integration of RUMINATIONS

A mishmash smorgasbord of aesthetics, psychology, philosophy, literature, nature, and wonderfully demented memes and gifs

[positivity-in-pain]

me 😂

[positivity-in-pain]

lol its true 😂

[positivity-in-pain]

😂😂😂

[perfectlyenchantedbythesea]

What’s something you’ve had to change in your life because of disability that most people would never think about?

I’ll go first:

I can’t go to amphitheaters no matter how much I want to see an artist live because I 100% know people will be smoking and it will kill me since I can’t afford the tickets closer to the stage.

I only go to all organic restaurants with vegan options because pesticides, hormones, and other toxic stuff are destroying my body, which means I rarely ever go out because those places are expensive and uncommon.

I just don’t even try to hang out with friends much anymore because I always have to ask them to come to me or pick me up because driving in my state isn’t safe, and it’s emotionally draining to explain to them over and over that coffee shops are hellish for my body (hard chairs, nothing I can eat or drink, cold) and I can’t eat anywhere actually and I don’t have any money to do anything because I’m disabled and can barely work and I can’t walk much because I’m sick and I’ll probably at one point or another desperately need help walking.

I don’t go to almost anyone’s house because I’m severely allergic to pets, smoke, and perfumes

I can’t go to movie theaters because they’re too loud, too bright in a dark room, and there’s too much background noise that drives me insane (chewing popcorn oh my goodness no)

Whenever I experience a good moment (sitting on the couch with my partner, watching a bird fly, listening to a nostalgic song, eating a sweet potato, having a silly argument with my partner, laughing, etc), I treasure it more than anything, like really, really savor it, because I worry I won’t be around much longer thanks to disease

[glittercontusion]

Descriptions of illnesses often don't describe them very well

Like when you say fibromyalgia causes muscle aches, weakness, brain fog, and fatigue, it sounds like a cold. But when you say "I can't sleep at night but i sleep for 15 hours in the day, wake up feeling like I've been hit by a truck, I'm weak, my skin hurts, I feel like I have the flu all the time, I can't get out of bed, and I can't think or remember anything" then you start to capture what it's actually like

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

when you get diagnosed with a chronic illness they should automatically offer you free tests for the ten most common comorbidities.

bc chronic illnesses DO often come in bundles like that and people experiencing them often struggle with recognizing symptoms in things we’ve lived with sometimes for our entire lives meaning we have to a) identify that something we experience is a symptom of something that hasn’t been diagnosed and b) believe it’s possible/important/realistic to address that symptom AND c) communicate this to our doctors often/clearly/emphatically enough that we eventually can get tested AND, usually, d) figure out what’s causing it ourselves because let’s be real doctors often don’t care enough to figure it out themselves and will often just shrug unless you mention a specific possible diagnosis for them to check

and all of this could be made one trillion times easier if after someone did that ONCE and got diagnosed, if it was standard practice for the doctor to then pull out their handy dandy reference app and put in the New Diagnosis and be given a list of the most common comorbidities that they must now check you for.

like they don’t even have to run the lab tests if that’s too expensive! Just go over the diagnostic criteria and proactively ask, “Do you experience these symptoms?” and suddenly people will have adequate diagnoses and possible treatment options SO much faster

[dayshines]

I’d like to address the issue with able-body people thinking that when someone with a disability is Going Through It™️, they aren’t allowed to do things that make them happy.

Whenever I have a migraine, my mom believes that I should be unmoving, and curled up in a dark, cold room, and attempt to fall asleep. As someone who doesn’t want to go to bed at 3pm, I’m not going to do that!

If I have nothing important to do (or not enough spoons to do it) I’m going to do something I enjoy! That doesn’t mean I’m not in pain, or “feeling better.” (In fact, doing things I enjoy helps me!)

But assuming I, or any other disabled person should sit there and suffer is a fucked up way to think.

[im-nerv0us]

THIS A HUNDRED TIMES THIS!!! My mom thinks every time my stomach turns, I need to lay down, sip water, close my eye, and sleep. My man. Zoning out on my phone helps distract me

[humansoflatecapitalism]

[glitchlich]

your baby as soon as these come off

[crafty-butch]

having one of those executive function days where everything is too many steps

[crafty-butch]

by which i mean, like, here’s how my brain parses the steps in making coffee

good day:

make coffee

regular day:

put water in coffee maker

put coffee in coffee maker

turn on coffee maker

bad day:

take pot from coffee maker

turn on sink

fill up coffee pot

turn off sink

pour water into coffee maker

put coffee pot in coffee maker

open cupboard

get coffee filter from cupboard

get coffee beans from cupboard

put filter in coffee pot

measure coffee

pour coffee into filter

close coffee maker

turn coffee maker on

anyway this is a “14 steps to make coffee” kind of day

[kieraelieson]

This is actually a really good way of explaining this

[thebibliosphere]

Whenever I start to fall down the doubt spiral of ADHD doom (“but what if I don’t have ADHD, what if I’m actually just a terrible person who doesn’t try hard enough and who somehow accidentally managed to manipulate a specialist into thinking I have ADHD?”) I like to take ADHD “tests” to remind myself that yeah, actually, my brain is 13 trash fires masquerading as 12 feral cats in a trench coat and that actually, my ADHD is both

a) pretty severe and

b) entirely unmedicated due to my physical health being the equivalent of a meteor strike masquerading as 13 trash fires.

