#I talk about women and medical malpractice done on women here a lot so this is a note to all trasphobes of any damn flavor. DON'T TOUCH

[doofnoof]

In Defense Of Mrs. Westenra:

This is going to sound absolutely insane, but I understand why Mrs. Westenra removed the garlic from Lucy's room, and think it was a genuine attempt at kindness rather than a selfish act done entirely foolishly, though regardless of her motives she's still doomed poor Lucy to death.

Let me explain: we're seeing some masterful use of dramatic irony here, I almost wish I could buy Bram Stoker a drink for how positively stunningly he's put the dramatic irony into motion, because it is absolutely sickening and heartwrenching knowing that Lucy is well and truly going to get even sicker and then die, because her mother removed the one thing protecting her from Dracula from her room.

We the audience are fully aware that this is a bad thing Mrs. Westenra has done, that she's doomed her daughter and is putting her directly in danger, that her smugness at the situation is so entirely misplaced that we want to scream and cry and curse and pull our hair out the way Van Hellsing did the instant she left the room, or the way Seward's anger is barely contained as he writes out today's entry. Bravo to the Re: Dracula cast for how downright upsetting this episode was, from hearing a usually silly man weep aloud to almost being able to see Seward's jaw clench from how he recounts what happened. You can almost imagine how Van Hellsing must have wept when his son died, as he loves Lucy as if she were his own daughter.

But here's the thing. Mrs. Westenra has been left out of the loop of what's happening with Lucy, she's unaware that Lucy knows she's sick, and with only a little time left she needs to get Lucy well enough to get married, so that when Mrs. Westenra inevitably dies Lucy is taken care of, she has enough money and a good enough reputation to get the care she needs when Mrs. Westenra can't try to provide it for her anymore. This is a very old-fashioned way of thinking, but Mrs. Westenra was raised in an old-fashioned time, likely when there was a cholera outbreak in London and the bad air theory first started to circulate, while Lucy is being raised in a new and (what must seem to Mrs. Westenra) frightening London, and old people are often set in their ways even now.

How many times have you, the audience, been told by a well-meaning older person in your life to "just hit the streets" when out looking for a job? They don't understand that times have changed, and it's easier to just nod and smile and say "sure thing, you're absolutely right Peepaw, I'll do just that" than to argue with them on it, because they're looking at the world through their lived experiences, the past, rather than how the world is currently.

Mrs. Westenra is also a disabled woman, she has a congenital heart disease that has only recently been fully diagnosed, and her life is slowly dwindling to an end, and she is watching helplessly as her daughter is sick with a disease no one seems able to cure. She has every right to be suspicious of Van Hellsing and Seward, because they can't and won't even tell her what's causing Lucy's illness, won't explain the garlic, and didn't even tell her they'd put garlic in her room.

Van Hellsing knows it's a vampire and can't fill anyone in on it, because that's supernatural hogwash, old-fashioned buffoonery, flying in the face of logic and science and everything the New London is striving for. Nobody would believe him anyways. Lucy thought the garlic was ridiculous, and even Seward himself felt as though Hellsing was being irrational (when Seward was Hellsing's student, and looked up to him as though he knew every secret in the world, but still questioned him on this one thing, fearing Hellsing was turning to Oujia Boards and Crystal Balls instead of Science and Logic,) and both only understood and accepted that Hellsing knew what he was doing from his intense and dead serious response to being questioned, and then seeing for themselves that Lucy had slept well, and had color in her cheeks again.

Mrs. Westenra saw none of this. She does not knows who Hellsing is, doesn't know that Lucy trusts him more than she trusts anyone else in the world save for Mina, and she doesn't know that he's helped Arthur save Lucy's life, nor does she know that Seward is in much the same boat, that he'd given his own blood and sleep and sanity for Lucy's sake out of love for her and his friendship with Arthur and Hellsing, who in turn trusts him with Lucy's health and safety.

Mrs. Westenra does know some things though. She knows that doctors, who rely on science and logic, weren't able to catch her heart problems in time to save her life, that she's dying and becoming rapidly unable to take care of her daughter, who is also sick with an illness doctors previously haven't been able to diagnose and treat. It went away on it's own, and came back again worse than ever before later in life, much like Mrs. Westenra's heart problem. This may seem foolish, but part of why I love Dracula is because every character feels like someone you might meet today, rather than a person almost 100 years ago.

How many times have we, the audience, heard of medical malpractice going unpunished and ignored, especially because the target of the malpractice was a woman? There must be at the very least a handful of you. I know from experience (personal and from being there for friends and family) what it's like to be told you're imagining your pain (in hysterics), you're being over-dramatic, (you're hysterical) it's just normal period pain and will go away (women and the constant fainting at the slightest pain, amiright fellas), have you tried losing weight, have you tried exercise and fresh air, have you tried eating this one diet or another, maybe it's all mental, go to this doctor or that and doing exactly as you're told only to be met with a door to the face, and if you're lucky, eventually getting diagnosed and maybe even given medicine for your ailments instead of just a bill and a smack on the ass. Mrs. Westenra finally got a clear answer for herself as it was revealed she's dying. Lucy has yet to get an answer.

So lets put all of this together. Mrs. Westenra is watching as strange men sneak around her home and into her daughter's room, she's just been diagnosed with a disease that is killing her and there's nothing the doctors can do to fix it, I doubt she trusts any doctors right now even though we the audience know she's dealing with a really wonderful doctor, even Mr. Medical Malpractice Warning himself is doing everything in his power to make Lucy well again, and for the first time since his introduction with his proposal to Lucy, he's putting logic aside to be kind to someone who is relying on him for help, promising to wake Lucy from her sleep if she has nightmares. Mrs. Westenra doesn't know this. She's going to die, her daughter is keeping secrets from her, and her saving grace is that Lucy is going to be married to a good and kind gentleman who will use his wealth to keep her relatively healthy seeing as Lucy is going to be his wife, and she can't have anyone making Lucy seem like an unchaste woman lest her plan falls apart and she's not able to make sure her daughter is wed and thus, safe. Mrs. Westenra knows that even gossip of Lucy sleeping around could make the whole thing fall apart, because Arthur has a reputation to uphold, and so does Lucy. Lucy is a new woman in a society where the old ways are dying or being reborn, and likely doesn't understand her mother's fears, knows that her friends would never hurt her, but that doesn't matter in the eyes of society because at the end of the day she is an unwed woman left alone with a man, a prior suitor no less. She walks into her daughters room and sees these men have left flowers everywhere, and worse is that they stink to high heavens.

Lucy seems better, but Mrs. Westenra has never gotten to see what Lucy looked like after Dracula fed on her, so to Mrs. Westenra these heavily scented flowers are going to look like something doing more harm than good. She knows from being raised in an old-fashioned society that fresh air does a lot of good, that's why Lucy went on that vacation with Mina, and she doesn't know how bad Lucy's sleepwalking got because everyone stopped telling her anything after they found out about her heart, at Lucy's behest no less. She feels like fresh air works, and these idiot doctors trained in the new ways (that have proven unhelpful, they couldn't save her could they, so how would they know what Lucy needs?) have gunked up her daughter's room and are inadvertently making her worse with the foul smelling flowers. Mrs. Westenra was probably alive as well when the cholera pandemic was in full swing and explained as being caused by bad air, and she can see her daughter is sick and wants to help her. So she takes the noxious flowers out of Lucy's room and opens the windows, and tries to get the men-folk to understand that they're no longer needed, not understanding herself that her attempt to rid the room of bad air has instead let what's keeping Lucy sick in rather than keeping it out, and by trying to protect Lucy from being preyed upon she has inadvertently let a very evil thing who is going to prey on Lucy in every meaning of the word into her room, where she should have been safe.

She doesn't know she's in a horror novel, and she only has what she can see as evidence. She made the wrong choice because she loves her daughter and is trying to take care of her, even though she's failing miserably because she's applying a bandaid to a burn wound, so to speak. Right now many people hate Mrs. Westenra for her smug attitude and for letting something evil hurt her daughter, for undoing all the hard work Seward and Hellsing have given up sleep and blood for, but I think it's a little unfounded. She's an old fashioned woman in a new world, doing her best for her daughter's sake, and it's not her fault she doesn't know all of the details, and she can't know the details because it will kill her and possibly make Lucy's situation even more dire.

That's what makes Lucy's death so tragic. To save Lucy they'd need to scare Mrs. Westenra and she would die, which would affect Lucy horribly and more than likely kill her as well. If Lucy dies Mrs. Westenra will follow suit. So they have to keep both alive, and that can't happen as long as Dracula has his sights set on Lucy. It's dramatic irony because only we know that it's Dracula, that the garlic helps, that the supernatural is real, that Dracula is a thinking thing that intends to kill Lucy. Van Hellsing can't tell Seward what's killing Lucy, and even if Seward believed Hellsing, he would never be able to tell the Westenras because their health is caught in such a fragile balancing act, and they'd never believe either of them anyways. The only thing that could save Lucy is Jonathan, and he comes back to London far too late, half out of his mind and trying desperately to live the life he'd always wanted with his new wife.

It makes the scene where Dracula well and truly fucks up by feeding on Mina that much more powerful, because Dracula doesn't understand nor realize that Jonathan will kill him for doing to Mina what he had done to Jonathan, and the Harker's friends, Lucy's suitors, experienced firsthand the suffering of losing someone they love more than life itself. Lucy had to die for Dracula to be vanquished. Lucy's mother had to make the bad decision so the story could end with Dracula's death.

Without her death, Lucy's Polycule wouldn't have had the push they needed to band together for the Harkers (who get to have what Lucy lost. Lucy and Arthur could have been married happily, so entirely in love, and seeing as Seward and Quincey both almost had that with Lucy had they not been rejected and are Arthur's closest and most trusted friends, all of them suffering in unison because of Lucy's death, Lucy is the piece that ties everyone together. Everyone in Dracula loves Lucy. The polycule knows what it's like to lose the love of their lives, and they see Dracula trying to put Jonathan through that same suffering, they see Dracula hurting Mina who Lucy arguably loved the most out of any one of them, and decide they can't let it happen ever again.)

[rotationalsymmetry]

Yeah I really want to lean in on this a bit, because one of the weird things about tumblr, culturally, is there isn't a lot of feminism on here that isn't radfem stuff. Violence against women (including white women) is a feminist issue and is a big deal, and it is worth being concerned about.

But, as queeranarchism says, true crime dramas misidentify where most of the danger is, and they sure as fuck misidentify where safety is. True crime shows present the narrative that cops = safety. Cops have huge rates of domestic violence. Cops regularly commit murder and get away with it. If you happen to want to protest anything or go on strike, or want or need to do things that happen to be illegal (like, idk, crossing a border), or happen to be part of a group that's seen as innately "criminal" regardless of how law-abiding you personally are, cops are dangerous.

Nor do cops do much for the vast majority of actual illegal acts. Are the cops going to help you if your boss is committing wage theft? Are the fucking cops going to help you if your landlord was legally obligated to fix your leaky roof and clean up the black mold six months ago and still hasn't? Are the cops going to do anything to protect you from medical malpractice or embezzlement or the scam texts that I get every day? Of course not. That's not what they do.

And this thing keeps happening where of course everyone hates rape and child abuse, and yet quite a lot of people have this really odd idea that most of that stuff is committed by scary dark-skinned others and gun violence is caused by mentally ill people and basically, that the real bad stuff ultimately comes from identifiably "bad people". But rapists are the dad at the potluck who tells the corny jokes and ...this idea that there's "safe" people like your friends and community members and "dangerous" people like that homeless guy who talks to himself or outsiders or, idk, people who are too into Dungeons and Dragons or whatever. It's just not true. The dangerous people are people you already know.

This stuff doesn't look how people think it does. Rape is mostly committed, not with physical force, but with intoxicants. It's usually committed by someone the victim knows, a friend or acquaintance or date or spouse. CSA is usually committed by someone the child knows well, often after spending a long time building a close relationship (that's what grooming actually means, more or less, not mentioning the existence of sex or queer people.) These things are bad and horrifying and they fuck people's lives up -- and there's things that can be done about them! Just talking about what rape really is and isn't is huge! Bystander intervention! Hotlines! Giving people who are being abused a place to go! Having good social support/mutual aid so that people don't have to choose between staying in known abusive situations or going without things they need! In particular making sure the most vulnerable people have resources and support! But cops aren't it.

Cops are ...you know how sometimes a place will have a pest problem and rather than going "hey, we've fucked up the ecosystem, maybe we should try some ecological restoration or listen to what the people who lived here before us think we should do" or something, they just go and bring in a different invasive species, and then you have two problems, the initial problem species and the one that was supposed to handle it? That's what cops are. They're pouring water on a grease fire.

Violence against women, and other forms of violence, are a huge problem. Cops make that problem worse, not better. (And fuck, in particular I really don't see how anyone can go "patriarchy is the root of all oppression, what can we do to mitigate it, I know we can give a bunch of guys guns and legal permission to use violence, that will definitely not make things worse.)

true crime is becoming to girls what ww2 is to boys

[ofcowardiceandkings]

I think you mentioned listening to podcasts? Do you have any favorites to reccommend? I've run out of content :(

that i do !

im not entirely sure what kind of podcast you'd be interested in but i'll throw out a few of the goodies in my huge library of stuff , i'll miss out a few of the HUGE podcasts that have been all over tumblr though

a LOT of it is true crime or human interest stuff , or history because im nerd ,, and a few of these dont have nearly enough attention so [shrug] i'll try to keep this short i guess lol this isnt EVERYTHING ive got in my library or listened series' by any measure

i AM gonna pop a shout to both Stuff You Missed in History Class and Stuff You Should Know from iHeartRadio because their HUGE archives have kept me from losing my mind many times over , and they cover a wide range of both important and wacky topics

BomBARDed (ongoing) this is the only fiction podcast i have happening right now really but its DAMN GOOD ONE .... it's an actual-play D&D 5E podcast in the DMs own musically-inspired world, focussed on a group of multiclass bards going to music school !! and all players (+DM) are members of the Texas band Lindby !! and they actually use and play music in the show with one original song an episode !! Kyle's worldbuilding and storycraft are truly incredible, and (Nick) Goodrich, (also Nick) Spurrier, and Ali's characters are in depth and interesting as well as an absolute powerhouse :') i actually made a piece for its first fanzine, Bardic Dreaming, which published earlier this year and is free to view now, all the players and the community are super wholesome its just very good overall 💙

History & Humans;

Fall of Civilisations (ongoing) legit one of my favourite podcast finds, im so glad my youtube autoplayed one of these ... it took me like 2 hours to realise it was 1) not the same as what was playing before and 2) had been on for 2 hours and wasnt near finished lmao. anyway, this is a series by historical fiction writer Paul Cooper, and is honest to all thats good one of the best documentary series ive encountered in years - and ive consumed a LOT of documentaries. it covered the downfall of various civilisations through history, and the episodes run from an hour to FOUR hours depending on the topic. its so chill to listen to and just get done, but over the pandemic all of the episodes have been given full movie-quality video versions too on youtube if youre more of a visual person.

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast (on series break) yeah that says that lol ... its a SUPER niche topic but its very interesting and treated very well despite being kind of comical at times, the hosts are just naturally funny lol ... it delves around from the history of cannibalism in whole regions to specific incidents as recently as the 1970s, and of course the first episode is about the Donner Party, and it covers things ive never heard of despite being kind of important ?? anyway Alix and Carmella are good eggs

Sawbones (ongoing) i probably dont need to mention much here other than say that Justin and Sydnee saved me from being SO BORED sooo often, the history of medicine is wacky as hell and its what most of my history GCSE was on so [shrugs]

Cautionary Tales (on series break) this was a wild-card find lol ... it's by Tim Harford "the undercover economist" who writes for the Financial Times, and its topics kind of weave modern topics and science with how to learn from historical errors ... its a bit weird but well worth a go, also each series has a few celebrity guest voice actors which is pretty awesome

Ephemeral (ongoing) this is a very strange but thought provoking series about sounds and other things just barely saved. topics include the last castrato, the hello girls, hand-stamped records, the spread of kīkā kila music, and acoustic fossils of wild places.

