#after all i never even got sick with covid since 2020

[niteshade925]

Idk if it's because I'm stressed at work or something, but my fragile gi system never quite acts up at work. It's always the day after I get off of work. Wtf

I just want to enjoy my goddamn weekend

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for pretending I cheated on my partner when our common friend asked why we fought?

It will sound fake and fictional, but please bear with me because I'm getting crazy over it. And also sorry for any english mistake, we're not from an english speaking country.

To give some context: I am a man. There was this person, B(m), which whom I kind of grew up with. We went through the same schools from our 6 years old to 17 but we never were really friends. Then, around our 13, I got into a clique that fed into all my bad habits and I started to actively bully B because he seemed like an easy target at the time. I enjoyed it and was encouraged to do so (because I was such an asshole and I'm not even cringing thinking about it, it's worse. I regret it so much and I was a stupid and bad teenager). It was so bad that after years of enduring it, B changed school before we graduated and I went on with my life.

It' was's been about 15 years ago that I graduated.

In the meantime, I dealt with some problems that I had with my family and I went through intensive therapy which changed me for the better, and I came to terms with my sexuality as well.

Flashforward to 2019/2020, I meet with someone online through some games and it goes very well. Thanks to the Covid and the lockdowns, we play even more and get closer. At some point, I talk about an event happening close to my city, and he tells me that he knows about it as well and that we're living close to each other. Because we enjoyed our time online (ngl, we had started flirting although I didn't know how sincere it was) we decided to meet at that event.

And there, I find out that my online friend is B. It's extremely awkward but only for me because he cannot recognize me for three reasons: 1. I changed physically with my puberty finally finishing the job after my 18 birthday, and I found some love into dying my hair. 2. I changed in terms of personality thanks to the therapy I went through. 3. My legal name was changed when I said goodbye to this fucking family of mine and left without turning back (but I was getting sick just saying my last name).

I, obviously, didn't tell him anything about who I really was because I just wanted to enjoy that evening with a friend, and we didn't see each other since he left high school because of me. My plan was just to slowly distance myself from him after that evening but it failed because we had a lot of fun and we actually really hit off and I was dying constantly at the idea that he could find out.

We've been in a relationship sicne the beginning of 2021 and I was decided to just never tell him (horrifying idea I know, anyone with a braincell would have told me that it was bound to be found).

A month ago, I met with an old friend from high school (so yeah, he was in the bullying gang but more of a followers, so we stayed in friendly terms when we both agreed that it was bad) and as he recognized B, he decided to excuse himself and hoped that B would forgive him like he "forgave" me (I never got to tell that friend to shut up about that) so yeah, B found out that I was his main bully who had lied to him for almost 4 years now.

We had quite a big talk about it. How bad my bullying ended up for B; why I lied like that and never admitted it. And even if it went alright, B told me that he needed a break to think about things and it's going to be one month that I'm crashing at a common friend of us. At first, I just said that B and I got into a fight and it was good enough, but as it's been already a month, the friend asked more about it. Not wanting to bring up B's trauma to someone else (especially after our conversation), I just told the first lie that came to me and pretended that I cheated on B and he found out.

Now that common friend is calling me an asshole and keeps reminding me how much they are disappointed in me to have done something so horrifying to B. I keep wondering if I did well to lie like that, or if I should have found another way out.

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

I'm allowed to "give up" on treatment

I got sick with COVID in January of 2020 when I was 19 years old. Instead of getting better I gradually got worse and by April I was nearly bedbound with CFS/ME. I have been unable to work this whole time and was only able to return to college (part time) in 2022.

I've been in a physical health crisis since the onset of my illness. Even with resting pretty much all the time I was getting sicker and sicker. It was a race to find a treatment that worked before I got bad enough that I needed help that my parents couldn't provide. It was a race to get well enough to get out of my parents' house so that I didn't have to deal with the abuse between them and directed at me. It was a race to convince SSI that I was really disabled so I could get the money I needed to live on my own.

After I sorted out my last big health crisis I made the decision to stop seeking treatment for a time. I would try treatments or cures if they were offered to me, but they're not being offered right now because they don't exist. I don't know for how long, or what level of efficacy a treatment would need to have to convince me to give it a try, but for now I'm limiting doctor's visits to mental health stuff, checkups, vaccines, and treatment for any new or acute symptoms. I got SSI, I'm on two meds that are working to reduce my symptoms, I have a better powerchair now, and I'm living in accessible housing. My race is over.

My parents, especially my mom, were upset with this decision. They don't or can't grasp that my condition is not treatable despite me saying it all the time. My mom especially also doesn't understand that doctor's appointments aren't neutral for me, that they're usually negative and difficult. When I was constantly going to the doctor I was dealing with people who didn't understand my limits, who didn't understand ME/CFS, and were "willing to learn" at best. It was exhausting. None of the doctors I saw could provide me with more than they could find from an internet search, except for the specific CFS specialist who prescribed my current medications. Most doctors didn't even know the difference between chronic fatigue as a symptom and chronic fatigue syndrome and would just run diagnostics on me trying to find the "cause" of my CF even after I told them what it was. Every time I left an appointment I was depressed, hopeless, and angry. I was in a mental health crisis for days or weeks following each appointment because the doctor would show pity or even horror about how disabled I was and then not offer anything that would help me.

I debated whether I was even going to talk about this or if I was just going to stop. There's such a stigma around accepting your condition and moving on, especially if you're reliant on others or the government for care. But I want to say that regardless of what people around you are saying it's fine to be tired of doctors. It's fine to want a break or to want to stop altogether. People who have never dealt with chronic issues have a difficult time grasping how exhausting constant medical care can be, especially when you continue to be the same level of sick throughout the entire ordeal. You don't have to continue wearing yourself out to please people who don't understand what you're going through.

[theloneliestaquarian]

https://gofund.me/06631676

Hi folks, my name is Kenny and I have a beautiful Yorkie named TinyToo (he had an older brother named TinyTim, but he passed from leptospirosis). TinyToo is turning six in January. I've had him since he was weaned; he was a gift for my Ma after TinyTim passed. We've had a turbulent time these past years. In 2020, my Daddy passed away unexpectedly, which devastated us. He struggled for years but always persevered, with diabetes, sickle cell disease, and lupus, taking care of our family. Unfortunately, COVID came and finally pushed him past the limit; he had no chance. He was the breadwinner of the house, and we could no longer afford the mortgage or taxes for our home of 20 years, and thus, we became homeless. It was just me, Ma, and TinyToo. We struggled for four years, trying to navigate life while homeless and disabled, both me and my mother. My Daddy always apologized to me for passing on his "messed up genes," but I never blamed him, so I too am sick. I worked for as long as I could, a laborious full-time job, until my body could no longer manage it. After 30 years of working for the city, my mom retired because she got ill. She is the youngest of 10 siblings, 5 boys and 5 girls. She lost and buried both her parents and 7 siblings, all while working full-time and never even took time off to grieve. By the time she retired, she had accumulated 3 months of vacation she never used; she just kept going and working for her family. But then losing her soulmate of 26 years, that finally did it. It destroyed her to the point where she could barely function. It got to the point where I had to force-feed her, taking care of her basic functions, her mental and physical health as deteriorated as I had ever seen her. It was beyond hard, but we managed, always making sure TinyToo was fed and safe. After years of couch-hopping, winters in cars, and finally a tent, we were able to get an apartment at the beginning of this year. We are readjusting to normal life again; it's difficult, but we're persevering. Because of our situation, while we kept TinyToo alive and fed, we couldn't attend to all his needs. For the past 2 years, his teeth have started to fall out and rot. The smell of necrosis is getting stronger, and I'm afraid the infection will get into his bloodstream. He can barely eat his food lately, and I'm heartbroken that it's gotten this way. We can finally focus on it, but I know the vet visit alone will be beyond what we can afford, let alone whatever extraction/surgery he may need. I don't want my baby to die. TinyToo is the last gift my Daddy left to us. He's full of personality; I swear he tries to talk sometimes. He has so much more life in him, and we'd appreciate any help you can give. I'm not sure of actual prices, so that's why I set it to that amount. Even if we don't hit that target, any donations will help to get him the treatment he needs. Bless you all, and know you have our deepest gratitude and love 🧡🧡🧡

I really hope we'll get the help he needs 🙏

[placesyoucallhome]

okay so where have I been? Actually sick, but for the most part it's all the same sick, all the same sick as I've been since 2020, it just got worse.

ranting under a cut because I'm just venting at this point-

I got covid in like, February of 2020, early early, before doctors even thought covid was in my state early and sure as hell weren't diagnosing it. And to be fair, I didn't even got in, or bother telling anyone, because I thought it was a little headcold, barely coughed, just sniffly and tired, though the lack of taste was... odd. I didn't think anything of it, thought I just lost my sense of smell due to sniffles.

