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autismserenity · 3 months

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know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!

hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh 3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.

I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.

It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases. It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely. The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe. It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad." It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.

Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body. It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.

It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses. People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.

(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.) Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense? They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."

Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.

Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.

People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it. Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.

(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?") One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.

I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.

She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.

And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile. He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason. I think about that a lot. (Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.

He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.

He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired. Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.

I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.) Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.

But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.

It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.

(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)

(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!) All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths. Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.

We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons. Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened. During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID. But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.

People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started. COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example. The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.

Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.

3,000,000.

Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000. Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.

Five times as many.

That's bad. I don't like that at all. I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:

Here's a non-paywalled link to it:

https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:

Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.

You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.

They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them. These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)

#covid isn't over #covid 19 #disability rights #disability advocacy #wear a mask #covid conscious #covid cautious #mask up #wall of words #public health #health care

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monicascot · 9 months

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youtube

Protecting Female Sacred Birth And Concerns Of Loss Of Medical Sovereignty | Woke Up

Mary Lou Singleton, midwife, nurse practitioner, and medical sovereignty activist. She discusses the medical industrial complex's takeover of birth and the invasion of trans ideology into women's spaces. Concerns about surrogacy. She discusses her journey out of the left and the changes in our political landscape. The political battle is no longer Republican v Democrat but autonomy and sovereignty versus authoritarian control.

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chafahelps · 11 months

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#Health Care Advocacy

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uncanny-tranny · 1 year

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When you're vulnerable around the person you trust or love, I hope you aren't embarrassed about it after the fact. I hope you aren't embarrassed about the way you were vulnerable.

When my friends come to me in a vulnerable moment, I know I don't think about the way they look when they cry, or if their breathing is erratic, or how they say what they are saying. I think about the trust that goes into them exposing their heart like that. I think about the love that went into our friendship. Those superficial thoughts won't cross my mind because that isn't what matters. They are what matters. And that's what I mean. It's never embarrassing to look back on those moments because there was nothing but love under that pain.

The culture we live in shames us for being vulnerable. But we cannot be a stoic person all the time. Eventually, we will be vulnerable, and I hope you don't feel shame for that. Your loved ones won't love you less because you're a human person with human feelings. They love you because you're a human person with human feelings.

#mental health #mental health support #mental health advocacy #a friend of mine was vulnerable to me and the only thing i care about is that they EXPRESSED that pain #i don't care what their cry face looks like. that doesn't MATTER. they opened their heart up and we were there to comfort them.#that is what matters. even if we didn't have the resources to help them. they were there in the moment and they weren't okay #and it's OKAY to not be okay

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moonlit-positivity · 13 days

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Self Care Cheat Sheet

Low effort self care options:

Comfort item

Blankets

Stim toys/accessories

Drinking water/juice

Turning on a light

Using decorations around the house, decorative lights

Candles, incense, lotions

Music

White noise

Deodorant/baby powder/sink wash- ups

Resting

Naps

Pets

Finding compassion for yourself through this moment, even if it's admitting self care isn't an option you can expend right now. That's fine too.

Venting to someone or out loud to a pet, allow your anger & emotions to exist

Calling in from work

Taking a break

Snacks

Video games

Low effort hobby

Making your space accessible for low effort things ie self care bag filled with stim toys, books, activities, etc

Low effort usually includes things readily available, accessible, doesn't take too much effort to do. Consider the ways to make your space low effort & what types of activities you could enjoy when the spoons are low

Medium effort self care options:

Podcast

Watching a movie or comfort show

Reading a book

Art projects, vent art, mood boards, aesthetics, express yourself creatively

Crossword puzzles, sudoku, etc

Organizing, making lists, etc

Meal prep, planning, etc

Microwave foods

Calling a friend

Coloring or journaling

Venting

Half assing hygiene, food, basic necessities

Make your bed up, or throw the comforter over it at least

Sit up or get out of bed to stretch, walk to a different room if you can manage

Take something to the trash can

Move a few things around the house while you're up, put something away properly (don't gotta do the whole thing. Just move some clothes to a pile or something, medium effort here)

Thinking about what you'd like to do next, think about any diy projects or art projects you'd like to do, think about doing something. Don't gotta do it, just think about it.

Soap up a rag & wash ur pitts & bits

Opening a window, step outside to check mail, etc

Medium effort usually involves a little bit of brain power, concentration, and offers more of a distraction while still being low maintenance enough to be doable with a small amount of spoons.

Consider ways you can make your space more accessible for medium effort self care to consolidate the effort.

High effort self care options:

Showering

Hygiene

Clean cat box/pet hygiene

Full meal prep

Walking, exercise

Communicating a need with someone

Considering your emotional, physical, and mental health needs

Writing someone an angry letter (they say ur not supposed to send it but I mean you do you boo 😭)

Asking for help or assistance

Chores

Laundry

Housework

Paying bills

Walking pets

Groceries

Physical activities

Learn something new

Pick up a new hobby, high effort hobbies

Learn something new & beneficial to your health & recovery, put effort towards recovery

Spending time with a friend or someone trusted

High effort self care involves being active and doing things that will make your life easier

These tend to be stressful, so please consider ways to streamline the process

Consider how many spoons you have for that day and ways you can divide tasks accordingly

Try not to push to hard. Remember that half ass is still an ass and it's good enough.