Neat! The Boozecast (ongoing) history and bartending whats not to like lol ... hosted by Teylor Smirl and now their dad Tommy, they're just digging around in how important booze is to human culture

True Crime (white collar and weirdness);

Swindled (ongoing) this is an amazing show full stop. A Concerned Citizen details some of the most impactful and unruly things to happen in white collar and corporate crime. very factually accurate but given the sheer bullshit of the topics the deadpan snarking is [chefs kiss] absolutely warranted ..

American Scandal (on series break) this one is a series within a series type, and spends a few episodes at a time poking holes in some of America's biggest scandals, from a dramatised but fact-based point of view. such as what the hell was going on with Enron, how big tobacco was forced to own up to covering its own ass, how Iran-Contra happened, etc. it also now has a sister show called British Scandal, which does the same thing for British cases but with a slightly different format.

Missing in Alaska (finished) this was a fascinating series, a deep dive into what happened to two US government officials who disappeared on a small chartered flight in Alaska in 1972. it goes some really strange places, but it actually turned up a lot of previously unknown information through the audience. John Walczak's new series in a new feed is Missing on 9/11 which looks into what happened to Dr Sneha Philip.

Pretend (ongoing) Host Javier Leiva holds interviews with anyone living a lie, or who have been touched by them. con artists, snake oil salesmen, former cult members, catfishing victims, anyone and everyone.

Power: The Maxwells (finished) hosted by journalist Tara Palmeri, the story of media tycoon Robert Maxwell from nothing to empire to mysterious death and the scandals uncovered after he was gone.

Lets Talk About Sects (ongoing) Sarah Steele covering cults from around the world, in particular those in Australia - where she is from. She often has former members on the show to share their stories, and share knowledge of how they left. each story has the relevant content warnings at the start of each episode.

Brainwashed (finished) investigation of the CIA's covert mind control experiments, centred on the experiments performed at a hospital in Montreal, and its cultural impact.

Dr Death (2 series finished) two series investigating huge cases of fraud and medical malpractice, and how they were brought to a stop. series 1 covers Dr Duntsch and his horribly butchered neurosurgery, series 2 covers Dr Fata and his fraudulent cancer clinic

The Immaculate Deception (finished) untangling the weird and disturbing fertility fraud of Dr Jan Karbaat, who fathered children himself through his fertility clinic, and the impact of his deception. later episodes also touch on other similar cases.

True Crime (Violent/General);

The Casual Criminalist (ongoing) Simon Whistler of-the-many-youtube-channels cold reads a script about the case of the day, with some of his daft commentary thrown in.

Southern Fried True Crime (ongoing) Crimes from the American South hosted by Erica Kelley, she puts all the facts out there but refreshingly for true crime she doesnt hesitate to tell you if she thinks someone is human garbage lol

They Walk Among Us (ongoing) probably one of the most popular UK crime podcasts, very measured and well put together, not weird or annoying about it either.

All Crime No Cattle (ongoing, feed slowed down for now) specifically about crimes from Texas, hosted by Erin and Shay, they're very sensitive hosts and a lot of the cases they cover shed light on why the Texas criminal system is how it is or show an impact at a national level

Canadian True Crime (ongoing) Canadian crime from an Aussie who's lived there for a decade, Kristi is again a sensitive and measured host covering some important topics

True Crime (Violent/Deep Dive);

Hitman (finished) journalist Jasmyn Morris digs around in the sticky tangle around a book published by fringe publisher Paladin Press, and its apparent use as a blueprint in the killing of a mother, her friend and her 8 year old boy for financial gain.

Camp Hell: Anneewakee (ongoing) this series is exploring how a wilderness camp "correctional facility" was endorsed by the Georgia care and juvenile reform system, despite widespread abuses and shady practices the whole time. warning for csa and child cruelty throughout.

True Crime Bullshit (on series break) this one is a huge huge rabbithole but a very interesting one where the host Josh Hallmark has spent years digging into the life and potential crimes of Israel Keyes. Keyes is often mentioned as a serial killer with no pattern, but in picking it apart thats not quite true, and has sparked some re-evaluations of missing persons cases and stumbling upon information the FBI has redacted organically. there's also a series in the middle looking into the crimes of Kelly Cochran

Forgotten: Women of Juárez (finished) this series looks into the huge numbers of missing women of Ciudad Juárez, the strange circumstances surrounding them, and the potential cover-ups and corruptions on both sides of the border, trying to give a voice to all of the forgotten women and girls and their families without answers. the series itself is finished, but a spanish language edition is being released every week now.

aaaaaand i'll call it there before i list everything lol, i hope you find something to plug your boredom hole with !!

[mwolf0epsilon]

“Eps’s Notes on The Illusion of Living”

It's taken me nearly three months to get this done due to writer’s block kicking my sorry butt. But, as promised, here are my notes on the "Illusion of Living". Good god has this been painful… But I did have a lot of stuff I initially thought of Joey somewhat confirmed for me, and got a few extra interesting tidbits of info that I feel are very curious...

--{Key}--

Italics are my opinion

--{Key}--

--{Quick retelling of the book’s contents}--

    The Drews were among the more impoverished families in New Jersey, and Joey's father briefly worked in the silk industry to make end's meet before opening his own shoe store (that his mother oversaw profits for as the accountant). As such there were obvious limitations to a lot of Joey’s upbringing (like a lack of toys to entertain him with, and very few family vacations/trips that were memorable).

According to Joey, the shoes sold at his family’s store were primarily designed for people in the working class (clunky shoes and boots that would endure wear and tear rather than be flashy or comfortable to wear, which Joey complained never really fit him right), and had one singular design that was simply improved upon rather than any variety (I suppose the saying here would be “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” but Joey really seemed to have some sort of issue with this, as he disliked his father’s works).

    Joey's mother was a hardworking housewife and the primary parent when it came to rearing her child. She educated and played with him more than his father, so Joey was much fonder and emotionally close to her than to him and, while Joey’s father wasn’t an absent parent by any means, he was definitely more engrossed in working to sustain the family.

This family dynamic definitely had some impact on Joey, especially since his mother got him interested in the art of storytelling in general, and he seemed to have a lot more respect for her than for his father. In fact he even had a few reservations regarding his father’s mental integrity when he discovered his talent for making voices in a rather odd manner.

It should be noted here that, while Joey's father was strong, he looked deceptively frail and wasn't considered a particularly brave man by any means. He was however regarded as a bit of an entrepreneur, and Joey was very concerned that he may not be sane (which was a bit of taboo at the time, considering treatment for mental health issues hadn’t advanced past lobotomies and other disturbing medical malpractices) because he talked and sang to himself in curious little voices while he worked. Curiously enough, while a patient and loving man, Joey's father wasn't aversed to cursing around his young son (although Joey himself doesn't seem to use crass language, even if it was normalized in the household). Another curious thing to note is that Joey greatly dislikes mud, and especially hated it as a child (alluding to his later obsessive cleanliness as an adult).

    Because of the financial issues his family suffered through, Joey didn't have a radio or many books growing up, and was thus more fond of Vaudevilles (specifically theatrical comedy, tragedy, and bizarre/surreal acts) which were pretty common in his city of birth. This interest for theatrics and third person story perspectives mixed terribly with later events in his life, like how at age 10 he witnessed a potential murder/suicide (Jesus christ...). Through this event he realized that there were different kinds of people in specific situations, especially when faced with the finality of death. Joey goes so far as to describe how theatrical the death was (Almost sounding disconnected from the reality of the situation as he noted that the crowd and even his own father seemed more like characters to him than real people). However, since Joey's neighborhood was ripe with strange people, he wasn't unfamiliar with bizarre events happening around him. Seeing a motorized ambulance was more amazing to a 10 year old him than actually caring for the death of a stranger at the front of his father's store.

    At age 12, Joey went to Coney Island for the first time, and the journey excited him greatly since he didn't get to leave home very often. The trip to Coney Island was magical in a sense, and later in life he hoped to replicate it in Bendyland to a more permanent degree (the trip back home ruptured the magical effect, which he didn't want to happen with Bendyland).

Joey has his own set of rules he plays by which he considers his life’s philosophy that he calls "The Illusion of Living". This was inspired by several events in his life, including his father passing the time by playing make believe (the Shoemaker and the Elves). This unique perception of what illusion and reality are (“the same thing”), seems to point to Joey having developed a dissociative personality disorder from a young age, which got progressively worse as he grew older. This in addition with the ADHD patterns he displays in his confusing rambling writing (and Joey rambles a LOT), and the almost OCD behaviour in regards to cleaning up after himself, indicates Joey lacked impulse control and was more prone to listening to intrusive thoughts.

Joey's view of reality was often confusing to others and he greatly enjoyed poking fun out of slowly getting them to his point of view. Conversations with Joey were thus quite frustrating to some, but no less curious to others that actually tried to understand what the “Illusion of Living” was about (Like Nathan). According to Joey, only a few people ever got close to understanding it.

    Joey enlisted to fight in the first war after he lied about his age (He was 15 years old, a year younger than the required age to enlist at the time). Out of all the positions in the army, he seemed most interested in comms, and considered himself more decent in communicating than actually fighting in the front lines.

It seems like Joey greatly enjoyed how he looked in uniform, and was also particularly finicky about his looks in general despite being in boot camp.

He made friends in the army, Private Donaldson and Private Eckhart, which Nathan (who worked at the tech lab that Joey later worked for) attests to being accurately described in the book. They were slightly older than Joey and were also interested in communication tech and shared his sense of humor. They also influenced Joey's social life, and tried to get him to date some gals that he wasn’t remotely interested in (the first indication that he may not be straight).

    Another close friend Joey had in the army was Lottie (a communications officer) and he used to "chaperone" her whenever the four went out to party. He seemed to have a considerable amount of respect for her (which is likely a result of growing up observing his mother, thus understanding that women were competent in positions where other men would scoff at the idea of them working at all). As such he was quite supportive of the War's “Hello Girls” (comms female officers). Interestingly enough this contradicts Joey's sexist persona that he seems to take on in Dream Come to Life (a mask that seems to be among many others he employs to fit in with the rest of society).

Lottie was his special gal pal in the platonic sense and, while he often ate alone to be left with his thoughts, she usually sought him out to talk to.

Joey only ever empathized with people he was close to, often reserving telling stories to comfort his friends specifically. It was the only way he could brighten their day (which later supposedly helped a disillusioned Lottie when she was sent to serve in London). What one could take away from Joey’s days as a soldier was that he was incredibly perceptive in terms of studying people. He easily recognized people’s handwriting, and was greatly fascinated by others’s personalities.

He could also easily charm people just from reading into what they might be interested in, and liked the thought of subliminally impressing others (which he later incorporated into his cartoons). It’s never mentioned, but Joey was likely honorably discharged since the war ended in 1918 and didn’t need to return to the service of the military when the second world war hit (keeping in mind Joey appears to have mobility issues later in life, he might have not been fit for field duty).

    At age 19 Joey ended up involved in investigating the murder case of Walter Richmond, a signal corps soldier Joey met briefly in his service days. The victim in question was responsible for documenting the war efforts, not being necessarily that great of a photographer, but taking a certain amount of pleasure in capturing the most viscerally gruesome pictures possible for shock value. How Joey got involved was a curious thing in of itself, since he didn’t know the victim all that well, nor cared to get to know him. Detective Adam Sinclair (a tall hulking man wearing the typical trenchcoat and fedora combo, who’s most noticeable features were his aged face and unshaven 5’o’clock shadow) tracked him down to his little minimalistic (and obsessively clean and tidy) apartment to question him. Joey was initially unsurprised that an ex-soldier ended up dead (not from the war, but likely ptsd), and was instead surprised that it was a murder case. He ended up inserting himself into the case as Sinclair’s shadow to help solve it. The reason was mostly out of self-interest, but his perspective did seem useful to the detective in the end. Throughout the investigation Joey displayed a few particular traits that indicate his attentive and peculiar nature, such as the way he reads others (their way of dressing and upkeep of posture), the manner of which he judges a good handshake, his distaste for smoking (which was taught to him via the idea that if something smells bad it’s usually bad for you) and drinking (he tries to be careful with alcohol intake in general, as he’s more accustomed to beer than drinks like champagne which one could over-indulge recklessly without noticing). Joey’s fascination for taboo subjects (war, violence, and death specifically) is also noted when he observes the victim’s photographic works.

This is a prevalent theme in an art gallery event where these particular subjects seemed to linger strongly in his mind, to the point where he noticed when one of the photos he recalls having seen before during his brief meeting with Richmond, appeared to be missing from the display. A detail that appeared to be dismissed by others, but of great interest to Sinclair.

    During this same gallery event, there was an incident set up by the murderer that involved a firecracker and a crowbar that set off a lot of panic. Joey’s work at the signal corps labs saved him from the brutality of the trenches, but he's apparently familiar with the effects of severe PTSD (And ironically notes that reliving the same painful event over and over again is his definition of true horror/personal hell).

It became very apparent to both Joey and Sinclair that the murderer was amongst them, and that this onslaught of panic was a message: That the murder of the frontline photographer was personal.

They did in fact come into contact with the perpetrator and, after a while of radio silence between Joey and Sinclair, the case was solved with...Minimal success. While Sinclair knew who killed Walter Richmond, he unfortunatelly did not have enough proof to convict her (the sister of a casualty of war that could have easily been saved, had Richmond not left him for dead because it fit his narrative of the war just fine), thus allowing her to get away with literal murder. Worse yet, the resolution of the case seemed to further disconnect Joey from reality and consequence. He gained a disdain for Adam Sinclair where once he’d respected him as an authority figure of sorts, finding that he’d accomplished his role and still failed miserably. In the end, the only thing to come out of teaming up with Sinclair was learning a social skill that Joey employed later on, by mirroring back certain aspects of a person so they’d be more comfortable around him. Otherwise the detective became nothing more than a distant memory. Unimportant in Joey’s later narrative.

    Two years later, Joey started working for a bookstore where he began satiating his vast hunger for knowledge, now that he had access to all sorts of books he could never afford as a child. Joey is fairly well read with an interest in various genres, although it was previously noted that during his army service people made fun of him for especially liking fictional novels. Joey being Joey however, wasn’t overly fussed about others’s opinions on what he sought enjoyment from, especially when it came to storytelling. Aside from getting his reading quota filled out, his bookstore job also helped him develop his salesperson skills through reading his customers. Through his experiences with his father’s shop and shadowing Sinclair, he had by now understood that people were highly superficial, and that he could apply whatever knowledge he gathered from them into how he sold his pitch to them. His charisma seemed to lure in customers.

    While working at the store he met Abby Lambert who he immediately noticed had an eye for art. Joey quickly became friends with her and seemed to greatly appreciate her no-nonsense attitude towards life in general, going so far as to respect her capabilities as a working lady where other men would be disdained with her difficult attitude. In fact, he wondered why anyone wouldn’t hire her to do a job she could clearly handle, just because she was a woman (again contradicting his sexist persona). As a connoisseur of the arts, Abby was the one to fully introduce Joey to her favourite craft. He especially took an interest in Impressionism and its influences.

Abby also supposedly introduced Henry to Joey, which the latter insists wasn’t really that remarkable of an event since Henry was “unimaginative” and “lacking in talent” due to his specialty in cartoon caricatures, and not the richer awe inspiring paintings Joey seemed to prefer (basically Joey spends any given time in the book trying to make Henry seem as insignificant as possible out of pure unadulterated pettiness, which physically pains me).

Ironically, in terms of entertainment, Joey later favoured cartoons as the more appealing form of films since most other mediums didn’t really spark his interest, even if the genres were ones he found fascinating (I suppose that despite films being works of fiction most times, Joey likely thought real life actors were far too limited in their acts due to the natural limitations of the human body).

