Currently eating my weight in Mac n Cheese @maybe-a-cat42 - Tumblr Blog

I'm visiting some dear friends of mine this week, and all of us have at least one disability. While we were eating breakfast this morning we were discussing the impact medication has on our lives.

I was sharing how difficult everything was for me when I had moved to a new city where the cost of housing was much more expensive and I couldn't afford medication. Over the course of the year, my energy deteriorated rapidly. First I couldn't keep up with my job, then I couldn't keep up with housework, then I couldn't keep up with basic hygiene, and eventually even chewing and swallowing became difficult. Sometimes walking to the train, I thought about lying down on the side of the road and how long it would take before a cop would force me to move. I wanted to die but I didn't even have the energy to figure out how.

My friend asked me if I had chronic fatigue. I don't know, because I was never diagnosed. I don't claim it because right now I'm very functional. I can keep up with hygiene, cook, clean, do work, and even exercise! But this is only possible from the combination of four different medications. Right now, I am extremely fortunate in that I have much of my medical expenses covered by my wife's health insurance that she has through work. I pay $415 USD every month for these things I need. I can never take this for granted because I know so vividly how difficult it is to survive without them.

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It is perhaps evidence of my own self-absorbed perspective, but my own experience of going without medication (feeling first terrified and then hopeless) has made reading about the Israeli strategy of destroying healthcare infrastructure in Palestine particularly vivid and gutting to me.

I remember reading the book From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine and absorbing some fraction of the devastation described by the essay "We Have Lost the Ability to Provide True Care: Three Doctors' Testimonies from Gaza." In this essay, Dr. Reda Abu Assi wrote: "We have lived through seven wars. In each war, we lost coworkers with who, we had memories. In each war, the medical services we were able to provide to patients deteriorated... We have run out of many life-saving drugs; we live on medical aid from abroad, and if it runs out, we have nothing to offer." That was written in October 2023, almost two full years ago.

When I was recovering from surgery earlier this year, I started texting with a guy in Palestine named Fadel (@fadel-dani). Like me, he also struggles with fatigue. For him he has an actual diagnosis--thalassemia, a blood disorder. Like me, he relies on medication for basic functioning, but his medicine is even more expensive than mine-- the equivalent of around $470 USD every month.

A few months after that essay "We Have Lost the Ability to Provide True Care" was written, Fadel experienced firsthand what Dr. Reda Abu Assi described. He survived a bombing of his home, and when he woke in a hospital, he learned they did not even have the supplies needed to remove the shrapnel from his body. They told him that he needed to get to a different country for urgent surgery. He set up a campaign to raise money for it, and had it vetted by @gazavetters (#197) and 90-ghost.

My name is Fadel Al-Dany, a 23-year-old third-year IT student. My life hasn't … Fadel Aldany needs your support for Help the injured Fadel a

A lot of people follow this blog, and I have been trying to help him to get eyes on this campaign. I think about how isolated and defeated I felt when I couldn't afford healthcare, and it breaks my heart that he is experiencing something so much worse.

closet-keys

It's been so long since then, and he has only been able to raise €15,129 (around $17,700 USD) which is no where near enough. In that time, everything has only become more scarce and more expensive. He can't even think about the money from his fundraiser going to surgery, because he spends every month trying to figure out whether to spend the small amount of donations on his medication or on food.

He is in constant chronic pain from the shrapnel in his body, and he is so exhausted he is constantly dizzy and nauseated. I think about how suicidal I was the period of time I was so fatigued, and then I think about how minuscule my experience of exhaustion and hopelessness was in comparison to what Fadel is living with. The worst year of my life would literally be a relief to him in comparison with his current life, and he has no reassurance that there's any end to it. I truly can only imagine the enormity of exhaustion he feels every day.

The only thing that gives him a little bit of hope that this misery might end for him is receiving donations. Every donation reminds him that someone in the world cares that he's suffering and that there are people who believe he matters and deserves relief. I can't convey to you the difference it makes, even a single person caring enough to send a small amount.

My name is Fadel Al-Dany, a 23-year-old third-year IT student. My life hasn't … Fadel Aldany needs your support for Help the injured Fadel a

If my words inspire any empathy or compassion in you at all, please donate something to him this week. Literally even a single dollar or euro makes a difference. You can do that. Leave some encouraging words in your reblog of this post or in the tags. I need to know someone is reading this and cares.

#fadel is only one year younger than me #he's just over 19k #palestine #free palestine #aid

jay-rayart

FLY UPDATE: We’re officially 78% funded after just 7 hours.

Thank you to everyone who has backed, shared, commented, and believed in this story. Watching people rally around these characters has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

To celebrate, I wanted to highlight the incredible artists who created this epic piece of art, @awk3005_

I’ve been a fan of his work for years, so getting the chance to collaborate with him on FLY felt surreal. As a fellow Black artist with Ghanaian roots, his journey has always inspired me. Seeing him carve out his own path through art is a reminder of what’s possible when we bet on ourselves and our stories.