Anyway, this one has a cool pie chart with colors which I found quite helpful compared to the usual number scales. But also, lmao, help...

Edit: link for anyone that wants it. (This is obviously not a complete or comprehensive diagnostic tool. I just thought the way it was laid out was cool and way more accessible compared to others I’ve seen in the past.)

[motivationsforlife]

Highway by Jordan McQueen

[perfectlyenchantedbythesea]

Nothing like finally swallowing the reality that your brother is and has always been more abusive towards you than even your rapist was

[tfw-adhd]

As requested ( @kylavalentina ) here’s a diagram comparing Anxiety, PTSD, and Depression.

( Here’s a link to other Venn Diagrams )

[missmentelle]

Tips for Living With ADHD (From Someone Who Actually Has It)

There is a lot of advice floating around online for how to manage the symptoms of ADHD. 

Most of it is bad. 

A lot of the advice available for coping with ADHD has been written by people who don’t actually have it. Much of it is either aimed at parents raising ADHD children, or it simply amounts to “just try harder and figure out how to remember things better”. It’s hard for people who don’t have ADHD to understand that there’s more to it than “being easily distracted”, and the advice they give for managing the disorder is sometimes woefully out of touch. 

Luckily, I have ADHD, and I’ve had to deal with it all my life. ADHD has not prevented me from getting a master’s degree, writing a novel, keeping my apartment clean or advancing in my career, because I’ve figured out some coping strategies like:

Train yourself to do the “keys, phone, wallet” dance. Misplacing things sucks, and it happens a lot with ADHD. To keep at least the important things from going missing, I have taught myself to physically tap my keys, wallet and phone before I leave any location. Getting into this habit took a few weeks, but now it’s muscle memory - and it’s saved me a lot of headaches over the years. 

Start a Bullet Journal or find a good day planner. My bullet journal is my life. For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, bullet journals are basically grid notebooks written with a special system that lets you quickly keep track of and organize all the things you need to remember. Their customizability lets you organize things in a way that makes sense to your brain (and there’s no need to make them as fancy as the ones on Instagram). Plus, the fact that it’s not an app or online tool helps me avoid distraction.

Do a daily 15-minute sweep of your apartment. Household chores can quickly get away from you, until your apartment is so overwhelmingly gross that you don’t even know where to start. Keep things to a dull roar with a fifteen-minute daily sweep - bag up garbage, move the dishes to the kitchen, throw laundry into a hamper, wipe up obvious spills. When your space is less overwhelming, it’s easier to tackle bigger chores when you need to. 

Set reminders to reply to emails and messages. If I don’t answer a message immediately, under normal circumstances, there’s a 50/50 chance I’ll never remember to answer it. If I know I need to reply to a message, I’ll set a quick reminder in my phone to respond - Siri can set reminders for me instantly, and it helps a lot with communication. 

Prioritize tasks and do the most important ones first. My brain has a limited ability to concentrate on tasks that I’m not hyper-fixated on. Attention is a finite resource for me - once I start to get tired or burnt out, the odds of me completing a task I’m not interested in drops to almost nothing. Order your tasks by importance, not difficulty; sometimes I’m only able to do 1-2 very simple things in a day, and it’s important to make sure those are the things that most needed to get done. 

Use the Pomodoro method for getting things done. I need pressure and deadlines to get things done, which is sort of difficult to replicate after college - the only person who cares if I work on my art or write a novel is me. So I use the Pomodoro method - this is basically where you set a timer for 25 minutes, work until it goes off, set a time for 5 minutes, relax until it goes off, and so on. There are even apps like “Focus To-Do” that automatically use Pomodoro timers and can even track how many you do on each task per day. 

Put reminders of daily tasks in places where you can see them. I have several houseplants, and the only reason those houseplants are alive is because they have brightly-coloured sticky notes on them that say WATER ME EVERY FRIDAY. Putting up visual reminders might seem tacky or childish, but if that’s what works for you, then that’s what you need to do. Putting a chore chart for yourself on the fridge is way less embarrassing than getting a pest problem because you lost track of chores. 

