#and yet i am so very nutrient deficient

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

my hospital switched to a system where i can see a lot of the data they hold for me online and it's actually very funny because i can see where they completely lied about my height and said i was five foot seven but then put my weight as it actually is, skewing my BMI massively, and then it just goes back to normal and nobody ever mentioned it again

[flock-talk]

Transparency With Parrot Food Manufacturers

There's been a significant rise in the expectation of transparency between pet food manufacturers and the general public. Dog food manufacturers, for example; have AAFCO, feeding trials, and an array of nutrient digestibility charts, base nutrient expectations, and sanitary guidelines to follow which a lot of brands then openly share with the public. These standards help pet parents make more active choices in what they feed their pets, tailor their pets diet to meet their individual needs, trust that their food meets a base line of nutrition, and that the food was produced in a sanitary manner. The dog food industry is far from perfect and even these regulations have their flaws and the tests aren't without fault but it is a good base for us to compare to when we're trying to sort out what we want from other pet food manufacturers. In this case I'm focusing on parrot pellet manufacturers.

I had a few different goals heading in to this.

I wanted to see how transparent pellet manufacturers would be with sharing information that is common to ask dog food manufacturers (information is not confidential, revealing formulas, secrets, etc.)

The availability of nutrient analysis charts (breakdowns of how much of each nutrient is in their pellets)

What standards parrot food manufacturers held themselves to

If any feeding trials were performed on their pellets

And to preface this with my own bias, I am pro-pellet, I currently feed pellets.

Before we get too deep in to this let's break things down a bit.

As it stands there really aren't any regulating bodies above parrot food manufacturers as far as I could find. There doesn't seem to be much of any standards when it comes to their sanitization or product quality, the best you get is the FDA/ CFIA which basically just make sure a food isn't outright toxic. As it stands there haven't been enough studies done on parrot nutrition for there to be a governing body stating what the minimum nutrient requirements are for parrot food, we simply do not actually know what those requirements are yet so there cannot be a set standard for it. This unfortunately leaves us open to a lot of problems, if there's no nutritional requirements and no standardized testing then we're really just putting a lot of trust in to a company that wants to turn a profit. We're hoping that the food that says it's nutritionally complete is what it says with no evidence to show for it, and no science to confirm it.

So with that said no parrot food can actually claim to be "100% nutritionally complete", we do not know what nutritionally complete looks like for parrots, there is no science to back up those claims.

So I set out and emailed every parrot pellet manufacturer I could think of and asked them the some questions.

"Does your company do feeding trials? If so, is that data available to the public anywhere?"

"Do you have a nutrient profile available?"

Feeding trials are very simply a test where you feed a set of animals exclusively one diet and then monitor them to see if the food is capable of providing the base essential nutrients needed to live. Usually they do blood work, urine and fecal alongside regular physical exams to monitor things like nutritional deficiency, ailments, and nutrient digestibility. This helps show that a food is capable of providing what the target animal needs to survive without causing health problems and provides vital information on what amount of vitamins/ minerals in the produced food are actually being digested and absorbed. These tests are common among well-known dog food companies and most are more than willing to share that data to give their consumers peace of mind with easy transparency.

And let me tell you I am beyond disappointed at what happened when I asked parrot food manufacturers the exact same thing.

TOPs: No nutrient profile listed on the website, does have a detailed breakdown of why every single ingredient was added though. Happily discloses that parrot nutritional science doesn't have all the data to claim any food as 100% nutritionally complete and advises for the feeding of fresh foods in addition to their food, didn't specify exactly how much of each to maintain optimal nutrition.

I emailed them three times and never got a response back from any of them.

Harrisons: Does say you can feed 20% vegetables by weight while the pellet should be 75%, has an easily available nutrient analysis on their website.

also emailed three times with no response back.

Caitec: no nutritional analysis listed on their main website, website did not state how they want their product to be fed, product packaging states that veggies should be a treat/ addition and lists the pellet as a "complete diet".

emailed three times with no response back.

Lafeber: Primarily promotes mixed seed and pellet formulas, doesn't state any risks of parrot's selective consumption (study on that problem), does promote the feeding of fresh produce in conjunction with their formulas at 20% of the diet, no nutrient analysis on their website.

emailed three times with no response back.

Zupreem (Compana Pet Brands): did respond back but they phrased their response in a way to dance around the subject, after some pushing they confirmed they do not do feeding trials. Encourages use of fresh foods with their formula, at least 60% pelleted diet recommended. Had an extremely small nutrient profile that just skipped over the important nutrient requirements like the Ca:Ph. I asked for a nutrient profile which they did not want to provide but were able to tell me that the naturals pellets have 0.59% calcium

Roudybush: Says fresh foods can be fed but "as a minor part of the diet", does say that science doesn't have enough information to make a product tailored to each species of bird, did make changes to their formula recently to remove menadione in favour of alfalfa due to it's potential toxicity. does seem to be evolving as science progresses. Ingredients list wasn't listed on the website, nor was a nutrient profile.

did not reply to any emails.

Tropican (HARI): I was hopeful for this one by the way their website boasts about their feeding trials and research. So so hopeful.

Talks about doing feeding trials openly on their website, recommends 70% pellet to 30% fresh foods (by caloric content not weight) but mentioned that their birds eat 100% pellets. Easily accessible albeit basic nutrient profile but it covers the main things.

After my email Mr. Hagen actually ended up calling me and what I was hoping would be a motivating call ended up being very hostile. Whenever I asked questions about data or results of a feeding trial I was immediately shut down, the topic was changed, I was interrupted mid-sentence over and over again. I was able to get small tidbits of info that were as vague as "we've fed multiple generations of birds on this food" and "we do annual weigh-ins". He would casually mention data from a study he had done but then dart away if I asked for the name of the study so I could read it later. It was an extremely off-putting phone call. Completely unwilling to say how many birds were in a trial, how many years the trial went on for, if there was bloodwork or nutrient digestibility charts, nothing at all. He also casually mentioned that once the birds are old enough they get sold to stores which was very unnerving to me.

So I guess they maybe do legitimate feeding trials but they will under no circumstances offer that data to the public? I don't know. They wouldn’t provide any published articles or data to actually prove that the trials exist and I will definitely not be contacting them again to find out. They suggested I was trying to steal their formula and lying about my identity. I'm not going to try to get a simple answer out of them again.

Mazuri: recommends 20% fresh foods 75% pellets, nutrient profile available on the website.

did not reply to any emails.

Pretty Bird: Does not do feeding trials, prompt to reply, at least knew what a feeding trial was. Couldn't find feeding recommendations on the website, no nutrient profile aside from the generic guaranteed analysis having a few add-ons but still skipping on the important nutrients you'd want to know about.

Kaytee: Did not know what a Feeding Trial was. Thought I wanted samples and offered me a coupon. I had to explain to this animal food manufacturer what a feeding trial was. Unsurprisingly they do not do feeding trials. Website had no listing of a nutrient analysis. Recommended 70-90% pellets to some fresh foods. In their own published article they went over how damaging seed diets are for parrots but then they also sell seed-only diets with the ingredients they were specifically bashing in their own article. When I asked for a nutrient profile this is what I was given:

"Nutrient levels are calculated based on ingredient data, feed compendium tables and direct diet analysis. Actual levels may vary slightly due to ingredient and analytical variation."

Kaytee exact naturals cockatiel pellet:

"0.4% Calcium 0.2% Available Phosphorus (non-phytate P) 0.1% Magnesium 120 ppm Zinc 140 ppm Iron 700 IU/kg Vitamin D3"

and that's just extremely limited information. I'm glad they were willing to provide something but in comparison to some of the others it's just not a lot of data.

Psittacus: advises for the use of grit in parrots, recommends 100% pellets but says you can feed a minimum of 70% to make room for fresh foods. Their response to feeding trails was really vague: "our products have been evaluated and tested in our centre as well as collaborating centres. This information is for internal use and it is not published anywhere". Wouldn't say what tests were done or elaborate further than that in any way. I then inquired for a detailed nutrient analysis chart saying that Mia's calcium has been a bit of a struggle (since it has been), curious if their brand may have more calcium than the ones Im using now to help her out to which they replied with "our food contains the calcium levels appropriate for him/her". (you literally cannot say that, you haven't run tests on my bird, you haven't worked with my vet regarding my bird, you cannot guarantee a blanket statement like that.). They did offer me a link to this catalogue which has more detailed info on their pellets production and a more thorough nutrient analysis chart.

I am shocked by the responses I received. I am disappointed in parrot food manufacturers. I am frustrated with parrot food regulations.

I knew I wouldn't get much out of these emails since the standards for parrot food are so low but the amount of companies that just pretended not to get my emails or didn't even know what a feeding trial was is ridiculous. The amount of companies that were making claims that science can't back up, or making claims that science actually disagrees with is astounding.

The complete lack of transparency is terrifying.

[rainyfestivalsweets]

Book Review: The Binge code

So I am mid read on this book, and I thought I would like to share a little because I am sick. I need a pleasant distraction from work today. But, I'm on my lunch break and so fear not, I am logged out.

The Binge Code by Allison C Kerr. " 7 unconventional keys to end and binge eating and lose excess weight."

Part 2 is where you break free from the binge traps so I am going to start there, although she didn't.

What are the binge traps? Although the book does go into detail, I will list them off here very quickly for you.

The diet trap

the yo yo blood sugar trap.

The nutritional deficiency trap

The habit trap

The food rules trap

The false friend trap

The inner critic trap.

So I am through about half of those and I would have to say that this book is worth a read, especially if you feel like this is an issue for you, or especially if you have been dieting for a while.

The one thing that has been most glaringly obvious to me is I've been on this weight loss journey for a couple of years now is the first 3:

The diet trap is that "diets" are short-term, restrictive things that we embark on when we feel like we need to lose weight. We ignore hunger pangs because we are trying to change our eating style, and that blunts our normal hunger cues.

The yoyo thing is where your blood sugar is all over the place.

The nutritional deficiency trap is where you aren't getting the proper nutrients, which makes your body keep asking for food, even if you have already eaten because it doesn't have the right combonation of stuff.

I can understand how these are traps. Yet, I also consider myself to be "dieting," so how do I do I make this congruent to myself?

I have read a lot at this point, and I am working on a full view perspective.