Then I didn't ever get better.

Honestly I thought I was losing my mind, I suddenly was sleeping 14+ hours a day, making dinner was an ordeal because I was exhausting just standing for minutes at a time, I couldn't work, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I didn't connect any dots until months later when my taste finally came back, that that was a symptom, and that for some people it just never gets better.

So for a while that's all I have to work with, there's no relief, no cure. Not until the vaccine anyways, and some people with long covid find relief, symptoms lessening or even going away entirely! I'm one of those, thank fuck, my fatigue lessens enough that I can get part time work again at least. And that's where I'm at for a while. I'm not at where I was before, but man, at least it's something.

Cut to a bit over a month ago, I get another cold, and... I don't recover. I'm shoved right back to where I was in 2020, and now with vertigo enough to make me nauseous at the drop of a hat and brain fog that makes thinking feel like a sisyphusian ordeal, fun! At least it's not loss of taste again. I sort out the veritgo with some supplements, but my fatigue and and the worst brain fog of my life are lingering, and at this point I'm gods damn desperate for this to not be reality for the next handful of years or more. SO. Research.

I try a few options, not much works, not until I stumble on a side blurb somewhere about antihistamines helping. I look some more, some people are completely reset to normal on them! Fuckin I might as well try right? I've never taken claritin I don't have allergies how would I have known?

And it fucking works

It was like night and day after one dose! No brainfog! My energy slowly comes back too! No vertigo! Holy shit!

Except my sinuses are actively killing me. To be fair, my sinuses never actually worked properly, they just don't drain. And now it feels like there is a solid mass of mucus in there that isn't budging, and my throat is raw because it's making me snore on top of that. Cool. cool cool cool. Apparently there's a known issue of antihistamines causing mucus in the sinuses to just not hydrate and essentially gunk up everything.

And that's where I'm at. My choices are- keep taking antihistamines and be able to stay away and think and just deal with the constant sinus migraines (or take sinus meds constantly on top of all that), OR- drop the antihistamines and deal with fatigue and brainfog, I can then consider a low histamine diet. What is a low histamine diet? Fucking torture. It's not even terribly healthy because it cuts out so many nutrients, and you aren't supposed to be on it for more than a month or so at a time, and I'd need to be on it for 6.

What is a low histamine diet? Amongst other things, no spices, no deli/coldcut meats, no spinach, no tomatoes, no cheese, no SOY SAUCE ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I cannot stress how much my diet revolves around tomatoes and soy especially, I wouldn't be allowed anything savory or spiced or fermented for SIX MONTHS.

So it's not looking likely.

So I'm at an impasse, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about it yet. probably ease off the claritin for a while and see if my sinuses recover and try again?

Anyways I had mac and cheese tonight and only cried a little bit.

[vines-of-ivy]

New Year's Resolutions

I want to lose half of my current body weight. They say 1-2 lbs a week is normal and perfectly healthy. So I should be able to lose the rest of my weight easily if I think of it like that. I've made some good progress this year in finding what works for me, why I'm so fatigued, sorting out my hormonal imbalances after three years of whatever post-COVID effery I've been up and I've seen improvement in my stability. FINALLY. I'm going into 2025 three stone lighter which may feel like small progress but considering the weight wasn't even coming off until April, I'm very hopeful. I don't want to be a 'big woman' anymore. I don't like it. I don't care about whether I am or am not attractive. I got called attractive at 21 stone. I got called attractive at 13 stone. My fate never changed based on this so-called 'attraction'. My 'attractiveness' has never inspired anybody to change how they treat me, what opportunities I have had access to or anything like that. My weight is nothing but a burden tied to social obligation I never asked for. It's not like I *want* to be this size (although I heavily [pun unintended] prefer my current size to the one I was at the start of the year) but people really attach some kind of morality to being big, especially when you're a Black woman. You become even more of a 'statement' in this society and I'd rather make better statements by existing than whatever the body positivity movement has tried to promote. I'm not a part of it but my image is so intertwined with social justice virtue-signaling shit that it makes me sick. That and my sides hurt and I'd rather they didn't.

I want to be sporty again. I'm part of two sports clubs and am running a marathon. It has to count for something. I want to enjoy physicality again instead of feeling like I suppress it. I don't know why, but something tells me I can't enjoy physical activity anymore. I started feeling like this after that *incident* before COVID and have struggled with it since. I start, become anxious which results in physical symptoms and then have to take break which prevents me from actually being consistent. So I'm going to remember what I enjoy most about sports - the physical feeling after a good workout and the camaraderie with my teams. I don't need to punish myself anymore like I began to in 2020. I dealt with the situation that caused this problem last year. I'm not in any danger anymore and I don't need to keep convincing myself that being fit and physically competent in a martial art is futile. I liked doing Muay Thai and I still like doing Muay Thai. And if I struggle with the masculine energy of it, then that's why I'm also doing cheerleading! I need to balance both sides of my energies and fee comfortable in my own body again before I hit 30! I refuse to still be this unfit by then because it'll get even harder to fix things.

I want to get the Vacation Scheme/Training Contract. I don't think I have to go into this one too much but I want that legal work experience and I am determined to get it, preferably for both summer and winter. I'm also extra determined to get one for a specific law firm where I flunked the test this year. I'm particularly upset about that firm so I'm going to fight for it next time around!

I want to go to the Americas - preferably Brazil and another Caribbean country. Okay, St Lucia was already two years ago, I need to go back. I still have never been to Brazil and Jamaica needs to see me again. It's all dependent on my ability hold down a job and considering I'll only have to be on campus about three hours a week, I don't see why I can't squeeze some shifts in between my social and sports stuff (and probably internships stuff). My weight loss comes first, then my finances so I shouldn't be spending all my money on booze and food this year.

I want to control my 'coolness'. I said not too long ago that the compliment of 'cool' sounds like some type of slur. No matter where on the planet I've been, I've heard that compliment. So, I want to take more control over that part of my image.

Keep learning Para-Para The year isn't over but I've only gotten half the way through the 20-something dances I said I'd learn. It's fun but I think I just need to switch up the pacing. Now that I do cheerleading, I'd like to have some fun with the two styles. And becoming better at one should compliment the other.

Get my hair healthier. This is arguably the thing I've done the best since last year. Just keep it up - maybe look at some colourists for natural hair unless I feel like travelling down to North London again for treatment. Yeah, I want to risk colouring it again. But this time, I'm getting someone else to do it.

[brilovesyou]

IM BACKKKKKK

Its been a long as time since i’ve been here on tumblr. I would come on here in my teenage years horny looking for sex edits and videos of hard penis. I am very great at long story shorts so let me go ahead and give a summary of the last 7 years since 2016. 

