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baeddel · 2 years

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tips for writing a character with type 1 diabetes

people make these for whatever disability they have. but most of the time they're not really about writing, they're just informative about the disability, which isn't always that helpful. i thought it'd be fun to do one that takes the writing part seriously. so, here's mine!

the only fictional depiction of diabetes i'm aware of is Paul Blart Mall Cop. it's a pretty stupid point of reference, so i'm mostly going to be talking about the protrayal of the blood plague in Bloodborne instead. perhaps surprisingly, this post contains Bloodborne spoilers.

Table of Contents

Preface on Modes of Narrative Discourse

Tip 1: Varieties of Diabetes

Tip 2: Onset of Diabetes

Tip 3: History of Diabetes

Tip 4: Living with Untreated Diabetes

Tip 5: Treatment of Diabetes Today

Tip 6: Hypoglycemia

Tip 7: Diabetes is an Immune System Disorder

Conclusion

before we start, in this post i'm going to use the division of the narrator's discourse employed by Lubomír Doležel in Narrative Modes in Czech Literature, 1973, 5-10, except i'm using 'third person' and 'first person' instead of Er-form and Ich-form because you'll stop reading if i call them that. here's his chart for reference:

the objective narrators (first and third person) are totally external to the events they narrate and have no interpretations to make about what they see—they write in the detached manner of an ornithologist's field journal. example: Hemmingway's 'the Killers.'

the rhetorical third person narrator gets to interpret what it sees; the interpreter in rhetorical third person will generally be someone not involved in the story, such as the author themselves or a fictional storyteller like Shazarad. example: Balzac's 'Sarrasine' (once the Sarrasine sequence actually starts).

the subjective third person narrator is when the answer to 'who speaks?' and 'who sees?' is different. here, the narrator confines their interpretation to the point of view of a specific character within the story. Dolezel's example: "When Helenka was finishing her internship in orthopaedics, there was in the ward a young man who had broken his thigh-bone. Such a common femur fracture, a rather uninteresting case" (M. Pujmanova, Playing with Fire). the comment that the fracture is "uninteresting" is spoken by the narrator, but it is obviously Helenka's interpretation.

the personal and rhetorical first person narrator is a character within the story who can report on their own thoughts and feelings. the personal narrator acts within the story, while the rhetorical narrator merely comments; generally first-person stories will contain all three kinds of first-person narration; personal for their own actions, rhetorical for the actions of others, and observer's for things like providing context about the enviornment. example: Hajime Kanzaka's 'Slayers.'

i promise it's going to be important. now for the tips!

TIP 1: there are different kinds of diabetes

Type 1 diabetes (5-10% of cases), MODY (1-2%) and MIDD (1%) are genetic, whereas Type 2 (90%) and Gestational Diabetes are acquired. you get Gestational Diabetes during pregnancy and then it goes away (it occurs in 6% of all pregnancies), and you acquire Type 2 diabetes pretty much randomly although it's highly correlated with bodyweight. MIDD is accompanied by hearing loss. there is another unrelated disease which is also called diabetes, diabetes insipidus.

if you're writing about a historical period Type 2 is going to be much less common. the number of people with Type 2 has exploded since the 1960s. "As of 2015 there were approximately 392 million people diagnosed with the disease compared to around 30 million in 1985" (wiki). personally i don't know jack shit about any of those other kinds, so i'm only going to talk about Type 1.

TIP 2: onset is prolonged and dangerous

while Type 1 is entirely genetic, onset doesn't actually start until your teens or twenties. basically, your pancreas just stops working. you cannot predict if this will happen, and you won't notice as soon as it does happen.

when you eat carbs or sugar you're absorbing glucose. your body detects the presence of glucose and the pancreas creates insulin which converts glucose into energy. when your pancreas stops working, you will not produce enough insulin to convert the glucose and it'll stick around in your system indefinitely. this is called 'hyperglycemia' or 'high blood sugars' and it is extremely perilous, but its effects come on slowly.

first of all, you will suffer fatigue and tiredness because you aren't making enough energy. at the same time, all the excess glucose your body isn't using will stick to your cells and cause problems. it sticks to the retina, causing vision problems (everything is white and gooey, like you've been rubbing your eyes). it collects in veins and arteries, slowing the flow of blood to the extremities, causing your hands and feet to become severely cold. you'll be lightheaded and dizzy all the time. you urinate constantly, and you also become extremely thirsty, nothing will parch your thirst, and your urine will be completely clear, like water. you lose a lot of weight. you sleep for extremely long periods of time and no one can wake you up. eventually you'll start to collapse during the day and lose consciousness. then you'll die.

if you're reading this and think you have some of those symptoms, please see a doctor!

for myself, i was collapsing unconscious regularly before anyone realized something was wrong. while i've just described these things as symptoms of a disease, your characters are probably not likely to interpret it as a disease right away. i was about fifteen, so my family probably thought i was just a teenager. i didn't want to go to school, but no teenager wants to go to school. i was sleeping in all the time, but that just meant i was lazy and needed to be disciplined. these years (years!) were very hard in my family; every morning i would fight back visciously to stay in bed. i would refuse to attend school and i would defend myself if they tried to drag me. punching and clawing. i was a disobedient teenager with behavioural problems and poor attendance. in fact, i was very close to death. it was only after i started passing out that it became evident to anyone (including me) that something was wrong with my health. when they took me to the doctors they hospitalized me immediately.

so if you're going to write about a character experiencing the onset of diabetes, they are going to have most of these symptoms, but they will probably not experience them as symptoms. if they are from a society like ours, which puts a lot of value on work ethic, they'll probably blame themselves for their flinching self-discipline. they are not likely to connect things like their worsening eyesight to their sleep and behaviour changes; they all come on slowly, over a long time, and don't look connected. other characters will notice gradual changes in their behaviour; their lover might find that they've become distant and disinterested in sex, the people at their church might notice that they attend less, and so forth. they're likely to have become isolated from the people in their life before they start passing out, so no one might be around to notice. i dropped out of my social life before anyone learned i had diabetes, so my old friends don't know what happened.

so, the onset period of Type 1 Diabetes is inherently denpa (see). it also has a natural narrative arc; there is a period of confusion, uncertainty and conflict which culminates in the dramatic symptoms of prolonged hyperglycemia—the sudden fall from unconsciousness. the diagnosis recontextualizes everything the reader has previously witnessed about this character. it therefore fits well in a slow story which takes place over a long time, months or years, and wants a coy narrator who can fairly hide information from the reader: personal first person, observer's first person, objecive third person or subjective third person. in this situation it's an especially good red herring, for example in a mystery or horror novel where the reader is paying close attention to out-of-character behaviour, and a long, slow, character-focused story is expected. but you could also pick a rhetorical third person narrator who conveys information to us which the characters are ignorant of, allowing the reader to cringe as the characters act on their misapprehensions. example:

once Eric didn't open the door on the third day of knocking Lune said "what the hell, you bastard," and then they said "i didn't need you anyway, and i'm not sad you're breaking up with me." then they went and wrote him a pissed-off letter about how they would just go to Denver on their own after all and they stuffed it in the letterbox. four days later when Eric woke up from his diabetic coma he found the letter.

i understand that suggestions like this can be a bit less than useful, since a lot of writing ideas only work in one story, so if you read it in a post someplace it's probably already too late to use it. i would like to make the case, however, that Type 1 diabetes onset can be a generically useful trope. Amnesia is a generically useful disorder in fiction because of how efficiently it solves narrative problems; it allows first person and subjective third person narrators to hide information, and it gives the characters an excuse to explain known information to the reader—the character just forgot all the important stuff. Type 1 diabetes can't be quite that useful to narrators, but it is quite useful; untreated diabetes causes a person to be inconsistent, unreliable and uanvailable. if you ever need a character to fail to show up at a crucial moment in the story, but you don't have a reason yet—it was the diabetes! EZ! this turns what might have been an inconsistency into a set-up for a later payoff, when they figure out what was wrong with them.

more generally than Type 1 diabetes, 'life-changing symptoms which no one realizes are symptoms' and 'slow onset of an unpreventable disease' are common situations in real life, but don't happen very often in fiction, so you should feel free to use them. it's a device that's used to excellent effect in Bloodborne, where it affects almost every character in the game, since everyone uses a substance the tragic effects of which they could not foreknow. because in Bloodborne it's happening to every character all the time the trope has a stochastic impact on the player; as the player learns more about the plague curiosity gradually shades into dread, the heart sinks with each new phase of the moon as the player worries about the characters they've left back at Oedon Chapel.