Tackle chores and cleaning in stages. Deep-cleaning my whole apartment in one day is simply not going to happen. It’s just not. So when it’s time to deep-clean, I spread it out in stages - one day is the day to tackle the fridge, the next day is the bathrooms, the day after that is closet organization, etc. Breaking things into manageable chunks is how I’ve tackled everything from my graduate thesis to moving - I accept that I need to spread big tasks out across more days than other people do, and adapt accordingly. 

Audiobooks and podcasts are your friend. If I’m doing a task that doesn’t require a lot of concentration - like mopping, or dishes, or walking the dog - my mind wanders… and it often wanders to another task I could be doing, causing me to abandon what I’m working on. I’ve found that the best way to prevent that is to keep my mind occupied. Throwing on some headphones and listening to an audiobook (which I rent from the Libby app for free!) has been a win-win situation for me; it helps me stay on-task, and it helps me reach my reading goal every year. 

ADHD can make it difficult to thrive in a world that wasn’t built for our brains. But when you find the right strategies, it’s possible to accomplish your dreams and navigate the world in your own way. 

[justsomeantifas]

terrifying that kids are romanticizing the idea of being homeless 80 year olds because they know theyll likely never be able to afford a house and the idea of fighting so hard for a stable living situation is so overwhelming theyd rather create some mystical whimsy around being mentally ill and alone without running water, proper food storage, or adequate heating and cooling.

[the-depression-memery]

[supergiraffes-archive-blog]

what you need to do if i have a convulsive seizure

I was just complaining to my friend that my oldest sister didn’t know what to do the last time I had a convulsive seizure, and I ended up injured because of it. And my friend said that actually, they don’t know what to do when they see someone have a convulsive seizure, either.

So I thought I’d explain it to you.  I’m not a doctor, and I have no medical training and not everything here will apply to everyone who has convulsive seizures, these are just the things that apply to me, and when in doubt, call an ambulance. 

Here’s what you do:

Look around. Am I lying in the middle of a busy street or on the railroad tracks, or somewhere else dangerous, like in the bathtub? If yes, drag me to somewhere where I am not in imminent danger of being hit by a truck or drowning. 

Am I somewhere safe, but lying near dangerous things like fire or knives or broken glass or pans of boiling water or anything that can hurt me? Move the dangerous things away from me.

My body will be convulsing. That means my head and my arms and my legs are rapidly hitting the ground. Put something soft underneath my head. If there’s a cushion right there, perfect. If not, wad up your coat or shove your shopping bag under my head. If there’s nothing immediately to hand that would take you more than a few seconds to grab, stick your feet underneath my head, it’ll work.

Am I wearing anything around my neck, like a tight collar, or a necktie, or a choker? Loosen it, so my airway is clear.

Don’t restrict my movements - don’t try to hold my arms and legs down. You’ve already moved all the dangerous things away from me, and cushioned my head, so don’t hold me down, unless it is necessary to keep me from doing serious harm.

Don’t put anything in my mouth. A lot of people think you need to stick your fingers or a spoon or something into the person’s mouth to prevent them choking on their tongue.  Don’t do this. 

Try to make a note of the time the seizure first started. If the seizure lasts for longer than five minutes, call an ambulance.

When the convulsing/jerking has stopped, roll me onto my side. If you know what the recovery position is, put me in the recovery position, if you don’t, just roll me onto my side, and check my airway. If I’m not breathing, or I’m having trouble breathing, call an ambulance.

It seems to be instinctive to help someone get back to their feet as soon as the seizure is over. Don’t do this with me. After a seizure, I’m in something called a post-ictal state. It makes me very, very confused, and lying on the ground or sitting somewhere soft is the safest place for me. If you pull me to my feet while I’m still this confused, I will walk directly into traffic or put my hand on a hot stove because I won’t know where I am, or what’s happening, and often I won’t be able to see at all for a few minutes. Keep me somewhere safe until I’ve fully recovered.

If I have another seizure before I’ve fully recovered from the earlier one, call an ambulance.

If you think I might be hurt, or you’re confused or not sure about what to do, call an ambulance.

That’s all there is to it. Make sure I’m not in immediate physical danger; cushion my head (but don’t restrain it); when the jerking stops, roll me onto my side and check my airway; keep me somewhere safe until I’m fully recovered, and if the seizure lasts a long time, or I have a second one, or you aren’t sure what to do or you think I might be hurt, call an ambulance. That’s it. It’s not hard, and I promise you can do this.

[part-time-pessimist]

THIS THIS THIS The last time I had a convulsive seizure in public, somebody held my arms down and both shoulders dislocated

[romythe]

Also it’s a myth that peope can swallow their tongues. 

[drbibliophile]

I am a doctor and I approve this message.