Returning to Abby, her friendship seemed to be more impactful to Joey than most others. Like with how he preferred his mother’s company to his father’s, Abby seemed to be one of few people he actually felt comfortable around, to the point where her criticism didn’t bother him. She was also mindful of him, where she could recognize Joey’s “preferences” and made it a point to clarify to him that their outings were purely platonic so he wouldn’t get uncomfortable in those situations.

    Three years after meeting Abby and Henry, Joey became a manager at the bookstore and Henry began working there as well (by Joey’s suggestion it seems), and only then did they sort of start developing a meek little friendship of sorts (although Joey seems very dismissive about it and focuses primarily on Abby).

During that time, the idea to start his own business came about from two different events that happened that year. The first being his first ever theatrical script that he wrote and performed with Abby at a gallery event. During the performance of this little play (the theme of which was an angel and a demon discussing their role in influencing a mortal’s life), Joey discovered that he greatly enjoyed controlling situations and got way too into it (even considers what he could get away with in the name of entertainment, such as if he could act out actual violent or scandalous behaviours if he proclaimed it a part of the show).

The second event was his father sending him shoes once a year (which, because Joey disliked the make of his father’s shoes, he tried to get him to stop by pretending they weren’t arriving at his address or that they were getting stolen). As a means to ensure he got them, Joey's father started sending the packages to the bookstore. A doodle and writing on the package ended up inspiring Joey to create his own studio as he wanted to take flight in the entertainment industry.

    Having thus decided that he wanted to open up a film studio of some kind, Joey immediately set off to get himself a memorable mascot. He had a vague idea of what he needed and what might be appealing to an audience, but he wasn’t particularly skilled in character design and openly admitted to this. Abby, who was also not particularly good at drawing cartoons, understood that her more realistic style wouldn’t really help (or appeal to) Joey, so she enlisted Henry’s help. Knowing that Joey was a bit picky in regards to how he evaluated art, she thought perhaps she could persuade him to take a liking to Henry’s works (which he wasn’t particularly fond of, due to Henry mostly working with pen-drawings of cartoon characters and caricatures that looked very unremarkable to him) if he could only see him actually work his “magic”. Joey was reluctant to bring Henry into his business plan, but upon actually reaching a design within a few minutes (that took a few tries experimenting with animal and human features in more detailed and then simplified ways) of Joey giving some directions, he seemed to be sold on bringing Henry on board.

Henry designing the company mascot was thus the final push to open up Joey Drew Studios.

The two began their partnership not too long after, and from then on out things got interesting very quickly.

    The history behind the studio is...Not an easy one to validate in terms of whether or not Joey is sincere or even really knows certain dates (the more I look into the beginning of the book and the later exposition of information, the more I realized either Joey was starting to trip himself up on dates or his memory was visibly failing him). There are a lot of discrepancies in the dates provided, with some going back on how long Henry remained in the studio (even claiming to have at some point surrounded him with other animators and even a lead artist a year prior to his departure), when Sammy and Jack were hired (He says he hired Sammy in 1929 during the Wallstreet Crash, but later says he hired both him and Jack after the Wallstreet Crash), among other things... Joey Drew Studios was primarily funded by Mrs. Richmond (the mother of Walter Richmond), as Joey had forged friendships with the people involved in the case he’d helped Sinclair investigate (including the murderer whom he had grown to respect).

While other investors aren’t really brought up, it’s implied Nathan also had a hand in helping the studio taking off, as Joey often met up with him at the Russian Tearoom whenever he could. During these private meetings, Nathan would impart advice on Joey. Advice which he seemed to not care for, as he already had his own concerns at the time.

It seemed that his main plan was to acquire a talented and capable team to achieve his dream. A team Joey thought he wouldn’t need to "baby-sit", as he specifically wanted to hire individuals that were as studious and capable as he saw himself (curiously Joey mentions that Henry’s work ethic was exactly what he wanted, as Henry had never held work back or needed to be checked up on, which to Joey was an invaluable attribute).

For at least two years, the Bendy Cartoons were nothing but silence and sound effects (something we actually see in-game in BatIM Chapter One when the projector suddenly turns on and we hear nothing but the clicking of the projector and Joey’s whistling), which put them at a bit of a disadvantage when it came to competing with other animation studios.

This soon changed when Joey came across Sammy Lawrence and Jack Fain at a party he was attending on his 30th birthday (which he wasn’t celebrating, the party was a completely different event so supposedly Joey doesn’t care much for his own birthday).

He was already familiar with Sammy’s musical skills (mostly playing the piano quite masterfully), as he’d seen him perform at the theater when Sammy was still a teenager. Noticing him and Jack at the party was entirely accidental and was mostly due to the fact that, while Sammy was trying to keep out of the spotlight as he played, Jack’s showmanship shone through and caught Joey’s eye with how boisterous he was in their musical performance.

Joey approached them once their act was done and managed to convince them to work for him. Jack seemed to be immediately on board, while Sammy was a little more guarded in his agreement and immediately set up his stipulations for the job. This seemed to lean Joey’s interest towards Sammy (who Joey was unhealthily fascinated with because he was clearly not an easy man to control) more than Jack (who he likely considered too easy a read in terms of character, thus not much of a challenge to sway or condition).

     By 1933 Joey officially bought the entire building the studio was set up in (which up until then was occupied by other people seeking their own ventures). Expansion and new hires likely started a year or so later and continued on despite financial instability, and between 1941 and 1942 Joey was already starting to work out how he’d get Bendyland to be just as perfect and spectacular as he had always envisioned (which was difficult because he never really got it to feel just right in his eyes, and something felt off to him).

In between listing several different projects, vaguely describing an innovative techniques (Sillyvision which seems to be linked with the Golden Ink?), and even setting up his own 7 rules on how to animate to help set up a guide for aspiring animators, Joey slowly drifts away from the studio topic and finalizes his book rather abruptly.

He insinuates there’s a lot more for him to tell but little to no connection with the “Illusion of Living” philosophy and he’d rather focus on his actual physical work with the Studio than sit down and write further, so he finishes off on a rather...Vague note.

--{On Joey Drew}--

Year of Birth - 1901 (Day and month are never mentioned, but it's possible that his favouring of the autumnal season alludes to a fall month) Year of Death - ??? (Supposedly he's died, hence why Nathan claimed the Bendy IP) Birth City: Born and raised in Paterson "Silk City", New Jersey (Joey doesn't seem to have an accent, so he likely masks it, or made an effort to lose it). Physical Characteristics: As a child he used to have curly hair (Considering the era’s general fashion and style, it’s very likely that Joey either cut his hair too short to see the curls, or simply uses too much gel to seem more presentable) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Homosexual with Demiromantic subtones (Joey seems to be closed off in general, but more appreciative of the male figure. Could be interpreted as demisexual however, since Joey himself doesn't seem to like wasting time around people he doesn't have much of a bond with) Notes: Here are several notes I’ve compiled about Joey and his opinions on certain things and people. There’s a lot to look at as this man rambles like an old lady at a friday night bingo event, and thus I had a lot to take in!

Laughter is important to him.

Seems to be a dog person.

Likes Cheerios (yes this was a super necessary detail I had to jot down).

Considers having his ideas disclosed without permission to be disloyal.

Seems to have some sort of dissociative personality disorder (likely brought on by trauma or another undiagnosed mental disorder).

People-Watcher by nature.

Was taught by his father that the shoe makes the man (aka the art of studying people through their shoes).

Joey believes in the saying "The Truth is in the Pudding", a saying his mother often employed.

Never had enough money to own a pair of nice fitting shoes until he was 26.

Is narcissistically vain. Easily takes insult if people assume he can't look presentable.

His service in the army gave him experience with "experimental tech".

Enjoys music a lot, and he was considered a great dancer.

Finds modern feminine fashion standards appealing.

Disliked the way those with money romanticized lacking material gains. Found it personally disrespectful in a way, since he himself came from a poor family.

Seems appalled by too much color on one's wear (Joey is the goddamn fashion police).

Very picky about the arts.

Apparently disliked Henry's art style(???).

Lets people believe Henry is the creator of the toons, in an act of being holier than thou. (You lying son of a gun, stop lying to everyone and yourself whaddahell).

Joey's analogy of Henry starting a journey but Joey being the one to reap the benefits, is likely the truest thing he's said in this nightmare of a novel (boastful bastard...).

Thinks of Bendy as his firstborn, muse and messenger.

Took an art class with Abby (likely not a full art course, just a simple class to get the gist of it?).

Considers art the doorway to immortality.

Doesn't like post-mortem success (it frightens him, even). He'd rather be successful in his lifetime.

Admits to making mistakes, but not many. He also thinks mistakes don't need to be permanent.

Doesn't know what true rest is like, and is unsure if he'll ever be content enough to rest. On that same note he seems to really hate sitting still and his mind tends to wander, which he notes Nathan recognized with ease, even reserving a specific look for him (It’s the ADHD baby).

His friend Kyle was a lazy person and a gossip, which were traits Joey found annoying.

On their first meeting, Joey described having a desire to shove Sammy off a roof to see a more human reaction from him.

Assumes Jack is jealous of the attention he gives Sammy, or that the duo's relationship is strained, despite him barging into their lives out of the blue and making him feel like a third wheel.

Seems to think of himself as some sort of a messenger (going so far as to akin himself to the god, Mercury). His life’s mission is to help those who don't know they need to be helped (mostly through spreading happiness and laughter in such a dark and dreary era of human history). Bendyland is essentially Joey's means to fulfil this desire, as well as to chase his own need for a properly realized mixture of immersion and illusion.

He wanted Bendyland to be perfect, even the plot of land it might be built in needed to be perfect, so he inspected it himself with Nathan once he bought the deed.

Appears to refuse to call Bertrum by his proper name once he’s corrected the first time. Referring to him instead as either Bertie or Bert (toying with him perhaps? Testing boundaries?)

Doesn't drive. He instead hired a personal driver, Simmons.

For a little while he was living the American Dream, but thought of how he lived as less of a shared goal and more of a personal one (again setting himself apart from others).

His days were quite flexible and he seemed to despise set routines. He also doesn't like sleeping in. He liked to take a walk in central park early in the morning.

Joey used to make his rounds around the studio but the installation of the Ink Machine changed that habit a bit.

Nonchalantly notes that Shawn Flynn got a little defensive if he needed to be corrected on his work (OCD much, Joey? He was painting a lot of dolls by hand, slipups happen...).

He had priority meetings with Sammy, "meetings" with Jack (Sir what are these quotation marks for, are you snogging Jack while no one’s watching???), then met with the art department preceding the writing department, and finally he met with Grant Cohen in accounting to discuss finances and budget.

He had the final say in ALL paperwork regarding studio affairs.

Upon reading about it, found the concept of bringing in real animals to produce Disney's Bambi as funny, and joked about how trying to do so with Bendy and Boris would be chaotic.

Noted that Abby and Sammy were likely the only two people who closely understand the philosophy of the illusion of living, but not quite…

Was terrified of being misunderstood. Joey didn’t want to only be able to show half-truths, like a mirror reflecting the world darkly. Rather ironic considering he was quite deceitful in his adult life.

His desire for the world to love Bendy seems to be a projection of wanting to feel loved himself (quite honestly if one were to apply the theory of the id, ego and superego, it seems to me that Bendy is essentially Joey’s id, while Joey himself could be considered the Superego. The chameleonic social mask he wears is thus the ego. At the end of the day Bendy and Joey are and aren’t the same entity...).

Originally he didn't want to make a memoir (likely because he can't be direct and needs to work around the truth to fit him). It could also be that Joey didn’t want to linger on the past nor in death. He wasn't sure where it fit with his philosophy and thus tried not to explore too deep into it (existential dread?).

He wore custom tailored suits, and as of beginning writing TioL he had recently taken to wearing cravats (ever the vain man I suppose…).

Despite considering revisiting the past unnecessary, he couldn’t deny doing so if the time called for it. In fact, the Archives are Joey's memories of the past and he's sentimental enough to collect mementos of bygone eras.

Joey has trophies at home, the deeply personal things he couldn’t bare part with. Like the first sketch of Bendy, a napkin with the design of Bendyland, a letter from Henry, a ticket from a Vaudeville show, and his set of shoes he wore when he was surveying the plot of land where he planned to build Bendyland.

--{On Bendy}--

Notes: Here are a few notes I’ve compiled about the Little Devil Darling himself, and a few curiosities about his creation and the inspiration behind his character.

Bendy was officially created in 1928. According to Joey he was born of a dream, supposedly out of necessity, and he always had this idea of a little devil character doing mischief.

Bendy started off as a realistic little boy with a tail and horns (Abby’s attempt to bring to life Joey’s vague idea). Then, when Henry got involved, he became a cartoonish goat creature. The concepts were quickly worked out from a toony clothed amalgamation of both previous concepts, to a more intermediate design more closely resembling Bendy, and then finally, after Joey requested a simpler more shapely and less detailed toon, Bendy became the iconic  little imp clad in only gloves and bowtie.

Joey named him upon seeing the completed design. There are two origins for his name: That of Walter Benjamin Richmond, who’s nickname in life was “Bendy” (a rather morbid homage considering what happened to him), and the mere fact that in Joey’s eyes, his little cartoon imp “bent all the rules”. Henry seemed to appreciate the name.

Bendy is meant to be the devil on one’s shoulders, much like the devil in Joey’s first theatrical play. He is however, a lot more like a little kid playing pranks on people. He is also a sort of embodiment of both the population and human morality (society at its most flawed point, but also quite relatable).

Buster Keaton was an inspiration for Bendy’s many shenanigans and movements, which were always meant to be fluid and a bit bouncy.

--{On Henry Stein}--

Year of Birth - ??? (It’s never mentioned how old Henry is, but I assume he’s around the same age group as Abby, since they were friends and likely went to the same art course. It’s likely that he’s younger than Joey, but not likely by much.) Year of Death - 1963 (It’s not really confirmed if Henry died when he was put into the Cycle, as he doesn’t seem to notice anything odd about himself, but it’s safe to assume the process very likely involves human sacrifice). Birth City: ??? (Unknown, it could be that he was born and raised in New York but Henry lacks a noticeable accent) Physical Characteristics: Average looking? (Irrelevant, he could honestly look like anyone really...) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Presumably Heterosexual (He’s a married man in the 1930s-1960s, he’s either straight or hiding his sexuality, he seems to really like Linda however so could go either way really...) Notes: Here the few notes I could gather of the Henry info we got from TioL. It’s not much but its at least something to work with!

Henry is unremarkable appearance wise (to the point Joey forgot his face easily at first).

The way Henry dressed (mismatched and ill-fitted) indicates he likely grew up in poverty and likely only had hand-me-downs.

He mostly worked with pen-drawn cartoon character designs that were unremarkable but distinctly caricature-like (the Butcher Gang concepts were likely displayed in the gallery Joey attended, as noted by a comment he makes about them). Even if Joey apparently didn’t particularly like his style, Henry’s artwork was one of the final inspirations for the creation of Joey Drew Studios.

He is described as able to draw quite fast, great at taking directions, and as being a good animator. Overall Henry never really had any real need for someone to keep an eye on him which made him an exemplary worker.

According to Joey, Henry used to give pep-talks before he left the studio. This seemed to annoy Joey considerably for some reason (perhaps he was envious that Henry was generally a more likeable person).

Henry is remembered as forgettable, whereas Joey is flashier and more memorable.

Interestingly enough, Henry never claimed to own the design of Bendy, and was more interested in being business partners with Joey than starting a fuss about who owned the rights to Bendy’s creation (It’s very likely that he willingly gave Joey the design because Bendy was his character, and that instead the designs Joey did steal were that of Boris the Wolf, Alice Angel, and the Butcher Gang, the five other more notorious characters in the Bendy franchise).