I graduated high school , didn’t go to college was broke. Got hella jobs because I was a barista from 2017 -2018 ; 2018 in November I went to Amazon. Was lit cause amazon had the bag back then. $15/hr 4-5 hour shifts and im what 19/20 with my friends. It was lit as fuck. 2019 my dad passed my first year of college and I failed all those damn classes. I was studying Biology & that shit is very hard. I lost all my motivation due to my dad being a dead ass. I met my highschool crush , he went through my then best friend to get my snapchat so he could be my guy. Jalen is someone I never would have thought to look my way because looks are deceiving. Jalen is one year older than me and he was a star football player when we were in high school. I was just a nerd, so I didn’t even know he knew I existed. Jalen is the best guy ever and we are still together. COVID came 2020 and cleaned the fucking earth, rest in peace to all fallen souls. COVID was a silent killer and I too had caught COVID from my sister in which i didn’t have any symptoms ; I too can be a silent killer. I hated to know i was asymptotic whatever the fuck and I am glad same time. My sister was sick as fuck when she had it and it was bold. I am vaccinated , no booster foh , only got vaccinated because I had to go to JA for 2022 ; my mother got married to Gerald. Gerald is lit and has two daughters, Sierra & Sadyah . Sierra has my second neph King who is 2 years old now. I love my new extended family, they are lit. Anyways during covid I stopped working at amazon because they fired me LMAO. Anyways my bud got me this WFH  job with the State of Michigan and I worked there from 2020- 2021. Job was hell but i had to be employed wtf, i was making $15/hour and after a year of claimants telling me im a stupid bitch and know nothing I got a raise to $18/hr. I was a temp worker with Robert Half so they sent me to a new project when covid “ ended “.  I was sent to Centene to do Dental Insurance and I’ve been working there since 2021- 2023 which is current. I make $21.08 and it is pretty lit fr. I live in an apartment with Jalen and my two cats. I WFH, have a catering business , a nail business and new ServSafe Certification. Still in cc working towards my culinary degree, i finally decided to follow my dreams instead of the ones i thought would make my parents happiest. I have clientele with food & nails. Need riches so me & Jalen can be married & buy our trucks & house

[alorsondanse42]

Reminds me of a short story I read during Covid by Alan Walsh:

>Kissing Booth

"Have you kissed him yet?" Georgie is machine-gun texting me every forty seconds since I joined the queue. He's rolled up in a duvet at home in front of an old Fellini movie, I’m marooned out here with twenty other desperate loners on the frozen tundra of a Tesco car park at three in the morning.

Scout’s honour he’ll whip me up an egg breakfast, though, right after the hooker stops crying. I guess he means in the movie. The boy never even went to Scouts.

My lips sting from acrid, machine coffee and my eyes blur, waiting on a text message telling me I’m next through the door.

It’s spring, the birds volley screeches between nests across the sky, none of us below as much as make eye contact, shambling around distractedly between the painted white lines, heads in our phones.

"Check his swab results before you go near him. Be sure it’s legit. We’ve dropped so much money on this, Julie."

It was nine thousand just to get in the queue. Too late to back out now. I clock back on at nine. Nothing confirmed yet, but rumour is they start swabbing people at work today. Only reason they’d do that is to let the Negatives go. It’s been on the cards for weeks. Places are only hiring Positives now. I’ve been out the last forty odd hours, trying to catch it.

Georgie just dragged himself home after two straight days thieving used cutlery off restaurant tables before the staff clean up. Licking, sucking on fork prongs in the alley outside, rifling through bins. I’ve been grotesquely intimate with door handles, smudged wine glasses in bars. I’ve haunted shopping aisles and swimming pools.

We’re still about eight months behind Spain, where they say it originated. Policía Nacional are already escorting Negatives from gated communities there. Political and Entertainment careers now live and die by the swab result. The news called it a 'viral neural empathiser’. VNE. The first patients in Madrid resurfaced from their twenty-hour comas with clear, unblemished skin.

Further testing showed rocketing cognitive function. Muscles firmed, old scars healed. Swiss doctors tracked IQs rising on a steady, unceasing line. Singapore Positives giddily snatched graceful fluency in any new language within the hour. It took a month for the blue chip companies to come aggressively headhunting the infected, now there’s an entirely separate LinkedIn for them. Schools already segregate students based on saliva swabs.

Georgie and I held each other and wept as yet another test blinked negative yesterday morning. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t grab something heavier than his old United tracksuit top. It’s Baltic out here. I draw a few sideways glances, stamping the concrete for a little warmth as the overhead light flickers on above the door and everyone’s face dives into phone-screen-whiteness looking to see if they get the next invite. I’m here almost two hours now, it bloody better be me. They dropped the Pos tag from Tinder this week, now they’ve all migrated to their own app. Paula and Tom tested positive on Monday and have already stopped answering our calls.

I dredged up this guy’s ad on the dark web. He said he was selling infections out the back of a supermarket after hours and I was one of the blessed few to answer before he deleted it twenty minutes later. Positives already jealously hoard infection within their circles, we’ve got like a week before these deals stop happening.

When the invite finally bubbles up on my screen I almost want to be sick, stumbling into an awkward canter through the pack before someone else grabs my spot. My fingers tremble enough it’s a challenge taking the door handle and I step through to a practically unlit corridor where two guys in plaid shirts and designer trainers hunch under a neon light. Uniform white teeth, tans blanched livid by the bulb. Lean, firm, tidy. Positives.

A wordless flick of the fingers instructing me to hand over my phone. VNE, lest we forget, doesn’t enhance your manners. They comb the details on my screen, matching them against their data. "You only paid entry. We’ll take the infection fee now." It’s a further twelve grand. I swallow hard, drag in an icy breath and swipe my finger across the screen to complete payment. I’m almost distracted by a loud, tinny rumbling from somewhere close. "You get your phone back after. He’s through the canteen, in the back office to the left. You’ll hear the TV once you get to the coat rack, just follow the sound."

"What’s that rattling, you don’t hear it?" They blank my question long enough I just slink away in the direction of the rack, light fading with each step. I never imagined they’d take my phone. I wanted to stay in contact with Georgie. It’s mainly his money, he’s that saving type. I only had three hundred and sixty to add to the pool, so I’m nervy about just paying out like that, but there aren’t any second chances here. He’d definitely have done the same.

My nausea spikes reaching the coat stand and I first catch the low murmur of white noise just a few metres away. Am I even sure these guys are Positives? Anyone could place an ad like that. He claimed he was infected eight weeks and was doing this to collect enough for a second boat. His photo looked like one of those models they scare up from agencies for reality shows.

VNE transmits via bodily fluid. A long, wet kiss, with tongue, will almost certainly get me there. That’s what he’s selling. Then I go home, take care of Georgie.

I take the direction of a wall blotted flickering blue and the white noise is already  loud enough to hurt. They’re trialling broadcasts at frequencies only Positives can watch, which I find kind of scary. I’m stalking through the aisles of an unlit staff canteen, polished surfaces reflecting my expression. I need to pull it together, I can’t walk in looking this unravelled. I ditch the United top on a chair and straighten my t-shirt. My hair is hopelessly matted with dew and the cuffs of my jeans spot with damp from the grass outside.

I find the door ajar to the back office and the TV flicks abruptly from the white noise to a channel where Ross is insisting to Rachel they were on a break. The chair in front of me spins and a young man of Euclidean beauty, ensconced in an impossibly soft looking white hoodie rises up out of it with a warm grin and outstretched hand.

"Hi there. I’m Oscar," he says, through a smile that could sell me any product ever devised by a human, "lovely to meet you." I bumble through a double take.

"It’s Julie. I’m sorry, for some stupid reason I expected someone older." His grin shifts up a gear, dropping onto the sofa and he gestures for me to join him. "Sorry about all this cloak and dagger stuff, but a friend warned me this will be illegal by Saturday." It bothers me to hear things like that. "Also, I suppose it’s like a kind of prostitution really. Selling kisses out the back of a car park."

"I mean kissing booths always had that vague feeling."

I can’t believe this. He’s not some superior jerk in an Italian suit. He’s joking, pouring me a Coke, holding eye contact. "Not to sound weird, but it’s good to finally meet someone nice in here. It’s been a conveyor belt of weirdos so far. Types of people I truly never imagined I’d kiss." He sighs, and goes to continue but my surging adrenaline is already puking up questions like a schoolchild.

"What is it like?" That smile again.

"VNE? So, it’s another world. You’re a kid again. Energy, curiosity. No hangovers is just massive too."

I’m giggling like an idiot, I can’t help it.

"Really, though, it’s all the side stuff you never expected. Animals suddenly love you. I mean every animal is your bestie now. Here are my two dogs. But here are the cats, the hedgehogs, badgers that come to my garden, just to hang." He’s showing me his phone, swiping photos of birds alighting right in his palm, dolphins bobbing to meet his fingertips.

