#I’m tired and my period is making my chronic pain worse and I feel like being a bitch about it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bonkie-barnes · 3 years ago

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Spoons

natasha romanoff x gn!reader

word count: 2.1k

warnings: chronic illness, mention of medicine, self deprecating thoughts

A/N: this is me 1000% projecting about my guilt that comes with my chronic illnesses. they're kicking my ass rn. this is a vent fic, but if you resonate with this at all, i hope you enjoy :)

- - -

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The alarm clock on Natasha’s bedside table has been going off for a full minute already. You merely roll over and cover your head with Natasha’s pillow. It smells like her.

You have absolutely no energy to get up, let alone reach across the bed to turn the alarm off. Your head feels heavy and your body aches something terrible.

The list of chores you have to do around the house today sits uncomfortably in the back of your mind. The list of friends who have texted you about making plans to hang out sits there too. The idea of staying in bed all day sounds more and more appealing by the second. You know this because the alarm is still blaring into the otherwise peaceful morning air.

Just as you’re gathering the strength to sit up and turn the alarm off, Natasha walks in. She looks at her watch and her brow furrows in confusion.

“What are you doing, sleepyhead?” she asks you with a little smirk. There is concern in her eyes, though she masks it well.

You’re both fully aware the alarm has been going off for seven minutes straight now.

“Just tired, love. You know how much work it takes to reach over,” you say in a joking manner, hopeful that you can get past this without worrying her too much.

Natasha eyes you suspiciously for a second before giving in.

“How was your workout?” you ask her sincerely.

As she starts rambling about her morning activities, you feel a sense of shame. You’ve barely managed to wake up in the time it’s taken her to complete a full workout routine. Hell, you couldn’t even find it in you to turn the alarm off.

You finally focus on her rant as it comes to an end. Natasha is looking at you expectantly. Shit. She’s asked you a question.

“Huh?” you grunt.

She chuckles before answering, “I asked if you were ever going to get up and get in the shower, stinky.”

You put on a fake smile but fail to meet her eyes, the shame eating you up. It has been a few days since your last shower, but it’s just so hard to find the strength and energy to get up and stand in one place for more than a minute or two.

If Natasha notices the far away look in your eyes and the grimace on your mouth, she doesn’t say anything.

After one of the quickest and most unproductive showers you’ve ever taken, you find Natasha waiting for you in the kitchen. She’s taken it upon herself to make breakfast for you both.

You kiss her cheek and thank her as you sit down at the table. The warm cup of coffee she sets down in front of you is a godsend. The warmth emitting from the cup helps to diminish the pain in your knuckles, if only slightly. You send up a silent prayer to whomever might be listening that the caffeine will help with the fatigue today instead of making you sick.

Natasha sits down in the chair next to you with her own plate. She runs her eyes over you in a scrutinizing manner. She wants to think you don’t notice, but you do.

Clearing your throat in hopes to take her focus off you, you ask about her plans for the day.

“Oh, you know, mostly just busy work. I have a ton of paperwork to get through,” she tells you through an exaggerated sigh. “What about you?”

The list of chores screams at you again. “Mostly just some things around the house. Grocery shopping, laundry, boring shit like that.”

Natasha hums around a sip of her coffee. It surprised you just how much cream and sugar she takes in hers. It’s just one of the many unpredictable things about her that made you fall in love.

“Super exciting. I hate to miss out,” she teases you.

You crack a smile to appease her. Inside, though, you realize just how little she understands. These errands seem so simple to her, when to you, they are the most daunting of tasks.

You’re brought out of your thoughts by Natasha standing up to take her plate to the sink. She comes back to kiss your cheek and let you know she’s going to go get ready, before walking out of the room.

You suspect the amount of housework you’ll get done today will be minimal, so you decide to at least make Natasha some lunch. Maybe it will lessen the disappointment she feels when she comes home to see everything exactly as it was when she left, you think.

Your plan is halted as you’re making her sandwich. The stupid cover on the peanut butter jar is stuck. You can’t open it for the life of you. The guilt comes in like a tidal wave. You can’t even do something as simple as make lunch for her, your brain supplies for you.

Natasha returns from getting ready to see you standing in the kitchen with a glare on your tired face.

“What’d the peanut butter do to you this time,” she jokes.

“I can’t.” Tears well up in your eyes.

She comes up to wrap you in a hug from behind. She softly asks, “What can’t you do?”

“I can’t open the jar,” you mutter softly, feeling overwhelmingly embarrassed.

“It’s okay, love. Let me help,” she tells you delicately before kissing the spot under your ear. She can tell this is affecting you more than usual and wishes for nothing more than to be able to take away your distress.

You mutter a thank you before continuing to make her sandwich. You pack everything into a bag and write a small note to finish it off. You know Natasha loves the little messages you leave her periodically, and nothing will stop you from trying to make her as happy as you can.

Goodbyes are said as you both wander closer to the door. Natasha makes sure to hold you longer and tighter than usual. You don’t comment on that.

The silence that encompasses the room as soon as the love of your life leaves is suffocating. You can feel the exhaustion from purely getting up and getting ready creeping up on you. Logically, you know that you shouldn’t overexert yourself, but the shame is eating you up. Already on a roll, might as well keep on going, you think to yourself.

You go back to your mental to-do list and debate what to start with. The grocery store doesn’t sound terrible. Some sun would do you some good. It’s been a few days since you’ve seen the world that exists outside of your house.

Wandering back to the bedroom to get your phone and shoes, you try to push the fatigue from your mind. In your attempt to block out the tiredness, you fail to recognize the ever-present pain in your joints increasing. It’s only when you sit down and bend over to put your shoes on that you register the feeling. Your hips ache severely; so much so, that you can’t hold your position long enough to get your shoe on your foot.

This seems to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, seeing as you immediately burst into tears. The pain mixed with your inability to do basic, everyday activities completely overwhelms you as you break down.

There’s absolutely no chance that you’re going to complete this task, let alone all the other ones on your list. You let out a sigh as you stand up and shuffle to your room, phone and shoes forgotten in the living room.

You let the weight of your emotions crush you as you climb into bed and under the covers, your wife’s pillow clutched closely to your chest.

Your tears cease to stop, even as you succumb to the sleep you so desperately wished to hold onto this morning.

- - -

Natasha comes home to an eerily silent house. On any typical day, she would come home to the noise of your favorite show or music softly playing, whether it be from a speaker or from your guitar. Your shared house consistently was filled with life and sound. It was one of her favorite parts of her day; coming home to you in your own element, laughing or singing. You are her home.

This newfound silence has her exceptionally worried. Even on your bad days, there was at least a laugh track coming from the TV or the smell of hot chocolate coming from the kitchen. Now, there’s absolutely nothing. For a split second, Natasha thinks that you may never have come back from the grocery. Her heart rate spikes. The sight of your phone on the coffee table and your shoes strewn haphazardly on the floor puts those worries to rest.

“Darling?” she calls from the entryway. There is no response. She carefully removes her boots and coat before moving through every room in the house, calling out for you softly in each.

She makes her way to the bedroom, lightly knocking on the door as she lets herself in. She sees the rise and fall of your chest and is filled with a sense of relief she didn't know she needed.

"Love? Are you awake?"

You grumble out an answer that could be understood as a 'yes'.

Natasha carefully sits down on the side of the bed that you are facing.

"Can you tell me what's going on?" she requests softly, in fear of upsetting the quiet environment of the bedroom and making things worse.

The tears that started up again when you wife called out the first time get even heavier somehow.

"Oh love, come here."

She carefully gathers you in her arms and rests your head on her chest.

"Does this have anything to do with the peanut butter jar this morning?"

You nod. One of your favorite things about your wife is her ability to observe and understand what you're going through.

"I just can't do anything today. Everything hurts and I'm so, so tired," you whisper, followed by a heartbreaking sob.

"It's okay love. Please don't cry," Natasha whispers back.

"But it's not! It's not okay!" You sit up from her chest to let out your rant. "You've done so much today and I could barely wake up. You work so hard and I should be able to do stuff around the house so you can come home and not have to worry about anything," you finish with a sigh.

Your wife puts her hand under your chin, forcing you to look in her direction. "Love, look at me. Believe me when I say that I don't care about the state of the laundry or if the pantry has been stocked. All I care about is you. All I want is for you to be okay. It's killing me that you feel like this and I can't do anything to take it away from you. What I can do, though, is tell you just how proud I am of you. You are the strongest person I know, and I work with the Avengers."

You giggled at that. Natasha smiles at your small second of happiness.

"Are you sure? Because I was going to get so much done today and I was trying to-"

Natasha cuts you off with a soft kiss.