--{On Abby Lambert}--

Year of Birth - ??? (It’s never mentioned how old Abby is, but I assume she’s around the same age group as Henry, since they were friends and likely went to the same art course. It’s likely that she’s younger than Joey, but not likely by much.) Year of Death - Possibly 1946 (Upon finally losing himself to the ink, Sammy seemed to have been actively hunting the Art Department and any stragglers that he encountered in the studio, so it can be assumed she died in the chaos) Birth City: ??? (Unknown but more likely to be born and raised in New York than Henry) Physical Characteristics: Frizzy hair, even when bobbed. Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Potentially Bisexual (She seemed to be acutely aware of Joey’s “peculiarities” so it’s possible she’s either a member of the LGBTQ community or perhaps an ally. Whatever the case it’s up for debate and interpretation.) Notes: Here are several notes I’ve compiled about Abby and some of her traits and mannerisms. There was surprisingly a lot more to work with than I expected.

She wasn’t really into the typical female fashion of the time. In fact, Abby wasn’t exactly fond of the typical mannerisms associated with women and was both notoriously rude and dressed herself in a “scandalously” modern manner (which is basically code for more practical less femenine clothing).

According to Joey, Abby is a very focused and determined person, which is why he admired her greatly. She didn’t know when to quit, however, and sometimes took things too far or involved others in situations or projects they didn’t want to be involved in.

She wasn’t very good at drawing original cartoon characters, and Joey was apparently not overly fond of her attempts at putting his ideas to paper due to her more realistic art style.

Abby was very insistent on Joey looking at Henry's works, even if he wasn't particularly interested in them (While it’s never said if she enjoys his art herself, it can be assumed she appreciates it enough that she’d want their mutual friend to see the potential Henry had).

She didn’t join the studio as the replacement Director of the Art Department until 1931, as during its founding she was still finishing art school. She and Henry never worked together. Despite this, she and Henry remained in touch even after he left for Pasadena.

--{On Sammy Lawrence}--

Year of Birth - ??? (From how Joey describes him, it can be assume Sammy was a teenager around either Joey’s early or late 20s before they officially met on Joey’s 30th birthday) Year of Death - 1946? (Sammy is one of few people who was turned without being killed first so it’s hard to tell if he’s really dead even within the Cycle since it’s a time loop...) Birth City: ??? (Sammy lacks a noticeable accent so it’s hard to tell where he’s from). Physical Characteristics: Has been described as bird-like and insect-like, with either brown or blond hair that’s kept longer than the typical fashion of the time (Not much more is known about his actual appearance but it can be assumed he’s either average sized or on the tall side considering his in-game height and build) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Potentially Biromantic with a lot of Demiromantic subtones. Possibly Asexual? (Again this is pure speculation on my part because he did seem interested in Susie but isn’t really a people person in general. Does seem to know how to reign in people tho, so ???) Notes: Here are a few curious notes I’ve compiled about Sammy, the circumstances behind his hiring, and how much control he actually had as the music director.

He has an unusual appearance that, while not necessarily described as ugly, was clearly outstanding enough that some people were put off (Buddy) and others thought him handsome (Susie). His hair is also described as messy.

Sammy is an avid smoker.

He was among a few other musicians employed by the theater to drown out projector sounds and match the mood in silent films. Because he was good at improvising music on the spot, Sammy was excellent at carrying the story presented on screen through his melodies, which was what caught Joey’s eye when he first saw Sammy perform.

Sammy also recognized Joey and didn’t believe his dismissal that he was a “town person”. In fact, Sammy pinpointed the recognition to the fact Joey was that one loner that sat in the front row of the theater he played at.

It becomes very apparent that Sammy is suspicious of people in general. The way he observes others indicates he’s had some sort of struggle growing up. As such, he’s not big on sustaining conversations and he managed to aggravate Joey slightly by the way he addressed him on their first proper meeting.

Sammy had a songbook he shared with Jack, meaning they had a strong trust bond, which is why he only agrees to work for Joey based on Jack’s willingness to also be hired. Even so, he immediately set up professional boundaries for his position. He hired his own people without Joey’s interference, and he only ever indulged him if Joey was being particularly exasperating.

It’s very likely that since Sammy was the one hiring who worked for the music department, that he was the one who hired Norman Polk. This theory is made stronger by the fact he immediately demanded a projector and projectionist booth so he could better do his job.

Despite his surly disposition, Sammy is a no nonsense sort who wants things done and over with, rather than sit around and stall. As such Joey considered him one of the best decisions he made in terms of career.

Funnily enough, because the band seemed to be skittish around Joey, Sammy specifically prohibited his presence in the music department unless they had a scheduled meeting. This likely meant Joey was scarcely ever seen in the music department so as to not aggravate Sammy in person.

Alice Angel’s bigger (and failed) presence in the franchise is likely a consequence of another one of Sammy’s stipulations upon being hired. He had immediately noted that if the studio wanted to go anywhere, they’d need a female character (Perhaps Sammy really believed what he told Susie due to despising Bendy and actually favouring Alice as a character).

--{On Jack Fain}--

Year of Birth - ??? (Possibly around the same age as Sammy or a little older?) Year of Death - ??? (He was gone long before a few other people in the studio, likely in the first few experiments Joey performed) Birth City: ??? (Hard to tell, he doesn’t have an easily identifiable accent). Physical Characteristics: Has been described as an atrocious dresser (This man likes wearing bright colors!) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Potentially Homosexual subtones (Not enough information provided to tell) Notes: Sadly lacking in the information department for Jack.

Jack is incredibly sociable and trusts easily. He's described as making bad jokes but laughing genuinely at them. His smiles are contagious.

Jack is an optimist sort who sees the good in any situation (even when being led around in a dark creepy room by a peculiar stranger).

--{On Bertrum Piedmont}--

Year of Birth - ??? (He was retired, so it’s likely he was around his 60s or early 70s when Joey first met him) Year of Death - ??? (It’s unknown when exactly he ended up in the Ink Machine but it’s very possible he was killed when all hell broke loose in the studio) Birth City: ??? (No clue). Physical Characteristics: Joey describes him (rather rudely) as a very portly man. Sexual/Romantic Preferences: ??? (No idea, chief...) Notes: Lacking in the information department like Jack, but what we get is a lot more substantial.

Bertrum was actually retired when Joey managed to get a hold of him. It took a bit of detective work on Mrs. Rodriguez's (Joey's secretary) part to actually find him as well, so he was not an easy man to get an appointment with.

His creative vision impressed Joey enough that the latter he ignored his apparent dislike for reminiscing so as to get him on board of the Bendyland project.

While discussing the Bendyland Project, Bertrum confidently jokes about it being quite the catch. He agrees to joining forces with Joey as long as he gets full creative control of the entire project. Although Joey agreed to this, he still managed to fight Bertrum on a few ideas, which annoyed him greatly.

It’s very likely that it didn’t take long for their initially friendly relationship to sour into open hostility on Bertrum’s part.

--{On Wally Franks}--

Year of Birth - ??? (No clue, but he was very likely in his late teens or early adult years when he was first hired as the studio Janitor) Year of Death - Supposedly still alive (I really do hope he got outta there like the letter insinuates...) Birth City: Brooklyn, New York. Physical Characteristics: ??? (All we know is he likely wears overalls and a sport’s cap) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Possibly Heterosexual (Unless the letter is a forgery, he apparently has a wife, kids and grandkids) Notes: I’ll admit I didn’t expect to get Wally lore, but here we are!

Wally's actually quite skilled with maintenance. He can tinker with the projectors, other machinery and even plumbing. His schedule is a little off however, but Joey turns a blind eye to it because he gets the job done without question.

--{On Allison Pendle}--

Year of Birth - ??? (No idea! But she was relatively well known when she was hired!) Year of Death - ??? (She was likely lured back to the studio after everything went down but before Henry) Birth City: ??? Physical Characteristics: She’s a beautiful tall blonde according to DCTL Sexual/Romantic Preferences: ??? (She and Thomas are married but I honestly have no clue how to feel about her, she’s a mystery to me.) Notes: Extra minimal Allison lore for your Allison Pendle lore needs.

She was a famous Broadway actress before joining the studio. Interestingly enough, Joey was the one to hire her to replace Susie, not only breaking Sammy’s stipulation on the matter but also stirring Susie into becoming resentful towards Sammy and actually trying to recover her former role at all costs (even her own life).

--{On Nathan Arch}--

Year of Birth - ??? (He was likely a little older than Joey since they were in the army at the same time but Joey lied about his age to enlist earlier) Year of Death - N/A (Still alive and kicking) Birth City: ??? Physical Characteristics: ??? (I guess Boswell Lotsabucks is sorta modeled after him so go off on that???) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Heterosexual (He has a wife and son and doesn’t give me any other vibes besides and overall instinctual distrust) Notes: Oh boy...I do NOT trust this man...

Immediately upon beginning reading TioL you get the impression that Nathan is not only trying to appear friendly and trustworthy by referring to himself as Nate A, but also that he’s trying to cover for Joey and make him appear more personable to the reader. But to what gain exactly?

Nathan is, like Joey, very narcissistically vain, and is also writing a book of his own (an autobiography maybe?)

He’s a smoker and prefers cigars.

When Joey discusses his childhood, Nathan is unable to contradict or confirm anything as he noted that Joey was always very private about his origins.

Nathan seemed truly surprised and impressed with Joey’s ability to make up uncannily believable stories, even suspecting that his accounts of “Lottie” might have been false as he couldn’t find any of the supposed letters Joey sent her when he started working on republishing TioL (it’s likely he could see that Joey often lied to himself just as much as he lied to others).

It seemed to Nathan that Joey was rather oblivious of subtle compliments.

By the manner of which Nathan phrases it, he seems to think of Joey as a professional and kind man, capable of seeing the good in others. That said, Nathan remarks that Henry's departure was a great betrayal for his friend, and that the latter shouldn't have been so "gracious" and "forgiving" towards him…

When the studio began to struggle financially, Nathan worried that Joey might not be aware of the issue at all, or that perhaps he was lying to himself to cope. He also later notes that Joey’s memories seemed to have deteriorated in his old age. He was often mixing up information and seemed rather guilty, which Nathan considering to be very unbecoming of the man he knew Joey to be.

A lot of the deeply philosophical Joey and Nathan interactions seen in the book might actually have occured between Joey and Henry (the "I think therefore I am" conversation is an especially telling one for me), hence why Nathan doesn't recall them. It also seems more likely because they contradict the way Joey portrays Nathan, but seem to fit his portrayal of Henry better.

[butchharrydalton]

How to Include Autistic Women in Your Feminism

Hey, given that this is an activist post, I might be mentioning certain issues that might be triggering to some. Check the tags and stay safe. Ily. ❤️ 

Ever since activist and feminist Audre Lorde devised intersectionality as a way of describing the experience of multiply-marginalized women, feminism has adapted to include women of color, trans women, queer women, disabled women and religious minority women. Although white, non-intersectional feminism is still pervasive and is the dominant ideology carried on by cishet white women, a significant portion of the feminist movement has embraced the identities and diversity among various groups of women.

Intersectionality allows for us to look at the various ways womanhood affects those experiencing it, instead of just slapping one catch all experience of femininity onto all women. It lets us understand that a woman of color, for example, has less amounts of racial privilege than a white woman and must deal with the burden of specific stereotypes around being a woman of color. Intersectional feminism centers the women with multiple identities, or “intersections,” that society considers unfavorable or marginalized.

However, with all the strides intersectional theory has made in social justice circles, the plight of Autistic women is largely ignored by even the most inclusive feminist circles.

Disabled women as a broader group are often lumped together, even though cognitively disabled, intellectually disabled and physically disabled women contend with incredibly different forms of ableism. Alternatively, the feminist movement also tends to cater to physically disabled women who often have more visibility (which, granted, isn’t a lot) and acceptance than those whose minds are thought to be lesser.

It’s common in the disabled community for people to justify their humanity by asserting their neurotypicality, while erasing and oppressing non-neurotypicals. The pro-Autistic movement itself is mostly made up of women, queer individuals and people of color, and yet somehow it always ends up headed by cis white men. In both feminism and Autistic advocacy, women (especially ones with multiple intersections) are ignored and pushed to the sidelines despite typically facing greater oppression than cis autistic men.

Thus, it’s important to make sure to be inclusive towards autistic women and GNC individuals in both feminism and disabled activism. Here are some ways that I’ve compiled on how to make your feminism both inclusive and accepting as a queer, Autistic feminist.

1.       Mention Autistic Women and Bodily Autonomy

Women’s rights to their bodies are an important topic to discuss in feminism, but Autistic women deal with specific challenges in regard to consent and access to care and their bodies, so it’s important to bring up these issues in your discussions.

For starters, the court case Buck v. Bell still stands to this day. The case itself took place in the early 20th century during the eugenicist movement, and the court’s ruling allowed the forced sterilization of anyone labeled feebleminded. It’s legal for parents and guardians of the disabled to sign paper and sterilize anyone under their control regardless of whether the person in question consent to it even now. This is especially unsettling for women of color, who have historically been abused by eugenicist doctors. (See The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and the book Imbeciles for more information on these topics).

In the medical industry, there are also barriers Autistic women must deal with. Today, there are still ableist debates about whether Autistic and other disabled people deserve emergency medical treatment and organ transplants. Once again, this is especially bad for women of color who deal with medical abuse and malpractice committed against them in modern times.

The gist is, the most vulnerable Autistic women often don’t have the ability to consent to harmful and damaging procedures.

For transgender Autistic women, the burden is tenfold. Many Autistic trans people on social media have shared their stories about how people struggled to believe that they were trans because of their neurological difference. This makes transitional care and access much harder for GNC Autistic people and trans people, as their gender identity is viewed as a symptom.

2.       Talk About Consent

Along with consent to medical procedures, there’s also the fact that Autistic women are particularly vulnerable to the whims of violence against women. Here are some ideas to mention when talking about consent.

First off, many Autistic women use alternative methods of communication. Neurotypical women can usually say an explicit ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ though they still face violence. For Autistic women who are nonverbal and communicate through AAC, in a victim blaming culture such as ours their hindered ability to consent can be used against them.

Through ABA therapy, Autistic women are also further taught that their ‘no’ doesn’t matter. True ABA therapy, created by Ivar Lovaas, is essentially legal conditioning. The aim of this psychological form of abuse is to train Autistic children into seeming more Neurotypical instead of embracing their unique neurology and changing their environment to fit their needs. These kids are taught to obey authority at all times, or else they’ll deal with the use of an aversiv e. This of course, discourages their active consent to a situation and puts Autistic women in a dangerous position.

If they are physically as well as cognitively disabled, they may not physically be able to resist or run from an attacker. In many cases, an incidence of assault is justified by the perpetrator claiming that the victim wouldn’t have had a consensual encounter otherwise because they are “ugly” or unworthy of a healthy relationship. Autistic women are often considered to be such..

Trans women and women of color, who are often assaulted more frequently than cis white, women are of course very vulnerable when it comes to this issue. As such, it’s vital to mention this at any discussion of consent.

3.       Know that Toxic Femininity Affects Us More than Neurotypical Women

To preface this, I want to say that there’s nothing wrong with being feminine. I myself identify as a femme woman, out of my own personal fashion sense and aesthetic. I like being a feminine woman and wearing dresses and having long hair, though these also aren’t the only ways to be feminine, of course. Embracing femmeness does not mean that someone is servicing the patriarchy, and embracing androgyny and/or butchness also doesn’t mean said person has internalized misogyny. Everyone is entitled to the way they want to present, and feminism should be about uplifting how people choose to present themselves instead of putting down women they don’t think look “liberated” or “feminist” enough.

That being said, the patriarchy tends to enforce feminine roles on cis women and police the feminine expression of transwomen to make them “prove” they’re really trans and “sure” about being women. I like to call this “Toxic Femininity,” the way that women are pressured to conform to Eurocentric femininity regardless of how they actually want to present, but then oppressed for both their femmeness or their alternate presentation if they disregard the aforementioned. Either way, women can’t win.