I know from my behavioral science class that your body is also going to ask for food whenever it sees food. Literally, it is how we are made because never ever has food and food like products been so abundant.

You have to know that is happening in your body to make a reasonable decision for where YOU are in your day, journey, etc. Ask yourself: When was the last time you ate? What was it? A junky snack or a real substantial meal? Do you need a meal? What is being offered?

This is a very nuanced topic, which is why a lot of people deal with it and why so many people are overweight.

Alright.

Why do we have such an obesity epidemic?

People are positing as scientific fact that dieting causes people to overeat. It does certainly cause certain psychological things that happen. Most diets use some kind of tool to cause a calorie deficit. One way or another a diets whole goal is to cause a deficit so that you lose weight.

If the diet is super restrictive in some way, it can cause us to have hangups or to hyperfocus on what we are missing. Basically, it is reverse psychology.

The real key is to develop a lifestyle that is balanced enough that we can avoid those traps.

Part of the key might be to just utilize your common sense. If you are getting serious binge urges, you may need to ask yourself if it is valid. Is your body just really asking for food/fuel?

If so, plan and prepare a well-balanced, reasonably protioned meal with proteins, carbs, veggies, and fats. Eat it and wait an hour. How do you feel now?

If you feel like you are hitting the blood sugar trap, up your protein and cut the junk in half, and add a veggie to everything.

Although I consider myself to be "dieting," I am working towards building a lifestyle that will be sustainable over time. I don't want to rebound and pack on the pounds after giving away all my fat clothes.

Ultimately, your lifestyle will be who you become. Which I think is why I am trying to focus on habits over time that are easy to remember and habituate. Mile Monday, 5k Friday, Sunday Bike club. Races & activities.

I am always focusing on overcoming my particular hurdles so that my lifestyle will be in balance. Activity and rest. Sports and Academic. Food and fasting, in balance.

[rindemption]

So, I'm not sure how many people are still around from 2-3 years ago when I first talked about it, but I had some (for me) significant health changes a few summers ago that, while greatly improving, are apparently still affecting me

I was in a high stress/ high energy output job for a while. Nearly 10 years, and the longer I was there the worse it got. From a promotion that changed my job expectations to post-covid understaffing. Over the course of one summer I lost a significant amount of weight for the size I already was. It was just under 10% of my total weight, and put a lot of strain on my body. I lost muscle mass as well, because I ran out of fat to lose. On top of physical stress, I was under a lot of mental stress as well, and situations at home and among my social group left me in a very negative headspace that in no way helped my situation. When I'm depressed and stressed out, I have no appetite.

I had to make changes to my diet that, while not ultimately healthy, ensured I wasn't at a calorie deficit. It was a horrible cycle: I would come home from work with no energy to cook, which meant I wasn't getting the nutrients to give my body energy. So I'd resort to quick, high calorie, ready made meals, that in the long run resulted in vitamin deficiencies instead.

And the physical state affects the psychological state, so mentally I was a mess. My two main creative outputs at the time were writing and virtual photography. Looking back, my writing style was inconsistent, messy, and the tone of it was all over depending on my current mood. I didn't have the mental energy to draw, but I could get excited about and do vp. But even that was only to the point of "good-enough". I could never focus long enough or put the energy in to get it to the standards I wanted.

I'm in a much better place now, but I can still feel the shockwaves of the toll all of that took on me. I left that job a few months ago, and thanks to my spouse's support I'm putting weight back on. But I still feel like a train wreck. I lose words- even just writing this I've had to stop multiple times to try to figure out what word I was about to write. I'm doing low impact workouts to try to put functional muscle mass back on, and my balance is completely shot. I'm doing stabilizing workouts meant for the elderly and struggling. I'm not even 30 yet. I started drawing again, but I get fatigued quickly and take a day-long break between doing any significant art. And I still struggle to focus long enough to get the game pictures I really want, but it's slowly getting better.

I guess the point of writing this is three things. Firstly, an update for anyone who was around back at the beginning, when I mentioned my struggles. Secondly, if anyone else is dealing with something similar, or finally getting out of a stressful situation: you're not alone. It's hard, long work, but we'll get better with time and persistence. And thirdly, if it seems like I'm changing it's because I am. I'm not in survival mode like I was before, I'm slowly patching up my mental state, slowly getting better. I'm figuring out who I am when I'm not struggling just to stay alive. But I feel like I'm changing for the better.

[ajokeformur-ray]

I'm not a doctor but why do u have to get blood tests so often??? Mine aren't concerned with it as much, maybe because I have gluten insensitivity and not coeliac (although they believe i have it, the only way to confirm is a scope and biopsy and they don't want to do that at this time)

I asked my doctor about cancer risks and the GI doctor and him (hes a specialty) both said with newer studies the anticipated risk of cancer is actually really low. So did your doctor say something different or am I being lied to or is it an anxiety thing

This is new for me and seeing other people who may have it is so nice to see (not nice but relief im not alone)

I have to have blood tests so often because there’s a massive risk of vitamin and mineral deficiencies with coeliacs disease, as our bodies cannot absorb nutrients properly even when on a gluten-free diet, so every six months I have a blood test to make sure all my vitamins and minerals are where they should be and to make sure I don’t have anaemia, which is also a complication which occurs within coeliacs disease even when following a gluten free diet. I was so anaemic at one point I had the equivalent of half a paper clip of iron in my blood, got put on a six month regime of the strongest iron tablets, and then had another blood test to confirm I was no longer anaemic. That was even with following a gluten free diet. Next step after that would have been a blood transfusion, but thankfully the tablets worked. There’s also the possibility of having a lower bone density due to the aforementioned inability to properly absorb nutrients through the intestinal lining, which is why I also had to have bone density scans prior to diagnosis and every few years I have to have one of those to check up on my bone density. There are SO MANY complications with coeliacs disease. It’s just… it’s scary.

(That’s fair enough, the endoscopy they have to do to test if you have coeliacs disease is quite invasive; I had to have about seven or eight medical tests to confirm I had it and it was a really uncomfortable six week period. I’m happy your doctors aren’t too concerned with it at the moment! Blood tests are so annoying and to make it better on me, I like to make jokes about attending vampire food banks.)

I had to have appointments with doctors and nutritionists and they all told me the same thing; the risks of intestinal and stomach cancers are really high within coeliacs disease IF you don’t follow a gluten free diet. So if you know you have coeliacs disease and you choose to eat wheat and gluten anyway, you are at a very high risk of developing cancers within the same kind of area (i.e. digestive system). I don’t want to mess around and take any chances so I’m very careful with my food and very strict on it, because I don’t want to contribute to any chances of developing those cancers. I’m just not willing to risk it. So I don’t know why we were told slightly different things, I was diagnosed almost ten years ago so the literature on this topic might be different now.🥺

I know what you mean, it’s quite cathartic to know you’re not alone. Interestingly, coeliacs disease is hereditary and yet I’m the only one in the family who has it. No one else has it, has been diagnosed with it or has signs of it. So I like to wonder which of my ancestors gave it to me.

[blonde-reverie]

Hey! I know this post was supposed to be hypothetical rather than a serious inquiry, but I’m actually going to school right now to become a dietitian, and even though I haven’t finished my degree yet, I have learned a ton of nutritional science and I may have a real answer for you!

1) vitamins are either water soluble (vitamin C and B vitamins) or fat soluble (vitamin D, K, E, and A). Water soluble vitamins can’t be stored in the body, so when there’s excess they get flushed out in your pee, but they also tend to be the most abundant vitamins in our food, so it’s very rare to hear that someone is deficient in them. As long as you eat just some fruits and vegetables during the week and at least one (I think) serving of meat or dairy a day if you eat meat, or take a B vitamin complex if you don’t, you really don’t need to be stressed about being deficient in these vitamins.

Fat soluble vitamins on the other hand CAN be stored in your body, so any time you eat more of these vitamins than you need, they get stored in fat deposits in the body and can be broken down and used when they’re needed, so you don’t necessarily need to eat foods high in these vitamins all the time and that’s why we don’t see mass scale deficiencies of these vitamins in the western world at least.

2) you mentioned magnesium, magnesium is a dietary mineral along with others like calcium, potassium, phosphorus, etc stuff like that, and the good news is that minerals are also stored very abundantly in the body! Minerals are stored in our bones, organs, fat cells, water stores, etc, and our body uses such trace amounts of them that most people have sufficient stores that their bodies can dip into when they’re not eating enough of them. In one of my classes, we were looking at health statistics of Americans and the truth is that most Americans aren’t deficient enough in anything to even need a multivitamin, only particular at risk groups such as the elderly, people with serious diseases, or kids with AFRID are the ones who may benefit from supplementation.

So to answer one of your hypothetical questions, no!most people don’t need to eat massive amounts of nutrient rich food everyday because your body is actually pretty good at anticipating and planning for periods where you can’t eat the entire spectrum of vitamins and minerals on a regular basis :) you are correct, the daily recommendations that you see on food labels aren’t really accurate and pretty much nobody can eat the daily recommendation of EVERY nutrient listed EVERY day, but because of the need to streamline basic health advice and labeling standards and blah blah boring stuff like that, it’s unfortunately just how food labels are at the moment.

Now you mentioned that you DID start taking a magnesium supplement and felt a very noticeable difference which honestly is a pretty good indicator that you might’ve been deficient in that mineral. If you really do suspect that you have a deficiency somewhere, I would take a look at your diet and consider:

1. Do I eat regular meals throughout the day or do I eat sporadically? Additionally, when I do eat, am I eating actual rounded out meals or do I tend to just snack a ton here and there and not really have an idea of what exactly I eat in a day

2. Do I eat a variety of foods even just from a week to week basis? Or do I tend to buy and eat the exact same meals/foods every single week? Like I said, the human body is actually pretty good at storing the nutrients that it needs, but this is why it’s a concern when kids have AFRID or other food aversion issues because they’re not cycling through different foods and nutrients to use and store

3. How are my mental health and stress levels? So like all systems in the body, your ability to use, store, and literally absorb nutrients from food is actually affected by your psyche, which is a wonderful thing to hear in our current day world! (sarcasm). Being stressed can deplete your nutrient reserves much faster, which makes you feel worse and sicker, and then you get more stressed, and you get the idea. In this instance, yes, you may actually benefit from supplementing a couple of things. Relatedly, I see that your username is in reference to the most commonly used ADHD medication and I’m gonna assume that you have ADHD or are neurodivergent in some way (which may be incorrect, please tell me if I’m wrong) in the last couple of years as we’ve learned more about neurodiversity, it’s actually come out that ND people use nutrients differently/at different rates AND tend to have their own unique deficiency concerns that differ from neurotypical people, one of them being………….MAGNESIUM! (And zinc, copper, vitamin D, among others) so it’s totally possible that you had an innate tendency to be in a magnesium deficiency and this is the first time in your life that you’ve actually had a healthy amount in your system! If you are ND and this interests you, I would recommend spending some time researching the topic and deciding for yourself if it sounds like it’s worth considering.