"My love. Listen to me. All I care about is your health and happiness. If staying in bed and catching up on sleep is what you needed today, then that's all I expect from you. I never want you to hurt yourself trying to do more than you can. We all have limits. It’s okay to need a break some days. I love you and I am so very, very proud of you."

With a long look into her eyes, all you find is love and adoration directed towards you. There's no disgust or disappointment as you had anticipated.

"I love you too," you utter quietly.

Natasha smiles and leaves a long kiss on your forehead. "What if we got some pain killers and some food in you? We can even put on your favorite movie. Does that sound good?"

You nod. Natasha gets up to get you some medicine and to order some food, while you get your favorite movie loaded on the TV.

Later that night, when both your stomachs are full and your wife is obnoxiously singing along to the songs in the movie just to make you laugh, you realize just how loved you are.

You don't know how tomorrow will treat you, or the day after that. What you do know, however, is that Natasha will always be there to support and love you. Your pain level and ability to function is always an uncertainty, but your wife's love will never be.

- - -

A/N: as always, i try to keep it gender neutral. if you find a mistake, please let me know! feedback is appreciated! to all my chronic illness buddies out there: i love you, you've got this :)

taglist: @007giu

#natasha romanoff x gender neutral reader #natasha romanoff x gn!reader #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff #black widow #black widow x reader #marvel #marvel imagine #my fic #natasha romanoff x reader

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cuntess-carmilla · 4 years ago

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Chronic fatigue vs depression

One somewhat worrying pattern I’m seeing in the reblogs of my post about POTS, is that when I briefly described chronic fatigue, a lot of people said things like “Isn’t that just depression?” or “I thought that was depression”.

For one, a lot of chronically ill people (not just those with POTS) are depressed. Think about it:

How likely is it to be in perpetual pain, have no physical energy to even think, much less to do things, and NOT become depressed?

Being chronically ill is depressing, especially when you have no effective palliative treatment, or when you don’t even realize that you’re physically sick and start to think that you’re just a lazy and useless piece of dumb shit.

A lot of us get disregarded by doctors and told that we’re just depressed or anxious, prescribed an anti-depressant or anxiolytic, and sent home.

If you’ve been diagnosed with (only) depression and your anti-depressants don’t seem to work, PLEASE consider if the tiredness comes from depression (only) or if it’s physical. Also consider it if the things most people do to fight exhaustion at best don’t help you or at worst make it worse.

This is a video about chronic fatigue. To be clear, she talks about being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME, but she recently found out that she has hEDS instead.

If you want to jump straight to where she describes what chronic fatigue is like, the difference between it and depression, as well as just being tired, go to 3:10 - 10:32.

youtube

Here a doctor describes the similarities and differences between depression and fatigue, though his specific focus is on patients with cancer:

youtube

Here's another much shorter video showing basic differences between tiredness and chronic fatigue:

youtube

And here’s another video talking about fatigue in general and some possible causes:

youtube

Chronic fatigue, like other chronic illness symptoms, isn’t NECESSARILY present non-stop for the rest of your life.

Some patients go through phases in which they feel better (especially if they’re under relatively effective treatment), and then relapse for a period of time. That’s what we call “flares”, which can be pretty unpredictable.

What IS absolutely perpetual is that it WILL come back eventually, even if it’s after months or years of having been fine. All it needs to be considered “chronic” is to be longer lasting (more than a couple of days) at least many of the times you get it, and recurrent throughout your life.

#chronic illness #fatigue #chronic fatigue #eds #pots #mcas #chronic fatigue syndrome #chronically ill #ehlers danlos #postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome #mast cell activation syndrome #myalgic encephalomyelitis #those aren't the only illnesses that have it but they're the ones i remember off the top of my head #me cfs

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compassionatereminders · 2 years ago

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Kind of a rant, if you have any thoughts I welcome them :)

I’m 24 and for a longer period of time now I have only really wanted to watch animated shows/movies that are mainly marketed towards kids (not that they only are interesting for kids). Things like Steven universe, gravity falls, she ra and the princesses of power, Disney movies, stuff like this. And I’m embarrassed… it’s just, I’m healing (mental health issues and trauma), and for a long time I was so depressed and angry and suicidal and I watched stuff like game of thrones without blinking an eye (this is the most violent/gore I can watch, since horror has always been too much for me) but now I just want to be soft and happy and nice, I want sunshine and soft kittens and pink glitter and goodness and being comfortable and rest, instead of gritting my teeth and just getting through it no matter the amount of pain. It’s just that I have been told my whole life that I am too sensitive. I’m too sensitive because I have chronic pain, or because I get more easily tired, or because I get scared of horror, or because I get sad, anxious or scared when people say mean things or yell. Now I’m also too sensitive because I don’t want to constantly watch stuff going deep about our grim reality and problems (not that kids shows don’t have deep subjects too, they are just more gentle). I can’t bear to keep up with the news either. And people tell me I should. And I know it’s important to be informed, but right now I feel inside that I can’t handle that, and it will only make me feel worse and regress back to my depressed apathy state before I did the healing work (which is not done yet since I’m having this need right now and I am working on it! It just takes time!). I just feel embarrassed about myself now that I am only watching kids stuff and re watching things I watched years ago, people already tell me I’m too sensitive and avoiding my adult responsibilities to be informed, watching kids stuff only makes me feel even less of an adult.. but shouldn’t we be able to do what makes us feel good, as long as it doesn’t harm ourselves or others? That’s the kind of works that I want to live in anyway. One where there is room to be sensitive and gentle, where even if someone has it worse, you are still allowed to be hurting and we should keep striving to make it even better and more gentle even if what we have is so much better than other places, our goal should be to strive towards making a world where we thrive not just survive.

If all you have the ability to do about whatever is stressing you out is feeling anxious, then that's not helping anyone. So if that's where you are right now, there's zero shame in watching cartoons instead. Anxiety isn't activism.

#chat with kat

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fallenangel1219 · 3 years ago

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TW chronic illness and endometriosis/vent

I hate how limiting chronic illness can be. Like right now I’m sitting in the library at my university, and I really want to sit outside to work. But the issue is i cant. I am sitting here clutching a heating pad to my back and stomach alternating it because everything hurts so bad. I want to go outside and sit in the sunshine, but I cant leave a place where I can plug in my heating pad.

This is so annoying because I really can’t focus in here because its too quiet and I feel enclosed in a building right now. But I cant fucking leave!!!! I will have to later so I can go to my next class, but damn right now its just too much. Like I can’t spend much time doing the things I love anymore because it hurts too bad.

And the worst part about it? I have found approximately one doctor and one nurse that actually listen to me and all the others just say “oh take ibuprophen! It will make all the pain go away!!” No, no it does not. It doesn’t give me any releif at all. Or I tell them about the month long periods. “Oh thats totally normal!! Its just because of the birth control you are on!” No, every birth control I have been on I have had this problem. I started this birth control to stop that.

I am so sick of all of this. I want to live a normal life, I want to not be in constant excruciating pain. I want to be able to go out and have fun or even spend some time sitting in the sun. I want to be free for once. I hate this. I want to be able to focus without having to think through so much pain, I want to not be dizzy and lightheaded all the time from blood loss, I want to be able to just be okay for once. Even for just a day.

for endometriosis there is no cure. They say “only a histerectomy can cure it!” Or “a laparoscopy will take all your pain away!’ When I’ve talked to many other women who have the same problem but they did not get help from those things. “Birth control will get rid of it!” well I’ve tried 3 different ones and its only gotten worse. “Take these pills! It makes all of the tissue shrink!” All I got from that was achy joints and still the same amount of pain.

I am just tired. I hate this. I want to be okay. But I don’t think that will ever happen again and just damn. Just damn. I’m tired.

But I keep going. Because I have shit to do. I want to give up, but I have shit to do, so I won’t.