Abiding by gender roles is exhausting for anyone, but for Autistic women who have limited energy to go into their daily activities and deal with sensory issues and neurotypicals. As such, gender presentation is often pretty low on our list of priorities. Autistic women are often unable to conform to society as our hindered social skills prevent us from perceiving these norms. It’s hard for us to fully conceptualize what’s acceptable and what’s not. As such, it takes extra effort for us to live up to Toxic Femininity.

With our sensory perception, certain clothes are uncomfortable for us and it’s sometimes a necessity to wear certain textures. Men’s clothing or androgynous clothing are often more comfortable, so it’s not uncommon to find us wearing those. As such, we are often labeled butch or non-femme regardless of how we actually identify our presentation. We are cast aside by Toxic Femininity.

This is of course, even more true for fat women, trans women, and physically disabled Autistic women, who’s bodies already don’t abide by the unattainability that Toxic Femininity forces us to live up to.

4.       Downplay the Voice of Neurotypicals in Autistic Women’s Issues

Despite their position of being privileged oppressors of the Autistic community, most of our advocacy is done by parents and relatives of Autistic people who believe that they are more entitled to our community and voices. They are the “Autism moms” and those with blue puzzle piece signs in their backyards, constantly yelling over us.

Most of the Autism organizations are run by these people, who often don’t consult with Autistic people about the needs of our community. Even though most of them don’t think they hate Autistic people and may even share common goals with the community, they still oppress us because they’re centering the voices of the privileges instead of the voices that are affected no matter how supportive they are.

An Autistic inclusive feminist space means downplaying Neurotypical rhetoric, meaning stopping the use of hate symbols like puzzle pieces and functioning labels. Cut out the influence of ableist organizations and monitor the use of words like “retarded” in your space. This will be difficult in a pervasively ableist society, but it will be worth it in making a more united social justice movement.

It also means allowing Autistic people to have input in their own issues, and allowing them to reclaim their agency. Know that no matter how many Autistic people you know, if you’re Neurotypical, you will never truly experience being Autistic even if you know more about the condition.

5.       Autistic Women Can Still be Racist, Homophobic, or Transphobic – Don’t Be Afraid to Let Them Know

There are usually 2 stereotypes Neurotypicals believe about us, and strangely enough, they’re complete opposites. We’re either hyperviolent, unfeeling school shooters to them or perfect innocent angels who never do anything wrong. Obviously, these are ableist because they assume that all Autistic people are the same, but most people tend to look at us as the latter stereotype because it’s more “politically correct” even though both viewpoints are hurtful in different ways.

As such, when Autistic people are genuinely oppressive, they aren’t held accountable. I’ve had interactions with homophobic Autistic people who accepted me for my Autism but not the fact that I was a girl who loved girls. I’ve met misogynist Autistic men who viewed me as an object and wouldn’t respect my boundaries and right to say ‘no’ to a relationship. As an Autistic white person, I myself hold institutional power over Autistic people of color and as such, am able to be racist.

Autistic people shouldn’t be given a free pass for their bigotry, and assuming that they should denies them their agency and oppresses others in that space.

Autistic women have a lot to contribute to feminism, and neurotypical women should allow them the opportunity to rise against their own oppression. Thanks for reading and for making your feminism inclusive –

Trust me, it means the world to us.

[siriuslycollins-blog]

Parenting 101 For Rockstar Dads

CH. 3- The One Where Everything Is Not Okay Pt 1

Warnings: medical malpractice, child birth, loss of blood, and death

Nessa’s pregnancy wore on throughout the fall and into the winter and spring. Jared and Nessa were having a girl and they had settled on the name Kaela, Kaela Dominique Leto; a lot had changed from the time of the pregnancy announcement such as Jared and Nessa turning the second bedroom of their apartment they used for storage into a nursery, Jared’s older brother Shannon crashing on their couch and Nessa being officially on maternity leave from school and work. She hated it, and with Jared and Shannon at work, she was absolutely bored. With summer in full swing, it was way too hot to do anything, and Nessa had very little energy. Her days consisted (sometimes) making breakfast for herself, Jared and Shannon, watching soap operas as she painted or knitted, fetching the mail, and concluding the day with a treat from the ice cream truck.

Jackie would come by after work or practice to keep her company until the guys came home. One Monday evening, she had stopped by after dance practice while Jared and Shannon were out at the laundromat. “Oh Nessa, I swear on everything I love, I’ll beat the fuck out of Lisa Russell! She gettin’ on my last damn nerve,” Jackie vented. When Nessa announced her pregnancy to the SUSLA dance team, her backup, Lisa had taken her place. It should’ve been a surprise that Lisa had even made the team in the first place, seeing as she couldn’t dance for shit, but she had rich parents, so it wasn’t really.

“The other girls are threatening to quit the team until you come back.” Nessa listened as her best friend cursed Lisa to the high heaven, never once losing steam until Shannon walked in carrying his laundry basket. The two of them were definitely checking each other out, until Jared bumped into him. “Dude, you gotta move. These mosquitos are eating me alive.” Ever since Shannon moved in, Jackie always hung around longer than necessary, and they were getting especially close.

Nessa liked the idea of Kaela’s godmother and uncle growing closer, but Jackie has a boyfriend who is absolutely wonderful, and for that reason, she only hoped that they were only getting to know each other because of the baby. Shannon plopped down in between them and threw an arm around Jackie’s side of the couch. “That’s cool, it’s not like I’m carrying your niece or anything.” They completely ignored her as they launched into their conversation; no matter how many times Jared and Nessa tried to include themselves in the conversation, Shannon and Jackie always managed to drift back to their own world. Jackie ended up staying for dinner, and the only time she and Shannon stopped talking was when either of them took a bite of their pizza.

“So Jackie, how’s Will doin’?” Nessa asked; she briefly wondered if her friend forgot that she even had a boyfriend. “Oh! Uh... he’s okay. Just really busy with summer practices so I haven’t been seeing him much lately.” Nessa saw the disappointed look on Shannon’s face but he still asked, “who’s Will?” “Just a guy she’s been seeing for a while.” He didn’t say anything after that, and the rest of dinner was quiet and a bit awkward. 

Jackie let at almost eight o’clock, saying she had to get up early, which was a lie, and even after she left Shannon was still quiet. “Shan, are you okay?” Jared asked his brother carefully. “What? Yeah, I’ll be fine, I’m just tired. I just want to go to bed. Had a long day.” Nessa and Jared went in the back to their bedroom and got ready for bed. “See Jared! I told you he has a thing for her! And she definitely likes him too!”

“Nessa baby, we’ve been through this. Shan and Jackie are going to be Kaela’s godparents. Of course they’re getting close.” Nessa only rolled her eyes as she put her hair up and put on her bonnet. “You saw how upset he was when I brought up Will.” She wasn’t even sure if Jackie even liked Will the way he liked her as she always seemed annoyed by him. “Let’s just go to sleep. You have your last doctor’s appointment before Kaela comes, first thing in the morning.”

Nessa still couldn’t believe that she was going to be a mom, that she was going to bring a child into the world with the love of her life; absolutely mind boggling. Everything was ready for her, the crib assembled and filled with stuffed animals and other things she might need, and a closet filled with pink outfits. She went into labor on July 13th, at 5:30 am which threw Jared and Shannon into a frenzy. They were both running around like chickens with their heads cut off as they made last minute plans; Shannon grabbing the hospital bag and putting in more things that might be needed and starting the car while Jared called everyone he knew. Turns out that Kaela was a very impatient baby, and by the time they made it to the hospital, Nessa was just about ready to push.

Finally, at 7:30 a.m. Kaela Dominique Leto made her grand entrance, weighing in at four pounds even. She had brown skin, a head of dark curls and the biggest brown eyes Jared had ever seen, and for the second time in his life, he fell in love. The placenta was delivered soon after, and that’s when everything went to hell. Nessa’s regular doctor was out of town due to a family emergency, so her replacement was a balding white man in fifties who brushed off Nessa’s concerns about bleeding after delivering the placenta. “Don’t worry Miss Arceneaux, the bleeding will stop soon.” The doctor had the nurses put some gauze to stop the blood flow but Nessa was losing her color and energy, fast. Jared was getting pissed; clearly there was something wrong with his girlfriend. Why wasn’t the doctor taking this seriously?

“Dr. Archibald, there is something wrong with her! Do something!” By this time Constance and Jackie had made it to the room, only to see Shannon holding Jared back as he was yelling at the doctor with Nessa running a finger over Kaela’s soft cheek; neither women had ever seen Nessa look like this. Of course it was normal to not look your best after giving birth, but it looked like someone had dimmed the lights from within. Nessa gave them a weak smile and they slowly walked over to her. Shannon had escorted Jared and Dr. Archibald into the hall, closing the door so the women wouldn’t have to hear it.

“Nessa, she’s absolutely beautiful,” Constance whispered. She couldn’t believe that she was a grandmother, but here she was, holding her new granddaughter Kaela. Surely this had to be a dream; she and Jackie took turns holding the baby, and it was a while before Shannon and Jared came back. They had plastic bags of food and they sat them down on the rolling table. “Nessa baby, you need to eat something, get your strength back up,” Jared told her.

Eating seemed to do something good for her, and her blood pressure seemed to return to normal after drinking a few ounces of orange juice. Nessa’s family came later in the day to fawn over the baby while Jared went to see about a birth certificate; when he came back, his eyes were red, he looked tired and a piece of paper in his hand. Jared looked over and saw his daughter in one of those makeshift cribs, sleeping peacefully. “Jay, why are you crying? Everything is fine. I’m okay,” Nessa assured him. He wiped the remaining tears away with the back of his hand and began kissing her face. 

“I thought I almost lost you Nessa. It was horrible.” Jared was shaken to his core, and the thought of losing the love of his life scared the shit out of him; he wanted to live out the rest of his life with her. Which reminded him... he still had the ring in his pocket, a ring he’s had for months. Of course the two had never talked about marriage, Jared had been too chicken to bring it up, but now that their daughter was here, now was a perfect time. “You’re not gonna lose me Jay.”

Jared felt like crying again, but his eyes were sore and he didn’t know if he could produce more tears; he felt like he’d done enough crying to last him twenty years. “Nessa, it was bad, and that doctor, I wanted to fucking punch him.” He could feel his throat close up again, and he focused on Shannon holding Kaela, with Jackie begging for a turn again. “It’s my turn Shannon. You’ve had her for ten minutes already.” Constance, Jared and Nessa had to step in to get the two to stop bickering.

“Come on you two, knock it off! She’s only three hours old and these are not the first sounds she should be hearing!” Constance’s tone was enough to make Shannon be quiet after Jackie called him a name. “Shan, Jackie’s right, you’ve had your turn. Give the baby to her.” He settled his niece in Jackie’s arms who had the biggest smile on her face. A few hours later, everyone had to go back to work, except for Jared who had some time off, so now he and Nessa finally had time to themselves to admire their daughter alone. 

The new parents couldn’t believe that their baby was real, they were actually looking at her, and yet it still felt like they could wake up at any moment. Kaela was, without a doubt the most perfect baby in the world; as Jared watched over his sleeping daughter, he felt a flash of anger. Here he is, holding this miracle he helped create, the thought of leaving her behind too painful to even fathom, and yet Tony Bryant had no problem leaving his two boys behind. He looked over at Nessa, who was staring at him holding Kaela. She looked tired, tired but happy, and Jared knew that now was the perfect time to ask her to spend the res of her life with him.

“Nessa, I love you so much, I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I won’t question it.” He sat Kaela back down in her cradle thing so he could get the ring from his pocket, and when Nessa realized what he was doing, she gasped. “Jared, are you doing what I think you’re doing?” Jared didn’t answer her, instead getting down on one knee at the side of her bed. “Vanessa Dominique Arceneaux, will you marry me?” 

Nessa had a smile on her face, the kind of smile that reached the eyes. “Of course I’ll marry you! I love you so much!” Jared slipped the ring on her finger, and they kissed as Kaela made some noises in her cradle. “Yes, pretty girl, your momma and daddy are getting married,” Jared cooed at the newborn. Jared didn’t expect that their celebration would abruptly end.

Nessa died two days later in her sleep sometime in the early morning. Jared was awoken by the heart monitor flatlining, thinking it was his alarm clock back home before he remembered where he was. It was dark in the room, the curtains drawn and the only light in the room was the monitor and the little sliver of golden light under the door coming from hall. Jared leaped from the couch and into the hallway. “Nurse, nurse! I need a nurse!” The monitor had to be wrong, she was only sleeping...

Doctors and nurses began to rush into the room and Jared was quickly jostled about as they tried to get to her; it took two security guards and a male nurse to calm him down, to assure him that they were doing everything they could to revive her. He was dragged into the waiting area kicking and screaming and crying. He tried to take his mind off what was happening by pacing the floor, listening to the early morning news, but none of that was helping. It was another fifteen minutes before a nurse came into the waiting area to tell him the news, but she didn’t need to, he could see it on her face.

“I’m so sorry Mr. Leto. We tried everything we could. There was one time where we tried the paddles and it worked, but only for a second.” Jared could feel the hot tears streaming down his face and he dropped back into a chair, bending over and grabbing his head, then rocking back and forth. He knew that he should go back in and say goodbye to Nessa but he couldn’t, it would be too real, but his feet moved on their own accord. There she was, his new fiancée lying on her back, eyes closed as if she was sleeping peacefully. Jared grabbed the hand he put the ring on, squeezing it and he just cried.

taglist: @llfd1977 @blackreaders-assemble @itsmeauntie

[allonsymiddleearth]

[[Image description: original post is a tweet by nic @niicoleobi which reads: "have y'all ever heard anyone say it's "just one bad doctor"???? naw. they lose their licenses, they get sued, they get thrown in JAIL for medical malpractice. why? bc there's no room for mistakes or error in a profession that you swear to protect and help the people, PERIOD.]]

I’ve seen this posted a bunch of times and I’m officially Fed Up with it because it is such a wild comparison to me especially because of how bad doctors are specifically to black and indigenous women, and especially with COVID 19 having JUST highlighted that, again!

It was mere weeks ago a 30 year old black woman died because she had COVID 19, but her symptoms were dismissed as a panic attack. She was turned away from TWO ERs before finally getting admitted, ventilated, and didn’t make it. She was 30. If she’d had better healthcare, been taken seriously from the start, she probably would have fared better. Also this is a timely read about racial bias in medicine causing even more COVID related deaths of black patients, often later confirmed to have COVID 19, who were sent home from hospitals, sometimes from multiple hospitals!, and died at home. This study just found that black patients with COVID 19 are six times less likely to get adequate treatment than white patients. 

And it’s not new with COVID. Remember when Serena Williams talked about her post-childbirth complications and how doctors almost didn’t listen to her and almost killed her? Beyonce too? And how this happens to black and indigenous women in ridiculous frequency? Anyway here’s another article. And another. Another for black mothers and infants.

And just, assorted other, less specific articles on racism specifically as a medical bias, often deadly. Ny Times on how medicine has lost black patient’s trust. Another about poor quality of care and implicit bias. How we fail black patients in pain. 

And this is not directly related to racism (it wouldn’t surprise me if this guy is racist but it’s not in any of the malpractice suits I know about) but just a case study in how doctors can get away with a lot of shit. One of the two most popular neurosurgeons for my condition has some terrifying lawsuits against him and he’s fine, still practicing, still loved by many patients. And it’s not just a couple, he has had at least TWENTY THREE lawsuits against him and walks away each time. The ONLY time he faced a TINY consequence, the malpractice suit is because he didn’t show up to the OR, requiring a patient to be left under anesthesia for HOURS while surgery wasn’t even being performed. That’s really dangerous and really fucking bad on his part!! Apparently he had the surgery scheduled, said THAT DAY he’d be there, but then just didn’t even show up for HIS JOB because he took his family on vacation instead. Can you imagine a minimum wage worker keeping their job after blowing off a regular shift that doesn’t even require a patient to be under anesthesia for no reason?! That’s the ONLY malpractice suit that’s stuck, and all that happened was he had to leave the hospital where it happened. I don’t know if he was fined. I know he didn’t lose his license. He immediately opened a new practice with a new hospital and continued his career with no issue. 