Hope this helps ❤️‍🩹🌸🧸

#recovery #ptsd #trauma #mental health #boundaries #healing #healing thoughts #self care #self soothing #self love #self advocacy #self help #abuse recovery

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ididoktoday · 1 year

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I bet you did the best you could today.

May you come to see that performance as the most any human could ever ask of you.

I bet you made the best choices you could with the information you have.

May you come to understand all the lessons the Universe has to teach you.

I bet you regulated your emotions with as much skill as you were taught by those who cared for you when you were young.

May you come to befriend your full spectrum of emotions and come to see them as helpful information that you engage with consciously and curiously.

I bet you cared for your body with as much love as you’ve been led to believe you deserve.

May you come to see yourself as deserving as much love as the whole Universe holds.

#prayer #call and response #litany #self care #self love #self advocacy #mental health #positive mental attitude #therapyworks #recovering people pleaser #recovery #spread kindness #kind notes to self #kindness #care for others #gratitude #meet your needs #spread love #personal growth

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melodymorningdew · 3 months

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Sometimes Self Care Is Hard

Sometimes it looks like resisting the urge to treat yourself to food you know will hurt you.

Sometimes it looks like turning off the screens to help prevent migraines.

Sometimes it's doing your best to sit still and meditate in the morning.

Sometimes self care is hard.

Sometimes you need a sweet treat to make a bad day better.

Sometimes you need to binge comfort shows to help distract you from spiraling.

Sometimes you need to have no agenda for the day.

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justseveralowls · 2 years

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Message of the day:

“Joy is never a waste of time, doing what makes you happy is productive, you are worthy of spending time on yourself.”

Watch your favorite movie today, take the pretty drive home, buy yourself your favorite flowers. You are worthy of all the love and kindness you would shower onto a best friend or loved one

#message of the day #self love #self care #radical acceptance #mental health advocacy #mental health support #recovery #growth #healing #support #My cats are trying to murder something in my hallway its 9:30 wth #you are loved #you are worthy #you are not alone #you are valid #mine #self awareness

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neuroticboyfriend · 1 year

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self advocacy is an important tool, AND not advocating for yourself does not mean it's your fault you were hurt.

while self advocacy can* affect someone in a way that leads them not to harm us, they are still to blame for any harm THEY choose to enact - whether they realize it was harmful or not. whether you advocated for yourself or not. it should not be and is not on you.

and even more important than self advocacy is being advocated for. the more people who advocate against harm and try to stop it, the less power those ennacting harm have. you can only do so much. you cannot control others. it is not your fault.

*advocating for ourselves doesn't mean we won't be hurt, because again, people choose to hurt us. we do not choose to be hurt. we're taken advantage of.

#softspoonie #trauma #trauma survival #trauma survivor #trauma victim #abuse survivor #abuse survival #abuse victim #cptsd #ptsd #mental health #self care #self advocacy #advocacy #abuse

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timberwolftx · 1 month

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Nobody can do you like you do! Nobody can relate to exactly how you feel! Nobody will care as much as you! You are amazing and special no matter how you look at it! Y'all stay up!

#positive mental attitude #mental illness #mental health #self advocacy #self improvement #self care #self love

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neopet-euthanization · 3 months

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anyone interested in self-advocacy particularly in a medical setting - please check out this youtube channel! he is a genuinely nice dude and he has ran hospitals and he is invested in patient welfare and self-advocacy. he is very available while he streams and answers questions about how to stand up for yourself and get the medical care you know you need! i have been feeling like a lot of people on tumblr could benefit from this guy's channel, so please check it out, subscribe, share the channel and/or this post!

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capetowncapers · 11 months

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Nurse on the phone at my gyn office, not letting me get a word in to explain why I would like to discuss my upcoming Pap smear with my practitioner first: well a Pap smear doesn’t hurt, you know, you might have some cramping but only for a second.

Me, willing myself not to cry frustrated tears bc at this rate I’m gunning to hold the office record for having a panic attack during not one but two Pap smears: ….. well I had one a few years ago that did hurt because I was so tense, so I ask because I’ve been having issues with those muscles still tensing.