#tw chronic pain #tw chronic illness #tw endometriosis #tw surgery #tw pain #tw vent #tw long post

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newhologram · 4 years ago

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This Health Update™ is dedicated to Keith, a grown man who for several years now has accused me of faking my illnesses in order to *check notes* "doc shop for drugs and make money on YouTube." Thanks for reminding me why it's important for me to tell my story, silly ass. 😉

4.1.21 I haven't had a follow-up yet but I did get biopsy results, so I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what caused my official Worst Flare-Up Ever. Good news: the biopsies came back fine. Nothing scary, just confirmation that this was not only an ulcerative colitis relapse, but an acute gastritis and esophagitis flare too. Inflammatory bowel disease is cute. Endoscopy showed lots of inflammation in my stomach/esophagus, but thankfully no ulcers or perforations. But, surprise! I have a hiatal hernia (pic 6 in the scope slide), which I'd actually been suspecting for years. This is when a portion of the stomach pushes up past the diaphragm (eew!). This explains a lot of my other symptoms over the years. Luckily it's not huge or dangerous. Still painful and a hassle but nothing I need surgery for. It's probably there as a result of all of the years I've spent vomiting from these diseases. 🤷

Below this cut is my endoscopy pics, a timeline, and more thoughts

I'm sharing this timeline in order to show just how quickly things can spiral out of control for someone with chronic illness, no matter how stable or "healthy" they may seem:

3.15: Period starts. Literal worst of my life*. My cramps are only eased by ibuprofen (worst thing for IBD), but I ONLY take it during my period, so I usually avoid anything terrible happening. But this time I had to take way more than usual because of how bad it was, and periods already cause "mini" colitis relapses because of the wacky hormones. *The CT scan later revealed an ovarian cyst on my right side, with them also noting that my right kidney tubes are kind of prominent. This may explain my rough periods and also why I've been having so many bladder/kidney issues the past few years.

3.17: Miserable, exhausted from period + colitis, I treated myself to some ramen. It didn't seem too spicy for me (and I dilute my ramen with coconut milk) but I had an instant reaction that was very out of character.

3.18: The bad flare started at 1am and from then until 10pm I had 40+ painful, bloody BM's. I knew something wasn't right. I was getting up every 20 minutes and shaking so hard from the pain. I went to the ER.

3.19: Since the docs and I thought it was just the colitis, I was prescribed steroids. I don't normally take them because I don't like how they make me feel, but since this attack was so dramatic I tried to be a good hologram and take my medicine. I should have listened to my gut (lol) and insisted on further investigation before taking anything, because--

3.19-3.28: I took the steroids every day, which instantly calmed my colon, but only made the inflammation in my stomach way. Way. Worse. Basically fried off the protective lining. Imagine you scraped your whole leg against asphalt and then kept pouring acid on it for ten days straight.

3.28: After suffering all those days and barely able to eat without intense pain and bloating, I knew something else was up and didn't want to keep waiting for my GI referral. I went back to the ER and was admitted until the evening of 3.30. The pain was so bad they were giving me morphine every 4 hours at one point. When they heard that I was on steroids with my stomach in that condition they were like OH NO.

I've only been home a day and a half. I'm weak and tired and the pain of my poor screaming stomach is still the worst I've ever experienced in my life. I have all kinds of often debilitating chronic pain that I deal with daily from fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis, narcolepsy, osteoarthritis, atlas subluxation/spinal pain, colitis, etc. But this takes the cake. Even with the pills they sent me home with, I'm still in too much discomfort to get much sleep. It feels like my stomach is a hard bloated rock inside of me and I can almost feel it shivering in pain. There is no comfortable position to be in, food is still very painful and the bile is excessive, like a FOUNTAIN coming up my damn throat.

I have no idea what this recovery is going to look like, especially if I'm still in this much pain and barely eating. I'm doing everything I can to support healing right now, including a very minimal mostly liquid diet (probiotics!), gut-soothing supplements, and letting myself off the hook with my content creation and projects (well I do a little bit of editing when I can >.>). Just hoping that as my stomach calms down and the lining rebuilds, I'll be able to eat and sleep normally, which will then make healing faster.

I've officially never been sicker in my life than I am right now. Always things to learn with chronic illnesses, even when I thought I was a veteran. The past year made it hard to make healthy choices 100% of the time. A lot of comfort food that wasn't good for me. I always backed off and went back to my IBD-friendly eating habits, but stress and the need to self-soothe made it harder to keep up. I was already having bloating issues before this flare, so it was all just waiting to snowball into this. I'm taking this as a chance to not only reset my gut but to reset my relationship with food and my rituals around food. I wasn't horribly unhealthy about food before, you guys have seen all my rice porridge and veggies, but I definitely had more "cheat days" than I should have in 2020.

I just... miss... food. So much. My routines are such a big part of my daily and weekly schedule. And now without mealtimes accompanying certain activities like clockwork, I feel a bit lost. I find myself so bored and realizing I would normally be enjoying one of my favorite snacks at that time of the day.

I still have some tests I want to do with my GI when I finally see them, so there is a possibility of there being more to the story (usually is with chronic illness). But for now, I have a plan. Just gotta try my best and REST.

Thanks for the messages, holograms! My healing is supported by your love. Please learn from my story and take care of yourselves too. Start sipping on miso soup daily. No, seriously. Gut magic.

#inflammatory bowel disease #ulcerative colitis #colitis #gastritis #chronic illness #spoonie #persona #teku #seruka

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genderpains · 3 years ago

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Vent/rant/ramble tw idk

agh I was talking to my coworker the other day and I told him abt how my muscles and bones and body aches all the time since I was in like middle school and how my joints hurt and sometimes I need help getting out of a crouch/off my knees because my knees hurt so bad, and how doctors r just like “whelp loose weight and you’ll b better”, and he said his sister is the same and she got diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and her symptoms started when she got her period,, and idk I don’t want to take resources away from ppl with chronic illness/disorders/disease(?) but I’ve always had chronic pain, especially back pain, and it’s a running joke in my family that I can feel the rain b4 it rains (old ppl bones/ body lmao), and all my doctors have just said, oh growing pains, loose weight, take Advil etc. idk I just wanted to talk abt it, since my therapy appointments r on thursdays. And I always have this creeping fear that I’m making stuff up, like every time I have memories or talk abt something, I immediately preface it in my brain that it could be fake, even though I’m almost certain it’s not. Another thing is that because I’ve had this chronic pain for so long, I don’t actually know if it hurts? Like what if what I describe as sore is actually really bad pain and aches, but I’ve had it for so long I’m used to it? And again I just have this terrible feeling that I’m making it up and I’d be taking resources from others, and I wouldn’t want to do that, I don’t want to upset anyone either, idk just thoughts I guess. The soreness has been worse since the other day when I started deep diving into otherkin stuff, and it make me think abt my body (which I always avoid) and so now I’m just sore all over and every time I come back to myself after zoning out “, its like I’m missing a step, like how a record sounds when it starts skipping, like for a brief moment my body feels like it’s being dragged behind and I’m all fuzzy and my hair stands on end, I guess I’m just not feeling well today. And I have work at 4:30 but I’m worried I might zone out/get fatigued while I’m carrying something (I work in a warehouse/donation center and lift stuff all the time) it’s my first job so I don’t want to call out, and I honestly enjoy the work, but I’m exhausted everyday now, I just hate being all mentally fuzzy/I’ll, it sucks, legit I have 3 dx of depression ,seasonal, dysthymia, and major, so my body is chronically tired all the time I hate it. I wish I didn’t have mental health problems, shit sucks straight ass

#lazarus rambles #tw vent #tw rant #tw long post #tw long text #tw chronic pain

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teachingtales · 4 years ago

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Migraines

I am writing this for those of you who:

don’t have migraines, but know someone who does and want to know more

don’t have migraines, but may develop them later

do have migraines and don’t really know how to tell other people about them, so you can find some phrases that may help here (or just link them)

My mother had migraines, and I never did. I remember asking her what it was like, and was told, “It’s like a really bad headache.” In no way did that prepare me for migraines. I started getting them after getting disabled in the Marines with neurological issues. I honestly thought I was having a brain aneurysm or something. Was I dying? Is there a parasite boring through my brain and trying to find its way outside of my skull?

It turned out to be a migraine.

Later on, I lost strength in my left side. I was confused, dizzy. Is this a stroke? I went to the veterans hospital. Nope, it’s “just” another form of migraine. Uh...cool?

What is a migraine?

Unlike regular headaches that have many causes, migraines are a neurological disorder. You may have another neurological disorder that also produces migraines, or your neurological disorder may produce migraines as the primary problem. Migraines affect about 10% of the population, making them the most common neurological disorder.

How can I tell if I get migraines?

Being the giant nerd I am, I looked up the etymology of the word and it comes from Greek. The original word is “hemikrania”, with “hemi” as “half” and “kranion” is “skull”, and you can see that over time the “he” part was dropped off.

While there are lots of different symptoms of a migraine, this is actually one of the most defining symptoms...that’s probably why they chose this name. The head pain will happen only in half of your skull, either the left side or right side. A single migraine event can switch sides, but they won’t hurt at the same time. I usually get migraines on my left side, but occasionally they happen on the right instead. I’d say it’s about 95-5 for the split.

A friend asked me if having them on the right side was any better or worse, and it’s a great question. The answer is: they still suck the same way, just on the other side. Although I will say that they’re almost worse in a way, because I have my habits to compensate for my left-side migraines and have to alter all of those habits. It’s not terribly annoying, objectively-speaking, but when you’re in the middle of a migraine it is annoying.