A lot of female nurses and other co-workers have filed complaints about sexist behavior in the workplace, regular bad behavior re medical safety of patients in the workplace, and (iirc) inappropriate comments made about female patients while they were under anesthesia in the OR. They also allege retaliation from making these complaints. And at least 3 women recently sued him over malpractice of botched surgeries he performed. None of this seem to have hurt him. The man still has a very successful practice. Despite being sued 23 times. So, yeah, he did get sued, which is something cops don’t face much, right? But it certainly never stuck. He’s still allowed to keep his job with essentially no lasting harm done to his career.

TLDR doctors absolutely suck and it’s obviously a very different situation from cops, but they are very discriminatory and don’t face consequences either, even when some of those COVID cases up there should probably be counted as murder. 

[throwingideasatthewall]

Clone Wars      Revenge

Fun fact; I acc-         idental-ly started the wrong episode

       [So a little Spoiled]

   Didn’t make it far past the intro of          “Re-Vival,”

     [Past           “Outer Rim,”]

      Onto the actual             episode;

       [Logo Red]                   Still weakest-

      [also yeah whatever happened to      Grievous?

     Like, he complained about it being           beneath him,

      And then      we never saw him        again,

    That entire-    episode;

    As well as        Ana kin;

   That entire        dinner          scene;

      [Seriously was that only for cheap trick to     establish tension?.]      [Obi         -Wan           ]  

      Oh yeah      he straight up       murdered         a person

      [Fun.     -          little de          tail-]

       (Like yeah he murders a lot of people        but I’m pretty sure      that was a big one)

    -

  Any how,    

     ?           Aight             -      oh yeah 

return    -ing       to the abuser-

    -       

   ?    Can      Relate-          -    B-r

   He’s - basically screaming

     Also couldn’t you just set it to auto pilot -

     - and go take care of him?

      Like - I know it’s a junker

       Also-

  Oh,

   You left the person-

    Who are you found curled            -up,           Under several things-            Of garbage-             In a quite literal            labyrinth,

         In an enclosed space            ~with no way to get to you-             ~ if something goes wrong           and/or              they feel afraid

            ~Like~          Trauma is it’s own animal and venting is fucking weird

          But if you’re going to be involved-

            I don’t think throwing them in the back is the best idea-

            Like yeah

           The idea in this case is sending them to accoun-                 tability-

           With just           them-selves-

            But the difference-

           Is it just a sterile environment         with the basics they need to survive,

            And an environment that is stable and pretty            much completely in their control,

          [as much that can be allowed]

           Here there are  plenty of boxes                   (Things out of               control-)         and the vehicle is constantly moving

            No wonder        dude’s               freaking                 Out,

           [You’re                  Damn-

   [Point        being;

      Savage’s           bedside             manner;          Accoun-tability?                Pretty               bad,

                 [Like even I am most known for my                       vengeance,                         And you know it’s bad                        when I’m telling you to cut him a                      fecking break]

                     Like                          dude’s                    pathetic,

                    [Can’t help pity-                         ]                        [Enabler]

 That also makes a lot of sense

Like, yeah he’s far above the ground

         When stability-

   [Dude ate the full       tox]

 [Like dude completely bought his own        lies]

 I-  don’t know how to feel about that situation other than please take him to accountability  before he hurts him self        Please,

 ,

Yeah gaslighting will clearly help    toaster strudel,       here,

      ?            ?

    How are you supposed to do that when           you trapped him in an         en-closed           Space-

         ?

        Dude some ship contain-ers shifted and now you’re blaming him for not moving,

        (Like I get the implication that he scared and he moved it in front but we really didn’t see much to indicate that)

       Like they just moved on their     own,

    And dude did literally nothing to help his cornered brother out of the thing

    [like I’m not for enabling tox]

   But self-defense and         anticipatory           [as well as innocent until            done guilt,                   “

   Is pretty high     on my list of reserv         -ations,

         [Gen             Stick as close to              Account.                as possible,               -]

            ?

          Yeah probably a good idea           considering War zone,

            ?

           Yeah they’ve         been dead for a while and did it largely of their              own regard-                  ,

              ?

            Yeah             sucks for him,

           Coming back,

              To this

             [also you think the Flashy amulet would be telling him not to because you know the attack ,

             Green smoke

             [Time to get        gasolighten]        -          ?

    Mother-       -         He-re

   Clearly dead

   [and your      Gen clearly didn’t have medical on staff              .               Like yeah they have magic that can bring back the dead but they don’t know first aid,

         Great

 [For witches they really don’t know a lot about      herbs and      stuff

  (The Cauldron       yeah,)

    Which is weird because   mred is generally associated with physical    knowledge

   (The science       s)

   And he did a real good job,

    Like we-akest dude on the board whose job amounts to         widespread warfare           (But a pretty disastrous record in          guerilla warfare)

        And you still lost him with the late present playing in              (What was even their focuses              ?)

      Su-rvive

     Lady, there is one of you,

     Two if you count Ventress,

  Unless,

   Oh no

   Nope keep your weird       creepy re-venge        cult,

      In the past,

      ?

       -

    “Would,”

          [which is why            I didn’t get him                 myself         ]

                    [Better]

                    [For                        Every

                     One,]

        “Damage                  ed,”

     Which is why I brought            him to you              Gas-lighter                         -                   “Life,”

    Oh instead of taking into accountability

         Let’s subject him to more                 abuse;

            Some                   Thing             The past        is tox,

  Would definitely be better for him to wake up in a nice        warm place with food,

    Kenobi

   Didn’t he     just rem-ember that         now?

      Like;

     Why is there the        rattling of chains?

     (Oh yeah let’s re-introduced to          enabler to its toxic abuser;

        Like yeah           I know it’s still there            because he didn’t deal with it,

          But he’s clearly not in the head space

            [Seriously just send the bastard to accountability]

                  [empathetically]                          Gas light

                     [i’m trying not to make as many jokes about the gaslighting but that is a literal gaslight]

                     Hey isn’t that the    illusion of help,

                     [Also how is that supposed to help with the        crates?]

     Also yeah wouldn’t that piss him off more because of light, light saber the last time that occurred?

     [Like I’m not saying don’t use herbs on the guy who got injured, I’m just saying try to make it less pain...ful?

              Ok, seriously those boxes were a lot hotter to move a few seconds ago what the heck

        [it’s not major.     but it is a minor          thing?]

          .                  F-ollow

        And make the injured, toxic dous-ed-              Person run,

           (This family’s bedside manner is               fuckin awful,

             His horns?

              Seriously is no one          going to help him,

               ?

   And a graveyard

    Perfect nothing better to put your patients at ease then being surrounded by the dead women’s of the last patients

                 Great

    Guessing the surgery isn’t going to be approved by any            surgeons lately-

         ?

        Un-attainable

         ?

       Geez,

        Like some herbs could’ve done that you didn’t need to     poke him,

        Like how is that supposed to help him go to    sleep?

      ?

      That’s clearly not sleeping,

       Which is good because that’s not a           Gaslighter talent         (TALENT is used          very loosely here,)

     “Symptom”       is more           like it,

        [Like, that was         fear as he fell back and she        poked him in the face,]

Aw,

  [This was way too screwed up to be             Complete acceptance of guilt                    And healing,

               So,

              Symbolism wise,

    I’m going to have to go with more gaslighting

  Aka, pretending to fix the       issue,

      Because that’s not how it works in either a       psychological sense or            (Obvious               ly           Medical)

                                                        The witches                                                              practice                                                           pho-science

                          Not a line                              I’d thought                            I’d be uttering,

                                   But up to this point they’ve been keeping it mostly on point for gaslighting        (Sy-mbolism)

                       Here it   kinda breaks down,

                        Like, how

Unless    it’s higher point.

     But No.

    Scene         doesn’t really make       sense,

 (Like the     ani-      mation have no idea what    theo-      retically          is going on,

         Emotions,                Nada,

 Damn, herbs       Lady, herbs,

  Like,        I don’t-      Think        The      Medicals        Would          Be         Too       Happy,          With the lack           of            anesthetic              There,

       (Like             Geez-  Think dude would        ra-

      ?

  (Like that’s some       tox feckin      medical lady,)

    Also great now he’s gone unconscious from stress; hopefully you didn’t emotionally scar the bastard,

       Geez,

     Yeah I would’ve that kinda      frozen terror reaction to if that shit happen  

    “Ow!”

     Like, dude, no wonder,

    ?

    Feels wrong,

    Oh, those were his feet

    Also yeah leave your patient in a terrifying          ce-met-        ery

   I don’t think anyone could       blame       me for feeling bad for this guy at this point,

    Like lady is a bunch of malpractices wrapped in a bunch of         ‘fucking don’t’

     Terrible bedside

        Tor-ment-

         Legs

     [Honestly, surprised         dude isn’t screaming in terror, pain and agony

      [That take some serious breathing exercises]

      [excuse me if I sound a bit pho-science]           ]

      Geez

    Re-stored

   Not the      word,

   Some humor      might’ve been appreciated there

    Also yeah what about his organs and      shit?

     How.

   [i’m getting too much in the    medical.

   Just,

   This,     shouldn’t have wor      -k       -ed           -            Seriously 

   That is your reaction?

   [I was honestly expecting          his vocal cords             to be shot,]

      Like I was not expecting Lord Butter              of the Fucking Edgy

        Was expecting like a       stutter or some thing,

      [You know a gradual recovery       Period]

      Dude talking like it’s been a few months, a few years since this whole thing went down

     “ oh yes it was a very dark place.”

        Like I feel like that’s kind of cheating,

         Like,

         That shouldn’t            have fixed it,

         You just ran past a very             interesting conflict           with space magic-

         [Like I guess I don’t have to worry about his grudges              with anyone]

       -and Tal-Zin surprisingly didn’t use this make the        trauma go away button with           Ventress

            [That feels like              cheating,]

             Oh, so he has probl-e-ms                 sta-nding?

               [Like, what?

                Is the            problem?

                 ]

                 Also yeah don’t help him at all dude

           Like going on about how           im-portant he is-

                                  I mean his bed-side-

            No on second thought you stay over there, you’ll probably attempt to gaslight him otherwise,

             Anyway after that Adventure in  Malpractice and Gaslighting                    ,              Dark music,

            Just stumbles          ar-ound,

       Sur-vive

       ?

      Was that an an-swer?

       I-

     Well that went from Captain Butter I-am-       Over-it,

     To Murder,

    Pretty damn         fast,

       ,

     Also what about the male tribe,       you know where these guys came from?

    Like Ventress only screwed with a small portion of    them,

    (Like a significant portion of their offspring        , but not the whole village)

       Then that other          village?

       (The one-   on the other planet?)

     Any-way,

    Stop

 Well this just went    from one to     basket Case-       -  

[Ok where did this come from?]

  [what’s-       with the soliloquy)         ]

    -        Found

   Seriously,

    Whoa,

    Like that   anger takes time to build up,

   Don’t get me     wrong   I’m no expert on space magic;

  However this is why I have issue with magic;

                  [Specifically                         non-elemental;                         (Earth, water                         fire, air,                            And                          Lightning)

                          Because you have to be really specific about what it represents and get the side effects right

         Otherwise it’s just a reality breaking                    cheap trick,

                     Skipping past a lot of interesting    conflict and emotions,

                     [Had they done that and just started it off at   some     random           Emotional)         Plot point)

       I think I could follow              -ed it easier,              (Or at all)

        Because right now he’s just acting very inconsistently and        irrationally

  (And not the           emotional     “drank the whole bottle of          tox,”           ,The puppet shouting lines with no connection with each other, making absolutely no sense            Kind

 Like “Congrats, you’ve got the emotion        now you need the consistency,”

      (You can’t have your time skip      and        your emotional conflict too,

    They are connected    and you have to earn them,

         E-motion

   (Yeah,        people who swallowed the whole tox pill don’t tend          To be        very good at that,)

      That’s why they’re sent accountability

       So there’s no additional pressure

       (And they can go through the long relatively painful process in as much peace as possible,  should they decide            to,

      In-stead of stewing in their own      mi-sery-            -                |.  

         ?

    Heck did you find     that?

     Like he and his light saber presumably fell to the ground and will deliver to the same dump,

      (Is that Savage’s?)

        ?

          Or an        instigating abuser who has less power than literally anyone else                 (Their victims)

            Aside from the                Gen break,

              -                   Great recap

             It’s completely unnatural 

     and forced,

              [Like you could’ve had him slowly regain his memory and repeat this back,

         This being like a prime recovery arc moment

           The arc words     of recovery,

      But you rushed it

       Now, it’s non-       sense,

       [This is why    you have to take time doing things,]

         Heck it didn’t even have to be an               arc long-

           Maul runs the top of a hill,                 With Savage- cha                  s-ing,

              [Stops suddenly,]

               [Silence]

               [you get a nice cinematic shot of the sun or some of the     celestial bodies,

     [with the emotions im-plied of      someone who just came back to        life-]

       [and is seeing the world         sentient for the first time,             ]

        “I-

          [Fumbled                   for              Words]

             I- was                   -The                      Appren-

               [Really adding               that depth of                 loss,]

                 [Savage possibly                        taking his shoulder,                     possibly emphasizing                            a new edge                          to his character,      An empathetic one,

                   “you can start anew,”

                    “C’mon let’s head back to the                      ship,”  

                       [Guide Maul back to the ship

                        [Dying sunlight]             

 For some      humor;         *Turns           Back,            Keys           hanging           off          finger,”

     “you can ride          in the front           this time             around,”

     [MIGHT BE TOO             FLUFFY]

    [Can adjust       using color scheme;         And more aggressive              tone,]

           So, yeah, that was episode              [not the side pieces]

    The first half         was         relatively good...

      Before promptly descending into        bat shit insanity        (Not in the good               way....)

      [Around the resurrection of Maul              from the           gas magic)

  From there,         The tone gets pretty thin        and intel..

     With the brief whiff           of emotion,

        That barely passes decent            on the fun scale,

          Not passing fun

         Just luke warm humor,

             Over images                  happening,

             With little (or-no                   connection)-

                ?                       [They still haven’t fixed Obi-wan’s                           eyes,                           Or his tone,                             Or his                               face,

                           Man is like an expression- less       Emotion-less doll,]

                               Competing with Anakin                                  for the youngest looking Jedi

                              [not sure if that was the point with the re-assignment      surgery/     Facial   reconstruction).      Arc

   But they really need to talk with the med Droid         that approved that       and get a       fix,

    The inability to express emotion        isn’t cute,

     (He looks        like a toy!)

     -Not Good-

     -

[canadajoke5-blog]

WHY YOU NEED CUPPING & ACUPUNCTURE IN YOUR SELF CARE REGIME

Hi guys.

So today on the blog we have my favorite acupuncturist… the man with two first names…

TAYLOR TAYLOR…. Oh my god, if you’re in San Diego & you haven’t seen him, you are missing out on life, let me tell you.

A lot of us are familiar with acupuncture so let’s talk CUPPING. What the hell is it?

I’ve talked about cupping on the blog before & I’m still IN LOVE with it…. but let’s recap:

“Cupping therapy is an ancient form of alternative medicine in which a local suction is created on the skin; practitioners believe this mobilizes blood flow in order to promote healing. Suction is created using heat ( fire ) or mechanical devices. Through either heat or suction, the skin is gently drawn upwards by creating a vacuum in a cup over the target area of the skin. The cup stays in place for five to fifteen minutes. It’s believed by some to help treat pain, deep scar tissues in the muscles & connective tissue, muscle knots, and swelling; however, the efficacy of this has been questioned.There is reason to believe the practice dates from as early as 3000 BC.” via

According to this source “cupping has numerous benefits— it can help remove toxins from the body & stimulate the flow of fresh blood, lymph, & Qi to the affected area and throughout the body.