That’s why he was the perfect choice to draw the boys of FLY. This story is about discovering your power, and his work captures that feeling perfectly. Thank you so much @awk3005_ for creating this beautiful print for FLY.

We’re so close to the finish line. Let’s keep flying. BACK FLY on Kickstarter today!

A coming of age story about Black kids who finally have power to fight back against systems designed against them.

officialrung-deactivated2020010

new ask game send me a 🌻 and ill just tell you whatever the fuck i want

mr-deep-downer

sailatina3

herecomesthementalmeltdown

threeninesfine

The suburbs dream of violence. Asleep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world.

—J.G. Ballard, Kingdom Come

creatingblackcharacters

"From these made-up horrors, these fictionalized enemies, he had created a villain worthy of the violent bravado that he imagined he would display if confronted by said villain. This web of racist lies was what he needed to make himself seem like a man. He invented a story about bad guys who were out to get him, and he repeated it to himself and others until he believed it. Then he made up another story- of himself as hero, defending himself and his family against this violent threat- and he repeated that one until he believed it too. Brian wrote himself into his own American westen, a world of cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers. And for a man with no job, few friends, and a family that couldn't stand him, pretending to be a main character in violent American mythology was as close to belonging as he was ever going to get."

Mediocre, Ijeoma Oluo

dragon-in-a-fez

keep thinking about how I wrote in my dissertation about how every time a new form of public/social space emerges it's immediately popular with kids and teenagers who see it as a chance at freedom and then adults colonise it and kick them out. this happened with malls in the 80s and diners in the 50s and pool halls in the 20s. my dad was doing research on this trend in like 1975. and I was like "yeah so this is going to happen to the internet" and then five years later every government suddenly decided to ban kids from everywhere online. I hate being right especially when I don't even get paid for it

dragon-in-a-fez

as much as I would love for y'all to read my dissertation it would obviously doxx me to post the link/title here, so I probably won't share (unless a longtime mutual messages privately about it). BUT what I can do is tell you about my academic idols - Henry Jenkins, Mimi Ito, and danah boyd - and tell you to go read their stuff, starting with a book they co-wrote called Participatory Culture in a Networked Era

rosalesbeausderholle

One thing that worries me about the use of AI is whether or not it can worsen people's dementia and alzheimer's in the future. When my grandmother was first diagnosed, we got her math activity books. Now, my grandmother never had a formal education, but we did our best to keep her sharp, get her to do math and writing activity books, sudokus, playing board games that required some level of strategizing with her. Her family is prone to alzheimer's and dementia (both her siblings had it and deteriorated very very very quickly, which yeah, scares the shit out of me being her granddaughter) but she was the one whose mind lasted the longest, she only passed away two years ago, at 88, ten whole years after her initial diagnosis and sure, she had forgotten things, recipes and where she put her glasses and appointments, but she never forgot any of us, ten whole years in, she still remembered us. Now, this may have been luck, but doctors always said the constant mental work + companionship + medicine helped her a lot. So I'm thinking, these people who are now relying on AI for everything, from email-writing to thinking what's for dinner to casual conversations, I've even seen people rely on it to calculate what time they should leave their house if they need to be at a place at a specific time and their commute lasts X number of minutes. As if that's not... the simplest math operation possible? You shouldn't even need a calculator for that!!! Idk I don't know how long it'll take us to see the effects of this + exposure to brain-rotting short form content that is completely meaningless + people addicted to right-wing conspiracy style media. Idk I'm very worried. Please, read, read complicated books! Take up a book on philosophy and try to decipher it and make your own opinions on it, please buy a maths activity book and relearn how to do math, please get a hobby that involves lots of thinking and concentrating. PLEASE!!!

notalotgoingonatthisinstant

As a neurologist, I’ll give you the pretty name for it: cognitive reserve.

The way I explain it to my patients is that our neurons don’t regenerate. They make connections with each other and that’s it. If you don’t use your brain, they make fewer connections and, if one of them dies, you’re gonna miss it, because that was the only one that knew how to do X. Now, if each one of them has many, many connections, you won’t notice the difference when one of them dies. The others pick up the slack.

As of 2024, 45% of dementia risk factors are modifiable. Relevant to this conversation, 5% for less education and 5% for social isolation.

We absolutely are going to see the reflection of this, but it’s gonna take decades and it’ll be too late. So, for the love of your brain, pretend that it’s a muscle and make it work. People complain about “when am I ever gonna use this maths formula in my life?” You’re not. You’re teaching your brain to think logically. Those sinapses will be there for when you need to figure out your week’s schedule. English classes taught me how to interpret data and how to convey it in this text so it’s clear and you understand what I’m saying, not because I needed to justify why the curtain is blue.