If you experience severe pain on half of your head, see a doctor. You probably are having a migraine.

What is it like to have a migraine? What are the symptoms?

This is what I wish I knew going into them. The pain severity can be “oh this really sucks” to “aslasfoiafjagjglkagnlgfjajwoi”, and I use that keyboard smash because when the pain is severe you can barely talk. Think of getting a brain freeze. You know how you stop doing everything to address the pain in your head that’s suddenly there? Imagine that level of pain for several hours. This is what it’s like to have a severe pain migraine. You can’t think of anything else, you can’t even sleep.

While “really frickin’ bad head pain” is what most people know about for a migraine, there really are tons of other symptoms. As a neurological condition, it can cause syptoms like:

nausea and vomiting

diarrhea

diarrhea and vomiting together

sudden dizziness (for anyone that’s been blackout drunk, it’s like that period right before you black out, where you’re really dizzy), and you end up walking in a swaying motion, sometimes falling down or falling into walls...it really looks like you’re drunk

loss of coordination, so it’s hard to do things like open a small package or tie your shoes

loss of strength in arm, hand, leg, and/or foot, making it difficult to walk

change in perception of temperature, including wild swings between shivering shaking cold and sweating hot

sensitivity to everything: lights, smells, sounds, tastes, touches...all of these increase the symptoms you’re already feeling

confusion or “brain fog”, which lead to things like you losing your train of thought mid-sentence, forgetting what you’re doing while you’re doing it, inability to focus, difficulty talking

slurred speech (sounds like you’re quite drunk)

suddenly feeling incredibly tired

slipping into sleep without warning when seated or lying down (not great during commutes on the bus or subway)

changes in vision, such as blurred vision, changes in color perception, seeing “auras” around things, missing one eye’s vision, or having chunks of your vision missing

Sometimes you know when you’re about to get a migraine. This is called “prodrome”, but since most people don’t know this term I just call it a “starter migraine” or “I’m on the edge of a migraine.” If you can catch yourself in this period, you may be able to prevent the migraine with medication. The prodrome period depends on the person and takes a while to get used to, and you won’t always get them. Sometimes you just HEY MIGRAINE, sometimes you wake up and already have a migraine. You’re not guaranteed any prior warning.

The opposite is the “postdrome”, which I just call the “after-effects of the migraine” because most people don’t know what “postdrome” is. As you can see from the symptoms, it’s quite intense. As a result, you’re left exhausted, drained, sometimes sore, and often feeling a bit vulnerable, like anything you do will cause you pain or bring the return of the migraine. Even though the migraine is over, you still can’t get back to your normal activities. It depends on the person, but it can be quite common to experience the postdrome. As with the prodrome, you may not have this.

What triggers a migraine?

What is so frustrating about migraines is that there are so, so many triggers, and they’re often inconsistent. Sometimes, they’re even opposing.

caffeine can help during a migraine, but too much caffeine without having a migraine can trigger a migraine; and sometimes caffeing during a migraine makes it worse

chocolate can trigger a migraine but I personally have not experienced this

strong cheeses can trigger a migraine, but as with chocolate I never experienced this

low blood sugar due to skipped meals can trigger a migraine

too much sugar can trigger a migraine

changes in air pressure

changes in humidity

dehydration

too much exercise

not enough exercise

moving around too much

too much lying down or sitting

stress is a common trigger

cold, such as cold weather or cold items touching the skin

running/jogging

bright lights, especially flashing lights

loud sounds of any type (human, booming sounds, construction)

vomiting also can trigger migraines, such as if you’re sick with something else or if you have bulimia

being sick with another illness can stress out the body to trigger a migraine

I’ve had relatives ask if I can “just move to another place” to avoid things like storms, and that’s not an option. While stormy, rainy weather is a common trigger, so is bright sunshine (especially if dehydrated)...which rules out most of the world during summertime.

I was enjoying Avengers: Endgame until I realized that the sounds and light were hurting, and I was shoved into one of the worst migraines I’ve had. I had no prior warning, I otherwise had felt fine that day, but after a couple hours of loud booming noises coupled with bright flashes, it triggered a migraine.

As you can see, this is really a difficult thing to manage. Some people get rare or occasional migraines, but people like me have chronic migraines. “Chronic migraines” are classified as “having at least 15 per month”, but in my case I will get them daily if I don’t take my medication and do my best to avoid all these triggers. Just this morning, I woke up around 06:30 and a couple hours later a migraine came because of the weather so I went to take a nap, but that made the migraine worse because I was lying down too much. I woke up in more pain and had to go for a walk (after taking my noon medication) for it to try to subside.

What are the treatments for migraines?

No matter which route you take, you will always have to do your lifestyle changes. This means making sure you have plenty of water, don’t skip meals, manage stress, etc.

You can take medication. I have medication I take a few times a day, and another one I take for when I feel a migraine breaking through. If that also fails, I take an injection at home.

You can take supplements. There are things like butterbur, magnesium, catnip, ginger, and other things. Look online and include the words “migraine study” with the supplement name. This way you can see how effective it was, and the dosage. Check the company as well to see if they’re reputable. In places like the USA, supplements are not regulated so companies may put other ingredients instead. You can also make extracts or teas with things like catnip and ginger. Send a PM if you want to know how to do that. It’s easy.

You can get Botox. I haven’t tried this but some people swear by it. The price was out of my range and I was told that it would impede my range of motion; since I lift weights, I didn’t want to deal with that. My regular doctor told me that my migraines are managed “well enough” with medication and I can’t expect any better with Botox; in other words, it’d be a waste of my money. But if you are having problems managing yours with medication, then see if Botox works for you.

Other treatments for migraines include:

resting in a dark room

sunglasses or yellow-lens glasses

ice pack on the pain area (or a cold pillow)

stretching (but this can increase pain in some cases)

going to sleep

drinking water

drinking caffeine (coffee, energy drink, green tea, any source is fine)

eating a small meal if you haven’t eaten yet; preferably something with sugar, like fruit or fruit juice

binaural beats (this is my sound-video of choice, but be careful because there’s a loud “BING” type of sound at the beginning)

no screen time

removing strong smells (such as cleaning the cat’s litter box if it has feces or urine)

not eating anything with a strong flavor, and avoid spicy food

don’t wear a bra

don’t wear anything tight/snug around your waist or upper body, to include: tight waistbands, pantyhose, snug belts, corsets. If you need a belt, wear it looser than normal

If I’m at work and having a vomiting + head pain type of migraine, I will make myself a mix of electrolyte drink (like Powerade) + an energy drink and sip it. This helps get some caffeine and helps wake me up a bit, plus it helps re-hydrate me.

Not a treatment, but apparently if you get migraines as a child or teen, finishing puberty can somehow result in your migraines stopping, so that’s cool, but it doesn’t always happen because migraines are apparently a gift from some kind of trickster deity.

Are migraines dangerous?

Chronic migraines can unfortunately increase your risk of stroke in your forties.

Chronic vomiting, if you get this as a common symptom, can have a negative impact on your teeth and muscles...including your heart. If you get chronic vomiting, ask your doctor about any supplements (like potassium or magnesium) that they can prescribe to help mitigate the muscle issues. Wash your mouth out with water after vomiting (this is what my dentist recommended...I asked about baking soda, but they said to just do water. Do not brush your teeth because it can do more damage, but if the post-vomit taste in your mouth is going to trigger more vomiting, gargle with mouthwash or drink some juice).

I don’t get migraines but know someone who does. How can I help?

You are a beautiful person for wanting to help. How you help depends on where you are...you can’t lie down and take a nap when you’re at the grocery store, for example. Ask the person what they need, and remind them that it’s okay to sit down or stay home. We’ll often feel guilty about having to cancel plans, so let them know it’s okay.

If it’s around a meal time, bring them something kind of bland that they can pick at. This can include hard boiled eggs (peeled and cut into quarters or halves), sliced bananas, peeled/shelled nuts, rice balls, cooked potato pieces (chips, crisps, french fries, roasted potato cubes), small pieces of cooked chicken breast, bread that has been cut into cubes, cubed or sliced apple or pear.

Be prepared to make an ice pack, which needs to be wrapped in a small towel. Some people have never used an ice pack before and you cannot put it on your skin directly. It needs to be wrapped in a small towel or shirt. If you don’t have an ice pack, frozen vegetables/fruit in an unopened package works. If not, put ice cubes into a zipper baggie and then wrap that in a cloth. If you have a loved one who gets migraines and visits often, buy a small ice pack to keep at your home. This is a pouch with a gel in it, and it is quite inexpensive. You can find them at pharmacies or large stores with a pharmacy section.