If after all of this you still suspect that you have a deficiency, it’s totally possible that you do even if you live in the western world. It might be worthwhile to pay attention to when/where your body feels sick, tired, or just not working right and look up symptoms of common deficiencies and talk to a qualified health professional about if you would benefit from a supplement. (if you can access that of course, I know for many people it’s not easy)

So, yeah! There’s my super long reply that you didn’t actually ask for. I’m sorry if this is super annoying and if you don’t want this on your post, I can delete it if you want, but I’m really passionate about nutritional science and I love talking about it because most people don’t know a ton about their health and about food and this is why scammy health foods and supplements are so profitable, when people know better, they can’t be swayed as easily by Dr. health food who claims that mega dosing will flush ‘toxins’ out of your body and totally not send you to the hospital with a deadly vitamin overdose :)

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A DOCTOR, I HAVE NOT FINISHED MY DEGREE AND I AM NOT QUALIFIED TO GIVE PEOPLE HEALTH ADVICE. SOME OF THIS INFORMATION MAY BE INCORRECT, SO IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR DIET OR START TAKING SUPPLEMENTS DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH AND TALK TO SOMEONE WHO IS QUALIFIED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Maybe everyone isn’t as poor as I think they are but how are any of you getting your vitamins? The first time I took a magnesium supplement my entire world changed. I woke up feeling like I was on a cloud with muscle pain I didn’t know even existed gone because I was that low on it. Are you guys literally eating a MASSIVE variety of foods every single second of the day? How is anyone getting the required nutrients? I feel like daily requirements are wayyy too unattainable I’m surprised I don’t have scurvy. Is everyone taking the same handfuls of supplements I don’t know about? Like I’m actually pissed off it’s so much work to not die slowly of malnutrition

[missmeinyourbones]

good morning loveliest L!!! ヾ(≧▽≦*)o 26, 56, and 76 for the ask game and i hope you have the bestest day today <3 (+ have you had breakfast yet?)

my lovely baby yuna <3 i am eating a bagel w a coffee rn (its almost 2pm but alas i dont eat much in the mornings lol) thank u for making sure i get my nutrients ;_; i wholeheartedly adore you and hope YOUUUUU have the very best day that you can today !!!

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

i like just laying out in the sun??? lmfao im very vitamin d deficient this time of year so sunlight is good for me. i like when it tingles and slightly burns ur skin WOW im excited for summer. i like swimming too

56. favorite tradition?

idk if its really a tradition but i like when halloween is coming up and i get to partake in all of the spooky festivities hehe. i love watching horror films every night or lil kid halloween movies like monster house!!! i also paint pumpkins (because carving smells bad and painting is more fun)

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

this is prob the most important / hardest question on this list LMFAOOOOO fuckkkkkk i think imma go w fries just bc they can be so versatile and pair w so many different things. second in command is def mashed potatoes tho MMMMM so good

ask me something (if you want)!

[balkanradfem]

First time growing tomatoes story

So, I never expected to be telling this story, and planned to take it with me to the grave, but I'm here to embarrass myself anyway.

It was 3 years ago, I just got my community garden plot, and a few seeds from the plant lady. I grew tomato transplant inside, using the knowledge bestowed upon me by youtube videos, and I was doting on these plants in almost obsessive manner. Of course, a lot of them died from 'mysterious reasons' (it was a mix of sunburn, overwatering, drying out and very wrong containers) but in the end of it, I had about 10 good and big tomato transplants, ready to go in my new garden. Everything was good and filled with hope and a bright future of gardening was awaiting for me; except for one thing. My tomato's leaves were turning purple. At first I was like 'cool' but then those purple-leaved tomates wouldn't grow! They were standing still.

I asked the plant lady about it, and she had never ran into this issue and had no idea what I was talking about. I researched this weird phenomenon and the internet informed me it was a nutrient deficiency; these plants needed fertilizing.

I didn't exactly have anything to fertilize them with; at that point I knew I could make a fertilizer with nettle, but it would take 10 days or more for that to be finished. I didn't have a gardening budget and internet diy advice was only dumb stuff like 'blend a banana peel with coffee grounds' like I had either of those.

So, I convinced myself that once I put these plants outside, they would surely find new nitrogen in the soil, and it would be all good. They still had some greenery on them and didn't look too bad. I transplanted them out carefully, stared worriedly at them for very long, and went home worried.

Few days later, I went to check on them, and experienced my worst moment of gardening yet; they were all completely black. Entire plants turned black. I could barely see them in the soil. I barely stopped myself from bursting into tears, quickly put together nettle and water so I'd have the nettle fertilizer in 10 days, and went home determined to find every single article on home-made fertilizer until I found something I could do on my own.

I was reading articles obsessively until 2am, most of them were no use but there was one big list with 1 item that was doable. It said this: "Human urine contains more nutrients than any store-bought fertilizer, and it's sterile unless you're carrying some bacteria in your blood. Dilute it with 10x water and water the plants with it." Now that was something I easily had for free. And it was no time to be grossed out, the lives of my tomatoes were at stake!!

So, I managed to sneak a bottle of that to the garden, mixed it with water, prayed nobody would be able to smell anything, and I watered my tomatoes. The scent turned out to be easily absorbed by soil and it was no worry about anyone figuring out my dirty trick.

Next day... my tomatoes were all green and absolutely perfect. I could not believe it. It had worked out so quickly I was stunned by its effect. Human urine could do that for plants? It was mind boggling. Severly relieved, but also curious, I went home and... used the same trick on every plant on my balcony. Next day, my balcony plants were absolutely bursting with growth. Their color improved, they grew taller overnight, leaves became bigger, I was in my own plant oasis.

Since this worked so perfectly, I never stopped using it. I noticed it's not working out if I use it too often, once every two weeks was the most my plants can tolerate. And now sometimes my garden looks suspiciously lush and some of my plants look very green and happy and I'm too embarrassed to admit why. But I felt confident telling you all, in case anyone was thinking of buying plant fertilizer. You don't need that. Humans produce plant food just like plants produce human food.

In the end, the first time I actually cried about my tomato plants, was when they produced the first ripe tomato, and I immediately burst into tears, hardly believing I made it, and it was a final confirmation that I can and will grow my own food. To make things better, the plant lady had given me seeds for 'climbing triple crop' variety which produces humongous tomatoes, so my first tomatoes ever were over a kg in weight monstrosities; that easily convinced me that I am absolutely great at this. Needless to say, I never had a tomato plant turn purple, or black again.

[rallamajoop]

...and the unironic joys of better living through chemistry

How do I love Venom: The Hunger, let me count the ways…

It’s by far the shippiest Venom/Eddie story to come out of the character’s heyday. It’s the only story of the era to treat Venom’s violent wild-animal instincts not as an immutable fact, but as something that can be managed. It pulls off an aesthetic like nothing else that was being done at the time.

And then there’s the way it says, Does the world around you seem sinister and foreboding? Do you lie awake at night contemplating metaphorical oceans of despair? Well shit, son – have you considered you may be suffering from a mundane neurochemical imbalance, and a round of the right meds could clear that right up for you?

It does all this without breaking the atmosphere, without a whiff that our story has been interrupted for a Very Special Message about mental health.

In the near-decade since I was first prescribed anti-depressants, I don’t think I’ve read another story that lands the message “Sometimes, it’s not you, it’s just your brain chemistry,” so well.

Fair warning: if you have not read The Hunger, I am about to spoil every major plot point. If you have, well, maybe I can still give you a new appreciation for a few details you might have missed.

It’s a strange book, whatever else you take from it. It’s almost the only thing either author or artist contributed to the Venom canon, and it’s so different stylistically and tonally from the 90′s Venom norm that it feels like a tale from some noir-elseworlds setting instead of 616 canon. When you take risks that big with a property, you leave yourself precious little landing space between 'unmitigated triumph’ and ‘abject failure’: if this book hadn’t absolutely nailed it, I’d be dismissing it as edgy, OOC dreck. Fortunately, if The Hunger is nothing else, it is a story that $&#@ing commits – to basically everything it does.

Now, I'm not going to tell you Venom: The Hunger is a story about overcoming depression, because I don't know whether author Len Kaminski even thought about it that way while working on it. There's always space for other readings, and this one take is not gospel. That said: holy shit is this thing unsubtle with its metaphors. And with that in mind, let’s start by talking a little about Kaminski’s take on Eddie himself.

As I may have mentioned before, I like to divide 90′s Eddie into two broad personas: the Meathead, and the Hobo.

Kaminski’s Eddie nominally belongs in the angsty, long-haired Hobo incarnation, but that’s a bit of a simplification: this version certainly has plenty of angst and plenty of hair to his name – but nowhere, not even at his lowest ebb, does he doubt that he and his Other are meant for each other, which is usually Hobo!Eddie’s primary existential quandary.

He’s also taken up narrating his own life like a hardboiled PI.

So that’s... novel.

The only other time Eddie’s sounded like this is, er, in that one other Venom one-shot Kaminski penned (Seed of Darkness, a prequel that sadly isn’t in The Hunger’s league), so I think we can safely file it under authorial ticks.

Then again, Hobo!Eddie’s always been one melodramatic SOB, so maybe this is just how he’d sound after learning to channel his angst into his poetry. You can’t argue it fits the aesthetic, anyway.

We’d also be remiss not to mention Ed Halsted’s art, which I can only describe as gothic-meets-noir-meets-H.R.-Giger. Never before or since has the alien symbiote looked this alien: twisted with Xenompoph-like ridges and veins.