It often works wonders for patients with the flu, colds, coughs, back and muscle pain, poor circulation, anxiety, red itchy skin conditions ( though cups are not applied to inflamed areas ), allergies, fevers, aches, & a myriad of other pains.

As the name implies, in this method your practitioner applies massage oil or cream on your skin in selected places, puts the cups over the areas to be treated and then slides them around that region of the body— most commonly the back. The cups slide easily because the cream has lubricated your body.

Ultimately you ought to consider exploring the benefits of cupping ESPECIALLY if you seek relief from stress, pain, allergies, fatigue, flu, colds, back pain, anxiety, muscle aches, red itchy skin conditions or fever.”

I’m also big into acupuncture & Taylor Taylor does both!

Him & his girlfriend, Lisa, run THE BEST acupuncture & cupping situation ever in San Diego. ( Lisa makes my most favorite bath salts everrrrr- they’re all natural, & just insane. I use them every day. They’re basically these gentle, healing bath salts that are filled with French lavender & grapeseed oil…but I feel like I should save this for a different post? )

Anyways, Taylor really gets it because he’s had his own issues with pain throughout his life. He had chronic pain & injuries from being in the military, doing sports, & martial arts. Western docs told him pain killers & surgery were his only means of relief but he discovered acupuncture & Chinese Medicine. It gave him short term & long term relief. He also LOVES to help patients educate themselves so they can avoid pain & injury in the future. We very much love prevention over here. You can buy heart cupping equipment yourself too which super cute.

With that, let’s welcome Taylor Taylor to the blog.

+ Introduce yourself- tell us your background.

My name is Taylor Taylor (yep, that’s really my name!) I am a Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac) with quite an unconventional background. I served our country as a Combat Medic with the US Army – post military I transitioned to a 10 year career as an ER Nurse before transitioning into Chinese medicine. I treat patients of all ages, and I support various types of healing. Something that sets me apart from other acupuncturists or traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners is that (#1) I TRULY understand pain and painful injuries from a professional AND personal perspective, (#2) I treat with both sides of the spectrum in mind – Eastern & Western medicine.

+ Why cupping/Benefits of cupping?

There is so much to say about cupping! I’ve done a great deal of research on the topic and can give you in-depth, technical, scientific evidence for the effectiveness and medical value in cupping – way too much information for just a short answer! What I can tell you in a nutshell is that cupping increases circulation, helps to flush toxins from the tissue, gives a focal stretch on the muscle and so much more. The proof is in the pudding – your body will tell just how amazing cupping is especially for reducing pain and inflammation and rehabbing injured tissue. It’s a shame that there are still some medical doctors and such still saying cupping is nothing more than a fad – it just proves they haven’t done their research and they certainly haven’t tried it themselves.

+ Why acupuncture?/Benefits of acupuncture?

Another great question! So much to cover here so for now I’ll keep it cursory. #1, it’s important to mention that unfortunately, there is so much misinformation when it comes to acupuncture. The majority of information published online is inaccurate, and at worst demonizes the practice of acupuncture and/or cupping completely. In fact, even Wikipedia dubs acupuncture as a “pseudoscience” – a dangerous misnomer that contradicts the guidance of reputable healthcare organizations & medical professionals that espouse and recommend acupuncture as a successful treatment to complement (and sometimes even replace!) other “typical” Western treatments. Put it to you this way: would American hospitals employ internal acupuncturists if acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) were considered “pseudoscience” in the eyes of the Western healthcare community? Beyond that, acupuncture & TCM has been practiced for CENTURIES in our world, a tradition with results that span generations. I air on the side of caution when discussing benefits of acupuncture as treatment is highly individualized and depends on your practitioner. Nowadays there are a myriad of individuals who will tell you they can perform acupuncture – without truly being a licensed acupuncturist. There are countless chiropractors, massage therapists, physical therapists, and even DOCTORS who will make the claim that they practice acupuncture, although most of them will not possess any focused, formal acupuncture training. This translates to what is frequently known as “dry needling” – which is sadly all too common in acupuncture today. Dry needling presently is NOT legal in California and nearly half the states in the US. Malpractice insurance does NOT cover dry needling in states where it is illegal. There is NO regulation of dry needling in terms of adequate training, continuing education, sharps disposal, and safety. It is a certification ONLY and does not require medical licensure. It is basically imitation acupuncture with less than 5 percent of the education required to be a licensed acupuncturist with very little to no training on ANY of the actual concepts of Chinese medicine. It’s basically sticking needles in anything that feels tight or tender without any further consideration. In short – don’t let anyone needle you unless they are a Licensed Acupuncturist at the national & state level, with a history of acupuncture specific training! So, to summarize: acupuncture provides a variety of benefits – more than I can mention here! I can say that the world health organization (WHO) put together a list of conditions they felt were successfully treated with acupuncture which included all types of musculoskeletal pain, many digestive disorders, emotional disorders, addiction, strokes, and many other issues pertaining to men’s and women’s health.

+ Tell us about facial acupuncture? I heard it’s like Botox. LOL.

Ha! Well, it’s like Botox in the sense that it stimulates “age-defying” improvement for the tissues and skin of your face…however, that’s mostly where the comparisons end. Botox has many potentially harmful side effects, including irreversible facial paralysis, to cite just one example. Acupuncture, on the other hand, represents healing & recovery with no strings attached. There has been a lot of research on facial rejuvenation acupuncture and just some of what we see with facial acupuncture includes increased collagen and elastin production, increased circulation, leukocyte (white blood cell) migration into the tissues facilitating the removal of cellular waste, free radicals, and many other toxins that contribute to the aging process. All of these things then lead to a longer lasting and more natural way to maintain a youthful appearance in the face.

+ What have you seen acupuncture & cupping cure?

The stories I could tell you! Too many to fit on one page, LOL! All sorts of things including the entire scope of painful conditions and injuries, digestive disorders, rare parasites, hormone imbalances and the list goes on and on. Overall, without sacrificing patient confidentiality, I can say that one of the most meaningful differences to ME is the peace & emotional relief that accompanies the healing of acupuncture. Many of my patients have suffered from a variety of debilitating conditions that Western medicine has proved to be no remedy for. The sheer gratitude of my patients when they tell me I’ve helped them in a way that no one else could – that’s what I wake up for. That’s why I do what I do. So, in short form – I’ve seen acupuncture cure absolute medical torment. And that’s relief you absolutely can’t put a price on.

+ Tell us about Lisa’s delicious bath salts- I am obsessed!

So glad you asked! This is a popular question 🙂 Lisa’s recipe is under lock and key — but I can tell you that her production days involve several chocolate runs and a litany of well-scented candles to set the mood and give her inspiration. I am usually the Guinea Pig .. lol! In all seriousness, we put a lot of thought into our bath salts. Our custom formulations include: targeted essential oil aromatherapy and premium crystaline mineral salts. Lisa’s salts are great for just soaking or even doing “contrast soaks”, which are a proven recovery method for healing inflammation and swollen feet (or other body parts) through rapid temperature change from hot to cold for affected areas. Our favorite “feet buckets” are our custom Taylor Made Buckets! 🙂 Lisa’s salts are also great for post-acupuncture & cupping therapy – I recommend a hot soak in the tub after a treatment.

You can find Taylor Taylor on:

♡ Instagram

♡ Facebook

♡ LinkedIn

♡ Twitter

♡ His website

Seriously you guys, book an appointment with Taylor Taylor when you’re in San Diego. You won’t be sorry. You can also buy heart cupping equipment yourself which is fun too.

SHOP THE POST

Source: https://www.theskinnyconfidential.com/cupping-acupuncture-benefits/

[premayogan]

5 Technologies Bringing Healthcare Systems Into The Future

If you think you’ve got a bad case of the travel bug, get this: Dr. John Halamka travels 400,000 miles a year. That’s equivalent to fully circling the globe 16 times. Halamka is chief information officer at Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and a practicing emergency physician. In a talk at Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine last week, Halamka shared what he sees as the biggest healthcare problems the world is facing, and the most promising technological solutions from a systems perspective. “In traveling 400,000 miles you get to see lots of different cultures and lots of different people,” he said. “And the problems are really the same all over the world. Maybe the cultural context is different or the infrastructure is different, but the problems are very similar.”

Less of This, More of That

From Asia to Europe and Africa to America, societies are trying to figure out how best to manage an aging population. Japan is perhaps the most dramatic example: “In Japan 25 percent of the population is over the age of 65, the birth rate is 1.4, and hardly any primary care physicians are going into the profession,” Halamka said. Longer lifespans around the world are a testament to medical progress, but they also mean rising healthcare costs and higher rates of chronic disease. Combine that with low birth rates and the implications are magnified; there’s not going to be anyone to pay for the care of this aging society. That care isn’t just for the body, it’s for the mind too. Anxiety and depression have become something of an epidemic, whether due to the relentless pace of modern life, the isolation of increasingly individualist cultures, or the comparisons and competitiveness brought about by social media. “Across the world, no one’s really addressing the mental health burden very well,” Halamka said. All these issues would be more solvable if there were more people to work on solving them—that is, more doctors. But there’s actually a marked shortage of clinicians, and of specialization in the most high-demand fields. “You’re not seeing a distribution of the kind of services people need,” Halamka said. This is especially a problem in rural areas. Finally, the systems we’ve built to help with the above problems have themselves become a problem. Multiple countries are trying to figure out how to deal with a lack of interoperability and data sharing in their medical information technology. Rather than being highly imaginative or far-reaching, Halamka noted, many of the healthcare technologies the world needs are actually quite simple and practical.

The Tech That Can Help

Machine Learning Working for the Bush and Obama administrations, Halamka was a first-hand witness to the way regulation can create a burden for clinicians. Between the FDA recommending that doctors monitor patient implants at every visit, the CDC recommends a travel history be taken at every visit, Medicare and Medicaid putting forth 20 quality measures for every visit, Halamka said, “By the time we were done, there were 140 required data elements to be entered at every visit while making eye contact, being empathetic and never committing malpractice. It’s not possible!” This is where machine learning can help. Halamka joked that if AI can replace your doctor, AI should replace your doctor; the things we really want our doctors to do—listen to us, respect our care preferences, guide us through all the possibilities—can’t be done by a machine. But AI can reduce clinicians’ burden of documentation using functions like natural language processing. Imagine a version of Alexa that listens to doctor-patient conversations, takes notes and produces charts—all the doctor has to do is review and sign. AI can also augment physicians’ capacity to understand evidence and make informed decisions. “There are 800 papers published in my field every week,” Halamka said. “I’m a little behind on my reading.” Those decisions can run from which antibiotic to prescribe a patient to the amount of time to reserve an operating room for. After implementing a machine learning algorithm that predicted how much time patients would need in the OR by comparing them to thousands of similar patients, Beth Israel was able to free up 30 percent of its OR schedule and enhance its throughput. Internet of Things Earlier this year, Halamka was diagnosed with primary hypertension. His lifestyle and diet essentially couldn’t be healthier—he’s a vegan who avoids both caffeine and alcohol—but it turned out the condition was hereditary. His doctor prescribed beta blockers. “Ugh,” he said. “They’re like negative espresso.” 50 milligrams of metoprolol was the dose for a person of his size, age, and gender—but, he realized, all that had no bearing on his body’s ability to metabolize metoprolol. So he decided to do a little experiment. While varying the dosage, he used sensors around his home and office to monitor his mood, energy, blood pressure, pulse, and other indicators. “I was able to tailor my medication to the right dose, with the right output, and the fewest side effects for me,” he said. “And that’s the kind of thing we all want.” In the near future we’ll be able to 3D print pills, assess their efficacy with the smart devices in our homes, and tailor them to the optimal dosage for our bodies. Big Data Halamka pointed out that there are 26 different electronic health records (EHRs) used in the Boston region alone. But Fast Health Interoperability Resources (FHIR), an application programming interface for exchanging electronic health records, will soon enable new ways to aggregate data from different EHRs. Patients will be able to look at their life-time experience and not just a single silo in a single EHR. “My hope is the data of the past will inform the care of patients in the future,” Halamka said. When his wife, who is Korean, was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, he used an open source tool called i2b2 to mine data from Harvard’s 17 hospitals, looking at treatments and outcomes of women with the same type of cancer and of the same age and ethnicity. He found that Taxol, the drug used to treat this cancer, causes neuropathy (numbness in the hands and feet) in Asian women. “My wife is an artist, so saying ‘you’re cured but you can’t work ever again’ wasn’t a desirable outcome,” Halamka said. So they did a clinical trial of one, taking her Taxol dose down by 50 percent. Today she’s well and functional, and her hands and feet are just as they were before treatment. That is the kind of thing we need to use big data for, he said. Telemedicine Halamka is the nation’s expert in poisonous mushrooms and plants, and he does 900 telemedicine consultations every year (he is malpractice insured in all 50 US states). He said, “Here I am with my iPhone, receiving images and cases from all over the world, and through just a virtual interaction, developing a care plan that keeps people healthy. It’s low cost and it’s efficient. And that’s the kind of expertise we all need access to, whether we’re urban or rural, whether you’re in the US or elsewhere.” One challenge, however, is policy. State licenses and malpractice insurance can make crossing borders complicated. If a doctor in, say, North Dakota consults Halamka for a mushroom poisoning and Halamka advises a certain treatment, the North Dakota doctor ultimately decides whether to offer the treatment or not. Blockchain Halamka believes one of the main use cases for blockchain in medical IT is in auditing and integrity. When Harvard doctors are sued for malpractice, he said, he’s asked to provide 20 years’ worth of medical records to the plaintiff attorney, but there’s no guarantee or way to prove those records haven’t been altered in any way. A blockchain audit trail would fix this problem. “When a note is signed put a hash of that note into the blockchain, twenty years go by, you can validate the note has not been changed,” Halamka said. You could also use it to show patient consent, or incentivize them to contribute their data or comply with treatment regimens.

On Their Way, Already Here

The technologies and use cases Halamka outlined aren’t decades or even years out—they’re up and running in hospitals today. Beth Israel Deaconess, he said, is using machine learning to read faxes, apply metadata, and insert information into medical records. They’re using mobile and internet of things to keep congestive heart failure patients healthy in their homes. They’re pushing data across the community to track where patients are receiving care and help coordinate the best care at the lowest cost. Robots that can perform precision surgery and AIs that can diagnose rare illnesses in minutes aren’t going to eliminate our need for physicians. In fact, if it’s applied in the right ways, the tech will not only help doctors practice at the top of their licenses and hospitals to run with utmost efficiency—it will reduce the likelihood that we’ll end up there, to begin with. Read the full article

[abdallahalhakim]

What I’ve learned from 547 doctor suicides

Five years ago today I was at a memorial. Another suicide. Our third doctor in 18 months.

Everyone kept whispering, “Why?”

I was determined to find out.

So I started counting dead doctors. I left the service with a list of 10. Now I have 547.

Immediately, I began writing and speaking about suicide. So many distressed doctors (and med students) wrote and phoned me. Soon I was running a de facto international suicide hotline from my home. To date, I’ve spoken to thousands of suicidal doctors; published a book of their suicide letters (free audiobook); attended more funerals; interviewed surviving physicians, families, and friends. I’ve spent nearly every waking moment over the past five years on a personal quest for the truth of “Why.”

Here are 34 things I’ve discovered:

High doctor suicide rates have been reported since 1858. Yet more than 150 years later the root causes of these suicides remain unaddressed.

Physician suicide is a public health crisis. One million Americans lose their doctors to suicide each year.

Most doctors have lost a colleague to suicide. Some have lost up to eight during their career—with no opportunity to grieve.

We lose way more men than women. For every woman who dies by suicide in medicine, we lose seven men.