"Is that your place? It’s gorgeous."

"It’s my coast place. Cliff view. I’m all about sailing so I’m there like all summer. When I have kids I’ll get them out on the water from day one. You got any kids?"

"No. I mean, Georgie’s not really ready."

"Oh, Georgie’s the boyfriend?"

Crap, should I have mentioned him? I’m buying a kiss. Play it safe.

"Kinda, but nothing serious." Five years, mortgage arrears on a balcony flat and a Fiat Punto.

"Well, you’re lucky you have someone. Downside to being positive, such a tiny pool. And it’s not getting any bigger. I haven’t had a date in months. Everyone’s snapped up. Everyone nice anyway."  He looks like he means it.

"What will you do once you catch it?"

I hadn’t prepped for small talk like this. I should’ve chanced a drink.

"I guess, begin my life. Settle down, marriage. Start a family. The usual." I can’t help grinning. It’s really happening. Things I’ve scarcely even said out loud till now finally seem real. Seem usual.

"Old Georgie popped the question yet?"

"He’s been waiting, I think, for something like this. He wants to travel first. See things, you know."

"He waiting outside now?"

"He’s at home," but before he gets the wrong idea, "he’s doing me eggs for breakfast."

"Nice. How do you like your eggs?" Fertilised! I muffle my sister resurrecting that particular joke every visit.

"Overdone, dry as the Gobi. Mountain of pepper. He takes his wet, we use separate pans." Then, to unblock the sudden quiet, "Is it true your taste in food changes?"

"Your taste in everything changes."

"Books?"

"Films. Music. People." Why in hell am I blushing? Stop it, Julie.

"And what stays the same?"

"You mightn’t like that answer." Hairs levitate along my nape.

"Nothing." He leans in, saying it. His fingertips tingle the edge of my chin with a shocking intimacy, touching his lips on mine. I can tell we’ve started for real because my heart and lungs are for some reason searing themselves out of my chest. I’d dreaded the mechanical damp of a stranger’s mouth. By the time he starts kissing I can’t even breathe. I’m a beat behind reciprocating, but race to catch up. It doesn’t need to last anything like this long, but I fight to stop it ending. I’m smiling so much it stings and when at last I open my eyes he’s right up close, all I can see.

 "What is it like? You’ll see what I see very soon, Julie. I’m not just looking at you now. I can see you as a grandmother and a little girl. I hear your pulse, your tendons, the words you said to your mum when she was alive. I see the box you hid of her letters. Your old home and your gran as a girl in Rosslare. I can even see our boys on the boat."

"Our boys?" He grins.

"I’m already there too, waiting. You’re on your way, you’ll see it all. It’s so much more than we told you." His fingers caress my hand and we leave via the side door. And all the way back down the hall where the guys in the plaid shirts used to crouch, my phone screen is bubbling messages, lighting up the inside of the bin. Rattling the metal sides, just like all of the others. The rumble echoes down the corridor. Nobody ever comes back for the phones.<

Soulmates as a horror concept.

You WILL love this person. It doesn't matter who you loved before; any feelings you had, any promises you made, they will become inconsequential as soon as you lock eyes with the stranger Fate has picked for you.

There's no way to stop it.

There's no way to say "no."

You will meet someone and with a single glance, both of you will become someone new, someone who's now bound to this stranger whether you like it or not, want it or not.

Trapped in a dance together until the day you die.

[endofapaige]

The School Saga: A-Levels

TLDR; I'm stressed

As I write this now it’s very almost 6pm on the 7th of June, the night before double exam day. I have watched hours of media focus videos and spent more hours on twitter than I care to admit. I have always known I wanted to record my experience of my A Levels and my getting into university, but I have never been one for YouTube videos, as talking to my phone in my bedroom is extremely embarrassing no matter who can or cannot hear you. So, we’re going to attempt this as a written journal thing and as fashionable of myself and half of the internet, yes, I forgot about it until just.

An introduction to me, I am studying A Levels in English Language, Media Studies and Psychology and I am already over halfway finished. I think it’s ironic that English was the first to be done, the one I have had no problems with over my two years, while I’ve still got a week and a half until I can finally forget about the methods of modifying addiction, which I promise you is not as interesting as it sounds.

Not to pass the blame, but as someone who has never been fazed by exams, these ones are getting to me. Not because I don’t think I don’t know the content, which if you ask me now with my research methods paper a mere 15 hours away I definitely do not, but because I haven’t been prepared. My year must have been one of the worst affected by the Covid pandemic, it hit in 2020 just before we were supposed to take our GCSEs so we never got the chance to experience that stress and trauma of last minute revision and the relief mixed dread that comes with walking out of the exam and realising you used a word in the entirely wrong context and wondering just how badly that will fuck you up (hegemonic is now my least favourite word fuck you). I think if I’d sat these exams, I would’ve learnt that I cannot go two years without looking at my notes outside of lessons and expect to learn the entirety of first year content in a week. Not without a few tears and a fortnight-long headache anyway. On top of that, we have never done real exams, AS Levels were yet again cancelled, and the 25 mark topic tests where you know the questions a week before surely cannot count as valid preparation. However, I am here now, having revised more than I have ever revised in my life despite not attending a single lesson for a month. Let’s hope my university offer truly doesn’t take in to consideration my attendance as I’m scared to even look at that now. (I have since looked at it, it’s still at 87%, nothing to worry about...)

To start off exam season, I had my first psychology paper, after having seen twitter uproar about exam boards not sticking to the advanced information it’s safe to say I was terrified. I had spent two weeks committing the advanced info to memory, and any other topic was but a distant memory and a jumble of words that didn’t make sense to my too-tired brain. The morning came, and sleep surpassed me (not as badly as I expected mind you) I woke up feeling like I was going to vom. Not in an I’m sick way more in an if this exam is hard, I’m going to sob so hard it hurts. Getting to college, the stomach was still churning. Meeting up with my friend Emily, she ran me through all of the revision she had done, and all of the content she knew that I did not. That didn’t help. I did not need to know that being left-handed affected the brain activity in Raine’s research Emily, but thanks for the stress. There was a quick flip and a friend’s breakdown that helped the nerves pass, because I was far more worried about her than I was about myself - the few advantages of not needing any special requirements in exams is that they cannot get them wrong. The paper in the end went well, not to jinx it, the questions were nice and straightforward, and I wrote until my hand was in a cramped claw that I couldn’t quite move. I remembered the five stages of Little Albert’s conditioning study for no reason at all. But all in all, it was a very very pleasant start to the four weeks of hell.

The day after, my first English paper came around, children’s language acquisition had always been a strength of mine so the feeling of throwing up wasn’t nearly as bad. My friends and I spent half an hour just spurting random knowledge at each other hoping that anything we’d miss would finally stick and then we walked into the exam hall yet again. There’s something odd about being sat behind your friends because while I was writing frantically about the nature and nurture debate in the effect on a child’s language, I was mutely aware of Daniel staring at his paper doing not much at all, well it didn’t look like it anyway. Considering children’s language gave us the easiest question known to man, AQA had successfully led me into a false sense of security. A false sense of security that was instantly and horrifically dashed by textual analysis. When you read ‘this section will be on a cooking text’ I think it’s safe, fair, and correct to assume you are likely to be faced with a recipe of some sort. I along with the entirety of the nation were frantically prepping for a Jamie Oliver guide to something or another, a recipe for his kids or something I don’t know, to be faced with an article about how to survive a student kitchen and a narrative piece from the opening to a 1960s cookbook about God knows what. I think it’s safe to assume if anything has bought my grade down for English language, it was that.

Friday the 27th bought my first media paper, missing an English lesson I would have much rather have been in, missing my two best friends for the final lesson we would’ve had together, I was suffering in another exam. With media comes the watching of an audio-visual product and therefore being in a separate room which apparently leads to nothing but shambles. In our case the product was the Up All Night music video by Beck, a song nobody in the room knew bar my friend Charlie who only recognised it from FIFA. Contemporary my arse Eduqas, we were all waiting in anticipation for Olivia Rodrigo. Analysing music videos has never been something I particularly struggled with, however that was when I could actually see the music video I was meant to be analysing and I wasn’t very aware of the 5 minutes we were supposed to spend watching this music video had turned into 25 because the invigilator was so fucking useless, time we lost out on writing by the way. I am not happy. Obviously not off to the best start I didn’t have high hopes for this exam, which was good because the entire thing was a travesty. I would explain but I might cry, let’s just say that easy A is a solid C and I can kiss my dreams of university goodbye.