But Halsted doesn’t treat Venom to all that extra detail in every panel. Instead, the distortion tends to appear when the symbiote is separated from Eddie or out of control – and I doubt you need me to walk you through the symbolic importance of that creative decision. More importantly, Halsted’s art provides exactly the class of visuals that Kaminski’s story needs.

Did I mention this is a horror story? You might be surprised how few Venom stories really fit that genre, but if all those adjectives about Halsted’s style above didn’t clue you in, this is one of them.

Anyway, with that much context covered, let’s get into the main narrative of this thing.

As our first issue opens, Eddie’s world has become a dark and foreboding place. He’s not sleeping, though he mostly brushes this off. (Fun fact: trouble sleeping is one of those under-appreciated symptoms of depression. Additional fun fact: the first doctor ever to suggest I might be suffering from depression was actually a sleep specialist. You can guess how that appointment was going.)

Just to set our scene, here’s all of page 1.

Eddie’s narration has plenty of (ha) venom for his surroundings, but the visuals are here to back him up: panels from Eddie’s POV are edged in twisted, fleshy borders and drained of colour, the people rendered as creepy, goblin-like creatures. A couple of later scenes go even further to contrast Eddie-vision with what everyone else is seeing:

As depictions of depression go this is a little on the nose, but then, you don’t read a comic about a brain-eating alien parasite looking for subtlety, do you?

Eddie  doesn’t see himself as depressed, of course. As far as he’s concerned, he’s seeing the world’s true face: it’s everyone else who’s deluding themselves. He’s still got his symbiote, so he’s happy. He’s yet to hit that all-important breaking point where something he can’t brush off goes irrevocably wrong.

But he’s also starting to experience these weird... cravings.

He just can’t put a name to exactly what he’s craving until a routine bar fight with a couple of thugs takes a turn for the horrific.

(I include this panel partly to point out even in The Hunger, the goriest of all 90′s Venom titles, you’re still not going to see brains getting eaten in any graphic detail. We don’t need to to get the horror of the moment across. The 90′s were a more innocent time.)

Eddie himself is horrified when he comes back to himself and realises what he’s done.

Or rather, what his symbiote’s just made him do.

Kaminski doesn’t keep us in suspense about why, though. Eddie may have just done something horrific, but there’s a reason, and it’s as mundane as a vitamin deficiency. He’s bonded to an alien creature, after all, and his symbiote is craving a nutrient which just happens to be found in human brains. And if Eddie can’t or won’t help it meet that need, it’ll do so alone. 

Now, giving us that explanation so quickly is an interesting creative decision: this is a horror story, and horror lives in what we don’t know. Wouldn’t it be all the more horrifying had the symbiote been unable to explain what’s going on, leaving Eddie without the first real clue as to where this monstrous new hunger had come from?

The Hunger doesn’t take that route though, and I love it. Eddie isn’t a monster, this isn’t his fault: he has a fucking condition, and wallowing in his own moral failings is going to get him nowhere. You might as well try to cure scurvy or rickets with positive thinking. Just like depression can make you feel like an utter failure at the most basic parts of being human, and all the affirmations in the world won’t fix it when it’s fundamentally your brain chemistry that’s the problem. Or like addicts aren’t weak-willed for struggling not to relapse, they’re dealing with genuine chemical dependency – or even like how someone who’s trans isn’t at fault for being unable to reconcile themselves to the bodies and the hormones they were born with by pure force of trying. Free will is more than an illusion, but we’re all messy, biological organisms underneath, and your own brain and biochemistry can and will fuck you over in a hundred wildly different ways for as many wildly different reasons and it’s not your fault.

We aren’t monsters. But if we do, sometimes, find ourselves identifying with the monster, there might be a reason for that.

(Ahem)

I’m just saying, that’s fucking powerful, and we need more stories that say it.

Anyway, in case you missed it during that tangent, issue #1 closes with the symbiote having torn Eddie’s heart in two itself free to go hunting brains without him.

I’m trying not to get too sidetracked at this point talking about Kaminski’s take on the symbiote itself. Suffice to say there are broadly two schools of thought on how it ought to function while separated from its host: the traditional ambulatory-slime-puddle version, and the more recently popular alternative where anything-you-can-do-with-a-host-you-can-also-do-without-one. I’m not much of a fan of the latter, personally: if your symbiote doesn’t actually need a host, I feel you’ve sort of missed the point. (The movie takes the route of saying symbiotes can’t even process Earth’s atmosphere without a host, which is a great new idea that appears nowhere in the comics, and I love it. Hosts or GTFO, baby!)

Kaminski has his own take, and I can only wish it had caught on. Without Eddie, the symbiote becomes an ever-shifting insectoid-tentacle-snake-monstrosity, driven by an animalistic hunger. It’s many things, but it’s never humanoid.

If you absolutely must have your symbiote operating minus a host, I feel this is the way to do it: semi-feral, shapeless and completely alien (uncontrollable violence and cravings for brains to be added to taste).

Issue #2 comes to us primarily through the perspective of the mild-mannered Dr. Thaddeus Paine of the Innsmouth Hills Sanitarium (yes, really).

Yeah, he’s not fooling anyone. Meet our official villain! He joins our story after Eddie is picked up by the police and handed off to the nearest available institution, on account of how completely sane and rational he’s been acting.

Naturally, Dr. Paine soon has copious notes on Eddie’s ‘crazy’ story about his psychic link to a brain-eating alien monster. Fortunately for Eddie, Paine also runs some tests and makes an interesting discovery. 

Congratulations, Venom: the ‘vitamin’ you were missing officially has a name!

Finding the right meds isn’t always this easy. I got lucky – the first ones my psych put me on worked pretty well – but I have plenty of friends who weren't so lucky. In fact, the treatment for Eddie's problems is so straightforward it arguably has more in common with, say, endocrine disorders like thyroid conditions or Addison’s disease, which differ from clinical depression but present many similar symptoms (but can sadly be just as much of a bitch to get correctly diagnosed – please do read author Maggie Stiefvater’s account of the latter when you get the chance, because forget Venom, that is a horror story).

‘True’ depression remains much less well understood by medicine, either in its causes or how to effectively treat it. But simply having a name for what was wrong with me made so much difference, and that’s an experience I imagine anyone who’s dealt with any long undiagnosed medical condition could relate to. It put my life in context in a way nothing else had in years.

(I can’t speak to the accuracy of the way phenethylamine is portrayed in this comic – a quick google suggests there may be some real debate that phenethylamine deficiencies have been overlooked as a contributor to clinical depression, but having no medical background, that one’s well beyond me. Either way, scientific accuracy really doesn’t matter in this context – it’s how it works in-universe for story purposes that we should pay attention to.)

Since this issue is mostly from Paine’s POV, we don’t get Eddie’s reaction to having a healthy amount of phenethylamine sloshing around in his brain again, just the assurance that treatment appears to be ‘completely successful’.

He’s still a paranoid, hostile bastard though. Meds can turn your life around, but they won’t make you not you.

But even if Eddie’s feeling better, he’s still psychically linked to someone who isn’t. Symbiote-vision still comes through drained of colour and edged in viscera.

That’s the thing about meds: they won’t solve all your problems overnight. If you’ve been depressed for a while, there are good odds you have problems stacking up. But working meds can be a godsend when it comes to getting you into a space where you can deal with your problems again, whether said problems are doing-your-laundry or all the way into not-giving-up-completely-and-just-accepting-you’ll-die-alone-on-the-street.

For Eddie, ‘dealing with his problems’ begins with stealing a keycard and busting out of the asylum.

Of course, that’s the easy part. How do you solve a problem like a feral symbiote? Like any good 90′s comic book protagonist, Eddie tackles it by putting on his big-boy camouflage pants and kitting himself out with weapons and pouches while quoting “If you live something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down.”

We can add this to the list of things I love about this comic. Even if The Hunger is a weirdly-stylistic tract about depression at heart, it’s also still a goddamn 90′s Venom comic, and not ashamed to be.

We’re into issue #3 now, and back to hearing the story from Eddie’s POV.

Eddie is very much aware that his symbiote has murdered innocent people while they’ve been separated. Even if this is the result of extreme circumstances, there’s a good case to be made that the symbiote is too dangerous to be allowed to live. Plenty of heroes would treat it like a rabid dog at this point.

But Eddie isn’t a hero, he’s a mess of a character and an anti-hero at best, so we don’t have to hold him to the same standard. He’s well aware his symbiote may be too far gone to save, that he may have to put it down – but that’s only his backup plan. He wants to help it. He wants it back. He’s down in that sewer with screamers and a flamethrower because he knows all his symbiote’s weaknesses, but he’s also carrying a large jar of black-market synthesised phenethylamine, because if he can just get close enough...

Depression can’t make you a literal monster, but it can make you an asshole. Miserable to be around, lacking even the energy to care who else you’re hurting. The depression doesn’t excuse that, but it makes everything harder, and it’s that much easier to sink back into your spiral when everyone around you has given up. It can make you think everyone around has given up even if that isn’t true.

So to have Eddie here say, in effect, I don’t care how many people you’ve eaten, I know it wasn’t your fault. I still love you. You’re still worth fighting for – god, does that get me right in the id.

There’s still a whole issue left at this point – we’ve still got to deal with our real villain, Dr. Paine, who we’ve just learned is into eating brains himself and torturing his patients recreationally, and who wants to capture the symbiote for his own purposes. There’s the scene where Eddie and his symbiote finally bond again, and Venom beats up all Paine’s goons while singing David Bowie because like I said, this is still a 90′s superhero comic and this is what Venom does.

But for our purposes, I'm going to skip to the penultimate page of the story, because the way it mirrors our opening page is really lovely.

Remember that shot of Eddie dealing with a beggar back at the beginning of the story, thinking about how these people would 'get their despair all over you'? Here he is again, cheerfully forking over the last dollar in his pocket to the next man to ask him for change. For all the gothic atmosphere and gore, it’s moments like this that make The Hunger easily one of the most positive, uplifting Venom stories ever written. Funny, that. (I could probably write a whole other essay on sympathy for the homeless as a recurring motif in Venom stories, but that... well, whole other essay and all that.)