TIP 3: diabetes was understood from ancient times all over the world

there's a bit of a misconception that nobody knew anything about health and illness until very recently, and past peoples attributed everything to magic. for example, there have been countless attempts to diagnose Hildegard von Bingen with Temporal Lobe Epilespy based on her descriptions of her mystical visions, which—while it isn't refuted by this evidence—seems a bit unchairtable considering she was a physician who especially wrote about epilepsy herself. in short, assume people in the past were medically informed.

according to wikipedia diabetes is one of the oldest diseases described (see). in ancient and imperial China it was called "wasting-thirst", and the article talks about how ancient Egyptian and Indian physicians diagnosed it based on the sweetness of the urine; we actually still diagnose diabetes this way, except we use a chemical that reacts with the urine instead of taste unfortunately. Galen named it diarrhea urinosa, 'diarrhea of the urine', in reference to how much you pee. Galen's medical writing was circulated all over the Middle East and, later, Europe in the medieval period, and diabetes was also described by Celsus who's work was circulated throughout early medieval Europe.

they didn't, however, have an effective treatment for it. if you're writing a historical setting it's likely to mean a long, slow, and unpreventable death. "[Aretaeus of Cappadocia] described the disease as 'a melting down of the flesh and limbs into urine' [...] commenting that "life (with diabetes) is short, disgusting and painful'" (wiki). i'll talk more about contemporary treatment below.

TIP 4: a short, disgusting, and painful life is worth writing about

in tip 3, when we talked about the onset of diabetes, we were thinking from the perspective of a character experiencing gradual changes. but death from untreated diabetes might take years, so they have plenty of time to settle into new habits and routines. it's worth thinking about not just how they change, but what kind of person they become, and therefore might already be before your story starts.

you will get access to the untreated diabetic's first person perspective in the narrative discourse if you're writing them from their own point of view in personal first person or subjective third person, as well as in their character's discourse (ie. dialogue) or in their reported speech. we immediately have some interesting questions about such a character's first person perspective:

1. do they know they have diabetes?

2. if so, are they receiving an ineffective treatment?

Avicenna (our Avicenna!) treated diabetes with "a mixture of lupine, trigonella (fenugreek), and zedoary seed" which could not have helped anyone.

3. if so, do they believe that treatment will work?

i have a very unusual form of Type 1 diabetes which is extremely difficult to treat (there isn't a name for it or anything, as far as i know i'm the only one). it took over ten years to stabilize, and i still have to endure a lot of compromises. all the while i also had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which further confused my and my physician's ability to understand what was happening to me. within my own psychology there were two stages of post-diagnosis experience; an initial faith that i would eventually respond to treatment and everything will go back to normal, and the gradual realisation that help isn't coming. yearning and passivity turn to dejection and stubbornness as doctors stop ordering new tests and i stop asking for them.

4. if they don't know they have diabetes, how do they interpret what's going on with them?

earlier on we talked about a hypothetical diabetic who blamed their lack of work ethic for their problems. how are they doing four years later? they might start identifying with their inaccurate self-image; now they've become a bitter, stubbornly workshy Belacqua.

4. how do they live as someone with untreated diabetes?

remember the symptoms from before; aside from constant urination, exhaustion and losing weight, your sleep becomes very disordered. it is difficult to socialize, keep appointments, work. for myself i have never worked a single day, i no longer leave my house, and i usually sleep during the day. as a teenager and young adult, either before diagnosis or during the unstable period where i did not respond to treatment, i certainly became a different person. i gave up on my physical hobbies and focused on things i could do by myself at any time of day. i read a lot of strange books, i argued with strangers online, and so forth. i was probably never destined to be a normal person, but i certainly became more strange, more reclusive, more self-involved, until i no longer even really share a culture with my neighbours. your untreated diabetic will probably be this way. an eternal stranger; a diseased anchorite, slowly dissolving in the latrine, barely touched by the material world which passes overhead.

many characters in Bloodborne are protrayed that way, but Gilbert is a good point of reference. he is locked in his house—we never see his human form—so we encounter him as a disembodied voice. he is a stranger to Yharnam—he is as alienated from it as the player and becomes our confidant—yet he is also the source of special information. he has certain foreknowledge of his own inevitable death; in conversation he is politely dismissive about it, although you can overhear his terrified pleading.

our experience of Gilbert in Bloodborne is a strictly third person one. Gilbert doesn't want to talk about his health, so his statements in character's discourse are brief and a bit dishonest. the player therefore has to read between the lines. after playing some more of the game they probably assume that Gilbert is suffering from the same beast plague everyone else is. when Gilbert finally turns into a beast and attacks the player we are therefore not surprised, but find our suspicions horribly confirmed. this kind of elenctic delivery, which coaxes knowledge from the reader rather than informs them, is an attractive way to present the symptoms of a secondary character who is only available in third person objective, third person subjective or another character's first person, and the nature of their condition never has to be made explicit. such a character might be—as we suggested earlier—missing or unavailable. they might live alone, not work or socialize, sleep all the time, seem exhausted, and so forth. every time these symptoms present themselves it both explains that character's personality and foreshadows their future, either early death or diagnosis.

all together, the symptoms of untreated diabetes can be part of the penumbra of an interesting character, and the progress of their disease can be a useful and emotionally significant means of advancing the plot. to summarize with a simple example, the protagonists might have to go to a certain character's house because it's known that they won't leave it themselves. then you could have a dramatic scene where the fully dressed detective (for example) has to interrogate the emaciated, barely clothed and barely conscious suspect in her tranny hovel while she lies in bed (or even in the bathroom while she pisses involuntarily). he tries to show her his badge but she can't even see it, "for all i see is white—it means God in heaven must be with me, sir." she makes a rotten smile.