Half term rolled around, and I had an entire week to revise for my next three. Did I? Funny you should ask. No, I didn’t, I sat at my desk watching The Big Bang Theory, I should have regrets, but I don’t, it was nice. I’ll let you know if that changes. A little bit of cramming on a Sunday after a summer holiday shopping trip and the Queen’s platinum jubilee, English Language paper 2 had quickly snuck up on me again. A positive start as Emily, Eleni and I walked into the exam hall still cry-laughing about inky crotches (don’t ask) and trying to spell Schloffer? Schodloff? Shodffer? I still don’t know. This exam must have been the peak of exam season because that was the nicest paper I’ve ever sat. If there’s one thing you learn about exams, it’s the topic that came up the year before is very unlikely to come up again. However, my entire class actively ignored this and still wishfully revised language and gender hoping AQA would be nice and give us the easy topic. They did. And thank fuck that they did. Discourse analysis wasn’t bad either, a mix of standards of English, occupational lexis and accent and dialect. Not as strong as language and gender, but not one I couldn't’ve messed up too badly. So, all in all, with my English course done and finished, I can say that I’m not too scared. A bit scared but not shitting bricks.

As I write the next couple of paragraphs it’s somewhere between the evening of the 8th of June and the afternoon I should hope of the 9th. Another two exams have passed, I am officially finished with Media and I have just over (as of 11:38 on the 8th) a week until my final paper for psychology and I am done with my A Levels for good. Today had been the day I had been dreading since the beginning, Psychology research methods in the morning and Media to follow the same afternoon. In my humble opinion, yes it should be illegal to sit two exams in one day because once you’ve done one the wrist ache and brain pain is too much to take 2 hours and 30 minutes’ worth of waffly essays on a French TV show you’ve only half-assed watched twice and a youtuber you haven’t watched or thought about since 2014. But it’s done, I did it and the exhaustion is another level. I say as I’m still writing and awake like I don’t have to get up at half 8 tomorrow morning for a driving lesson, Emma if I fall asleep at the wheel that’s not on me.

Upon reflection, psychology paper 2 could have been much worse. I only revised a very small section of the spec, having convinced myself that everything else was common sense and making up some strengths and weaknesses was a walk in the park. Something in my brain must be psychic because the very small number of topics I revised, was everything that came up on the exam. There were a few questions where wording caught me out and my bullshitting superpowers came into play yet again, like my attempt to justify the use of a directional hypothesis in a study rather than a non-directional hypothesis. Or my attempt to convince the examiner the line graph was used because it was a test of association when it tells me on the next page that it was in fact a test of difference. I didn’t go back and change it I thought writing something down was better than a load of scribbles and the written format of a mental breakdown. I did however finish with half an hour to spare in which I checked, checked and checked again that I read every question right (yes Dad I actually read the questions) but I still managed to come out of the exam having definitely lost two very easy marks, after writing it wrong, correcting it and then changing it back again. But hey that’s only two marks.

The media paper was another story, a very appropriate and consistant follow on from the hell on paper that was component 1, but that’s a story for tomorrow (it’s still the 8th!) while I try to avoid having to commit the social explanations of addiction to memory. For now, sleep must embrace me, so I don’t kill myself on the road and my brain doesn’t start leaking out of my eyes. Stressful evening to follow a stressful day, never try to plan a holiday with your friends it’s bound to end up in arguments especially when you’re used to being the one organising and you are not the one organising, sorry Elyes the control freak in me jumped out thick and fast…

Okay, it’s the 14th of June and realistically I don’t have time to write this at all. I’ve just worked the busiest weekend at work I think I’ve ever worked, Paul is yet again creeping me out, and I’m supposed to be memorising the NICE guidelines for Naltrexone. Instead, I’m drinking coffee from my basically broken coffee machine and listening to Hamilton, so I thought I’d run through how my media exam went very quickly. I always thought Media was going to be my easy A, I’d spent the last two years getting As and A*s and being praised to no end by my teacher (I love you Karen x) but Eduqas really took that and crushed it to dust. The first exam was traumatic, no time to finish, couldn’t see the screen for the music video, not enough space to write, no spare paper in the room, horrendous invigilator. Luckily, paper two was in the Sports Hall so the invigilator issue was better. It had been my only exam where I’d been sat right at the back. I could not see the clock. The clock is a vital piece of equipment when you need to time essay responses. Great start.

Yet again Eduqas decided to fuck us over, giving us a page and a half worth of space for a 30-mark question, and making the layout of the exam incredibly confusing. With media, the teachers get to pick which set texts to teach from a long list, all schools do different ones so at the start of each question you have a tick box to say which texts you are writing about. You then have the answer space for question 1, what I didn’t realise until after I’d spent 25 minutes writing about Humans, was that despite that being my first question, to the exam board Humans was question 2. There was a separate space for question 2. I had written a 15-mark essay in the wrong space. Obviously panicking, I asked what to do. I basically asterisks'd the booklet 4 times and now I’m hoping the examiner can figure out what goes where… so if I fail Media that is one of many reasons. I could sense my friend Abi practically laughing at me from behind, only for her 5 minutes later to realise she had done the exact same thing, as did half of twitter by the sounds of it. So, it’s definitely Eduqas’s fault not me being an idiot.

As for the questions, the exam boards’ claim they would make it easy for our year due to the pandemic definitely should’ve been taken with a pinch of salt. The Human’s question was to evaluate the fandom theory. The theory half of the country didn’t learn at all and the ones that did learnt it as an A* push. The theory very simply states that an audience interacts with a text nowadays by creating their own content relating to it, like fanfiction or fan edits and the like. It’s not a substantial enough theory to drag out into a 15 marker without repeating yourself until it hurts or ignoring the question entirely. The first of two 30 markers later on in the exam we found out was content taught in the third year of a media degree and wasn’t anything we were expected to know at A Level at all. So that was another 50 minutes of pure waffle and loose links to the question hoping if I dropped enough names and referenced enigma codes enough, I’d still get the marks. I’m not convinced. So, coming out of that exam and finally finishing my media course (thank the lord, I was promised interesting, I was highly disappointed. I also think I learnt more about my teacher’s take on football than the content itself but hey ho) I’m starting to think that easy A is practically impossible. Let’s just hope the grade boundaries are 6 feet underground and I can still scrape a B to get me into university. We shall see. For now, though, I really should return to psychology. Just two days to go and 10 topics I am still clueless about. I’ll update you Thursday evening when I am finally free, and newly stressed about making sure I have everything packed to go to Portugal the day after.

Thursday evening has arrived, my parents have both left the house shouting something I couldn’t hear, but something I’m sure I don’t actually want to know what it was. The temperature is uncomfortable, I have been sweating in the most ungodly places for hours, but I am free. Free from revision, free from Psychology, free from college. Forever. By forever I mean I’m done with revision for at least 4 months, bur the rest of it forever forever. Obviously, I’m beyond excited to be free from it all, but something in me is now a bit lost. So much time, so little to do now I don’t have anything to memorise. The exam this morning was a shambles, well not really, but it was the first time I’d walked into an exam hall and blanked. No names, no research, no content. Appropriately, everything in my mind went ‘shit!’. The questions were cruel, three methods of modifying, no characteristics and the ethical costs of research controversy. Just like Eduqas to fuck us over at the last second. I can’t complain though, I answered every question and my hand ached like hell by the end of it. I wrote a conclusion for every question that needed a conclusion, one of which cost me a very valuable five minutes I needed for the antipsychotics question. But I answered them, and I got in as much content as my melting mind could remember, even if I have jumbled up names, dates and what they did I should hope the examiner gives me marks for trying. It was the general consensus that component 3 of psychology had fucked us over, we all came out pulling faces and complaining to our teacher. We all are hoping we made up for what we lost in this one in the first two exams.