Nurse, seemingly unconcerned with this new information: you can take some Motrin an hour before your appointment, did you have any other questions :)

#not looking for you to explain to me how I don’t know what a Pap smear is Maryann. I didn’t have someone shove things inside me for nothing #there’s a line between comforting someone and completely dismissing their concerns and idk man I really don’t care about ur history #i care about mine and about the fact that I know I am calling to talk through my concerns with my practitioner #I’m still more annoyed and shaken up than I should be but idk gynecology is a nightmare field for no reason #bc the discomfort of the procedures is treated as whatever to the point that when someone does have pain #or something is not right #it’s often not taken seriously #and I’m sick of that shit #vent post #cape town rambles #tmi hours #health updates #self advocacy

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sheathandshear · 1 year

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I guess what bothers me about a lot of disability justice approaches to healthcare -- the "doctors must trust that patients are the experts of own bodies" approach -- is that this is the perspective of people with high health literacy written for audiences of people who also have high health literacy, most of whom I think truly do not grasp just how many people have extremely poor health literacy, especially those from groups who for reasons of race, class, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, and/or often a combination of these factors are less likely to have access to accurate health information and culturally competent, trustworthy healthcare providers. When it comes to health and wellness, quite a number of people in our society don't know jack about shit! Even more hold a number of factually inaccurate folk beliefs that range from unhelpful to dangerous. (Hell, even if you have a high degree of health literacy, you probably hold some unexamined false beliefs too, because that's how culture works!) It's true that people are the experts on symptoms as they feel them, but most people are not experts on what those symptoms mean in a medical sense or what can be done about them.

It's a massive blind spot and a symptom of the larger problem of Disability So Educated -- that the vast majority of disability/chronic illness advocates/activists are heard ARE experts on their bodies, because they've had to become experts, but they were able to do so because they are a) literate in English, b) medically literate, c) information literate, and d) have access to and understanding of how to navigate the internet, whereas your average person, particularly your average disabled person, is not. And if you want to create a radical healthcare system that is truly equitable and just -- as opposed to an oligarchy of the educated, i.e. what we have now -- that proposed system has to account for both EDS/MCAS/POTS patients who come in with a 4" three-ring binder of medical literature AND patients who firmly believe that ivermectin cures COVID, vaccines cause autism, co-sleeping with infants is safe, there's no difference between a rescue inhaler and preventative medication, and having an average blood sugar of 600 is perfectly healthy as long as you feel fine.

#health is complicated! the various factors and motivations that go into health behaviors are complicated!#but it often feels like disability justice folks get VERY wedded to the patient-is-always-right narrative #(and as a disabled person you encounter many doctors ranging from dismissive to malicious to incompetent to well-meaning but ignorant)#and ignore everyone and everything that might challenge or complicate that narrative which is... most disabled people #and most abled people!#we've gone from (doctors) the patient is NEVER an expert to (disability justice folks) the patient is ALWAYS the expert #from experience the truth is on average somewhere in the middle #but I get very defensive of all the acutely and chronically ill and disabled patients I work with who disability justice advocates...#...use as rhetorical props without seeming to have much interest in or understanding of their actual lives or personhood #(and don't even get me started on the rampant ageism in many disability advocacy circles predominated by younger people)#agh. complicated! it's complicated!#health care #disability #adventures in nursing #politics #chronic illness

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chaospixiemagic · 1 year

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#self care #mental health #self validation #self care journey #mental health awareness #self advocacy #actually autistic

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uncanny-tranny · 2 months

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I've talked before about how the way people treat suicide can be unintentionally devastating to the suicidal person, but I don't think I really ever said how to avoid that.

Speaking about suicide in how selfish it "is" ("think about how you'll transfer your pain to your loved ones!") might seem like a way to put logical sense into the suicidal person, but, honestly? It runs the risk of massively increasing their shame and guilt about being suicidal. Suicide is not inherently a revenge fantasy or a way to "get back" at someone's loved ones, so when the suicidal person is treated like a criminal of a "crime" they haven't even committed yet, you can imagine how unhelpful that can become.

Instead, if you want to point out how cherished your person is, frame their relationships as something they can keep fostering.

"Your cat will miss you :(!!!!" becomes "you and your cat seem close, right? I'm sure it's beautiful having a close friend like that!" and maybe include ways that they and their cat are close and meaningful to each other, tailored to that relationship.

That's only one example, but when you shift the focus away from why that person should repent and feel guilty for being suicidal, you can instead focus on why they would live for that reason. See how you can frame that as a positive? Whatever is keeping that person tethered should never be used as a bludgeon, I think, because then you're taking away why they're living, the positivity of why they are here. Whatever they are here for should be remembered often and honoured.

#mental health #mental health advocacy #mental health support #suicide #suicide tw #(after this i'm going to rant about being told the unhelpful narrative i included above)#when i was younger the thing i was told the most was that suicide would only transfer my pain to others...#...and is that true? maybe. was it helpful? no.#why was that unhelpful?#because i started using that as yet ANOTHER reason to feel guilty and to lash out against myself...#...because that didn't magic away my suicidality like it 'should have'...#...and that was ~obvious~ proof i didn't care enough about my loved ones to keep them out of harms way...#...and it can be really hard not to do that (give advice like that) because if you're not the suocidal person...#...you have the luxury of thinking without the burden they are labouring under...#...you can see 'logically' and make assumptions about what the other person 'needs'#it's just frustrating because i know that people like this want to help but i worry about *how* they are helping...#...in the sense that i want their efforts to actually help their person and bring them closer

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moonlit-positivity · 1 month

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You deserve to speak your mind. You deserve to be listened to and to feel safe and respected. You deserve to be acknowledged and considered in the presence of other people. You deserve to ask for help, ask for clarity, and ask for accomodations. You deserve to feel safe while advocating for yourself.

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