TIP 5: treatment is difficult and prone to human error

the first effective treatments for diabetes came in the 18th century when it was discovered that restricting the intake of sugar improved outcomes. the diet which developed as a treatment resembles what today we call the "Keto diet", containing no sugar and few carbs. a diet like this works because it shifts the burden of energy production to the liver, which begins to turn fat into ketones which are converted into energy in a manner similar to glucose, a state called 'ketosis.' this is actually happening during prolonged hyperglycemia in untreated diabetes as well, since the body isn't converting glucose for energy, but at very high sugars these ketones are more likely to turn acidic in the blood and kill you, which is called 'ketoacidosis.' this happened to me and i had to have my blood flushed (after some emergency asthma treatment raised my blood sugars to toxic levels).

you might be surprised to learn this—most people seem to think there was no effective treatment for Type 1 diabetes until the discovery of insulin in the 1920s, but that isn't the case.

regardless, since the discovery of insulin it has been the first line treatment for diabetes. 1923 is the year that Eli Lilly first produced commercial quantities of insulin, incase period matters. wikipedia has a timeline of insulin milestones (see).

while i spent the last 3,000 words talking about the horrors of untreated diabetes, diabetes which is being managed may be nothing more than a nuisance. there are many diabetic athletes. in one study, "the absolute probability of working was 4.4 percentage points less for women and 7.1 percentage points less for men relative to that of their counterparts without diabetes" (see). that's a noticeable amount, but it still means a minority of diabetics are unemployed because of their diabetes (compare to schizophrenia or autism, where only a small percentage find employment). so diabetes is not necessarily even a disability for most diabetics.

insulin is a very effective treatment. normally the pancreas makes insulin in response to glucose; if you make insulin in response to glucose instead, it's like nothings wrong at all! the point is to take an appropriate amount of insulin relative to the amount of carbohydrates you're consuming. in principle there are no dietary restrictions necessary for a diabetic managing their diabetes with insulin, but in practice refined sugars in things like sweets and sodas raise the sugars too dramatically to manage. diabetics should therefore avoid sugary foods as much as possible, but sugars in foods like cottage cheese which are bound to proteins digest much slower and are much easier to manage.

note: the following descriptions of the treatment of diabetes are based on my own experiences and the experiences of people i've met. they may not represent a worldwide view, may be slightly out of date, and are likely to be partial or limited in other ways.

there is a lot of technique involved in taking insulin, most of it is outside the scope of this post. for your purposes it should be enough to know that there are two types of insulin a typical Type 1 diabetic will use: slow release and fast release. i know these as Lenovo and Novorapid, or green and orange insulin (because of the colour of the pens). a typical diabetic will take some slow release insulin at night, and possibly once or twice during the day, and will take rapid insulin every time they consume carbs. the more carbs, the more insulin. the patient is educated in the relationship between carbs, sugars, glucose and sugar levels and afterwards they are responsible for their own insulin management.

insulin is a completely clear, water-like liquid. it comes in pens with metered doses. doses are very small to allow granularity. most people take double digits of rapid insulin with every meal; i take very small doses, 1-2 units at a time, because i'm extremely sensitive to insulin (part of my strange case). disposable needles are screwed onto the top of the pen and discarded after one use. injection is hypodermic; it is typically injected into the outer thighs or at the bottom of the stomach, but it can be injected elsewhere, such as the butt. pens can be disposable or reusable with disposable cartridges of insulin. the injection is painless in my opinion.

most diabetics will also have a blood-glucose reading kit which tells you what your sugar level is. you do this with meals, anytime you think something might be wrong, and to help make decisions relating to sugars (eg. can i wait and order takeout or do i need to eat right now?). to take a blood reading, a disposable strip is inserted into a small computer with a digital screen. the user pricks their finger with a lancet needle (a sort of small needle gun) and draws blood that way. this is a lot more painful than taking insulin!

all that sounds pretty good, right? so why the ominous headline? well, it's very easy to mess this up. if you take too little insulin then you're going to be high blood sugars again. you might feel lightheaded and tired, but short-term high sugars aren't really a big deal. the problem is that you can take too much insulin. apart from mere forgetfulness, there are many situations in life where we end up with less carbs on our plate than we predict. burning some food, ordering at a restauraunt, and other situations out of your control can present dangers any time you have already taken insulin. while you can delay taking rapid insulin until the food is ready, your long-acting insulin is always ticking down. taking too much insulin by mistake or missing a meal entirely because of circumstance happens more often than you think it would, and it always leads to

TIP 6: Hpyoglycemia... Living Hell

shaking hands, vertigo, cold sweat, nausea, intense dysphoria. none of it really does it justice; hypoglycemia is an overwhelming, all-consuming hunger. but it's not a hunger in your stomach, it's like a hunger with your whole body.

if you don't treat a hypo you'll pass out. then you'll die. i have passed out from a hypo before and had to be taken to hospital; my grandfather fortunately found me lying unconscious, otherwise i would have died. while its hard to get to this stage under normal circumstances—you cannot fail to notice hypoglycemia, it's so intense—humans are not always in normal circumstances. especially in a story, you're often talking about abnormal circumstances. getting lost in the forest, your car breaking down in the desert, getting shipwrecked, or even getting locked out of your apartment. these are all potentially lethal predicaments for a diabetic with insulin in their system, their sugars inexorably ticking down to nothing. it's a very dramatic situation which can turn things which are small inconveniences for other characters into life or death situations for the diabetic. meanwhile, hypoglycemia impairs your ability to resolve your situation.

hypoglycemia is used as a plot device in this way in Paul Blart Mall Cop. actually, it's used in a very funny way. they're doing the 'Dark Night of the Soul' beat, where the hero has to look like they're on the verge of defeat, but they turn it around for the climax. so all the action is going on—whatever the hell it is that happens in that movie—and Blart enters hypoglycemia at the worst time. he's lying on the floor, incapacitated... defeated by his illness, just like back in the Police Academy... when he finds—miraculously—just out of reach—a lollipop! sugar! shots of him struggling to reach the lollipop are intercut with the rising action in the A plot. then once he reaches it, it's all gross because it was on the floor. comic gag of him eating a gross, floor lollipop... and then he leaps into action and saves the day!

it's very funny, and part of what makes it funny is how incredibly inaccurate it is. sucking on a lollipop basically gives Blart superpowers; in his post-hypo sugar rush he can accomplish things he couldn't even accomplish normally. it certainly doesn't work that way, you're really going to be in a daze all day and should be in bed. but this goes over while you're watching. what's funny is that they're turning the language of blockbuster cinema to a very mundane, stupid situation, to which it cannot possibly really apply. it's absurd that a diabetic mall cop can turn into a Sylvester Stalone-like movie hero with the help of a piece of candy, and that's the joke the movie is making.

so you can take a lot of artistic license here, and lean on the drama, and the audience will understand. Paul Blart Mall Cop actually takes something like the first step towards making diabetes into a generic narrative disease like Amneisa the way we discussed. by the way, there's another Kevin James movie, Hitch, which does a similar thing with Asthma. in that movie, the Asthma of Jame's character, Albert Brennaman, is made into an image for his imperfection and thus low status as a person (which makes him incompatible with the very high-status woman he is in love with). because asthma attacks take us by surprise, he must use his inhaler at times not of his choosing, and inconveniently expose his poor health and, poetically, his low status. Hitch, the date coach, attempts to make him mask his low-status and, consequently, his asthma, bad advice which Brennaman overcomes in the finale when he opens his big gesture to the leading lady with a few puffs of his inhaler.

it's a bit wasted on those movies, but it's actually very good writing—it's a very good way to use impairments, making them plot devices, poetic motifs and sources of comic relief, without being at all mean spirited.

anyway. there are, again, two ways to depict hypoglycemia: the first-person view of the diabetic, available to personal first person or subjective third person narrators, or the third-person view of another character, available to the rest.

in third person, the hypo is another way in which diabetes is naturally denpa. on this occasion, when we encounter this character, they are acting differently—not just strange, but scarcely human. possessed, possibly even violent. once when i entered hypoglycemia in town i had to try and navigate to a shop and buy a can of soda, since i didn't have anything with me to help. i managed to find a shop, grab a soda and navigate to the till, but i missed the queue entirely and pushed infront of an old lady. she interrupted me to scold me, but once i turned around—i don't know what she saw in me, but she immediately became very frightened and apologized. the situation is even worse for a diabetic who doesn't understand their condition and doesn't know how to help themselves.