But this is it. My A Levels finished. I no longer study Media or Psychology. I am now technically an undergraduate studying English, or Publishing (we’ll see which university I actually get into) and I have three months ahead of me where I will be spending more money than I have. If you were wondering my plans for this summer: after Portugal, I’m going to see Dear Evan Hansen in the West End, and then between watching and rewatching movies, reading as much as I can, hopefully, maybe, I’ll start on writing a romance book that I’ve been planning for months. And I will do all this while I wait anxiously, always niggling in the back of my mind, for the dreaded Thursday that is August the 18th where my future will be decided for me. Where I’ll find out just how badly Eduqas has fucked me over, and if I’m officially a student of Lancaster University or another burnt out gifted kid scrambling for something to do when September rolls around. And that day is when I will write to you again, like I have now, in the style that I usually save for my notes about feelings I don’t usually have, to update you on that dreaded Thursday and share with you my fate.

[skruffie]

three years ago today (dec 3rd) I went back to the Seattle office for the first and last time since the pandemic to turn in my telework equipment. Barely anyone was there because... pandemic, so when I came into the office I wasn't sure where the motion detectors were and it was pitch black. Eventually the IT guy was there and he got the lights on, and the sun was starting to rise.

I had this rather uh, intense emotional reaction to going back to my cubicle that is a bit hard to describe because internally it felt like I was getting triggered by something, and I'm still resistant to describing it as being exactly that, but it wasn't pandemic stress that was triggered. It was remembering how overwhelmed I was with the work prior to the pandemic, including the beginnings of what would later become weekly panic attacks. I got really sad looking at the calendar I had up where I had begun crossing out each month in anticipation of when I'd get promoted and was forced to pause in March 2020. It was a lot.

The office manager was there at some point and I got closure on the office plants. She'd gathered them all in one location and kept them alive.

Eventually my supervisor came too and we organized some of the last paperwork that had been sent from the regional office I'd been working at, and around the late morning she was like "I guess this is it!" and gave me a container of stuffed cabbage rolls she'd made herself. This gesture was really bizarre to me and I didn't know how to feel, because up until that point all of the work I had done and my accomplishments and milestones had gone completely unacknowledged. I had taken on (my idea) paying the concrete goods vouchers for our office "temporarily" for the two-three weeks we were meant to be shut down and still doing it up until a month before I quit. When the daycares were shutting down, all the foster kids that had been in part-time daycare were getting their payment codes updated to full time so the daycares could still receive money even if the children weren't going. I spent two days converting over 300 codes manually. When the eviction moratorium was about to expire I emailed my supervisor like "hey, what's the protocol for this when we're going to be getting requests to pay rent for families that are waiting for their kids to come home" and found out within days, after my email was sent up to the CFO, that nobody in headquarters thought to consider that.

The regular feedback I got was that I was very good at customer service, but I just needed to make the payments and not try to undermine the authority of the social workers in their cases. I will never forget my first supervisor, after listening to me detail how I helped a social worker map out how a kid was getting from county to county using our transportation service "You think too much like a social worker" as a criticism. Years later I've had social workers say I was their favorite fiduciary and I was like HUH?? Asking them why, because in my head I was always late on payments and responding to emails, and they were like "You actually took the time to listen and help us with the complicated payment and placement problems."

That job torpedoed my physical and mental health, both of which only really started to bounce back within the last couple years. The stress of that job had me calling crisis lines during panic attacks not because I was suicidal but because I just needed somebody to talk to. I contemplated taking up smoking. The physical toll it took on me left me with PMDD-type/inflammatory physical symptoms on a monthly basis for years that is re-triggered by extreme stress; debilitating enough to where I tested multiple times for COVID when I felt sick.

Three years on I'm doing much better. 🖕

[rewordthis]

Let me tell you why…

I am a) fucking upset about wikipedia the past 4 years and b) RAGING MAD right now!💥🌪️💥

a) First of all, I don’t know what most people use wikipedia nowadays but before 2020 I personally used it for verified information on mostly anime as well as other various topics. Let me explain the anime aspect a bit more though...

Back in my noob years, I would download to watch anime on my pc because connection was shit to load on an online site, which unfortunately sometimes led to watching things that left me baffled at best and horrified at worst. I had nightmares.

After the 3rd time this occurred, I resulted in checking wikipedia for genres and a general overlook of the main story of whatever I wanted to watch. Helped greatly— even helped me make watching lists depending on release dates etc. Everything peachy!

But after 2020… bloody fuck! What happened??? Every plot section always ends with the story’s conclusion stated flat out there for everyone to read — like an ass hanging out from a ripped pantsu!!! — and get the spoilers spit in their face… I mean, WHAT?! I never encountered this thing before! Why are the contributors feeling the need to fuck up your enjoyment? Is it revenge for being shut-ins during covid? Are authors replaced by the malign trolls that we had in the fandom since times immemorial? Was I too lucky to never encounter this (which I highly doubt considering all the anime researches I have done on the site!)? Which is it? This sucks majorly and I’m absolutely seething with how this particular side (anime media/entertainment) of the internet has become. I. HATE. IT..— 😤

b) And second of all, this is a recurring problem INSIDE fandom! I am 97% sure it’s the covid that let dicks sorry I meant people who normally wouldn’t bother with anime and fandom to take a swing at it and then invade platforms with tons of reposts of ‘sophisticated’ verbatim recounts of every chapter and every episode of every goddamn manga and anime that exists! What meta and shit? Make an actual observation first! Add something! Define something! IN YOUR WORDS! IN YOUR ART! And THEN call it meta!!! Also, here more specifically, I’m sick of seeing the same manga panel 278 times with just thirst captions being changed… Ya’ll are horny! We get it! Just put that one stupid panel up with as many deranged tags you like and let everybody else reblog it with their own! Jeez~ It’s so hard to find an art or an actual original post about something in all that mess! >:E

And the YouTube! Oh the goddamned YouTube! Who the heck wants to waste 27’ of their time to watch “The Smarts of Gojo Satoru you didn’t realise” or “How Trigun’s Vash is an incredible character” blah blah blah??? Get over yourselves! I have my own answers and observations and besides— who told you you are ‘right’ in the first place to educate me?! I want AMVs, dammit! I want slash ships and fics and ARTS!!! Not useless regurgitations of the same ONE CANON thing! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! GRAHHH!!!👿

BTW, the actual analyses that do provide info and insights — yes, those still exist — are just SO buried under all of the debris of trash and misinformation that finding anything is a miracle. _(:3 」∠)_

And a bonus for those that read this far… this has to be the most freaking braindead shit I have read my whole life…

Tell me you’re missing the point without telling me you’re missing the point…

Well. duh! The creator MADE him that way! Bruh…

Also, yeah. You guessed it. I got spoiler-ed for the Trigun ending, too! No matter what, JJK continues being an unavoidable pest also. Grrr… Anime onlys just can’t get a break— not even outside fandom anymore and thus THIS IS SO ANNOYING! (● ˃̶͈̀ロ˂̶͈́)੭ꠥ⁾⁾

I SUPORT KNIVES ON HIS ENDEAVOURS! WIPE THE DAMN UNIVERSE, MY BOY!!!

[semenrussellbeale]

So since I've been decidedly less than actively engaged on here than I used to, perhaps my mutuals would like a life update. Well, unfortunately, there's nothing all that great to tell anyone about. In fact looking back, it's finally dawning on me that, despite the positive developments, 2024 has been the absolute worst and wasteful year of my life. I mean…

January – Discovered that I'm allergic to bananas and honey now.

February – Remembered that I attempted suicide round this time in 2020 and am still disappointed I didn't succeed; had a fight with my mom and decided to finally begin the process of moving out this year.

March – Feeling guilty about getting top surgery done on International Women's Day. Suffered a horrific attack of peripheral neuropathy a week post-op (more on that later).

April – Most likely caught COVID for the first time ever, though I was never tested so I can never be sure if it was It or just a bad cold; ironically, nobody else in the house got sick except me. Shortly after, fought with Mom again and left home permanently this time.

