Dear Undecided And Both Sides Are Evil Voters.

Adult ProTip, from a security professional: If a kid tells you, "My parents are gonna kill me / kick my ass / kick me out" for something relatively minor, don't respond with shit like "Really? ;) that sounds a little extreme, don't you think sweetie?" because that shit really does happen.

Instead, respond as though whatever threat they are afraid of is fully valid, and offer whatever you can do to help- ask if they believe they are in danger of being hurt in any way, and work accordingly.

If they're overreacting, they'll usually realize and dial it back, self-correct and begin thinking a bit more rationally.

If they're not overreacting, and the danger is real, then they'll need a level-headed adult in their corner, not another condescending authority figure who doesn't believe them.

I ain't wrong

A Tweet by Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle (@DrDoyleSays):

"When we grow up emotionally neglected, we're vulnerable to a certain fantasy that IF ONLY we can 'make' someone understand where we're coming from, we MIGHT get the care & attention we need. Hence the anxious 'overexplaining' thing."

I do not ask this lightly, the Missouri AG’s office has started a site to build a list of trans people. Clog the system. That’s the life of a trans kid who gets another day on this earth. Spam the fuck out of it, it’s not sophisticated. You don’t need to use a real email. Post as much as you’d like

every time i see those posts like ‘what food from a show did YOU always wanna try’ i go lol none? but i just remembered im a liar

i always wanted the fucking soup brock made in the pokemon anime

Here's something that's been mindfucking me for the past two damn weeks. So not only do I need surgery to have my colon and rectum removed & to get an ileostomy, but I also have to see a pelvic floor reconstruction surgeon.

Because with my Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, I'm high risk for prolapses, and guess what being sex trafficked for the majority of your childhood does to your developing pelvic floor? Spoiler: nothing good.

So because of this blessed combination of genetics and abuse, I have multi-pelvic-organ prolapse, and no ability to withstand pelvic floor therapy. I tried. I just literally cannot fucking do it. And there's the fact that pelvic floor therapy might not even work for the severity of my issues anyway. Ergo, surgery.

Now I get to have two surgeons argue over the best way to butcher my body into something livable and I can't even explain how fucking tired I am. I don't even know what to feel about it beyond exhausted.

And then I have friends who are also going through things and I want to be supportive & I try to be, but I just can't do all the things I want to do because I'm spending half my fucking day in a dissociative fog because I just don't know how to process any of this.

For no reason here is a library story

Have I told y’all about my husband’s Fork Theory?  If I did already, pretend I didn’t, I’m an old.

So the Spoon Theory is a fundamental metaphor used often in the chronic pain/chronic illness communities to explain to non-spoonies why life is harder for them. It’s super useful and we use that all the time. But it has a corollary.  You know the phrase, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” right? Well, Fork Theory is that one has a Fork Limit, that is, you can probably cope okay with one fork stuck in you, maybe two or three, but at some point you will lose your shit if one more fork happens.  A fork could range from being hungry or having to pee to getting a new bill or a new diagnosis of illness. There are lots of different sizes of forks, and volume vs. quantity means that the fork limit is not absolute. I might be able to deal with 20 tiny little escargot fork annoyances, such as a hangnail or slightly suboptimal pants, but not even one “you poked my trigger on purpose because you think it’s fun to see me melt down” pitchfork.

This is super relevant for neurodivergent folk. Like, you might be able to deal with your feet being cold or a tag, but not both. Hubby describes the situation as “It may seem weird that I just get up and leave the conversation to go to the bathroom, but you just dumped a new financial burden on me and I already had to pee, and going to the bathroom is the fork I can get rid of the fastest.”

Something I haven't seen spoken about a lot is the psychological impact of being chronically ill and experiencing horrific symptoms, and knowing that literally no one can help you.

I could call a doctor, but I already know what's wrong. There's literally nothing they can do for me. And I can't afford to go just for reassurance.

I'm just in a flare and sometimes it's Like This. And you just have to swallow symptoms that live in the nightmares of well people, because you can't just have an emotional breakdown every time you're in a flare.

So I'm in horrible pain and distress, and I can't call for help, because no one can help me, and I have to act like it's fine, so I don't worry other people who get Very Upset that I can't just Fix It

And there's just a deep psychological burden in that, that I don't think well and able bodied people ever really think about.