if you choose a coy narrator and withold the fact that they're diabetic, or presently low blood sugars, from the reader, you can present a lot of confusing signals to them. it naturally creates an enigma which the reader wishes to solve. and if you choose a narrator who is free to interpret the situation for the reader, such as the rhetorical third person narrator, then it is once again a situation to stage tragic ironies—conflicts or confusions which the reader understands, but which the diabetic character cannot communicate.

it's also a captivating way to introduce a character for the first time. here it's a bit like Father Gascoigne in Bloodborne, who we only meet in person after his blood-craze has begun—sweet blood, ooh, it sings to me—but before and afterwards we have the chance to hear reports about his loving faterhood and doting family.

from the first person, it's probably going to be a bit of a challenge to represent hypogycemia. it is characterized by a total distortion of the inner experience. i generally don't remember what happens during one, but if i do, it is not at all what others recall. only certain prose styles—highly emotional, subjective ones, such as the stream of consciousness—will really be appropriate. it is acceptable to treat it as a blackout, accessible only through vague flashbacks. however, if you are writing a highly emotionally intense story which cares a lot about the inner experience of its characters, hypoglycemia may be an alluring state to paint with. i am not aware of any attempt to render this in prose fiction. Serious Weakness has scenes a bit like that, for other reasons, that's the closest i can compare it, or else some of the junk sickness sequences in Burroughs.

TIP 7: diabetes means being sick all the time

this is a rather minor point, but diabetes is an autoimmune disorder. your immune system is very compromised. you get sick all the time, sometimes for reasons you can't specify. i have severe flu-like symptoms a lot of the year.

in conclusion, i think Type 1 diabetes is a very strange disease with a lot of alarming symptoms which no one is really exploiting in fiction. a lot of our everyday experiences as diabetics lend themselves well to fictional situations and there's a lot of room for the writer to use their artistic license. depending on how you choose to narrate the symptoms of diabetes it can take on many different appearances and colours and therefore fit into a lot of stories. and much of this is probably true not just of diabetes, but of disorders and impairments in general. it's up to you to decide how and why you want to write about impairment, the 'moral' organization of your story which this post doesn't care about. hope that helps you write something, fuckers!

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gryficowa · 23 days

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Boycott!

Isn't it funny that the enemies of evil people are usually young people and they call them "Inexperienced and naive" when in practice they are more aware than them?

Hello, this is what the "Vote Blue" people are like, they lie that they care about the Palestinians, and then they encourage you to vote for a Zionist and that's fucked up

Now that I have your attention:

----------------------------------------------------------

Oh yes, there will 100% be texts in the comments about being a Russian troll, a hidden rightist, or a MORON

Or something related to pinkwashing/homonationalism, which is typical of people who try to pretend that they support minorities (Tia… Arabs, Muslims, people with disabilities and autistic people are very respected by them...)

But when you come back, remember to boycott!

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my-autism-adhd-blog · 11 months

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how do i talk to my parents about taking my adhd more seriously? i feel like they dont really understand how much i really effects my life and my mom has said my "adhd isnt really a disability" and its very stressful sometimes

Hi @pyrophilexd

I’m so sorry your parents aren’t that educated about ADHD. But not to worry, I found sources you can show them and how it affects your daily life. There will be long excerpts, so I apologize if this is really long.

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a chronic, debilitating disorder which may impact upon many aspects of an individual’s life, including academic difficulties,1 social skills problems,2 and strained parent-child relationships.3 Whereas it was previously thought that children eventually outgrow ADHD, recent studies suggest that 30–60% of affected individuals continue to show significant symptoms of the disorder into adulthood.4 Children with the disorder are at greater risk for longer term negative outcomes, such as lower educational and employment attainment.5 A vital consideration in the effective treatment of ADHD is how the disorder affects the daily lives of children, young people, and their families. Indeed, it is not sufficient to merely consider ADHD symptoms during school hours—a thorough examination of the disorder should take into account the functioning and wellbeing of the entire family.

As children with ADHD get older, the way the disorder impacts upon them and their families changes (fig 1⇓). The core difficulties in executive function seen in ADHD7 result in a different picture in later life, depending upon the demands made on the individual by their environment. This varies with family and school resources, as well as with age, cognitive ability, and insight of the child or young person. An environment that is sensitive to the needs of an individual with ADHD and aware of the implications of the disorder is vital. Optimal medical and behavioural management is aimed at supporting the individual with ADHD and allowing them to achieve their full potential while minimising adverse effects on themselves and society as a whole.

How Does ADHD Affect Overall Health?

ADHD & Sleep:

Why So Many Night Owls Have ADHD

Delayed sleep phase syndrome, defined by irregular sleep-wake patterns and thought of as a circadian rhythm disorder, is common in ADHD. The ADHD brain takes longer — about an hour longer on average (remember, that’s just an average) — to fall asleep than does the non-ADHD brain. That’s why it’s not uncommon for us to stay up late at night, and regret it in the morning.

Poor-Quality Sleep Worsens ADHD Symptoms

Suffering a sleep deficit with ADHD is like waking up to ADHD times two — or five. Lack of sleep slows a person’s response time, processing speed, and decision-making. We’re not as alert or as focused when we’re tired. We become crabby and inflexible. We imitate three of the Seven Dwarfs: Dopey, Sleepy, and Grumpy. Lack of sleep is a self-fulfilling prophecy; it only continues to throw our circadian rhythm off kilter and cause more dysregulated sleep.

ADHD & Nutrition and Eating Habits

Why ADHD Brains Chase Dopamine

The dopamine-deficient ADHD brain seeks this chemical in many places, from tobacco to junk food. Caffeine also boosts dopamine levels in the brain. And it’s always tempting to reach for simple carbs, since they rapidly break down into sugar and stimulate dopamine release.

ADHD Symptoms Influence Eating Behaviors

Symptoms like impulsivity and inattention easily invite dysregulated eating, which may lead to unintended weight gain. In fact, studies link ADHD to excess weight and obesity5 — which is linked to other conditions ranging from fatty liver, high blood pressure, and metabolic syndrome. Relatedly, research also links ADHD to Type 2 diabetes.

Are Other Health Conditions Linked to ADHD?

From autoimmune diseases and skin conditions to hypermobility and pulmonary disease, a string of other health conditions have been linked to ADHD. Take a moment to think about how ADHD impacts your diet, health, and overall wellness.

How Does ADHD Affect Education and Careers?

Adverse School Experiences with ADHD Are Common

Our experiences in school often foreshadow our careers and other aspects of our lives. Did ADHD prevent you from graduating high school or from enrolling in or finishing college, as it did for so many of us? Or did ADHD help you excel in school? Did you have to navigate school with a learning difference like dyslexia or dysgraphia, as 45% of children with ADHD do?

What Is ADHD?

ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It’s caused by brain differences that affect attention and behavior in set ways. For example, people with ADHD are more easily distracted than people who don’t have it. ADHD can make it harder to focus, listen well, wait, or take your time.

Having ADHD affects a person at school, at home, and with friends.

The signs of ADHD start early in childhood. But some people don’t find out they have it until they are older. It all depends on when ADHD keeps them from doing well, and when they see a doctor about it.

No matter when a person finds out they have ADHD, the right treatment can help them do better in all parts of their life. Having great support from parents, teachers, and friends helps too.

What Are the Signs of ADHD?