What’s Eddie learned from this experience? Don’t take your symbiote for granted. Is ‘symbiote’ a metaphor for mental health here, is paying attention to its needs an allegory for paying attention to your own? I still don’t know how literally Kaminski meant us to take this, but it’s a lovely note to end on no matter how you parse it.

At the end of the day, The Hunger isn’t flawless. The conflict with Paine ends on a thematic but slightly unsatisfying note. Eddie makes much of his symbiote's loneliness and desire for union, but when the two of them are finally reunited, the only reaction comes from Eddie's side. In fact, the symbiote seems to have no response to being able to return to Eddie at all, and that’s an omission that bugs me.

But Kaminski is more interested than any other writer of the era in the truly alien nature of the symbiote, in its relationship with Eddie from Eddie’s side, and though plenty of others talk about the symbiote's love/hate relationship with Spider-man, no-one else had the guts to portray their relationship this much like a romance.

And Venom: The Hunger is no less interesting in the context of Len Kaminski’s other work. You don't have to look far into his Marvel and DC credits to pick up that the guy has a real thing for monsters. (“All of my favourite characters are outlaws, misfits, anti-heroes,” he says, in one of the very few interviews I could find with him, “I wouldn't know what to do with Superman.”) He's written for vampires, werewolves, victims of mad science, and all of three at once, littering his work with biochemistry-themed technobabble, melodramatic monologues, gratuitous pop-culture references, and protagonists who must learn to embrace their inner demons. So The Hunger represents more than a few of his favourite running themes.

For our context, his more notable other work includes Children of the Beast, in which a werewolf must make peace between his human and animalistic sides, and The Creeper, in which a journalist must make peace with the crazy super-powered alter-ego sharing his body. In fact, The Creeper and The Hunger share so much DNA (including an evil doctor posing as a respected psychiatrist who uses hypnosis on our hero while he's trapped in a mental institution) that it’s quite the achievement that they still feel like such very distinct entities beyond that point.

The human alter-egos of both werewolf and Creeper even use prescription meds while wrestling with their respective dark sides. The difference, in both cases, is that these are stories where meds play their traditional fictional role – and that's a role that could be as easily filled by illegal drugs or alcohol without making any substantive difference. You see, if a protagonist is using them, it's a sign of unwillingness to tackle their 'real' problems. Even among work by the same author in the same genre, The Hunger represents an outlier. And that's just a little disappointing – at least to me.

In real life, of course, prescription meds are no magical cure-all elixir. Depression meds that work for one person may not work for another, or may not keep working in the longer term. Everyone has heard stories about quack doctors who prescribe them to the wrong patients for the wrong reasons, about lives ruined by addictions to prescription painkillers, or the supposedly-damning statistics about how poorly SSRI's perform in rigorous clinical trials. The proper way to treat depression is obviously with lifestyle and therapy. People will still airily dismiss medications that we all know previous generations got along just fine without, or suggest that figures like Van Gogh would never have created great art if they hadn't been mad enough to slice off an ear. I mean, the fact you think you need those bogus mediations is probably the best possible sign of just how broken you are, right? Who do you think you’re kidding?

Our popular fiction loves stories about manly men who bury their trauma under a gruff, anti-social exterior and come back swinging at the world that broke them, bravely refusing even painkillers that might dull their manly reflexes. Other genres make space for broken people confronting their demons in grand moments of catharsis, finally breaking down into tears when someone gets through to make them face their problems. "I could barely make it out of bed in the mornings until I found a doctor who started me on this new prescription" is not only wildly counter to the accepted social narrative, it's a hard thing to know how to dramatise.

 Even other Venom comics have been guilty of this.

Believe me, I recognise all of this, and just how much progress we've made in the last few decades. But I haven't the slightest doubt that for so many vulnerable people, the stigma against prescription medications does infinitely more harm than those same meds could ever do. And just having the right to externalise my problems into it's not you, it's your brain chemistry, may have helped me more than the meds themselves.

(And again, no, being prescribed SSRI's didn't fix me overnight, but I honestly don't know if all the talk therapy and tearful conversations with family members in the world could've got me as far as I've come without them.)

I love Venom: The Hunger. It's no-one's idea of high art, but it doesn’t need to be. There is a whole other post’s worth of things I love about it that I’ve already cut out this one as pointless tangents, and that may actually be it’s biggest drawback as a go-to example: I fully recognise that I would not be making this post if The Hunger hadn't also also grabbed me as a great bit of Venom canon, being the massive fan and shipper that I am. Other people who are just as desperate as me for more stories with the same core theme, but not into weird 90's comics about needy goo aliens, probably won't get nearly as much out of it as I have.

But if it sounds anything like your jam, maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

If nothing else, it proves that you can make a viscerally satisfying story out of a message that shockingly unconventional. And you may even have people still discovering it and falling in love with it 25 years after the fact.

[blood-guts-and-angel-cake]

This is my (abridged) story.

Growing up, my mom struggled with anorexia, and my dad struggled with binge eating and obsessive eating. Growing up, my siblings and I were all exposed to toxic relationships with food. My sister developed anorexia. I was always a tiny child, a scarily tiny child, but once I became a teen I gained weight (as teens tend to do. Their bodies gain more weight because they are undergoing the change from adolescent to adult, and the body needs to hold onto nutrients in order to do so). Since being very little, I always had older kids telling me how skinny I was, so this change was devastating to me. I wasn't even overweight, maybe I was 125-145lbs between any given months. When I was an older teen, I was working three jobs and got into college early, when I was sixteen. I was going to the gym everyday. I would pass out while driving, go days without eating (on purpose), and I still gained weight. my highest weight was 165 lbs. I've recovered, relapsed, recovered, relapsed, and since turning 17, my weight has yoyo'd between 115-165lbs, at least four times. I'm 22. For years, I've been aware of the negative effects of my eating problems. I've been to doctors, I've been told that my hormones are unbalanced, I couldn't drive at night because of a Vitamin A deficiency that gave me night blindness, I've had my period cycles change drastically (though they haven't stopped altogether), I've had heart problems, I've had gastrointestinal problems, I've had sleep problems. And here I am, on the edge of recovery yet again. It's hard for me. My whole life I've had displays of toxic relationships with food. I'm still trying to identify a healthy relationship with food. but I am trying.

No matter how much of an influence other people have on you, no matter how you were raised, the most important things to remember entering into recovery are these two things:

1. Once you become an adult, the influences of your youth hold no sway over you anymore. Being a adult means that you are capable of change. That you, solely, are responsible for you actions. You may require therapy, or medicine, or treatment, and it's okay to ask for help. Sometimes, these realizations and changes aren't something you can achieve on your own. But the first step into recovery comes from admitting that your actions, are your own. You are a whole person, who is capable of learning which behaviors are unhealthy. You can't blame your eating disorder on your parents, or siblings, or the internet. It is a mental health disorder, but your thoughts and emotions don't have to control your actions. You are not powerless. You are capable of so much more than you realize, and I really believe in you. I believe in me, too.

2. You only have one body. You only have one life. Engaging in toxic eating behaviors can, and will, affect your health over time. It might not happen at first, but the longer you continue down this path, it does have lasting impacts. It helps me to see my body almost as a separate being from me. My actions, lead by my emotions, do lasting damage to a human body. My body didn't decide how to look. My body didn't say 'Lets fuck with her metabolism'. My body didn't decide to starve itself. My body didn't decide to binge eat. My body has no acting power on its own. My body is not being malicious to me. My body exists as a vessel for my mind, my being, to operate in the world. It's like a car, essentially. if my car is really beat up and old but it still drives well, I appreciate it continuing to work so I don't need to buy a new one. But if my body gets beat up, and old, and the effects of my eating disorder compound on it, I can't just buy a new one. I've learned to treat my body like a small child. And while I still have problems, I understand that I need to keep working on them if I want to stay alive.

As a side note, I understand that some people with eating problems want to unalive themselves, or feel like that might be a better option than surviving. But please, give yourself a chance to relearn old habits. Give yourself a chance to relearn your relationship with food. To relearn your relationship with your own life. Any baby step you take is progress. It's hard. But the payoff is worth it. Talk to a nutritionist to see what your body needs to run at peak performance. Talk to a therapist about identifying and altering toxic behaviors. Don't let yourself be an abuser to your own body. If you really want to feel in control, you will, in time. Even if the path to starting recovery is long and winding, even if you feel a loss of control at first, even if it sucks, when you come out the other side, you will feel more in control of your life than you ever did. I love you guys, all of you, and I hope the best for you. I hope that this post touches even just one person out there. I hope that my experiences can provide insight to someone who might not be so far along in their recovery, or so far along in their relapse.

[danideservedbetter]

Day 7, 8, 9, and 10 / Elaboration

Hey y’all! I said yesterday I would elaborate a little more on what my doctor’s visit yesterday told me, and here I am to do just that! I meant to yesterday, honestly, but by the time I got home my medicine had worn off and that wasn’t looking very likely 😅😅 But regardless!!! Here is what my results look like and honestly? These things probably have been affecting my sleeping disorder to a degree I’d previously disregarded without detailed info I’ve gotten from these tests.

Full write up under the cut!

—I got two major tests done, blood work and a genetics test. Back in my hometown the nurses couldn’t even figure out how to open the damn swab, but technology here managed to map out my entire DNA sequence which is utterly NUTS to me.

—My body is deficient in almost every important vitamin known to mankind, which makes sense because my diet is not… the best 😅 So, I started on several (SEVERAL) supplements to start out.

—I say start out because it’s very likely that I’ll be taking vitamin C and some liver enzyme through an IV once a month. A younger me might’ve thought something like this was scary, but at this point I’m so desperate to be healthy that getting nutrients drip fed into my system for them to work quicker sounds just fine to me.

—Other than that it’s normal lifestyle stuff. Eat more fruits and vegetables (I’ve been eating olives by the can for like days and I intend to buy fresh fruit packets for breakfast whenever I can afford them) as well as staying more active— which I DEFINITELY have been since I moved closer to New Orleans, in Louisiana proper where my dad lives.

But enough of the boring medicinal stuff. I’m sure you guys are much more interested in the whys— is there a reason my hypersomnia is so bad? Is there a deeper explanation than “lack of vitamins bad and you should feel bad”?