May – Month of Madness; started Wellbutrin and spiralled into the worst mental state I've ever been in in my life, with severe anxiety attacks, paranoia and psychosomatic symptoms (including what felt like a heart attack!). I might have been accidentally overdosing, too, since I was taking two extended release pills every day. Hospitalized thrice, called the EMTs at least 6 times. Even after detoxing, my legs would shake uncontrollably at times. Also had an ovarian cyst that blew (I went in assuming it was appendicitis) and it legit felt like I was dying. Learned that nobody cares about COVID anymore (my family included) and it's only getting worse, so I can't pursue a normal job if I want to stay safe.

June – Internalized Homophobia Month

July – Month of Madness 2. Had another fight with my mom, then got into a bike accident. Both my arms were practically useless for weeks on end, my right arm especially, even though nothing was broken. Dislocated my left shoulder on my birthday because I was using it to compensate for my right arm. The peripheral neuropathy and anxiety attacks were back, too; this was how I finally learned that I'm allergic to Tylenol, and I started getting better immediately after stopping it. Finally realized that my mom is a narcissist after our fight.

August – Vacation to Slovenia was cancelled. COVID scare, though thankfully I was negative. Keep fighting with my mom/coming to terms with the fact that she's a narcissist who's been emotionally abusing me for years, and that I just need to accept that she'll never change and I need to cut ties before it's too late. Otherwise did absolutely nothing this month.

September – Turns out huffing paint fumes from your staining project is bad for you! Who would have thought!? At least I got paid though, because I need to find a new healthcare provider after my plan changed. Starting to wonder if I have brain damage from either the Wellbutrin or possible COVID case in April, because I haven't felt normal since January. Also my dad is planning to take me to an immersive exhibition centred round my special interest…during the middle of the worst COVID wave in years, and I'll likely be the only person masking there.

Needless to say, I can only anticipate what will happen next this year with the utmost dread and preemptive disappointment as my world grows smaller by the day. I doubt I'll ever make a full comeback to any sort of social media in spite of it.

[uncleasad]

I finished Season One of Dickinson earlier this week, and now I have a backlog of thoughts to post… This one—the only one so far in complete prose form—was written on or about January 5.

With Dickinson 1x06, the “cruelty arrow” has finally come to land on Emily herself. And while her intentions were noble—who among us would not wish to be freed of responsibilities in order to spend a few days devoted to our life’s calling?—the way Emily went about this ruse, and especially witnessing her loved ones’ reactions, make her seem callous and selfish, or at least obliviously self-centered.

When it aired in 2019, no one could have understood the gravity of Emily’s (fake) illness, which is ironic since but a year later, in early 2020, everyone would have understood—yellow fever in Emily’s day, like COVID-19 in early 2020, was essentially a death sentence. Today, only 3 years removed, I think many people, particularly those who did not lose someone at that time, neither adequately recall the dire nature of those days nor adequately grasp the deathly seriousness of Emily’s lie. Indeed, while I recognized her lie was when I watched, the full gravity of it did not sink in until much later, when I made the connection (and, mercifully, not having lost someone, I still don’t have the same sense of terrible weight that others would).

Emily’s father’s confession of his drunken affair/one-night stand while betrothed to her mother was one thing, but Mrs Dickinson’s (still casually cruel) reminiscence of early motherhood and lament at soon having to bury a child (one she never wanted, yes) began to show the real harm of Emily’s faking a deadly illness. Austin’s bedside chat, though sad, was a breath of fresh air, because it served to highlight the depth of the sibling bond they share, and his love for his sister, in spite of their “fight��� for Sue’s affections.

But it was Sue’s return to Amherst, distraught at the likely loss of yet another person she loves—the person she loves the most in this world, perhaps—that really hammered Emily’s cruelty home. Knowing that Sue had lost everyone she’d loved, how could Emily have stooped so low to have faked such a sickness? (How long had Emily been faking this illness? And how fast does mail get from Amherst to Boston? I can believe Sue could make it back to Amherst the day after receiving Emily’s letter, but I cannot believe Emily wrote and mailed the letter the day the episode opened, it got to Boston, and Sue was back the very next day.)

I’m somewhat hopeful that Sue’s words resonated with Emily and that, combined with Austin’s confessions about the nature of his love for Sue the night before, prompted Emily to realize how selfish she’s been and “urge” (with eye contact and a nod and a lifetime of shared history between them) Sue to say she’d come back for Austin.

I enjoyed the B-plot with Emily’s “new George”—Edward’s new law clerk, Ben—who like George has shared literary interests with Emily and encourages her wilder notions—perhaps more so than even George, as the night swim shows. (Edward has let another fox into the hen house!) Unlike George, Ben seems (so far) far more understanding of Emily’s situation and desires—although I do not fully trust him, no matter how sweet his story about his father’s wedding ring is….

In the C-plot, was I the only one to think that Lavinia’s dress looked reminiscent of Emma Watson’s as Belle? And with her…wild-haired…cat, it was to be a portrait of Beauty and the Beast? (No? Just me? OK, well, we all know my mind works in a bizarre manner 😂) It was heartening to see that she took the portraitist’s words to heart, however, and began trying to draw herself as she wished to be seen—a nude self-portrait in front of a mirror is a fascinating concept. And…also interesting that Lavinia did not make a bedside visit to Emily…

[artemisiatridentata]

I am begging y’all to please wear a mask (ideally an N95, such as a 3M aura, or at least a KN95 or KF94) in public and in crowds, indoor AND outdoor, even when you DON’T feel sick or have any symptoms. At least 20% — and some sources say up to 60% — of cases are asymptomatic!!! Meaning you could feel completely fine, waltzing through the grocery store or restaurant or concert maskless, and be shedding virus and infecting countless other people!! Please mask up to protect yourself and others. If you’ve stopped, it’s never too late to start again. It is never pointless.

Also — just want to clarify a couple things mentioned above.

1) Covid is not endemic. Here’s a good explanation as to why:

2) While I’m very glad to hear the person above is experiencing mild acute symptoms, I hope people reading that don’t interpret it as a reason to drop precautions like masking, testing, avoiding crowds, etc!! And the next things I’ll say are not meant to scare y’all, but to reiterate the seriousness of this ongoing viral pandemic.

Covid is not becoming more mild. It is, rather, becoming more infectious and more immune-evasive, meaning immunity you may have from vaccines or prior infections protects you less as new variants evolve and spread.

While the acute phase of covid can result in mild symptoms for some people, the long-term effects are worrying. An increasing number of previously healthy young people are getting strokes, heart attacks, brain fog and other severe post-covid sequelae. Even mild cases can result in brain damage equivalent to an extra year of aging, and covid can impair your body’s ability to fight off future infections. An estimated 23 million Americans and 65 million people globally have or have had long covid, a cluster of often life-altering and debilitating symptoms that persist weeks, months, and even years after an acute infection. Hell, the WHO themselves recently stated that you have a 1 in 10 chance of developing LC with each infection, though some estimates put it at 1 in 5. Idk about y’all but I am not tryna fuck around and find out with those odds.

I’m not even going to get into the eugenic aspects of the way the US government and corporations are handling this pandemic, because I’m tired and don’t want to type all that out right now. But that’s another important reason to wear a mask, imo. Since the pandemic started, disabled people have been pushed out of society and repeatedly ignored and told the basic protections we’re asking for are too much to ask. They’re not. Caring for the people around you by wearing a mask is one of the most radical things you can do right now. Don’t let the government and capitalist corporations convince you otherwise.

Lastly, what we have to remember is that we are early on in this pandemic. We are just starting to see the long-term effects that repeat covid infections are having on people, and they are, frankly, horrifying. What will the world be like 10 years from now, if everyone keeps going along with the back-to-normal getting-infected-twice-a-year grind?

Anyways. Personally, for all these reasons and more, I’m not willing to take risks like going unmasked in public. I’ve avoided restaurants, bars, movie theaters, concerts, and other large gatherings since March 2020. I continue to wear an N95 in public, both indoors and outdoors if I’m around a bunch of people. I use other mitigation tools like air filters and antiviral nasal spray to further reduce my risk, and I…. may or may not have hypothetically used a fake name to get two Novavax shots even though I wasn’t eligible for more vaccines since I got a bivalent booster back in the fall. (No I didn’t. I would never do something illegal! Even if the government were dragging its feet on updating vaccine guidelines! Haha! You should definitely not do something like that!) is it hard to live like this? Fuck yeah. It fucking sucks sometimes. But you know what would suck more? Throwing caution to the wind and listening to corporations urging me to get back to normal and then getting repeatedly infected and probably becoming even more disabled or dying.