In closing, migraines suck and I’m sorry if you get them. Please have some memes I made.

I thought I had more but I guess not or I forgot where I put them. Feel free to share or ask questions.

#teacher #teaching #student #students #migraine #migraines #chronic migraine #chronic pain #chronic fatigue #spoonies #cfs #neurology #neurological #disability #pain #migraine meme #adulting

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cardentist · 4 years ago

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I’m relatively new to the marble hornets fandom, but one thing I’ve noticed is that people don’t seem to realize just How affected jay was (by the operator and by the investigation in general) and how early on it started. which I really think is relevant when people point out some of jay’s apparent Poor Decision Making. this is Definitely because of how deemphasized it is in the show itself (Especially season 1) but you really can get a feel for it when you go digging.

I’ve talked before about how it’s Very Likely that jay already had some form of ptsd by the start of the series (Link) but what gives us the clearest picture of jay’s health is actually his twitter account. (Link) If you’ve never taken the time to read it before then I Highly suggest scrolling down to the bottom and working your way through, it’s a surprisingly fast read! but for the purposes of this post I made a Highlight Reel of really anything I saw that was relevant to either jay’s mental health, his physical health, or his obsession with the case that you can see in full here: (Link)

I’ll be using the most Pressing screenshots from that post to make my point here, but you really do get the full Effect scrolling through.

putting a readmore down to hopefully not spam people with screenshots ljksfad Warning for spoilers, talk of chronic illness, eating issues, difficulty with unreality, and other various mental and physical health issues

just as a note: this is going to have a Lot of focus on season 1 because this is where a lot of jay’s issues are established. I definitely have a Lot to say about the other two seasons but I won’t report on every instance where he’s paranoid or sick, I’ll be focusing more on the extremes!

looking through the whole series, videos tweets and all, it becomes Very apparent that jay has a Consistent pattern of behavior where he fixates on the investigation (and the people affected by it) to the detriment of his own health and safety. from the more mundane (digging through hundreds of hours worth of footage to exhaustion) to the more Extreme (following alex into the abandoned building Knowing he’s dangerous and that he’s probably going to hurt him because he Might find some answers).

(which on that note, while it’s definitely due in no small part to the influence of the operator and the extreme stress of the situation, you could pretty easily interpret jay with adhd, hyperfixating on research and video making.)

while I knew I’d find that going in, but I wasn’t expecting it to be hammered in so Quickly. this was posted the Second Day after his twitter had gone up

this continues, with jay occasionally mentioning how tired he is from compiling entries, feeling disorganized, and not being able to sleep in between him actively posting about sifting through tapes on a near daily basis. Then in july he starts actively getting Sick

104 fever, not well enough to work for Three Days. and there’s no telling how long it’d been building up without him noticing until then. he mentions being sick throughout august for long stretches of time (at least a solid week once), and it only gets worse from there

And something of note here, while he Does mention when he’s feeling particularly awful sometimes, for the most part he mentions his health when it affects his ability to go through and post about the tapes. there’s no telling just how frequently he was sick or exhausted when it Wasn’t worth mentioning. He only mentioned the results of the doctor’s visit a week later after he was specifically asked about it

and it’s Very apparent that whatever’s going on is Pretty Severe

it’s after this point that he largely stops giving us specific updates on how sick he feels, but it’s also still very clear that he is sick. he mentions how out of it he is or how Bad a week’s been after he goes long stretches without updates. and he’s still going to the doctors in November

that leaves me with the impression that things haven’t improved, he’s just stopped mentioning it. he tried getting help for it with no luck, the sickness didn’t stop so there wasn’t much more he could do about it besides adapt. while I’m certain that his health would fluctuate over the course of the show, I don’t believe he stopped getting sick. tim’s sickness never really went away, and jay was bad enough by the end of the series that he was having seizures like he was (there’s really no telling if that was his first or if it was just the first time it’d been Caught).

so from here on out it’s a safe guess that everything jay does is with backdrop of sickness and exhaustion.

then, of course, this is where jay starts being more open about his paranoia (which has certainly been an undercurrent for a while now)

also of note: this isn’t the first time he’s mentioned having a difficult time trying to keep things straight in his head and it won’t be the last. he was already starting to doubt his memories and his senses back in 2009.

moreover, paranoia and fear (and possibly fixation) about the situation has him holling up in his house, to the point that he’s running out of food. how long has this been an issue? and if it’s an issue in 2009, then just how bad is it going to be when he’s running himself in and out of hotels too afraid to stay in one location? how often has he been forgetting to eat while burying himself in tapes and fear?

whether it’s from the operator, his slipping memory, the results of fixating on his work for as long as he has, his frequent sickness, the paranoia, or any combination therein, we can add brain fog to the list

and again, a case for jay’s fixation on finding answer. he wakes up in his house with no memory of how he got there, confused and in pain, digs through the footage on his camera, and has the entry up the same day. this was the point where he’d visited brian’s house again, only to be teleported around and meet the operator face to face. he says in the entry that he’s never going back to the house again, that he’s done with the case, but well.

much further down the timeline jay would say that he had no idea what he was doing with his life before he started down this rabbit hole, that he was miserable and directionless and alone. He didn’t know what he would do with himself when all of this was over, he just knew that while he was taking the case on he was at least doing Something. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this was always true, that part of his obsession with it was tied to feeling absolutely nothing for his life without it.

and sure enough, a week later and we get the idea that his paranoia is only getting worse, followed by him breaking and going back to search through the footage.

He posts more about his paranoia in february, but it’s in march that he’s scared out of his house by totheark only to have his apartment burned down. he only seems to learn about this march 24th, and he uploads the entry with the news footage on the 25th

while it’s true that he seemed to have taken a break after that upload, he’s back again on 4th with the cryptic text message. It’s between then and the 18th that he’d start his Long tradition of hotel hopping.

the final entry for season 1 is up the next day. We can’t know for sure exactly how truthful jay was when he said he was feeling better in entry 26, operator sickness tends to fluctuate with exposure just like any other mental illness. what we Can say is that jay got exactly 10 days of quiet between his apartment burning down and alex contacting him again, and after he was contacted he was afraid enough to start hotel hopping.

if 10 days is what jay merrick describes as a break, then my god. the implication that in an entire year jay merrick hadn't gone a 10 day stretch without looking at the tapes is, Something.

this is where things take a real shift, both in the narrative and in jay’s tweeting patterns! this is the period where jay went radio silent working with alex for 7 months, only to forget everything. the only insight we have on how he was doing at this point is what came before, and the tapes he’d uncover in season 2. my best educated guess is to say that he is doing Not Great.

it’s of course after the operator wiped his and jessica’s memories that he starts up tweeting again, he doesn’t remember why he stopped at this point after all. but he’s also far less talkative between entries. in the beginning especially we’d Hear when he was sick, when he wasn’t sleeping, because he’d update frequently enough that he felt the need to explain when he wasn’t able to. this change is most likely due both in part to not feeling safe enough to be as talkative publically anymore, and on his focus on figuring out what’s going on.

that’s not to say that we don’t get Anything from this time period however.

we get quite a lot of talk about lack of sleep, exhaustion, etc throughout the beginning of the year. insomnia and jay staying up late to work on entries is to be expected, but this is the first time that we hear about jay Oversleeping. I’d say he’s long overdue for it considering how much he’s gone through at this point (and for how long), though it’s Also notable as possibly being a symptom of either illness or depression that we Aren’t hearing about.

this one just makes me sad

it’s Relatively quiet after this, with jay making light commentary here and there. the general vibe is that he’s hard at work when, of course, entry 32 comes along.

jay just Stops after jessica is taken. he doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t even start looking through the tapes for over three weeks. he couldn’t keep himself away from the tapes for that long after he was face to face with the monster or after his house was burned down. that says more about his state of mind than anything else could have.

there’s some mentions of possible sleep issues and jay feeling paranoid (more specifically, not feeling safe anywhere at all), but things don’t Really pick up until march

jay tries to upload entry 37 throughout the day, but no matter what he does he can’t remember the password for the account. this continues on into the 22 Until

“enttry #37“ is uploaded the next day, the footage of alex’s birthday, it’s linked on his twitter, and then six days later

He posts about how the footage he’d found earlier was deleted on his laptop and how he needs to get back Fast. he takes a rest stop on the 30th to charge his laptop and look through the red tower one more time to make sure he didn’t miss anything. and then Nothing until

he doesn’t get back for nearly an entire Week. now, it’s important to mention that there’s been speculation that this was going to be where the original skully reveal would take place, which is believable enough. but whether or not that’s what it was Going to be, the implications with what we have Now are, troubling to say the least. we’ll probably never know exactly what happened here but It’s Not Good. what did he eat? what did he drink? how did he sleep? Poorly, I’d Imagine.