People with ADHD might:

have trouble listening and paying attention

need lots of reminders to do things

get distracted easily

seem absent-minded

be disorganized and lose things

not sit still, wait their turn, or be patient

rush through homework or other tasks or make careless mistakes

interrupt a lot, and talk or call out answers in class

do things they shouldn't, even though they know better

get upset easily

feel restless, fidgety, frustrated, and bored

Teachers will notice signs like these in the classroom. And parents will notice signs like these at home. You may notice signs like these in yourself. If you do, talk to a parent or teacher about it.

Share this information and articles to your uneducated parents. They need to understand and know how this disorder affects daily life. And it’s also genetic. So if you have ADHD, I’m sure your parents might too.

I hope this can help you and your parents. Thank you for the inbox. I hope you have a wonderful day/night. ♥️

#inbox #inbox reply #inbox is open #long post

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vamprel · 27 days

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🍉 Please don't ignore my suffering

I am Sara Hussein, a Palestinian ❤🍉 from the besieged and destroyed Gaza

From a family of young children, women and the elderly 😢🥺

My mother suffers from a stroke, diabetes and high blood pressure and needs intensive medical care and expensive medications 🥺😭

The children in the family are deprived of playing and studying and suffer from hunger and deprivation 🥺

Our life is harsh because we lack all the basic necessities of life. Everything has become scarce and difficult to obtain. There is no food, no water, and no medicine.

So I ask you to help me keep my family safe and alive so that I can pay for their expensive travel costs from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and our current daily living expenses in the Gaza Strip.

Please don't leave my family alone 🙏

You can support my campaign by donating what you can or by sharing my posts to reach others who can support us.

You are helping in the lives of many people with your small contribution. ❤🍉

Every donation makes a difference in our very difficult life. This is a legitimate campaign

https://www.paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=P4WNXAZTMC5KS

I can’t donate, but I can spread awareness

#free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #save palestine #palestinian genocide #I wish I can donate but I have no money

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dandymaximilian · 2 years

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DHMIS Purgatory Theory Ideas:

"The Council" Lamp mentions represents souls chosen to "judge" the actions of those who "need to be taught a lesson" through "performances."

They are chosen by the "creator" to write "the script" of the DHMIS reality, because they've gained enough self awareness.

Their purpose is to help souls fufill their spiritual karma, and to teach them the "lessons" neglected in life. To "earn coins" means to earn the right to move on beyond the purgatory.

Examples of "The Council": Lesley and Roy, who create a false reality for Red, Yellow, and Duck.

Teachers are souls that are manipulated by "The Council" to teach lessons on their behalf. It's only when a teacher properly fufills their purpose and/or spiritual karma that they can move on.

Examples: Warren needs to learn how to be a proper friend. Colin needs to learn how to nativgate the internet without encouraging superficial false identities, misinformation and escapism. Sketchbook needs to learn not to supress other's creativity with her personal bias, etc.

Some teachers have their memories intact, while others don't, determined by "The Council." Their souls travel through the different "bubbles of realities" or "dollhouses", hence why their bodies were lifeless/glitchh during the blackout scene.

For Red Guy, his ultimate lesson is to not be apathetic about his existence, and to feel the intense emotions he suppressed in his life, good and bad. Anger, pain, joy, passion, fear, love, amongst others are feelings that he must experience and fully accept in his "performance" to truly move on.

Red's shown his lonely past through "flashbacks" of "his own kind." Or the emotionless, cold cooperate world he was forced to blend into to fit in, which he "escaped" through death when it became too much to bear.

Red must learn to express his creativity and emotions, and embrace himself and others flaws in order to "earn his coins."

When Red "pulled the plug," he accomplished something he never did in life: actively making a change in reality for the benefit of someone else. This scene also visually represents him "pulling the plug" in life, aka his early death.

For Yellow, his purpose is to discover a sense of identity that he was never able to in his life through his "performance." He died young, before he had the chance to fully get to know himself, thus the frequent appearance of his charged!self and brain friends as separate entities.

Yellow's family in Jobs was created for the purpose of giving him a taste of married life and the experience of being a father, since he missed the opportunity in life.

When Roy mentions that he "needs to be punished", he wants Yellow to learn life's harsh lessons in a "tough love" sort of way. He rewards everyone for enduring the lessons by guiding Red to reset the harsher reality.

Meanwhile, Lesley is aware that Yellow "isn't the son" she remembers, but she tries to guide him on the right path whenever he does meet her. She hopes that he can join her in "The Council" by becoming fully self aware, or "reading the book."

Yellow's loyalty to his friends holds him back. Ultimately, he wants to learn the lessons alongside his friends. He expresses this desire by directly speaking to Lesley about his interpretation on the lessons.

Duck did many bad things in his life. He was part of the military and forged documents while in it. He "treated people like dogs", as symbolized by his obsession with the show "Grolton and Horvis," and in the dog he appears as in Yellow's flashback.

Duck appearing as a dog also represents people's feelings about him in a "animal farm" sense, aka dogs = the police force. Who is the dog and who is the man?

Duck must experience diabetes and death like he did in life as punishment for his misdeeds, and learn to put others before himself. He must learn to love like he wanted to in life, in a familial and perhaps romantic sense.

Duck "gets it right" in Jobs by rebelling against the established system by choosing to help Yellow in his time of need. He did something purely selfless, just because he wanted to, even if it would've gained him nothing.

Duck is aware enough to subconsciously remember that he is in a performance, but is terrified to explore the implications of it.

Duck copes with each harsh situation, and tries to learn the lessons alongside Yellow. In turn, he's rewarded by having his decaying body replaced by Lesley, instead of it rotting away like other souls seen.

Red Guy and Yellow Guy naturally avoid this, but their karma doesn't revolve around their physical form.

The brief "swap of colours" at the end DHMIS Webseries represents the greater sense of self the trio gained a result of their lessons, karma, and moments of self awareness. The empty set represents the "change in script".

"The center of the Earth" Lamp mentions represents the religious belief of where purgatory is, but ultimately the detail of it isn't particularly relevant to the story.

The DHMIS world is a spiritual "simulation" that isn't defined by reality. Any perception of physical forms and environments is a illusion.

There are those who have the abilities of "The Council" who aren't a part of it. Instead, they use their self awareness of their false reality and reality bending abilities for their own gain. Often they encourage others to stray from their path of spiritual karma and lessons as a result.

Examples: The twins, who rejected "The Council" stay in their bubble of "family life," luring lonely souls into joining their family to replace their missing members.

Malcom, the self proclaimed "Love God" who forces souls into mindless complacency, forced happiness, and obedience through his "paradise." He uses Shrignold and others members as a way to lure vulnerable people who were outcasted in life. Trapping them with a life of "purity."