Make your brain know how to do different things. Logic games, puzzles, taking care of a garden even if small, planning a church’s event or birthday, learn a new instrument, learn a few words in another language, look at a calendar every day, do some manual labor if possible. Do not, I repeat, do not let your brain get rid of sinapses by letting AI do everything. Your brain uses 20% of your body’s energy — do you really think it’s going to maintain connexions that aren’t in use?

Most cases of Alzheimer’s are sporadic, meaning no family history. Family history of a first-degree relative with Alzheimer’s starting before they were 80yo increases your risk in 2-3x on average.

TLDR: Yes. From the knowledge we have today, AI will increase the number and severity of dementia cases.

scrupulosity-comics

title of this is just ‘lesbian sex’

scrupulosity-comics

#reminds me of essential dykes to watch out for! #meant compliment-wise #i love this so much #op do you have these as prints or anything.....maybe a sticker perhaps......

I do now :)

ain’t that just the way it always goes • Millions of unique designs by independent artists. Find your thing.

souvenirs

spitfaggot

happy birthday, gilbert baker. (june 2, 1951 — march 31, 2017)

nerdygaymormon

moniquill

rotten-dan-art

Hello! I don't have a job and I need of money to get the kitchen/cleaning tools to make the new house I live in more livable ! and also to feed me and my cat. so I'm offering small doodles if you tip me 5$ on ko-fi

just add a message to the tip of what it is you want me to draw for you and I'll do it. if it's somehting with an OC, please provide me with a ref of them either in ko-fi or tumblr dms.

*I won't do any complicated background elements. things with too much detail like cars or buildings or houses are a no go.

and if you would want a more detailed, clean and polished commission or for me to make a ref of your oc and more, you can also check this commission post!

GRANDMOTHER CALLED BACK

#she called when I was at work and left a lil voicemail singing me happy birthday #love my grandma ☺️

sometiktoksarevalid

jazzyloveswomen

I cannot stress enough, in terms of "the intersex experience", I am 'lucky'.

As far as I'm aware, I was not mutilated as a baby, and when doctors started pushing for me to go on hormonal medication as a teenager to 'fix' me, my mother simply did not care enough to actually make me go on hormones.

To be clear, this has not spared me from intersexism.

Not even medical intersexism: I've still been treated like a freak who should be fixed by doctors, and I think most of the reason for my unnecessary and traumatic involuntary hospitalization for "suicidal ideation" was the doctors thinly veiled intersexism/transmisogyny, so I do have medical trauma of some sort.

Which is to say nothing about the social intersexism, and the impacts of being malgendered, misgendered, degendered, for my entire life, by my parents, by my peers, by doctors, which cannot be overstated, were extremely traumatic and put me in very real material danger several times.

Being intersex has caused me immense trauma on a number of fronts, and I am one of the "lucky" ones, that should tell people about how intersex people are systematically abused and brutalized in our society.

And yet intersexism is regularly treated like a "lesser" form of oppression, like something that can just be brushed aside because there are, apparently, not enough of us for it to matter, or, insultingly, when it comes to intersex people in trans spaces, we're seen as a cancerous tumor on the side of the trans community who only get hit with the 'collateral' damage from transphobia and otherwise just annoyingly talk over trans people.

It's actually ludicrous.

rottingtrouble-child

I saw this video about a doctor who performed an MRI on a 5 year old and discovered she essentially had “brain damage” from excessive iPad use, as the white matter in her brain couldn’t form properly due to an understimulated environment.

Hmm it’s almost like there’s supposed to be adult figures responsible for monitoring her screen time and making sure she develops properly… certainly this isn’t the result of neglect at the hands of her parents…

rottingtrouble-child

“This 5 year old is brain damaged by excessive iPad use”

Translation: This 5 year old is developmentally impaired by neglectful parents who used an iPad as a stand-in for social and environmental stimulation / interaction for hours at a time during critical early stages of child development. The iPad is the cop-out.

rottingtrouble-child

“Children don’t have the strength to hold pencils anymore because they only use screens.”

Translation: Parents aren’t making the conscious effort to help their children develop necessary skills and letting iPads raise them.

When are people going to realize the iPads and whatnot are the instruments through which the neglect is happening through and not the cause? How the fuck do you let your child have such a severe lack of physical strength in their hands that they can’t hold a pencil properly?

rottingtrouble-child

People will see a study suggesting children with higher screen times have poorer or negative developmental outcomes and immediately say it’s the screens causing this, and not the more likely fact that higher screen time = less engagement time with their environment, physical exercise, parents, family, and their peers, all of which are NECESSARY for a healthy upbringing as a social species.

It’s like saying a dog who was kept in a cage all its life and left with atrophied muscles was damaged by the cage, and not by the fact its owners were too lazy to play or walk their dog in order for its muscles to build properly. The cage is the instrument of neglect and the owners are the perpetrators, in the same way parents are the perpetrators and weaponizing screen time as an excuse and painting themselves as helpless bystanders.