a lot of my personality to these lovvely girls

[dragonqueenzoyaa]

yo don’t forget my girl Caroline. Her father was captured by the British during the war of 1812 and she basically learned how to sail and rescued him herself.

[janeslandrys]

omg yeah i love caroline

[beggars-opera]

I can confirm that they really do their research - during the creation of Caroline the company called a museum I was associated with and quizzed them extensively about what sort of food kids would have eaten at the turn of the 19th century.

[kurganfilledwithbearbones]

When i was like ten I wrote a letter to the American Girl magazine saying that the girls in their magazine were all really skinny and it made me, a chonk, really sad because it was showing that I couldn’t wear any of the outfits they suggested, and I got a personal letter back from the editor apologizing for making me feel that way and saying they would work on that. Dunno if they actually did, i can’t remember, but they did promptly personally respond to a letter about something that was not exactly on the radar for girl’s media in fucking 2002. So there’s that.

[torchlake]

I’m happy to report that the messages from American Girl have only gotten better in recent years.

These are from one of their latest books, A Smart Girl’s Guide to Body Image:

They got a lot of flak from conservative parents for this and they did. not. back. down.

Their newest historical doll, Claudie, is a black girl growing up in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Her story is about Black artists thriving, and making a safe, beautiful place for themselves in a society that tries to reject them. It teaches about the NAACP’s protests against lynchings, in ways kids can understand, but there’s also so much Black joy and creativity showcased in her story.

Another historical doll, Melody, is growing up in the 1960s during the Civil Rights movement. She faces the struggles and triumphs of attending a newly integrated school, and learns about the bombing of a Black church in Alabama that killed four little girls her age. Her stories show how black people found support and community within the church, as well as music— she loves to sing! If you have a free hour, I highly recommend watching her special on Amazon (free with prime). It stars Caila Marsai Martin from Blackish and it will make you weep.

The girl of the year for 2022, Corinne, is Asian, and her story touches on the issues of anti-Asian hate in the wake of covid. When conservative parents threw a fit about this, American Girl went ahead and made the girl of the year for 2023 Asian, too.

Any of their dolls can be customized with assistive devices like hearing aids, service dogs, and wheelchairs. They also have bald dolls, to include stories about girls battling cancer or alopecia. And it’s not just girl dolls— they have boy dolls now, too! And dolls with no gender assigned to them! People complained that they couldn’t find any dolls in the Just Like Me line that looked like them, so they now give people the ability to create their own custom doll, with tons of different options.

I’m not claiming American Girl as a company is perfect, but I am saying they’re important. Girl perspectives, girl stories, and girl communities are IMPORTANT. If there are kids in your life who would benefit from these stories, or if you’d like to read them yourself, you can find any American Girl book for pretty much dirt cheap on eBay, and libraries usually stock tons of them!

[mashupofmylife]

clearly I don't know anything about the legal profession, because I was absolutely stunned that every single law firm I've reached out to about representation in an employment law case has either ghosted me or declined my case. The first time I was shut down I assumed the firm was conflicted out, but now I really do think I may just have a shit case

[mashupofmylife]

I had a very weird twisty ED dream last night and felt like a stereotype in therapy when I said that I had a dream that I wanted to talk about. So much tension between wanting to go back to the ED, missing the ED, feeling like I wasn't sick enough or wasn't taken seriously, but also not wanting to be there, fighting the illness. It was weird.

The end result was that I found out that my therapist didn't have an accurate idea of my sick low weight and thought that my low weight was about 15lbs higher than it actually was. So cue me pulling up old sick sick photos and relishing in his horrified reaction and god I want to go back so bad and then I turn around and do something dumb like eat ice cream which is good for recovery I guess but man am I all kinds of conflicted internally.

[mashupofmylife]

In 9th grade literature class, we all had to memorize and recite the introduction to The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. It was a graded assignment. The teacher, a beloved institution at the school, shared stories from past students where this came up in later life as a party trick, a fun fact at a job interview, and a way to connect with people over a shared educational experience. He promised we'd all have a story like that if we remembered it. I thought it was cool but highly unlikely that I'd have a similar experience, but I can still recite most of the poetry that I was required to memorize throughout my education, and Canterbury Tales still rattles around my head more often than I thought it would.

This week, I finally had my moment, my bonding experience. I was working very late, reviewing military officer performance evaluations at work with a senior officer. He recited a few lines of Langston Hughes, and after a brief bit of banter, mentioned memorizing Canterbury Tales. "But was it in Middle English?" was my question. In response, he recited the first two lines, and we then traded Middle English back and forth.

Who ever would have thought that an ICU doctor and a psychiatrist would end up tossing the words of Chaucer back and forth at almost 10pm in the hospital while trying to wrap up a very long day of performance evaluations?

[mashupofmylife]

I'm behind by 3 EMS reports right now, and the irony of the fact that my hobby requires me to use an additional medical record system and document medical care when I could be drinking wine or watching TV or doing literally anything else is hitting me a little harder than it usually does

[mashupofmylife]

I've officially reached out to employment attorneys, even as chatGPT reminded me of the policy changes locally that essentially authorize the medical director to do whatever the hell he wants to with respect to practice credentials. At this point, I kind of just want to burn the entire system down. I'm not hopeful that this will lead anywhere, but its still worth it to me to pursue this.

[mashupofmylife]

Every now and then, I use a doctor word in one of my EMS reports, and it makes me wonder what goes through the mind of the QA officer who has to review reports, until they see that its my name at the bottom of the report

[mashupofmylife]

humiliating. just kill me now. seriously. last night I got motion sick in the back of the ambulance while bringing a patient to the hospital and right before we parked outside of the hospital, I couldn't hold it in anymore and puked my dinner up onto the floor. I wasn't even able to grab a bag first. Just, a little pile on the floor. And the patient was doing so much better than she had been originally, and she was so sweet and concerned about me and so was her family member, and I just wanted to die. I managed to throw a sheet on it and I cleaned it up while the BLS crew was still in the hospital, but still. So bad. I'm prone to motion sickness but its only ever happened once before in the ambulance, and that time there was no patient in the back and we'd been driving around for ages and I was stuck in the back as the third.

[mashupofmylife]

I'm working on the final draft of my thesis, so I can finally finish this masters degree and stop being a student for once in my life, and they make you include a dedication. All of the examples are people dedicating their theses to their partners and kids and parents. Am I completely nuts if I dedicate this thing to the pigs?

[mashupofmylife]

More thoughts as I've worked my way into season 10 of SVU

I'm still surprised by how much they talk about HIV and AIDS

Elliot is legitimately a jerk and I'm shocked that Kathy is still married to him. Younger me thought he was moody and passionate and intense, but adultier me is not impressed with that. The man has serious anger issues.

All of the police conspiracy and cover-ups and backroom deals

Did not realize that Casey Novak was disbarred. That detail definitely went over my head but hot damn.

I want more George Huang! I know the end of his tenure on the show is coming soon and it makes me so sad. I'm a shrink, I've loved the shrinks in the show and loved the episodes they were in for as long as I can remember. I should have seen that coming.

All the "ripped from the headlines" stories are throwing me back into things that I had totally forgotten about--Katrina, pregnancy pacts, bioweapons, you name it. Its kind of like a bizarre time capsule