Suicide methods vary by region and gender. Women like to overdose and men choose firearms. Gunshot wounds prevail out West. Jumping is popular in New York City. In India, doctors are found hanging from ceiling fans.

Male anesthesiologists are at highest risk. Most die by overdose. Many are found dead in hospital call rooms.

Lots of doctors die in hospitals. Doctors jump from hospital windows or rooftops. They shoot or stab themselves in hospital parking lots. They’re found hanging in hospital chapels. Physicians often choose to die where they’ve been wounded.

“Happy” doctors die by suicide. Many doctors who die by suicide are the happiest most well-adjusted people on the outside. Just back from Disneyland, just bought tickets for a family cruise, just gave a thumbs up to the team after a successful surgery—and hours later they shoot themselves in the head. Doctors are masters of disguise. Even fun-loving, happy docs who crack jokes and make patients smile all day may be suffering in silence. We are all at risk.

Doctors’ family members are at high risk of suicide. By the same method. Cardiothoracic surgeon Thomas Gahagan died by hanging himself leaving behind seven children ages three to fifteen. Two died by hanging themselves as adults. Another physician died using the same gun his son used to kill himself. Kaitlyn Elkins, a star third-year medical student, chose suicide by helium inhalation. One year later her mother Rhonda died by the same method. At Rhonda’s funeral, I asked her husband if he thought his wife and daughter would still be alive had Kaitlyn not pursued medicine. He replied, “Yes. Medical school has killed half my family.”

Doctors have personal problems—like everyone else. We get divorced, have custody battles, infidelity, disabled children, deaths in our families. Working 100+ hours per week immersed in our patients’ pain, we’ve got no time to deal with our own pain. (Spending so much time at work actually leads to divorce and completely dysfunctional personal lives).

Patient deaths hurt doctors. A lot. Even when there’s no medical error, doctors may never forgive themselves for losing a patient. Suicide is the ultimate self-punishment.

Malpractice suits kill doctors. Humans make mistakes. Yet when doctors make mistakes, they’re publicly shamed in court on TV, and in newspapers (that live online forever). We continue to suffer the agony of harming someone else—unintentionally—for the rest of our lives.

Doctors who do illegal things kill themselves. Medicare fraud, sex with a patient, DUIs may lead to loss of medical license, prison time, and suicide.

Academic distress kills medical students’ dreams. Failing boards exams and being unmatched into a specialty of choice has led to suicides.

Doctors without residencies may die by suicide. Dr. Robert Chu, unmatched to residency, wrote a letter to medical officials and government leaders calling out the flawed system that undermined his career prior to his suicide.

Assembly-line medicine kills doctors. Brilliant, compassionate people can’t care for complex patients in 10-minute slots. When punished or fired for “inefficiency” or “low productivity” doctors may choose suicide. Pressure from insurance companies and government mandates further crush the souls of these talented people who just want to help their patients. Many doctors cite inhumane working conditions in their suicide notes.

Bullying, hazing, and sleep deprivation increase suicide risk. Medical training is rampant with human rights violations illegal in all other industries.

Sleep deprivation is a (deadly) torture technique. Physicians have suffered hallucinations, life-threatening seizures, depression, and suicide solely related to sleep deprivation. Resident physicians are now “capped” at 28-hour shifts and 80-hour weeks. If they “violate” work hours (by caring for patients) they are forced to lie on their time cards or be written up as “inefficient” and sent to a psychiatrist for stimulant medications. Some doctors kill themselves for fear of harming a patient from extreme sleep deprivation.

Blaming doctors increases suicides. Words like “burnout” and “resilience” are often employed by medical institutions as psychological warfare to blame and shame doctors while deflecting attention from inhumane working conditions. When doctors are punished for occupationally induced mental health conditions (while underlying human rights violations are not addressed), they become even more hopeless and desperate.

Sweet, sensitive souls are at highest risk. Some of the most caring, compassionate, and intelligent doctors choose suicide rather than continuing to work in such callous, uncaring and ruthlessly greedy medical corporations.

Doctors can’t get confidential mental health care. So they drive out of town, pay cash, and use fake names to hide from state medical boards, hospitals, and insurance plans that ask doctors about their mental health care and may then exclude them from state licensure, hospital privileges, and health plan participation. (Even if confidential care were available, physicians have little time to access care when working 80-100+ hours per week).

Doctors have trouble caring for doctors. Doctors treat physician patients differently by downplaying psychiatric issues to protect physicians from medical board mental health investigations. Untreated mental health conditions may lead to suicide.

Medical board investigations increase suicide risk. One doctor hanged himself from a tree outside the Florida medical board office after being denied his license. He was told to “come back in a year, and we will reinstate your license.” Meanwhile, he lost everything and was living in a halfway house.

Physician Health Programs (PHPs) may increase suicide risk. Forcing doctors with occupationally induced mental health issues into these 12-step programs with witnessed random urine drug screens (when they’ve never had a drug problem!) is humiliating and unethical. So doctors hide their mental health conditions for fear of being punished by PHPs.  [Note: PHPs have helped some doctors with substance abuse especially]

Substance abuse is a late-stage effect of lack of mental health care. Since doctors may lose their license for seeking mental health care or get locked into PHPs; they self-medicate with alcohol, illicit drugs, or self-prescribe psychotropic medications.

Doctors develop on-the-job PTSD. Especially true in emergency medicine. Then one day they “snap” like this guy.

Cultural taboos reinforce secrecy. Suicide is a sin in many religions. Islam and Christian families have asked that I hide the suicides of family members. Indian families often claim a suicide is a homicide or an accident, even when it’s obviously self-inflicted.

Media offers incomplete coverage of suspicious deaths. Articles about doctors found dead in hospital call rooms claim “no foul play.” No follow-up stories.

Medical schools and hospitals lie (or omit the truth) to cover up suicides—even when media and family report cause of death. Medical student Ari Frosch stood in front of a train, yet his school reported he died at home with his family. Though the family of psychiatrist Christine Petrich shared that she bought a gun and killed herself (after just getting her hair done and planning a surprise trip to Lego Land and Disney for her kids) on their GoFundMe page, her employer wrote she “passed away.” Shouldn’t the department of psychiatry take a more active interest in physician suicide?

Euphemisms cover up doctor suicides. Suicide is omitted from obituaries, funerals, clinics, hospitals, and medical schools. Instead, we hear “passed away unexpectedly in her sleep” and “he went to be with the Lord.”

Secrets will not save us. We’re unlikely to make a medical breakthrough on a hidden medical condition.

Doctors choose suicide to end their pain (not because they want to die). Suicide is preventable. We can help doctors who are suffering if we stop with all the secrecy and punishment.

I’ve been shunned for speaking about doctor suicide. After being invited by the AMA to deliver my TEDMED talk, I was disinvited shortly before the event because they were “uncomfortable” with physician suicide.

Ignoring doctor suicides leads to more doctor suicides. Thankfully, an Emmy-winning filmmaker is completing a documentary on physician suicide this month. To honor a doctor or medical student who has died by suicide in the film, submit their name and specialty here.

Pamela Wible pioneered the community-designed ideal medical clinic and blogs at Ideal Medical Care. She is the author of Physician Suicide Letters — Answered and Pet Goats and Pap Smears. Watch her TEDx talk, How to Get Naked with Your Doctor. She hosts the physician retreat, Live Your Dream, to help her colleagues heal from grief and reclaim their lives and careers.

Image credit: Pamela Wible

Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how.

[Read More ...] http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2017/10/ive-learned-547-doctor-suicides.html

[mrmarknewman]

What I’ve learned from 547 doctor suicides

Five years ago today I was at a memorial. Another suicide. Our third doctor in 18 months.

Everyone kept whispering, “Why?”

I was determined to find out.

So I started counting dead doctors. I left the service with a list of 10. Now I have 547.

Immediately, I began writing and speaking about suicide. So many distressed doctors (and med students) wrote and phoned me. Soon I was running a de facto international suicide hotline from my home. To date, I’ve spoken to thousands of suicidal doctors; published a book of their suicide letters (free audiobook); attended more funerals; interviewed surviving physicians, families, and friends. I’ve spent nearly every waking moment over the past five years on a personal quest for the truth of “Why.”

Here are 34 things I’ve discovered:

High doctor suicide rates have been reported since 1858. Yet more than 150 years later the root causes of these suicides remain unaddressed.

Physician suicide is a public health crisis. One million Americans lose their doctors to suicide each year.

Most doctors have lost a colleague to suicide. Some have lost up to eight during their career—with no opportunity to grieve.

We lose way more men than women. For every woman who dies by suicide in medicine, we lose seven men.

Suicide methods vary by region and gender. Women like to overdose and men choose firearms. Gunshot wounds prevail out West. Jumping is popular in New York City. In India, doctors are found hanging from ceiling fans.

Male anesthesiologists are at highest risk. Most die by overdose. Many are found dead in hospital call rooms.

Lots of doctors die in hospitals. Doctors jump from hospital windows or rooftops. They shoot or stab themselves in hospital parking lots. They’re found hanging in hospital chapels. Physicians often choose to die where they’ve been wounded.

“Happy” doctors die by suicide. Many doctors who die by suicide are the happiest most well-adjusted people on the outside. Just back from Disneyland, just bought tickets for a family cruise, just gave a thumbs up to the team after a successful surgery—and hours later they shoot themselves in the head. Doctors are masters of disguise. Even fun-loving, happy docs who crack jokes and make patients smile all day may be suffering in silence. We are all at risk.

Doctors’ family members are at high risk of suicide. By the same method. Cardiothoracic surgeon Thomas Gahagan died by hanging himself leaving behind seven children ages three to fifteen. Two died by hanging themselves as adults. Another physician died using the same gun his son used to kill himself. Kaitlyn Elkins, a star third-year medical student, chose suicide by helium inhalation. One year later her mother Rhonda died by the same method. At Rhonda’s funeral, I asked her husband if he thought his wife and daughter would still be alive had Kaitlyn not pursued medicine. He replied, “Yes. Medical school has killed half my family.”

Doctors have personal problems—like everyone else. We get divorced, have custody battles, infidelity, disabled children, deaths in our families. Working 100+ hours per week immersed in our patients’ pain, we’ve got no time to deal with our own pain. (Spending so much time at work actually leads to divorce and completely dysfunctional personal lives).

Patient deaths hurt doctors. A lot. Even when there’s no medical error, doctors may never forgive themselves for losing a patient. Suicide is the ultimate self-punishment.

Malpractice suits kill doctors. Humans make mistakes. Yet when doctors make mistakes, they’re publicly shamed in court on TV, and in newspapers (that live online forever). We continue to suffer the agony of harming someone else—unintentionally—for the rest of our lives.

Doctors who do illegal things kill themselves. Medicare fraud, sex with a patient, DUIs may lead to loss of medical license, prison time, and suicide.

Academic distress kills medical students’ dreams. Failing boards exams and being unmatched into a specialty of choice has led to suicides.

Doctors without residencies may die by suicide. Dr. Robert Chu, unmatched to residency, wrote a letter to medical officials and government leaders calling out the flawed system that undermined his career prior to his suicide.

Assembly-line medicine kills doctors. Brilliant, compassionate people can’t care for complex patients in 10-minute slots. When punished or fired for “inefficiency” or “low productivity” doctors may choose suicide. Pressure from insurance companies and government mandates further crush the souls of these talented people who just want to help their patients. Many doctors cite inhumane working conditions in their suicide notes.

Bullying, hazing, and sleep deprivation increase suicide risk. Medical training is rampant with human rights violations illegal in all other industries.

Sleep deprivation is a (deadly) torture technique. Physicians have suffered hallucinations, life-threatening seizures, depression, and suicide solely related to sleep deprivation. Resident physicians are now “capped” at 28-hour shifts and 80-hour weeks. If they “violate” work hours (by caring for patients) they are forced to lie on their time cards or be written up as “inefficient” and sent to a psychiatrist for stimulant medications. Some doctors kill themselves for fear of harming a patient from extreme sleep deprivation.

Blaming doctors increases suicides. Words like “burnout” and “resilience” are often employed by medical institutions as psychological warfare to blame and shame doctors while deflecting attention from inhumane working conditions. When doctors are punished for occupationally induced mental health conditions (while underlying human rights violations are not addressed), they become even more hopeless and desperate.

Sweet, sensitive souls are at highest risk. Some of the most caring, compassionate, and intelligent doctors choose suicide rather than continuing to work in such callous, uncaring and ruthlessly greedy medical corporations.

Doctors can’t get confidential mental health care. So they drive out of town, pay cash, and use fake names to hide from state medical boards, hospitals, and insurance plans that ask doctors about their mental health care and may then exclude them from state licensure, hospital privileges, and health plan participation. (Even if confidential care were available, physicians have little time to access care when working 80-100+ hours per week).

Doctors have trouble caring for doctors. Doctors treat physician patients differently by downplaying psychiatric issues to protect physicians from medical board mental health investigations. Untreated mental health conditions may lead to suicide.

Medical board investigations increase suicide risk. One doctor hanged himself from a tree outside the Florida medical board office after being denied his license. He was told to “come back in a year, and we will reinstate your license.” Meanwhile, he lost everything and was living in a halfway house.

Physician Health Programs (PHPs) may increase suicide risk. Forcing doctors with occupationally induced mental health issues into these 12-step programs with witnessed random urine drug screens (when they’ve never had a drug problem!) is humiliating and unethical. So doctors hide their mental health conditions for fear of being punished by PHPs.  [Note: PHPs have helped some doctors with substance abuse especially]

Substance abuse is a late-stage effect of lack of mental health care. Since doctors may lose their license for seeking mental health care or get locked into PHPs; they self-medicate with alcohol, illicit drugs, or self-prescribe psychotropic medications.

Doctors develop on-the-job PTSD. Especially true in emergency medicine. Then one day they “snap” like this guy.

Cultural taboos reinforce secrecy. Suicide is a sin in many religions. Islam and Christian families have asked that I hide the suicides of family members. Indian families often claim a suicide is a homicide or an accident, even when it’s obviously self-inflicted.

Media offers incomplete coverage of suspicious deaths. Articles about doctors found dead in hospital call rooms claim “no foul play.” No follow-up stories.

Medical schools and hospitals lie (or omit the truth) to cover up suicides—even when media and family report cause of death. Medical student Ari Frosch stood in front of a train, yet his school reported he died at home with his family. Though the family of psychiatrist Christine Petrich shared that she bought a gun and killed herself (after just getting her hair done and planning a surprise trip to Lego Land and Disney for her kids) on their GoFundMe page, her employer wrote she “passed away.” Shouldn’t the department of psychiatry take a more active interest in physician suicide?

Euphemisms cover up doctor suicides. Suicide is omitted from obituaries, funerals, clinics, hospitals, and medical schools. Instead, we hear “passed away unexpectedly in her sleep” and “he went to be with the Lord.”

Secrets will not save us. We’re unlikely to make a medical breakthrough on a hidden medical condition.

Doctors choose suicide to end their pain (not because they want to die). Suicide is preventable. We can help doctors who are suffering if we stop with all the secrecy and punishment.

I’ve been shunned for speaking about doctor suicide. After being invited by the AMA to deliver my TEDMED talk, I was disinvited shortly before the event because they were “uncomfortable” with physician suicide.

Ignoring doctor suicides leads to more doctor suicides. Thankfully, an Emmy-winning filmmaker is completing a documentary on physician suicide this month. To honor a doctor or medical student who has died by suicide in the film, submit their name and specialty here.

Pamela Wible pioneered the community-designed ideal medical clinic and blogs at Ideal Medical Care. She is the author of Physician Suicide Letters — Answered and Pet Goats and Pap Smears. Watch her TEDx talk, How to Get Naked with Your Doctor. She hosts the physician retreat, Live Your Dream, to help her colleagues heal from grief and reclaim their lives and careers.

Image credit: Pamela Wible

Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how.

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