this may also be what his earlier brain fog was leading into. losing track of the days of the week turning into losing track of the days entirely. but we’ll never know for sure

after this we actually get quite a lot about jay’s general discomfort, paranoia, memory loss, and regret scattered over the months. none of it is specific but a lot of it is tied directly to his discomfort with the tapes, which has turned into a constant with every upload. we can certainly tell that he isn’t doing well, but this message is particularly notable because it mentions a specific symptom that we haven’t seen before.

at this point jay’s paranoia and anxiety is bad enough that he can’t sit in silence anymore, and if he’s mentioning it so casually now it’s likely been an issue for a while. jay doesn’t tell us everything, and there’s almost certainly worse that hasn’t been said.

jay has Significant problems with sleeping throughout august that seep into september, to the point that he calls it “worse than usual.” but this is overtaken by his horror at entry 49. jay censored alex beating a man’s head in, but he had to watch it unedited, and it clearly took his toll. he didn’t even want to share it but ultimately decided that the world needed to have it if anything happened to him. but that wasn’t the end of it.

he spends nearly the entire month trying to find Any sign of who this man was. this is a specific aspect of jay’s personality that I think gets overshadowed by the perception of him as stupid. what he is is overworked, over his head, and impulsive, but he’s not stupid. but this is an Excellent example of jay’s dedication (bleeding into obsession).

this is obviously speculation on my part, but I think you can read this two ways (or a mix of them both): either jay is worried that something about the operator wiped away the man’s existence (like being taken made people forget about him somehow). Or he’s motivated by guilt, feeling responsible for having been there the day the man got crunched only to run away, desperately looking for any sign that Somebody had bothered to care about him.

things are relatively quiet after this until just after entry 50

something jay’s mental health really doesn’t need: more evidence of people breaking and entering while he’s asleep. what’s interesting here is that he went much quieter after this, just a handful of tweets relating directly to the next entry. I think you could either read jay being less open about how he’s doing on twitter as him being Well Aware that the people who want to hurt him (or who he Thinks want to hurt him in the case of hoodie and masky) have access to it, and in part because he’s doing so much Worse now.

the end of season two that the start of season three, of course, brings tim back into jay’s life and with it a Much needed distraction from his fear and paranoia. we’ll never know how jay reacted to the news that alex had tried to kill him in the moment, but we do know that it shifted his mindset from passively digging through the old tapes to actively trying to hunt alex down. tim was a Living Breathing lead, something he could actually Grasp Onto. and in light of what was likely something Very horrific that became a new fixation for jay.

he’d live blog about looking for tim from november 28th to march 8th, this was the most active he’d ever been on twitter and I think it absolutely speaks to how desperate he was for this to go somewhere. he even got to do some breaking and entering ! that said, having a distraction didn’t mean that there weren't a few noteworthy.

jay’s Current lack of trust is what’s going to lead to his and tim’s blowout later on. we can’t know how tim would’ve reacted if jay had been honest from the beginning (and it honestly would’ve gone poorly anyways), but tim’s confrontation with jay was honestly using his anger at being lied to as an outlet for the horror he felt at learning the truth of what’d been going on. he definitely would’ve still been angry and hurt, but he wouldn’t have had a direction for that anger. they might’ve started working together sooner.

however at this point jay doesn’t know who wants to hurt him and who doesn’t, he doesn’t feel safe talking to strangers on the street, let alone someone he already knew stalked him for two years. both of their reactions are understandable, and you can see the collision course coming when you step back far enough.

jay is Very quiet about what’s going on with him at this point. there are a few updates about his general paranoia and fear as well as him live tweeting about things relevant to the plot (thinking about coming clean to tim, posting tweets and pictures of trying to find tim after hoodie stole his medication, solving the totheark code that troy forgot to post a key for), but there’s only a handful of standout tweets that give us something new about his mental health scattered throughout the series.

this absolutely does not mean that he’s in a better place of mind, but what it does mean is that he’s being less open about it. tim didn’t know just how bad jay was and he’d been living with him. the fact that we have less to work with at this point is more an indication that he doesn’t feel safe sharing anymore (he hasn’t for a while) and a possible sign that he’s already gone into denial about his health (not wanting to connect it to the operator because of what that’d mean for him).

that said, we can take a look at what’s left for us.

this is from after jay had tim take him to the abandoned hospital for the first time and before the entry of it went up. this is notable because it’s one of if not the first time that it’s been directly stated that buildings associated with the operator can cause sickness. that or we can infer that the operator was actively strengthening its influence on them at the time (which might’ve also contributed to both of their irritability in the entry itself).

I don’t think this is notable because this is jay’s First nightmare, but rather I think it’s notable for him because his memory of it is totally gone. it’d make sense why this’d scare him at this point considering well, the entire series of marble hornets. but it does raise the question of how many more nightmares Weren’t worth sharing to him and how often they contributed to his sleeping problems.

next it’s worth noting that entry 67 messed jay up a lot. likely because it was solid evidence that alex was out there actively hunting them down (and just how close tim had gotten to being taken after he’d been throttled by the operator). He ends up posting about it Twice, as opposed to his previous strategy of not at all.

now finally, Finally. I’d like to talk about jay’s state of mind leading into his death. lets start with the timeline

jay doesn’t say anything at all between entry 74 and entry 75. tim had been running the account while jay was out of it, but jay had come to at least by august first, entry 75 was posted august 23rd. this is jay, and he has absolutely nothing to say.

he’s only just come out of his zombie state, he’s stolen the tape from tim (after trying to give him the chance to come clean), and he’s run off. we don’t get anything else out of him until september 3rd.

jay’s waited almost 2 weeks not only to watch the tape, but to even say anything at all. in my opinion? I think he’s afraid to not have anyone left to trust, let alone tim. he wouldn’t have given tim so much time to come clean himself otherwise, he wouldn’t be afraid of even looking at the tape otherwise. part of it is the sting of having his trust betrayed before, of closing himself off, and then trying to trust again. part of it is that he genuinely cared about tim. he wants to believe in tim, and he’s making it absolutely clear here.

it took him another 9 days to work up the courage to watch the tape, a full 20 days since the entry showing he got the tape was posted (and possibly longer, since we don’t know how long the video took to make). he was That afraid of not being able to trust tim anymore. of course, we know now that what’d actually get to him was realizing that jessica was gone. he’s mentioned before that he blamed himself for jessica being taken. that was what’d kept him going for years at this point and now she’s just, Gone. Gone For Good Gone.

the specific timeline here is a little harder to sus out. the gaps between some entries are too long to really make sense and what we’re getting on twitter aren’t as overt as they have been before. but here’s my best attempt to straighten it out.

jay sits on this for roughly a month, likely trying to process something that he’d used as a crutch to help him keep going bursting into smoke and grieving for someone he doesn’t really know but that he’d cared deeply for anyways. it eventually reached the point where the events of entry 82. he desperately goes back to the tunnel, the last place he saw jessica go in the video, for any last trace of her, any sign that she could still be alive, and doesn’t find any. he tries to reach out to tim, he tells him that he’s seeing things, that the world is shifting around him, that he’s sorry and that he understands why tim did what he did.

we don’t get an insight in what this month was like for jay, but it’s clear that he had a steady decline. he’s scared, he’s alone, he knows he needs help. and then the operator takes him. we never see exactly what happens to him after the seizure, and with the montages we’ve seen from tim’s titty cam it really could’ve been anything. but whatever it was it was enough to change jay’s entire attitude.

this is the last thing that jay posts before entry 77 goes up. it’s hard to say when this was posted for sure, because 77 was up 3 days later on the 16th, but I think it has to take place after jay was assaulted by the operator. jay thought he could call tim beforehand, we saw him try on video, and there’d be no reason to try to contact him through twitter if he knew he had an easier way. what this tells us is that jay woke up after the operator attack, tried to call him an unknown number of times, failed to reach him because the operator was still blocking his calls on tim’s end, tried to reach tim through twitter, and Then went out to try to confront tim likely believing that tim was intentionally trying to avoid him.

that mental image alone hurts me, but this means that even after everything jay was still trying to reach out to him.

at this point jay was in, some kind of denial just like everyone else. it hurt to feel like he was responsible for jessica’s death so he had to believe that she was still out there, he had to believe that it was someone else’s fault. he didn’t want to hurt tim like alex did, he didn’t want to push tim away like brian did, he wanted tim to laugh and pull jessica out of his closet where she’s been hiding this whole time. he wanted to believe the truth wasn’t real because it hurt.