#dhmis #dont hug me im scared #dhmis red guy #dhmis yellow guy #dhmis duck #dhmis theory #dhmis analysis #dhmis purgatory #ramblings

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wellhealthhub · 1 year

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Diabetes in Youth: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding and Managing the Condition

Did ya know that diabetes ain’t just a grown-up problem? It’s got its grip on the younger generation too, and it’s downright worrisome. The numbers of young’uns with diabetes keep shootin’ up, and it’s high time we take a good look at how this chronic condition is impactin’ their lives. What’s causin’ it? What can we do to tackle this growin’ issue head-on? In this here article, we’re gonna dive…

View On WordPress

#Adolescent diabetes #are diabetic socks the same as compression socks #Childhood diabetes #Childhood type 1 diabetes #Children with diabetes #Diabetes awareness for young people #Diabetes education for kids #Early onset diabetes #Future implications of diabetes in youth #Juvenile diabetes #Pediatric diabetes #Preventing type 1 diabetes in youth #Type 1 diabetes in children #Type 1 diabetes mellitus #Youth diabetes management #Youth-onset diabetes

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emperordipsh-t · 7 months

Note

Hello there, am sorry for stepping in your inbox without your permission. Am having a request concerning my family. My family is still living in the Gaza Strip, and like so many other families, their lives are hell right now. My family includes my father and mother, my sisters Nisreen and Yasmine and my brother Anwar. My dad is 77 years old and my mother, who I call the soul of my soul and the balm of my life, is 75 years old and confined to a wheelchair because of a war injury when she was young. My brother Anwar and my sister Yasmine suffer from diabetes mellitus type 1… They need insulin urgently and regularly. Any lack of insulin puts their lives in danger, as what happened with my older sister Ibtisam, who lost her life 10 years ago due to a lack of insulin.” Kindly donate any amount and reblog.

I don't know how this person found my account, and I don't know if it's real, but please, please reblog this and other stories like it, and donate however much you can. If not to this, then to the many other charity funds like it. Spread awareness however you can. This isn't going to stop until we stop it.

Edit: This is a scammer. Do not donate. All the other stuff still applies just don't give money to people that try to profit off of suffering.

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #gaza strip #donate if you can #reblog

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planstransamanacanalpanema · 21 days

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The way diabetics learn about the risks of the disease has permanently altered my brain in comical ways.

So today, I bumped into a doorframe and knocked the omnipod out of my leg but didn't look and therefore didn't know I was bleeding from the site. I went to hang a curtain and looked down and a bunch of blood had dripped onto a specific toe and the blood had splattered around the area. And my initial instinct, as a diabetic absolutely terrified of losing my, at this point, totally healthy and normal feet, was that through some horrific and unmentioned complication, one of my toes had simply exploded and I had not been aware of this because I had developed neuropathy over the course of like an hour.

And granted, this is a funny story that I will be telling at work over the next few weeks, but it's also kind of sad. I've been warned for the last 16 years of every horrifying thing that could and, at least in the way most people talk about it, probably will happen to me, and I've been made terrified of every itchy spot on my feet and every minor vision change over the past few years and every sore spot in my mouth and this and that and everything all at once. Those doctors appointments I have every year, especially my eye doctor, are kind of nerve wracking because I always feel like, ok, this is going to be the year where they finally tell me my body is going to shit in irreparable ways.

There's a point to this in sort of a vague way, but in general. Stop feeding the diabetics in your life the stories about the ischemic bowels of your grandpa and your footless aunt. We know. Everyone knows. We've been told to the point that living a long and healthy life, while completely plausible, especially for young people now who started their lives with diabetes with today's resources, seems completely impossible and blindness and pain and suffering are an inevitability, and maybe we don't need that? Ok thanks.

#diabetes #type one diabetes #diabetes education #actually diabetic #health education #rant

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brookstonalmanac · 5 months

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Holidays 4.15

Holidays

Anime Day

Anniversary of Tarija (Bolivia)

AR-15 Day

Ariadne Asteroid Day

ASL Day (American Sign Language Day)

Banyan Tree Day (Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii)

Bija Mangala (Field Cultivation Festival)

Buck Rogers Day

Children’s Day (Spain)

Criminal Investigation Department Employees Day (Ukraine)

Da Vinci Day

Day of Love (Georgia)

Day of People (Aysellant)

Day of Radio-Electronic Fight Troops (Russia)

Day of the Sun (North Korea)

Father Damien Day (Hawaii)

Fluff Appreciation Day

415 Day

Freak Out Day

Gallaudet Day

Good Roads Day (Illinois)

Great Stichwort

Hardware Freedom Day

Hillsborough Disaster Memorial Day (Liverpool, UK)

Himachal Day (India)

Historical City Day (Malacca)

Hug Your Boiler Day

Income Tax Pay Day

International Biomedical Laboratory Science Day

International Pompe Day

Ivory Soap Day

Jackie Robinson Day

Kim Il Sung Day (North Korea)

Lilac Day (French Republic)

Lover’s Day (Kazakhstan)

Mariah Carey Day (California)

Melaka UNESCO Heritage Day (Malaysia)

Microvolunteering Day

National Anime Day

National ASL Day

National Collegiate Recovery Day

National Griper’s Day

National Hookup Day

National Keaton Day

National Laundry Day

National Poet Day (Peru)

National Rubber Eraser Day

National Security Education Day (Hong Kong)

National That Sucks Day

National Titanic Remembrance Day

One Boston Day

Purple Up Day

Quantum Teleportation Day

Rubber Eraser Day

Swallow Day (UK)

Take a Wild Guess Day

Tax Day (US)

Tax Resistor's Day

That Sucks Day

Tipsa Diena (Traditional start of plowing; Ancient Latvia)

Titanic Remembrance Day

Type 1 Diabetes Day

Universal Day of Culture

World Art Day

World Tiny Art Gallery Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Fast Food Day

McDonald’s Day

National Glazed Spiral Ham Day

National Takeout Day (Canada)

3rd Monday in April

Boston Marathon Day [3rd Monday]

National Stress Awareness Day [3rd Monday]

Landing of the 33 Patriots Day observed (Uruguay) [3rd Monday]

Patriots' Day (Maine, Massachusetts, Wisconsin) [3rd Monday]

Sechseläuten ends (Six Ringing Festival; Zurich, Switzerland) [3rd Monday]

Weekly Holidays beginning April 15 (3rd Week)

National Work Zone Safety Awareness Week [thru 4.19]

Undergraduate Research Week [thru 4.19]

Week of the Young Child [thru 4.19]

Independence & Related Days

Independence Day Holiday (Israel)

Unitedlands (Declared; 2022) [unrecognized]

Vishwamitra (f.k.a. Children’s Group; Declared; 2007) [unrecognized]

New Year’s Days

Day after Sidereal New Year (South and Southeast Asian) (a.k.a. …

Bengali New Year (India)

Bohag Bihu (Parts of India)

Himachl Day (Parts of India)

Lao New Yar (Laos)

Masadi (Parts of India)

Nababarsha (Parts of India)

New Year Holidays (Myanmar)

Sarhul (Parts of India)

Songkran (Thailand)

Water-Sprinkling Festival continues (Yunnan, China)

Poila Boishakh (Bengali New Year)

Festivals Beginning April 15, 2024

Boston Marathon (Boston, Massachusetts) [3rd Monday]

Coquina Beach Seafood & Music Festival (Coquina Beach, Florida) [thru 4.17]

Singing in the Sun (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina) [thru 4.20]

TED Conference (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) [thru 4.19]

Feast Days

Abbo II of Metz (Christian; Saint)

Arshile Gorky (Artology)

Bananas with Everything Day (a.k.a. Banana Day; Pastafarian)

Basilissa and Anastasia (Christian; Martyrs)

Day of Tellus Mater (Pagan)

Elizabeth Catlett Mora (Artology)

Father Damien (The Episcopal Church)

Festival of Hero/Bast (Ancient Egypt)

Festival of Matsu/Mazu (Goddess of the Sea; Taoism)

Fordicidia (Old Roman Festival of Fertility to honor Ceres)

Henry James (Writerism)

Hippachus (Positivist; Saint)

Hunna (Christian; Saint)

Jeffrey Archer (Writerism)

Kanamara Matsuri (Iron Phallus Festival; Japan)

Leonardo da Vinci (Artology)

Munde (Christian; Saint)

Padarn (Christian; Saint)

Pammy (Muppetism)

Paternus of Avranches (Christian; Saint)

Peter Gonzales (Christian; Saint)

Ruadan of Lothra (Christian; Saint)

Rusalja (Celebration of River Spirts Rusalki of the Lemko People of Carpathia; Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Tellus Mater (Old Roman Mother Earth Festival)

Vlad Tepes Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Fortunate Day (Pagan) [14 of 53]

Sakimake (先負 Japan) [Bad luck in the morning, good luck in the afternoon.]