Well, yeah. YES. The genetics test revealed a metric fuckton to say the least 😂😂😂 but the most important was what kinds of diseases I’m predisposed to or how my body can process certain types of hormones/enzymes/proteins. Things like why caffeine won’t work for me (my body processes it very fast but not very thoroughly) or my metabolism being the strongest recorded genotype (which is why it’s been so hard to gain weight). Below, I’ll go into detail about stuff my new general doctor’s in-office geneticist (I still can’t believe that’s a thing I’m typing) has revealed about my disorder.

Naturally, this is specific to me because of my parents and our family lines. Maybe if you see info pertinent to yourself, looking into genetic mapping may be a good idea for you?

We are pretty confident that I have Idiopathic Hypersomnia. The reason for this is that a tiny link has been found between individuals who contracted mononucleosis in their childhood and adolescence and individuals who fell within the sleep cycles indicating IH. Now, IH will be genetic sometimes, but considering I’ve tracked my disorder to starting around 14, the same year I contracted Mono, the coincidence definitely doesn’t seem like… well, a coincidence. My blood test shows that I do in fact have the antibodies in my system, and they’re doing something… odd.

The geneticist found some “active” antibodies. Well, not some, really 😅 Basically, she’s surmised that these antibodies have a hair-trigger response and can react to any given environmental factor (stress, hunger, etc.) to the point where they activate as if they think they’re **fighting off a virus that’s been out of my system for ten years.** Of course this takes up an inordinate amount of energy, which is her hypothesis as to why my hypersomnia is so random and varies in intensity. The goal for this summer is flushing these antibodies out of my system.

My previous neurologist tried out a couple stimulants and then shit insurance prevented me from trying any others. So I’m stuck on something traditionally prescribed for adhd. A narcotic. *However* since my body is severely dysfunctional in general, the way I describe it is I basically have to induce a high to stay awake and function normally. We want to eventually get me off of these kinds of drugs, of course, since prolonged exposure weakens their effects and they’re highly addictive.

Another in credibly interesting thing we found is that I'm lacking in three major hormones. However, it's not because I don't produce them. I've never identified with symptoms of depression (anxiety, certainly, but not depression) yet for most of my life my childhood general practitioner insisted I had it. Well, the geneticist found that while I'm lacking in serotonin, dopamine, and melatonin, which yes are the two major mood enhancers and then the hormone that induces sleep, it's not because I can't produce them. It's because my neural transmitters are so damaged from a less-than-good diet and years of exhaustion that they simply can't process them. Just as the antibodies can have a hair-trigger response to environmental factors, so too can these processors. Simple things like a good meal, my high from my stimulants, or even micro dopamine shots from getting things done can activate the transmitters. Another thing on the docket for the summer is fixing these permanently with treatments of vitamins and supplements.

My stimulants have caused appetite issues, unfortunately, and that plus Covid at the beginning of this year caused me to get down to my lowest recorded weight ever, 94 pounds, which I haven't weighed since before I hit my final growth spurt way back in middle school. My dad does physical labor (he's a contractor who frames houses in the humid heat of the Deep South lol) so he's used to feeling tired. When he caught Covid, he said that he'd never felt as tired, drained, or out of it in his entire life. He never gets sick and hardly goes to the doctor and NEVER takes off work because of health, but in his last few weeks before full recovery he had to take off early multiple times. He was floored when he described the brain fog and exhaustion and I told him that I had no idea I even had Covid, because I just thought it was my disorder acting up. It was only when my grandmother started feeling tired that we got tested and we tested positive.

All that said, we think that there's hope for a future for me. She said that while there's no cure for IH, the cause that I have may can be mitigated by changes in exercise, diet, routine, and medication,to the point where I may mitigate symptoms of my disorder entirely. I'm still setting up appointments with a new neurologist here in the city, though, because technology is of course more advanced here.

And again, taking all of this into consideration, while it was looking likelier by the day, we've both agreed that I'll be here in the city 'til New Years. Which means no school this semester, but if I can go back in spring at more than 20% functionality and maybe succeed, I'm perfectly fine having to remain on break.

However, another good update: I weigh 103 pounds! I'm steadily gaining weight-- which means the other medication, the one for my appetite, is working as it should and as long as I stay on-track I should reach my goal of 120 by the end of the year as well.

So, yeah! That's what it's looking like. I have another appointment to go more in depth with the results tomorrow, but for now I'm planning out my week since I decided to let myself rest all last week. I'd love to finish helping out for our current podfic, ACTUALLY start the damn 100 Theme Challenge (LOL), finish betaing something that's been on hold for months, properly reconnect with our discord, catch up on all the media I fell behind on, clean my damn room, and establish a budget for this week on what I can buy. A more specific plan for today will follow, but til then, I hope this gives everyone some insight on what I'm looking at and how I'm gonna try to fix it.

Xoxo

Dani

[teenageprunepatrolpurse]

Get Motivated to Drop 2–4 Dress Sizes in One Month: 4 Steps to Get your Dream Body

How to lose 4 dress sizes in a month or how to lose 20+ pounds in 30 days all mean the same thing, losing weight on a deadline. Whether it be a high school reunion, your own wedding, or other specific occasions. But before we get into it, let’s talk about what matters most when it comes to effective and successful weight loss.

In this article, we’re going to cover the 4 steps to get your dream body. I always believe the best solutions are the simple ones so I don’t have 12 tips or 15 keys to losing weight fast. Just the 4 keys that are essential to successful weight loss.

Note: This article is more about the principles of weight loss and proper mindset to get you motivated for a higher success rate.

📷 If you’re interested in learning exactly how I lost 20+ pounds in 1 month without exercise after each of my pregnancies over age 40, then read this article for further details.

1. First Key to Successful Weight Loss: Set up Practical Goals 📷 Different Aesthetic Standards Let’s take a look at the picture above. Sure you see the woman in a black dress. I believe you may not find her to be super slim but she has beautiful feminine curves which make her look just as attractive as the lady in purple on the right, who’s holding a wheel position on the ground whom I believe most people would consider being slender. I don’t know about you but they’re both just as fit and beautiful to me.A friend of mine once told me when he was younger he used to find chubby girls much more attractive than skinny girls. As you can see, human perceptions of beauty change from time to time and vary from individual to individual. What really matters is the way you see yourself. In my opinion, every woman is unique and beautiful her own way. Some might be sort of ‘big-boned’ while others are rather plump or extremely tall and skinny. Each of us is born with an inherited body type which we sometimes can do little to change. So before we even jump into any sort of diet or workout plan we need to know what our natural body type looks like and get the idea of the best version of the body we are most likely to achieve and feel comfortable with it. It’s impractical to pursue the hourglass figure when your natural body type is rather tall and “narrow-butt” if you know what I mean. It’d be nice to have a body like that of Kim Kardashian, whom I pretty much believe is born that way.Measure Your Dress Sizes instead of Weight Losing 3–4 dress sizes in a month is actually a more specific goal than losing 20 pounds in 21 days. It will make you less obsessed with the numbers on the weight scale when all you have to do is measure your waistline & hip circumference. It will give you a better idea of how close you are to your fitness goal.2. Second Key to get you started: Mindset Mindset is essential for successful weight loss in the long term. You need to truly love yourself for who you are and be willing to do whatever it takes for your well-being. You are beautiful the way you are. You are worthy of a great and healthy life and you will get your dream body once you started believing in yourself.What are the real reasons that make you want to start losing weight? Health issues? Want to fit in some fabulous outfits? Abs that will turn heads when you’re on the beach?Try to find the strongest motivations that will get you started and keep you going towards your goal.They have to be bigger than just want to look great and feel good about yourself which by the way is nothing wrong either. It’s so important that you’re doing this out of strong love for yourself and your loved ones because it will give you the power to continue and get you motivated. That’s why having your mind in the right place is crucial to successful weight loss.My 4-year-old daughter asked me a question the other day:” Mom, will you still be around when I grow up?” “Do you want me to still be around by then?” “Of course I do! I want you to always be around no matter how old I am.” “I will do my best, honey”, was the promise I made to her.That reminds me of my parents, who are already advanced in age yet still being so healthy and energetic and not suffering any kind of pain which most elderly people do(backache, rheumatism, arthritis, knee pain, etc.).My father is a wise and experienced natural therapist and herbal expert and is able to take good care of himself and my mom. I am so grateful that my parents are still so healthy and I want to follow the good example they set up for me.I’d like to quote what my father used to say to us:” Always watch what you put in your mouth. You are not a trash can! Don’t just eat anything because it tastes good.” 📷 📷 Use the Power of Mind Think of Your Body as a small universe with your mind is the most powerful thing that maintains the balance within this small universe.Or if we think of the body as some sort of hardware then your mind is like the software that actually makes the hardware works at its best.I know this metaphor might

be a little too simplistic but it’s important to fill our minds with positive thoughts. Because your mind and your words actually have the power to program your life into the way you want it to be.If we fill our minds with negative thoughts then we’re most likely not going to take any action to achieve any goal that would make us healthier or have a better life than we deserve because deep down in our hearts we think it’s impossible or just too difficult to achieve.That’s why mindset is the key to successful weight loss because it is often followed by aligned actions which naturally lead to a change of lifestyle. Now that if you know for sure you are doing this out of strong love for yourself and your loved ones and you have your mindset in the right place then we’re good to go.Seek Professional Help Now if you are having some sort of eating disorder problem like you often found yourself staring at the big empty ice-cream container after watching your favorite movies at midnight.Or maybe you are stress-eating a lot or some of you even suffer from something worse such as bulimia or anorexia. Then the last thing you need to worry about now is the way you look like.I’d suggest that you look deeper into the real reasons behind your eating disorder behavior or even seek professional help if necessary. 📷 📷 3. Third Key that is Crucial: Maintain Hormonal and Metabolic Balance Maintaining hormonal and metabolic balance is the essential key to successful weight loss especially for women who are overweight and what they’ve been doing is eat very little and move a lot while still not getting the result they want.A hormonal imbalance can greatly affect women’s beauty and the distribution of their body fat[1]. For example, the lack of estrogen can cause our skin to lose its tautness which means the wrinkled face and fine lines around the eyes. When the estrogen levels are low it could lead to excessive weight gain as well.The growth hormone, which is known to be able to help burning fat while also building your muscles and bones during your deep cycles of sleep-[2][3]. That’s why having quality sleep is so important if we want to actually lose that stubborn fat that’s stored in our trouble spots because the effective fat-burning process actually happens while we’re sleeping not when we’re exercising.The Insulin hormone, also known as the “fat-storing hormone”, is produced by our pancreas, regulates the metabolism of carbs, protein, and fat. Insulin is released when our blood sugar levels rise. It helps absorb glucose from the blood and store it for future use. If we absorb too much glucose our body converts it into fat which causes weight gain. That’s why we need to stay away from refined sugar(or refined carbs) in order to prevent a dramatic rise of blood sugar levels that spike up the secretion of insulin which results in converting excessive blood sugar into fat.Cortisol is a steroid hormone, also referred to as the “stress hormone” due to the fact that its release is increased in response to stress and low blood sugar levels. We want to keep our cortisol levels down so we can turn on that fat-burning mode which boosts our metabolisms and helps us lose the stubborn fat in our trouble spots. Basically, when our cortisol level is high our body switches from the fat-burning mode to the muscle-breaking and fat-storing mode.I don’t want to bore you with the science here but it’s important that we understand that the human body is complicated and we need to take multi-factors into consideration instead of just simplify things with the “eat less and move more” equation.