the desperateness that he begs tim to leave his camera Also gets to me. jay’s mentioned for years that the point of recording and uploading footage was to make sure someone would know what happened if “something happened to him.” he pointed the camera away from jessica for 30 minutes and something Did happen to her. that's been weighing on him for years but never more than it has been for the past month.

then when hoodie comes for him, lets him free himself, and runs off one of the first things jay did was go to tim’s medicine cabinet and make a noise of frustration at finding all of the bottles empty. he knew that something was wrong, he knew that he wasn’t thinking straight anymore, and on some level he still believed tim. but there wasn’t anything there, everyone was gone, and he was running out of time.

now, I wanna paint another picture here. according to tim, the footage he found on jay’s laptop was dated the day before jay came to confront him. jay tried to reach tim through twitter at 8pm so it’s safe to assume that it was posted the day before he decided to meet him in person. jay spent october 13th getting his shit kicked in, he was hogtied on october 14th, and the entry showing their confrontation was up on october 16th.

jay follows tim, he searches through the school, and then chooses to keep watch in the building overnight.

jay’s had issues with food since the first day of marble hornets, Literally. it’s possible he snacked before he came to confront tim, or on the way to the school. it’s possible the upload dates are one off (the timeline certainly gets wonky going off of upload dates after this). but even still, at the time he was getting shot he was on at least day two without food (and likely much much longer), and at least 48 hours without sleep (again, almost certainly longer). On Top Of Everything.

jay merrick didn’t stand a chance

there’s so So much more I could get into, especially if I started poking more at the entries themselves or the Implications of some of the things I’ve talked about here. but that’ll have to come another time, I’m very tired jfklsd

#marble hornets #mh #jay merrick #slenderverse #creepypasta #spoilers #meta #god I hope tumblr doesn't block this from the tags again

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the-ivory-rabbit · 3 years ago

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Sooo I am incredibly familiar with living with depression and anxiety, but I'm not sure what it's like to have chronic pain. I know there are posts and blogs and information out there but would you possibly consider sharing some of your experience? Like...where the pain is and how you respond to it on a daily basis and things like that? I'd imagine this reader would be very grimly resigned to it, and so tired, but I'd like to have more firsthand information if you don't mind?

Yea no problem! I specifically have Raynauds Phenomenon, Fibromyalgia, POTS, and chronic pain in my knees and hips.

For Raynauds: I get cold very easily and when I do, arteries in my hands start to close up and cut off blood flow to my fingers. The lack of blood changes the skin color of my fingers to a very paper white color and can get to the point that I can’t move my fingers. A flare up can also be also be caused by stress which sucks when you have high anxiety levels. The only safe way I’ve been told to manage it is to slowly warm my hands up when it happens by tucking them under blankets or under my arms. It’s been recommended to not stick my hands under a warm sink cause that’ll warm my hands up too fast which just makes it all more painful, but I do admit to doing this is desperate times.

For Fibromyalgia: My pain ranges from my shoulders down to my knees with kind of an epicenter where it feels like the pain comes from that radiates to the whole muscle. It’s like the muscle tenses up on itself and just stays that way. The worst areas for me are between my shoulder blades that radiates to my whole shoulder and sometimes down my arms to my elbows, my lower back at the base of the spine that feels like it wraps around my whole mid section and spreads up to the middle of my back, and also on each side of my glutes that starts on the backside and radiates all the way down my thighs. To manage is very hard. I’ve woken up to a full on flare up and I’ve had flare ups happen during the day and it’s very hard to predict when it’s going to be at it’s worse. I wake up a lot at night in pain which just makes me more tired when it’s time to actually get up. I take pain meds when needed, use heating pads to try and calm my muscles down, and even have a heat pack that wraps around my waist and hold heat packs on my lower back so I can still have heat when I need to get up.

For POTS (Postural tachycardia syndrome): very commonly, when I stand up (no matter how fast or slow) my heart rate jumps to the point I can really feel my heart beating in my chest and I get dizzy very easily and have fainted several times. To manage, I have meds and lean or hold onto nearby surfaces to make sure if something does happen, I have something to help steady me.

For the knee and hip pain: I use topical medication ointment to help with pain when I’m not able to take oral pain meds. Sometimes I have to wear braces on both knees to help keep me upright and can’t stand for very long period of time.

You’re very right about being resigned to it and being tired. All of these things together, and on their own, make everything very hard. I never have the energy to go out and be with people and if I do, I’m always in pain by the end of it. I’m always physically tired no matter how much I sleep which people never understand. Always being in pain and unable to go out or do things is very isolating which makes the depression so much worse. Always being in pain and never knowing when it’s going to be really bad just makes the anxiety worse. Doing basic daily tasks like brushing my teeth or folding laundry feels like climbing mountains. I need a shower chair and special pillows just in hopes that it’ll all help. And while all these things do help, it doesn’t make everything go away. It feels like all I do is suffer and like my life is being stolen from me.

Sorry this ended up being so long, but I certainly my don’t want to end with such a sad note. Thank you for all your writing! Your works have been a massive help in some very trying times. Calling them Lullabies was the most perfect choice because they truly are.

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forever-rogue · 5 years ago

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THIS THE DUMBEST MF REQUEST U EVER HEARD BUT IM ON MY PERIOD AND I HAVE TO TAKE MEDS BC CHRONIC CRAMPS ANS ITS GIT SO MUCH MF CAFFIENE AND IM FUCKING TRIPPING RN AND FOR SOME DUMBASS REASON I NEED DIN X READER WHERE READER TAKES MEDS AND GOES BATSHIT CRAZY LITERALLY IM SHAKING SO MUCH WOEOWOW SORRY THIS IS ACTUALLY SOME TH IFN IM ASKING FOR YOURE GRET!!

Hi friend, I hope you’re okay now and feeling better! Din blurb? Din blurb. Enjoy! Thank you @rosetophighlander for providing some much needed inspo!

Mandalorian Masterlist

»»————-　♡　————-««

When it came to your least favorite time of the month, you were normally able to handle it...for the most part. It’d been a routine that you’d been going through for what seemed like eons, but some months were worse than others. This was one of those times; not just one of those times, but also the first time you’d had this much pain around your Mandalorian companion.

The morning had gone fairly well, you’d made sure to stay hydrated and eaten a decent breakfast, along with your small green friend, but why the time the afternoon started, your insides were in utter turmoil. You thought you were doing a fairly good job of keeping a neutral face and hiding it. Until...

“What’s wrong?” Din’s gaze was trained on as you sat in the co-pilot’s seat, hand on your stomach and a contorted look on your face. So much for handling it well...but it was hard when it felt like your innards were being eaten.

“N-nothing,” you lied, biting the inside of your cheek as another wave of cramps rolled over you. You should have known better than to lie to him. He was a trained bounty hunter, years of practice had made it easy for him to read just about anyone.

“Why are you lying?” he asked and you just sigh and let your head flop to the side, letting out an exasperation groan.

“Period,” you finally said through gritted teeth as you pointedly avoided looking at him, “I’m on my period.”

“Oh,” he sounded almost nervous but just awkwardly cleared his throat. He wasn’t inept when it came to a woman’s body, but it had been some time since he’d experienced being with a woman during her time of the month. You just nodded and a waved a hand in his general direction, “is there...”

“No,” you said quietly, hoping that if you remained seated and still that the pain would dull and pass quickly. Din stood up after a few more moments of watching you silently struggled with the waves of pain, disappearing without a word. Maybe you’d scared him off?

But no - he was back within a few minutes, handing you a big glass of water, followed by a few pills that you didn’t recognize. You didn’t even bother to ask what they were, or what their origins were, but you quickly swallowed them and down the glass of water.

“That should help,” he said softly and you nodded, giving him a thankful smile, “maybe you should...take a nap.”

“I’m not tired though,” you insisted, knowing the tiredness that always accompanied this time of month could come later in the afternoon. It always did, like clockwork.

“You’ll...just trust me,” he insisted, nudging his head in the direction of the your shared sleeping space, “you’ll want to sleep. It might be...just take a nap.”

“Oh...kay,” you shrugged and decided to oblige him, slowly clambering out of spot and heading for your cot. You might have been going crazy...but did you already feel better? Din wasn’t normally so cryptic or weird, but you weren’t to question him. Besides, maybe a nap would be nice...

»»————-　♡　————-««

Once you’d slipped into your cot, it took only a few minutes until you gave into the soft pull of sleep. If you’d been awake, it would have surprised you, but instead you were quickly snoring...and loudly.

But then...almost as quickly as you feel asleep, you were wide awake again. Your eyes snapped open as you felt a rush of energy running through your veins...you felt more awake than you possibly ever had. But your pain was gone, instead you felt nothing but pure adrenaline pumping through your body.