Uncyclopedia Bad to Be Born Today (because the Titanic Sank and it’s also Tax Day.)

Premieres

The Adventures off Marco Polo (Film; 1938)

Aftermath, by The Rolling Stones (Album; 1966)

The Art of Real Happiness, by Norman Vincent Peale (Book; 1950)

The Black Island, by Hergé (Graphic Novel; 1938) [Tintin #7]

Catalogue d’Oiseaux, by Olivier Messiaen (Pieno Pieces; 1959)

Colors (Film; 1988)

Dark Command (Film; 1940)

Donald’s Nephews (Disney Cartoon; 1938)

Don’t Speak, by No Doubt (Song; 1996)

84, Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff (Novel; 1970)

El Amor Bruno (Love, the Magician), by Manuel de Falla (Ballet; 1915)

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (Film; 2022)

Fargo (TV Series; 2014)

The Fitzgeralds and The Kennedys, by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Book; 1987)

Flashdance (Film; 1983)

Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes (Short Story; 1959)

Genghis Khan (Film; 1965)

Girls (TV Series; 2012)

The Hypo-Chondri-Cat (WB MM Cartoon; 1950)

The Little Goldfish (MGM Cartoon; 1939)

Little Red School Mouse (Noveltoons; 1949)

In Living Color (TV Series; 1990)

The Last Emperor (Film; 1988)

The Lumberjack (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit; 1929)

The Moon and Sixpence, by W. Somerset Maugham (Novel; 1919)

Mouse Come Home (Andy Panda Cartoon; 1946)

Outer Banks (TV Series; 2020)

Outer Range (TV Series; 2022)

Rattus Norvegicus, by The Stranglers (Album; 1977)

Ride ‘Em Plowboy (Oswald the Luck Rabbit Disney Cartoon; 1928)

Rio (Animated Film; 2011)

Robinson Crusoe’s Broadcast (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1938)

Rock & Rule (Animated Film; 1983)

Rock for Light, by The Bad Brains (Album; 1983)

Stage Fright (Film; 1950)

St. Matthew’s Passion, by Johann Sebastian Bach (Oratorio; 1729)

Think, recorded by Aretha Franklin (Song; 1968)

To the Finland Station, by Edmund Wilson (Novel; 1940)

The Twenty-One Balloons, by William Pène du Bois (Novel; 1947)

Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On, by Jerry Lee Lewis (Song; 1957)

Wild, by Cheryl Strayed (Memoir; 2012)

Today’s Name Days

Anastasia, Damian, Una (Austria)

Rastislav, Teodor (Croatia)

Anastázie (Czech Republic)

Olympia (Denmark)

Uljas, Uljo, Verner, Verni (Estonia)

Linda, Tuomi (Finland)

César, Paterne (France)

Anastasia, Damian, Una (Germany)

Leonidas (Greece)

Anasztázia, Tas (Hungary)

Anastasio, Annibale (Italy)

Aelita, Agita, Balvis, Gastons (Latvia)

Anastazijus, Liudvina, Modestas, Vaidotė, Vilnius (Lithuania)

Oda, Odd, Odin (Norway)

Anastazja, Bazyli, Leonid, Ludwina, Modest, Olimpia, Tytus, Wacław, Wacława, Wiktoryn, Wszegniew (Poland)

Aristarh, Pud, Trofim (Romania)

Fedor (Slovakia)

Telmo (Spain)

Oliver, Olivia (Sweden)

Mstyslav, Mstyslava (Ukraine)

Kenya, Octavia, Tavia, Tucker (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 106 of 2024; 260 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 1 of week 16 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Saille (Willow) [Day 2 of 28]

Chinese: Month 3 (Wu-Chen), Day 7 (Ji-You)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 7 Nisan 5784

Islamic: 66 Shawwal 1445

J Cal: 16 Cyan; Twosday [16 of 30]

Julian: 2 April 2024

Moon: 50%: 1st Quarter

Positivist: 22 Archimedes (4th Month) [Varro]

Runic Half Month: Man (Human Being) [Day 6 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 28 of 92)

Week: 3rd Week of April

Zodiac: Aries (Day 26 of 31)

#Holidays

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schizodiaries · 1 month

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I’ve haven’t really opened up about this on this blog because it isn’t schizoaffective related. But I hope you all don’t mind that I vent a bit about this. In addition to mood and psychotic issues, I also struggle a lot with body image and poor eating habits. It’s apparently not severe enough to be considered an eating disorder, but it’s pretty heavily influenced by decades of diet mentality and internalized fatphobia.

(More under the cut, but I’m putting a content warning for mentions of weight and dieting, as well as potential disordered eating habits.)

I’m overweight. In fact, on my medical records, it says I’m obese according to my BMI. It wasn’t always that way. I used to be quite thin, maybe even underweight. But ever since the pandemic/lockdown, and ever since taking antipsychotics, my weight changed rapidly and dramatically.

I’m trying not to see this as a bad thing, but fatphobia is not easily unlearned especially if it’s been instilled at such a young age. Not only that, but because my weight change happened so suddenly, it came with some health issues. Prediabetes, for one, and some mobility issues too. Being at a heavier weight so suddenly has put so much strain on my legs, feet, and lower back, and walking up and down the stairs has become painful and a struggle for me. I can’t move around, turn my body, or bend over as easily as I used to, and it’s causing me a lot of stress physically and mentally.

Now for the social aspect. As we all know being fat is looked down upon in society. Especially in female bodies. I was already aware of the insanely fatphobic standards that women are often held to but I haven’t been on the receiving end of that until now. I have also gotten so many hurtful comments from family members and people close to me about my weight. The worst one I got was from an older, non English speaking relative who wouldn’t even call me fat to my face. She had to say it in her native tongue and direct it to my parents, while I was clearly in the room. What she doesn’t know is that though I don’t speak my family’s language, I can understand just enough to know when someone is saying “Jesus, she got fat!”

That encounter was the last straw for me. I knew at that point I needed to lose weight, by any means necessary. I put myself on countless diets, tried intermittent fasting, dusted off my fitness watch, forced myself to go on walks despite the pain, weighed myself multiple times a day, and started counting calories. At first, it worked, and I started to see some weight change. My mom commented that i was “getting my figure back.” I was being praised for all my work. But the process was slow. And it wasn’t enough, for anyone. Not my parents, not my doctor, not me.

I gained all the weight back and then some because my heavily restrictive eating habits came back to bite me in the ass and I was so hungry to the point of overeating to compensate for the lack of food. I got burnt out from exercise and became sedentary. My plan had failed, and I am now at my highest weight I’ve ever been. My doctor put me on Metformin, a medication typically prescribed to treat diabetes and PCOS. But it can also cause weight loss. My doctor strongly suggested i take the medicine, and even lamented my thinness on my behalf. In her words, “You used to be so skinny!” I am now at the highest dose of this medicine, which has given me gastrointestinal issues, and I still have not noticed a change in my weight.