I would much rather make some sacrifices socially and listen to doctors and scientists and long covid survivors who have been sounding the alarm bells and screaming from the rooftops since 2020. Because I love my life, I love being able to do the things I’m able to do, and I don’t want to lose that by getting long covid. I don’t want to raise my risk of dying young from a stroke or heart attack. I don’t want to risk infecting someone else and condemning them to that fate because I wasn’t wearing a mask. And I doubt that any of y’all want that either, deep down. 💖

reminder that even if the world health organization says covid is over, it isnt.

[ruminate88]

Symptoms After Narcissistic Abuse ?

My last relationship with a narcissist, Andrew, ended March 2015, although I continued to have contact with him afterwards for that whole summer at least until August. Then I had to face Andrew one more time in January 2016, but he wasn’t the only narcissist I ever dealt with I dealt with two others(that I’m aware of), Cody and Jake.

I got married in 2017 to a really nice guy but I was still pretty keyed up from narcissistic abuse. I don’t think I truly ever relaxed and I know that I consistently worried about if my husband was going to cheat or going to lie to me or suddenly tell me he pretended all of his feelings just like my ex, Andrew, said he did. I kept waiting for my husband to drop a bomb on me and it has yet to happen, but I’ve continually searched for it…

2020 we all know Covid happened and it was very crazy and extreme. I think everybody was on edge wondering what’s going to happen next!! will there be enough food, was everybody going to get sick and die, was the sickness even real, what about the vaccine, was people going to lose their jobs, was the world going to end…? In the fall of 2020 began all of my stomach issues: I had burning in my esophagus so bad I could not eat for weeks and I randomly lost 25 pounds!!! 😳Mind you though, there was times when I dated Andrew that I actually had no appetite and forgot to eat, because there was so much drama, stress, confusion, fear and heartbreak with him, but I never lost any weight then… I was 127 when I was with Andrew but I continued to carry a lot of weight and I actually gained weight after I got married!! I was up to 133 pounds! But at the end of 2020, I was now down to 110 pounds.

in 2020, I never knew what narcissism was but I knew that I would consistently think about Andrew and I could never stop and I felt as if I was cheating on my husband even though I wasn’t! I had no contact with Andrew whatsoever. I just could not stop thinking about him 24/7 . I never knew about trauma bond. I had no idea why I was still obsessed with Andrew and I hated it so much because I knew what he had put me through and how bad of a guy he was and there was no way I should be able to miss him! that made me feel really stupid, like, why would I miss a guy that treats me so poorly? I also believe in 2020 all that happened in our world made a lot of people think about how their lives could change in a moment and you wonder how people are doing. I did wonder if all of my exes were OK how they were surviving, did they lose their jobs ? Did they get sick? Did they get the shot? So many things running in my mind because I’m just a person that always cares about other people and that will never change for me. I did try to Google Cody to see if he was alive because I had a bad feeling but when I googled him, he looks fine to me. Doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with him and I wonder did he get sick during Covid or did he get the shot? What is he doing with his life? There’s not a whole lot of information online like their use to be. He stopped updating a lot of his social media accounts! (Probably made all new ones cuz he does that) He doesn’t have any social media that I could find but I did find his new address and his new phone number, it was all I could do to keep myself from writing him a letter since he ghosted me, but I knew that would be a horrible idea that if he can ghost me, that means he does not care about me whatsoever and sending him a letter would probably not change or affect him at all It’s better that I just let him go even though he has no idea how I never got closure, and I suffered so many years with that it was like a heavy burden on my heart because of him!

when you read online about the aftermath of narcissistic abuse, you learn about trauma bond, cognitive dissonance and it says that you can have memory loss, headaches, stomach issues, which I did have stomach issues but not until 2020 my last relationship ended in 2015! My question has been was the stomach issues from stress of Covid or narcissistic abuse? Was it something else that I had going on inside of me or was it the aftermath from all the narcissist abuse, dealing with three different narcissist??? The problem is even though I’ve stopped losing weight and I’ve been able to eat, I still get a lot of indigestion and heartburn issues. Now I had a grandmother, whom, when she was alive also had a weak stomach but I don’t know if she ever truly went through what I’ve went through. Whenever the stomach issue started in 2020, I tried to call the doctor and get help but unfortunately it was during Covid and that was all that the doctors could focus on at that time!! they could not help me with anything else unless it was Covid related but they made me an appointment to see them. it was all about Covid though and I had a very uncomfortable feeling about it, and I backed out of the appointment because I simply did not trust the doctor at that time! I believed they were only going to test me for Covid and they were going to probably say I had Covid and try to convince me to get the shot and I just did not feel right about it. I had a very bad feeling. That means I had to fix myself. I had to find something over the counter to take just to stop the burning in my esophagus, and then I had to move on and questioned what’s wrong with me? How did it start but now that I know all about narcissistic abuse, and the symptoms that narcissistic abuse can cause, I realize that I’ve had just about every one of the symptoms, including: I was depressed and suicidal the whole time I dealt with the narcissistic men. 🥺🥺🥺

if you or someone you know is or has dealt with narcissistic abuse, let them know that it’s OK and that it’s not permanent and that they will get through it and they will be all right. The memory loss I never had!! (thank God) I’ve always had an excellent memory, but there is a lot of fog surrounding narcissist, and they are very confusing people... They confuse you all the time!! It’s a real thing and they keep you distracted too! When I was dating Andrew, I was so distracted that I couldn’t focus on ANYTHING except him the WHOLE TIME and there’s still times I find myself distracted, thinking of him, and it tries to stop me from getting anything accomplished in my daily routines and I have to remind myself that that’s in the past!! I’m in a new reality now and I want to be in my present time!! I don’t want to be trapped in the past, but it is very easy to be stuck in the past. 😰 It is a real thing and you need to recognize it and you need to work on it. You’re working on yourself every day, learning and growing. Don’t stop growing and don’t stop moving forward!

I was diagnosed in elementary school with a learning disability and with slight add which is now titled as “adhd” but your ability to “focus” when dating a narcissist, is way worse!! I struggled to be in “reality” more than usual and even my mom saw how much I changed at that time. Andrew just had me so obsessed with him and I’ve struggled to break that.

tell me what you think about all this below……

[skylarkalchemist]

I work in a vet clinic, and I'm considered immunocompromised due to an autoimmune disease (lupus). I continued to wear a mask even after my boss removed masking requirements for the clinic, and got comments from clients regularly. "Why are you still wearing that crap, covid's over" and "well im not gonna do it anymore" and "i don't believe that masks help."

When I'm feeling sick, I mask, because I can't afford to miss work but want to protect my colleagues, and I get comments from coworkers and clients alike. "You know that doesn't do anything, right?"

Since stopping regular masking, I've been sick more frequently than I've been in close to 7 or 8 years, and my frequent illness over the last 2-3 years has triggered my lupus, which went into remission in 2019, to come back in full force in 2023. As a kid, I was sick at least once a month with rotating respiratory illnesses: strep throat, pneumonia, bronchitis, sinus infections, all sorts of URIs.

During the "covid years," 2020-2021, I was in the best physical health I've ever been in, because I was in lockdown and I was masking anytime I left the house, and so rarely got ill. If I did get ill, severity was significantly reduced. I didn't get covid until after I had 3 boosters and my employer stopped requiring masks (during a period where I still masked full time). I got it from a client who was coughing in an exam room. I was in the room with them for a matter of minutes, taking their pet's history. I was out of work for nearly 2 weeks because a client came in while blatantly ill, and coughed all over me with no fucks to give, unapologetically fucking me over.

I am so fucking close to masking up for the rest of my life and never stopping again, because my physical health was never better than when I was masking full time, and I fucking hate that people are so resistant to something that quite literally changed my life for the better.