If you want to know how to “eat more exercise less” to regain hormonal and metabolic balance then read this article to learn more.

📷

4. Fourth Key: Stop Dieting In saying dieting I mean any kind of calorie restriction diets or weird/extreme diets that might cause nutrient deficiency which could be screwing up your hormonal and metabolic balance and thus make all your efforts and attempts at weight loss go in vain. The kind of dieting that’s not sustainable and practical, the kind that makes you feel listless, depressed, tired and your moods swinging from time to time you could hardly summon any energy to do what you want to do.As I have mentioned before, we do need to watch what we eat but we also need to develop a healthy relationship with our food so we won’t be afraid of having food that would actually make us healthy just because it has higher calories.The thing about counting calories is that it’s hard to be accurate. The same food seasoned and cooked in different ways could have different calorie counts. When we count the calories of a specific fruit we also need to take into account other factors such as its maturity because of the difference of sugar content in it.As for the chicken breast we have is it with skin or without skin and what’s the protein to fat ratio of it? Sounds complicated, isn’t it? Well, it is and it’s exhausting and inefficient if you have to do this on a daily basis.By the way, do you always feel like you need to remove the skin of the meat you have because it will make you fat? Well, do you know that eating meat along with its skin actually helps you digest better, and having good quality fat such as natural animal fat actually helps you burn fat in a more efficient way?What and How to Eat Matters I don’t need to tell you what you should eat to lose weight healthily because you’ve probably already gathered tons of information from different sources about it.You know how important it is to have good quality proteins to help you build muscles(boost metabolisms), that you should also include healthy fat, carbs, probiotics, fibers, vegetables in your meals as well so I guess I shouldn’t waste your time repeating what you already know.But what about the type and combination of food, what kind of protein together with what kind of carbs and vegetables, the amount of each category, what seasoning to use, which food combination or pairing of spices/flavors works better, when to eat, etc?For example, Crab is a great source of protein, and orange is also considered a good source of carbs which contains low calories and several vitamins and minerals. However, eating a great amount of crab while guzzling gallons of cold orange juice may not be a good choice for people with poor digestive systems.Drinking soup made by a certain combination of meat and vegetables is different from eating each ingredient separately. Salmon is well known for containing omega 3 fatty acids which may also help us burn body fat. However, we need to look deeper into the nutritional differences between farmed salmon and wild salmon. We also need to be careful not to have seafood as our main source of protein given the fact that the ocean is highly polluted and chemicals and pollutants can be absorbed by fish or other marine life through their environment and diet.Yes, there is a lot to take into consideration when it comes to choosing food for health and effective weight loss.Losing weight or dropping dress sizes fast is not something difficult to achieve. Eating nutrient-dense food combinations in the right way can lead to rapid weight loss without having to starve yourself or doing excessive cardio/HIIT exercises.

Get Motivated to Drop 2–4 Dress Sizes in One Month: 4 Steps to Get your Dream Body If you agree with me then click here and this product buyhttps://www.digistore24.com/redir/348520/sooraj1394/

[whumping-every-day]

Gabriel, Part Two!

I am back with a second installment of Gabriel! Written twice, bc my computer is a butt. Feat. soft siblings Stefan and Maria, a very frightened Gabriel, and a blurry line between caretaking, creepy comfort, and actual comfort. You’ll have to excuse my lack of medical know-how, because I am not an expert. 

Masterlist 

--

Gabriel awoke to the sensation of being lifted. Panic spiked deep within him, and he curled in on himself and whimpered softly, unable to remember where he was. But he was all too familiar with the feeling of being hauled upright and then thrown, or dropped, unable to stop his momentum or control where he was put.

“Easy, little one,” a voice murmured. “Easy. I’ve got you, it’s alright. Open your eyes, bud.”

Gabriel froze at the low, masculine voice. It had all of his muscles immediately locking up in terror, but it also had his chest spiking for another reason, because this - this was not Master’s voice. The boy whined and squirmed weakly… but the voice had said to open his eyes, so Gabriel did, timid and alarmed. 

There wasn’t much light, but they were outside, walking up the driveway to a strange house. And the man holding him... Stefan. The parking lot. Money. Master giving him away. Everything came crashing back, and Gabriel gave a little shudder as the events slotted back into place.

”Hey,” his new master murmured, and Gabriel flinched, even though the tone was calm. The man shook his head faintly, but he only readjusted his grip to account for Gabriel’s squirming, cradling him almost protectively to his chest. “There we go. Do you remember where you are?” 

Gabriel hesitated, biting his lip. Where he was - no, he had no idea. But he knew what was happening, who he was with... “M-Master,” he whispered, and he brushed weak, bruised fingers against the man’s jacket, almost fearfully. It wasn’t an inquiry, it was an answer to the question. 

The man grimaced, but the expression quickly shuttered into something more neutral. “Yeah, bud. I’ve got you,” the man answered, even as they closed the last few feet of the driveway and Stefan toed open the door. 

The foyer of the house was large, filled with beautiful decor and spotless furniture. There were pictures on the mantle, of his new owners, and another man Gabriel hadn’t seen before.

The boy glanced around, searching for the woman from before - but she wasn’t nearby.  “M-Mistress...?” That time it was a question, and Gabriel remembered a split second after asking it that he did not have permission to do so. His lungs froze, chest tightening, but New Master simply glossed over his breach of behavior. 

“She’s upstairs,” the man murmured, and Gabriel couldn’t believe it. He should have been in trouble for a slip-up like that. But instead, his owner had chosen to answer his question. Absently, Gabriel noticed that he was still wrapped in the blanket from the car, and his wrists were still bound behind his back. But he was warm, and he hadn’t been dealt any fresh pain since being sold... seemingly, not even when he deserved it. 

It felt strange to be carried through his new master’s home, and Gabriel tried to take note of where things were, which floors would need the most scrubbing, which mirrors or windows would be hard to reach. He was rarely allowed out of the cellar, before, and being dragged out and forced to clean the upstairs had been a luxury. Gabriel hoped he would be allowed to clean here, too. It was nice, and the large windows and skylight would let so much sun in... it was beautiful, but more importantly, it seemed well-taken care of. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? It meant his Masters took care of their things. 

Gabriel was one of their things, now. Maybe they would take care of him, too. 

His Master brought him to the upstairs bathroom, and Maria was already inside when the door swung open. Mistress had a first-aid kit open on the counter, and she was currently pulling on white medical gloves with practiced movements. 

“Hello, sweetheart,” she greeted, and Gabriel blinked in bewilderment when he realized she was addressing him. “Could you put him on the toilet seat - yeah, thank you.” She twisted to get out of Stefan’s way as he set Gabriel down, and then the two of them switched places, so Maria could sit on the edge of the tub. Gabriel was very careful to keep still, eyes lowered and head down. “Now, Gabriel,” his Mistress murmured. “I need to take a look at your injuries. Just a quick once-over, to see what I’m dealing with. I’m a nurse, so I promise I know what I’m doing.” Maria smiled softly, even though Gabriel didn’t look up or react in any way. She reached around him with an unseen object, and Gabriel had just enough presence of mind to flinch - but then there was a faint pressure, and the rope around his wrists fell away. “That’s better. Now, try to hold still for me.” 

His Mistress did not hesitate to touch him, but she also warned him every time, and always explained what she was doing. Gabriel was accustomed to being handled in such a way, but he was not used to being spoken to while it happened. Where there would normally have been confusion and terror as someone else moved him, there was only faint anxiety. Gabriel let his limbs go loose and pliant, let his Mistress look into his mouth, at his gums and teeth, and then peer into his eyes with a bright light. Then she checked and double-checked him for more serious damage. The woman hesitated over the sight of Gabriel’s ribs, caved inwards and blackened purple and blue. But she only sighed and shook her head. 

His former Master had put him only in a pair of pants, and eventually his Mistress had to have them removed. Gabriel settled tensely once he was bare, but Maria was quick with the rest of the exam, even the parts that required she look at places that were normally private. 

When it was over Gabriel was trembling faintly, and Mistress straightened, pulling off her gloves. “You did very well, Gabriel,” she murmured. “I know that was hard. Good boy.” Gabriel’s breaths were already shaky, but the words were like a blow to the solar plexus, knocking the air out of him. Good boy. So easily dished out, like praise was something that could just be given, instead of something that had to be earned with blood and pain and tears. Gabriel was stunned, but Mistress was already moving on. “He’s severely dehydrated and underweight, and there’s a substantial amount of scars and deep bruising... probably malnutrition and nutrient deficiencies, as well. I’ll have to take a blood sample. But from what I can see, the only thing broken are his ribs.” Maria looked away from her brother, reaching out almost absently to pet her fingers over Gabriel’s hair. “Can you tell me what hurts the most, sweetheart?” 

Sweetheart. Again with that little name. There was something very funny in Gabriel’s chest, fluttery and squirmy. “I - I th-think - my ribs, Mistress,” he answered softly. His left ankle ached from being broken and healed wrong, and his head was pulsing sharply - but the worst by far were his ribs. 

“Alright. I want to get you clean, then I can wrap them, take a quick blood sample, and dress anything still bleeding.” Mistress’s voice was all business, and Gabriel stiffened to attention automatically. “Stefan, could you grab the water from downstairs? Gabe, you sit tight.” 