I’m trying my best to keep a positive mindset about this. I’m trying to stay body positive, to love and accept my bigger body, and to embrace my change in weight as just another part of getting older. But it’s so difficult. My struggle to move my body like I used to, the nonstop comments I get from family members and healthcare professionals, the fact that I keep outgrowing every new clothing item I buy for myself and having to buy new ones every few months. It’s making me depressed, and angry.

I’ve reached out to my therapist already, who referred me to an eating disorder specialist who subsequently determined that I don’t have an eating disorder. They then referred me to a dietician, where I learned about consistent and balanced eating. I attended webinars about eating skills, body image, and rejecting the diet mentality. I’ve put in the effort to fix my relationship with food and body image. And I’ve certainly made a lot of progress in that regard. But I’m still fat. And the people in my life make it a point to remind me of that frequently.

Today I spoke to my mom about the pain in my lower body. She offered little to no sympathy, and told me to just lose weight and it will go away. She later sent me an Instagram reel about water fasting. I know she’s just trying to help, but i think this hurt more than it helped. The instagram reel I found to be particularly triggering, as now I am highly considering doing a water fast to lose weight.

The only person closest to me who hasn’t made any kind of negative comment about my heavier weight is my boyfriend. He has consistently been my biggest supporter throughout my weight journey. Except for when I relapse. Whenever he catches me restricting or starving or skipping meals, he expresses disappointment and accuses me of “giving up” and “not trying hard enough” to recover. Which is a huge slap in the face considering I’ve been putting so much effort into changing my relationship with food - seeing a dietitian every month, reaching out to an ED specialist, attending webinars about food and body positivity. But apparently, to him, if I relapse at any point, then all that effort would have been for nothing.

So I don’t know what to do anymore. If I try to accept and love my bigger body, my weight stays the same, and I’m bombarded with comments about my body. If I decide to do something about it and end up relapsing, I’m scolded by my boyfriend for “giving up” and “not trying hard enough.” If I reach out to doctors or family members about my weight they just tell me to lose it. But if I try to lose it, I fall back into unhealthy habits. I’m in a real damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.

It’s hard for me to say what I really want to do without feeling like I’m promoting unhealthy habits. So I will just keep it to myself and hope that my efforts will have some results. Until then, I think I’m going to do things on my own terms and not listen to what any family member or medical professional has to say about my body and relationship with food. I’m going to do what I think feels right to me and my body. And I’ll do it by whatever means necessary.

#personal #body image #cw

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cryptidkeepp · 3 months

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(avan jogia) [THE INTERSTELLAR]. Please welcome [RIVER PATEL (THEY/THEM)] to Huntsville, WV. They are an [32]-year-old [VISITOR] who lives in [THE COMMUNE]. You may see them around working as a [UNEMPLOYED]. They are looking for [LINK MURPHY] their [ROAD TRIP BUDDY/BEST FRIEND] Poor unfortunate soul. We’ll see if they survive.

GENERAL.

full name: river luna patel

nicknames: riv

title: the interstellar

hunter / gatherer: neither

birthplace: new orleans, louisiana

time in huntsville: 4 years

gender / pronouns: genderqueer, they/them/any

age / birthday: 32, february 7th

orientations: pansexual, panromantic, polyamorous

occupation: unemployed / tarot card, metaphysical amateur, astrologist for hire

location: commune, visitor

status: single

family: luna patel ( mother, deceased ), parthiv patel ( father, deceased ), morgana whitlock ( aunt )

strengths: affectionate, playful, charming, creative, adventurous

weaknesses: addictive, impulsive, unreliable, promiscuous, flighty

character inspo: eric effiong (sex education), phoebe buffay (friends), klaus hargreeves (umbrella academy), nymphadora tonks (harry potter), jules vaughn (euphoria), jesper fahey (shadow & bone), jenny curran (forrest gump), riley blue (sense8), jaskier (witcher), ian gallagher (shameless), sabrina spellman (chilling adventures of sabrina)

BACKGROUND.

tw: drugs, addiction, death

born in new orleans, louisiana. diagnosed with type one diabetes as a young child. mother was wiccan and a strong believer in metaphysical practices along with many astrological practices- she owned a small shop in new orleans. father was deeply in love with their mother and worked as a street musician and helped with the shop when needed.

they lost both parents in hurricane katrina and was sent to live with their aunt in new jersey. she was vastly different from the free-spirited and loving home they’d grown used to but she tried and they don’t resent her for it.

early in their teens they developed an increasing awareness of this void inside of them which never quite could fill no matter how hard they tried. slowly it would spread, creeping into their brain to fill their head with dark thoughts and leave them debilitated if not dealt with. everything has a cause and effect. the result of this was a rush to keep trying to fill this dark hole with anything and everything they could get their hands on. drugs, alcohol, people, sex, love, affection, things. it became an endless merry go round of self-destruction interrupted by glimpses of peace and serenity in between.

this is how they fell into the group of friends they did, spending their time causing trouble, skipping school, and partying. by the time their aunt noticed their change in behavior and the truancy, it was far too late. their apathy for all things rules and conventional society standards were gone and they'd made the pact with their best friends and set out to explore the country together.

river felt a growing satisfaction in the nomadic lifestyle. they'd always had a wanderlust they couldn't quite confine. it opened them up for more creativity, writing song lyrics and music on occasion, learning more instruments. panhandling their songs on the sidewalks of various cities they stopped in or offering their better talents in tarot readings and astrology to get some extra cash to get them to the next city because the more they got in legitimate ways, the less they had to steal.

after several years of this, some of their friends got tired of found reasons to settle down in various places they'd stopped. river always hated saying goodbye, ever harboring a string of abandonment issues since their parents were unexpectedly taken from them. eventually it came down to them and link, which they were fine with because they weren't alone ( despite missing those who left ) and they'd always felt a strong connection to link, like they were made from the same stardust.

when they stumbled upon huntsville, it was a complete mistake and all the perception in the world couldn't have led them to the situation they found themselves in. forced to settle in, they worried what the future might hold for both them and their best friend. rationing the substances they could find could only last so long. river had to wonder what would take them out first the long list of vices they indulged in, the creatures that emerge from the darkness, or the withdrawal.

QUICK CONNECTIONS.

found family

bandmates/creative friends

yoga buddies

therapist

doctor/nurse

clients/customers

rivals or haters

party buddies

victims of thievery

lovers

HEADCANONS.

river has type one diabetes and had a pump to regulate it better but their supply has since worn out so they're having to find other methods to regulate their glucose which can prove difficult, it's important they are able to see a medical professional regularly. they also wear a medical alert bracelet with this information.

they despise sleeping alone, whether it be from having friends around them for a decade on the road or just the loathing of being alone in general, they tend to stick close to people if they can sleep at all.

comparable to a cat they can sleep anywhere and will curl up or drape themselves over people for affection.

they wear their heart on their sleeve and fall in love quite easy, unfortunately their over devotion and wandering eyes have made it difficult to hold any long term relationship except with one person who understands the amount of love they have to give does not mean that person gets my less.

they have a long history of casual relationships and having a select few they are fully committed to exclusively, however they develop deep feelings for people easily and adore them long after any romance leaves. they are very open with their sexuality and the love of the human body. river has often used casual sex as another coping mechanism and occasional self-destructive tendency.

they love dancing, parties, poetry, and music - they also adore talking to people and will be happy to introduce themselves to anyone and everyone

they adore music and can play almost any guitar, bass, piano, pan flute, viola, and harmonica.

they can also speak spanish, french, creole, american sign language and some hindi besides english

more to come

#huntsvilleintro #river.intro

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