“Din,” you almost shouted, as you jumped up and ran to find him. When you didn’t spot him anywhere on your floor, you climbed up the cockpit and found him there, playing with the Child, “Din!”

A small, quiet oh no spilled from his lips as you almost barreled him over in your attempt to sit down in your normal spot. He had hoped this wouldn’t happen, it was a risk he was taking...but alas. Your eyes were wide as you sat down and stared at him, speaking so fast that he wasn’t able to catch more than a word here and there. Part of him wondered if you were even speaking Basic anymore.

“andidon’tevenknowwhatyougavemebutifeelsoalive,” you jumped up again, peeking outside, studying the dying light of day. Maybe you could go out and explore for a awhile. Just as you started walking off again, Din grabbed your arm and keep you from walking away, “what?”

“I think you need to stay inside and sit with me,” he felt bad that you’d had such a reaction to the pills he gave you, but couldn’t deny that he was little amuse, “it’ll pass soon, but I need to keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t hurt yourself.”

“I’ll be fine,” you insisted, bouncing on your heels as he kept you restrained, “I just want to go and explore!”

“Cyare...no, just say with me please,” he insisted softly, “but are you...feeling better?”

“There’s no pain,” you promised, “I just feel so...alive! Have you ever heard colors before? I’m pretty sure I’m can hear them!”

“Kriff,” he sighed lightly to himself.

“What even was that stuff?!” you asked as you pulled free from his hold on you and started to dance around the open space, “I love it! I feel so alive!”

“Painkillers,” he admitted honestly, letting the Child down to try and get you in his arms again so you wouldn’t hurt anyone...namely yourself, “apparently much more potent for someone of your size.”

“We should get more of that stuff! We should go to the market and buy some,” you grabbed his hand and started to dance with him, finding it hard to get the large man to move along with you, “you should take some too! Maker, can you imagine how much we could if we don’t have to sleep and we just play?!”

“You can’t buy this stuff at the market,” in order to give you some reprieve, he gave in and danced with you, letting you guide him around the open space.

“Where then!? We have to go!”

“It’s not exactly...legal,” he confessed the last part quietly, but you were so hyper-aware of everything that you picked up on it. You shrugged it off regardless, “I probably shouldn’t have given it you. I should have known better...”

“No, this is great,” you insisted, stopping and put your hands on his shoulders, “I’ve never felt so...amazing! I feel like I can do anything!”

“Yeah...that’s one of the effects,” he cursed himself silently. He’d just wanted help you and alleviate your pain, instead he’d created a whole different type of problem, “cyare, why don’t you come with me and we can go lie down.”

“But I don’t wanna,” you pouted at him, but he just hung his head, “I just wanna go outside and be with you!”

The last part tugged on his heartstrings a little bit, and while he was glad you weren’t in pain, he didn’t mean to induce all of this either. At least this way you were enjoying yourself; the grin on your face hadn’t faltered once. He weighed his options for a moment before nodding lightly, “alright. We’ll go outside and explore for a little bit, but if and when you start to feel sleepy or anything else, you let me know, yes?”

“Duh,” you promised him, your eyes glowing with excitement as you leaned up and pressed a kiss to his helmet, where his cheek would be, “we’re gonna have so much fun!”

You leaned down and picked up the Child, carefully as you could in your current state, and Din stopped breathing for a moment. He knew you’d never do anything to hurt him, but in your haze, he was mildly concerned. But you were still so gentle with him, making sure he held tightly against your chest before descending the latter to go downstairs.

“Come on, slow poke!” you called to him as he listened to your footsteps running out of the ship. He sighed lightly, almost in amusement as he quickly followed after you.

He had a feeling you weren’t going to be the only exhausted by the time you were coming down from your high. At least he knew better for next time: half dose...or perhaps something more legal...either way, he vowed to make sure to take care of you.

#din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #din djarin #the Mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader

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asheasexualvampire · 4 years ago

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The Weekly Dustdate: Tired Edition

Greetings. Salutations. I am a very exhausted vampire. I hate being chronically ill, being the undead should come with better perks. Alas and alack, it does not. If you were chronically ill when you were made, you are going to be so. For. Eternity. Also I hate going to Walmart in the daytime. Its exhausting for multiple reasons.

Reason One: I am a fucking vampire. The day is not my friend. In fact it actively tries to murder me. The sun burns my eyes like acid. I’m pale as fuck (side effect of not having blood flow) so it’s uncomfortable. I do wear long sleeves at all times, otherwise I would be dust in the wind. And I still use a parasol. It helps me keep the sun off. As long as I’m not being directly fried like chicken I’m good. but also I am TIRED during the day. Vam. Pi. Er. I sleep in the day. Reason Two: There are SO MANY PEOPLE in there during the daytime. I have anxiety. Large crowds of people are not my forte, I hate it, they’re all talking, and its loud, and I am constantly dodging trying not to bump into or touch anyone. Also I don’t want anyone bumping into or touching me. I don’t enjoy being touched without permission, even by accident. People I don’t know have no right to touch me. Sometimes I don’t even like it when people I KNOW touch me, it depends entirely on how I feel. And Walmart is fucking crowded and people have zero idea how much pain they are causing me just by bumping into me in an aisle. Reason Three: Chronic Pain. I have lumbar spinal stenosis. It is permanent, and degenerative. It could end up causing me to be paralyzed as I get older and it gets worse. Basically, in my lower spine, from the waist down, the bones that surround my spinal cord aren’t open like they ought to be. Instead mine are caved inward, putting pressure on the nerves in the spinal cord and the ones that branch out to work your legs and hips. So standing upright for long periods of time is supremely painful. It only feels better if I’m sitting, or if I bent forward. Bending forward opens up space in my spine and takes some of the pressure off. But it also is a lot of strain on already strained muscles because they’re trying to do so much work holding me upright, and dealing with the pain.

I’ve had physical therapy to try and strengthen the muscles in my hips, thighs and my core. So that I can try and take some of the strain off the muscles in my spine. I’ve had cortico-steroid injections into my spine, which hurt like a sonofabitch, and didn’t really help, because it hurt so much having them done, that they couldn’t relieve the pain I already had. It was like having someone jamming railroad spikes into my spine, over and over again. The doctors have gotten x-rays, MRI and CT scans of my spine, and they say that the compression at the present is only “mild”. But mild pressure on the nerves of the spine is still fucking painful. It makes it hard to walk very far, or stand for very long. I can walk for about 5 minutes and then I need to sit. I can stand for about 5 minutes and then I need to sit. I take tons of tylenol for my spine, I use pain relieving creams and patches, heating pads and creams, but it doesn’t really help because they’re not strong enough. It makes me want to rip out my spine and just, potato my way through life. So.

Dealing with all of that, all at one time, means that ten minutes in Walmart is like an hour at a bar for me. Its a nightmare. Its exhausting. The lines and the walking, and they took out all the benches and seats because of the plague. I got out of there, and that was saturday, and today all I’ve done was sleep and putter around my apartment. cleaned up my computer table, because Roberto is supposed to come on thursday and put together the new one. I got my keyboard, its weird to use a manual keyboard again, everything has so much space and the buttons feel weird. I’ve got it plugged into my laptop for now, so that I can get used too it before the rest is together.Its pretty, rainbow lights under the keys. My mum (no really, my actual mum is still alive. She’s a revenent. She just flat out refuses to die.) was going to get me a keyboard and mouse set with the rainbow LEDs in them, but I beat her to the keyboard, so she’s going to get me a rainbow lit mouse to match. Its pretty, she showed me a picture of it online.

So yes.Tired vampire is tired. Also I really really want my new computer. The first things I’m doing are installing Steam, Discord, Firefox and my antivirus. And then I’m going to install The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 and play those. Because I bought them with the last bits of my stimulus (Witcher 3 was on sale for 10$!). And Fallout 4 refuses to work on my stupid laptop. Which is honestly absolute garbage anyhow, so that doesn’t shock me terribly. So. Hopefully by next week’s Dustdate (do you guys like the name? I think its clever, but then again I’m a sucker for a good pun) I will have Things To Say about The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4. Yes, I am trying to watch The Witcher on Netflix. But the way it jumps around the timeline gets me all confused and then I don’t know whats going on so its taking me a long time. I keep having to re-watch episodes due to timeline weirdness.

I’m going to go and finish watching the Maze Runner trilogy, I’ve got it playing in the background. I’m still tired. I’m considering going to bed early again tonight. like, 2AM-ish. -Ashe, the Asexual Vampire

#fiction #vampire #vamp #computer #rainbow led #chronic pain #anxiety #spine #medical #steam #the witcher #witcher 3 #fallout 4 #netflix #wear a fucking mask people

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