His Mistress moved to turn on the bath, and while she did, Gabriel pondered the number of things he’d been called here. Sweetheart. Buddy. Little one. Gabe. These were not things to call a worthless, broken-down toy. And Gabriel was very much worthless, his last Master had made sure he understood his place. This gentleness could not last. Maybe they just... didn’t understand what he was, yet. But they would. 

“Here, buddy.” Gabriel jumped in fright when his Master’s voice sounded from behind him, nearly falling right off the edge of the tub, and Stefan winced. “Sorry. Jumpy little thing, isn’t he?” It was said to Maria, and she only hummed in agreement. “Your last master wasn’t very nice to you, huh.” There was a bottle of water in Stefan’s hands, and he twisted the cap off and held it out. “Slowly,” he commanded, and it was very firm. “If you go too quickly you’ll be sick.” 

Gabriel’s eyes had fixed on the water like he couldn’t believe it was real, and he reached out to take it with trembling fingers. Surely it would be snatched away. He waited for a long moment in horrible, tense silence, waiting for it to go wrong, but there was only a soft hand on his shoulder. 

“Go on, sweetheart,” Maria murmured. “It’s for you.” 

Gabriel stared up at her for a long moment, then switched his wide-eyed gaze back to Stefan. Neither of them lunged for him, and neither of them wore cruelty in their expressions. Hesitantly, Gabriel tipped the bottle up and drank, and he felt his eyes prick at the clean taste of the water. He took a few gulps, and then the world around him started to narrow. He was so thirsty, and it had been so long, so long - he only realized he was shuddering and sobbing when his Mistress’s hand tightened on his shoulder. 

“Easy, easy.” Someone was pulling the bottle away, and Gabriel was choking and whimpering, a few more tears slipping down his cheeks. “Breathe, little one.” Breathe – was he not breathing? Gabriel suddenly felt light-headed, and he dragged in a long gasp of air. He felt too tight, his chest felt heavy, and he barely even registered the small hand rubbing circles on his back. “That’s it. Now out, breath out. Good. Now in…” It was his Mistress’s voice. Gabriel shuddered at the thought of showing such weakness in front of her, in front of both of them. But her voice remained patient, and the hand never stopped rubbing between his shoulder blades, even when Gabriel started to cough.

Eventually he was breathing normally again, and Stefan gave a quiet sigh. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, huh.” Gabriel shrunk in on himself at that, his head lowering in shame. But Maria just shook her head.

“Be patient, brother.”

Gabriel’s eyes were fixed on the tile of the floor, unwilling to look up for fear of displeasing his betters. There was a quiet rustling, a faint clink, and then the sound of water pouring. Then a glass appeared in his line of vision. It was filled only about two inches high with water, and Gabriel stared at it in bewilderment, before scrambling to accept it. Food he could survive without. But water… without water, he would be a feverish, delirious mess. Without water, after a while, he wouldn’t be able to tell what was real and what wasn’t. And to have it given so readily…

“Th-thank y-you,” Gabriel whispered, and his voice was raspy and so genuinely, incredibly grateful. “Th-thank you M-Master, a-and, and Mistress, th-thank you.”

There was a pause, and then Maria gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Of course, sweetheart.” Gabriel’s eyes were already wet when his Mistress tilted his chin up, her fingers smooth and cool against his skin. “You belong to us now, after all.” Her eyes were gentle as they looked down into his, and Gabriel could do nothing but stare helplessly back, desperate and hopeful and terrified all at once.

“We take care of what is ours.” It was his Master, and Gabriel’s wide, awed gaze switched to him. Stefan’s posture was loose, relaxed, nonthreatening. “As long as you live under this roof, we will look after you. Okay?”

It was a soft question, but it still spoke to the part of Gabriel that had been conditioned to respond. He opened his mouth, and realized only then that his Mistress had taken his right hand. And his Master had taken his left. When had that happened? There were still tears in his eyes, but he could only nod, feeling something fragile stirring in his chest. 

“Y-yes, Master.” It was the only reply he could give, obedient and meek, but it didn’t feel like enough. Gabriel hesitated, but he shifted just enough to slip onto the floor, carefully setting the glass on the edge of the tub. He immediately went to his knees and bowed flat to the ground, pressing his forehead to the cold tile. “Please,” he whispered. “I’ll – I’ll be good, masters. I – I want -” I want to be taken care of. “I want to be good.”

“We know, little one,” someone murmured, and Gabriel wasn’t even sure who. There was silence for a moment, and then two hands of very different sizes settled on his skin, one in his hair and one on his bare shoulder. Gabriel could only tremble underneath it, and for once it wasn’t only with fear.

“You are going to be a very good boy for us,” his Mistress murmured. “I can already tell.” Gabriel whined and nodded frantically, leaning into the daintier of the two hands. He could do that, he could be their good boy – it was so much better than being a toy, or a thing. And if they truly meant it, if it was possible that this was real… then Gabriel would make himself the best pet they’d ever had.

--

[END]

Previous,  Next 

Tagging the lovely people who asked for more, I cannot believe the support for this! @blue-flare10 @whumpywhumper @cagefreebirds @whumptywhumpdump @vickytokio @whatwasmyprevioususername @whump-me-fuck-me @robinshouseofwhump @useless-transboy

[timedunce]

Physical

Part three of my personal glo up posts, this one’s about my physical being and surroundings.

a. Health

This part will cover my personal health improvement goals. Everyone’s body is different, what works for me may not for you. Good luck on your own self improvement journey. :)

a.1 Water

Drink it! Why are you not drinking water it is literally the key to life????!!!!!

But in all seriousness, I struggle to remember to drink my water. I’m a caffeine addict, but I get it from soda because I think coffee is gross. (No hating, we all got different taste buds.) So I’m gonna set timers, to remind me to drink, keep a bottle close by, and fill my Filter Pitcher in the fridge so it’s clean and cold.

a.2 Eat Healthier

Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? And yet here I am with a fridge full of take out.

I need to Meal Plan by the week, and keep rotations of healthy options in the freezer. I gotta take my vitamins, get that protein.

a.3 Exercise

This ones gonna be very different for me than most people, due to some health issue that limit my activity levels. But I won’t let them keep me from doing my best. (NOTE: Doing your best does not mean passing out on the floor in a pool of sweat/vomit. It doesn’t even mean pushing so hard you can barely move the next day you’re so sore.)

I can walk, do yoga, and good days can include some squats. Bad days may include stretching, or even just the walk to the kitchen for food.

a.4 POTS

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. When I go from lying to sitting, or sitting to standing, my heart rate jumps, my blood pressure drops, and if I’m not careful I will pass out. This has led to some awkward instances of being found in a heap on the floor half dressed. 0/10 do not recommend.

Management includes: drinking tons of water, consuming more salt than most people, moderating my spent Energy, and planning ahead my activities.

a.5 Periods

Mother Nature, Aunt Flo, the Cleaning Crew, Satan’s Waterfall... However you choose to refer to it, your period is gonna suck. Sorry.

I need to plan ahead; keep an eye on arrival dates, carry pads/tampons, Pain Killers, and spare clothes. More than once I’ve been out and had to buy new underwear, or worse, borrow some at a friends house. Trust me, carry spare clothes.

b. Appearance

Ah, vanity. I care what people think of me. Sometimes too much. But this also covers basic hygiene as well.

b.1 Body

Step one, shower. I know, you can take a bath as well, but if I’m dirty or sweaty I don’t want to feel like I’m stewing in a cauldron of my own filth. Blegh. 

While I’m in there plotting the end of world hunger and performing my latest concert, I might as well exfoliate and shave. The decision to shave is up to you, of course, but I hate it when my jeans snag one of my leg hairs and yank. 

Once I’m done, moisturize with lotion or vaseline, apply a fragrance and deodorant.

Step two of body care, Sleep. Do it. At least 8 hours of it.

b.2 Hair

(If you have any.)

Shampoo, Condition, regular Trims. Basics.

The occasional hair mask never hurts.

b.3 Nails

Keep those suckers trimmed! You can keep them long, or short, but maintain even lengths, trim them when they break.

Then feel free to paint them, if you want, even spring for the professional job once in a while.

b.4 Clothes

Clothes require maintenance. Wash and dry them according to the recommendations on the tags. When they wear through, repair or replace them.

b.5 Skincare

Your skin is a pretty good indicator of whats going on in the rest of your body. Sudden breakouts can be cause by hormone changes, nutrient deficiencies, or stress.

Be sure to wash your face regularly, and spot treat as necessary. 

Go the extra mile and exfoliate, use a moisturizer, masks, a toner. I like Aloe Vera gel.

Wear that sunscreen!

b.6 Make Up

Another personal choice. You want to wear it, go for it! Experiment a bit, watch some tutorials. Just be sure to replace the old stuff, and remove it before bed.

b.7 Teeth

Teeth. My old nemesis. I don’t know if it’s a bad case of Executive Dysfunction, or if I just hate myself, but I struggle with maintaining my teeth. And you would think my paralyzing fear of dentists would be a motivator...

Again, this is basics. BRUSH, Floss, Mouthwash, Breath-mints when out during the day. Simple enough, right?

c. Cleanliness

This section is general cleanliness. Clean me, clean house...

c.1 Hygiene

Already been mostly covered.

Shower, Teeth, Self Care Days.

c.2 Kitchen

Wash or clean the: Dishes, Pantry, do Shopping Inventory, Fridge, Trash, Counters, Floors.

c.3 Bathroom

Clean the: Toilet, Shower, Sink, Mirror, Floor, replace Toilet Paper, Shopping Inventory

c.4 Bedrooms

Pick up: Clothes, Bed, Dresser, Floors

c.5 Living Areas

Clean the: Tables, Seating, Storage, Floors

Part One Part Two

[amazinmango]

I present to you a will so strong that it defies all that would stand before it: science, biology, finance, reason.

It has defeated the efforts of medical professionals, direct physical and psychological intervention, thousands of dollars, and years of effort.

It is the epitome of defiance in the face of insurmountable odds.

It is contained within a very. smol. borb.

I give you the gorgeous idiot at the center of it all: Petrie.

So cockatiel hens can lay a handful of eggs each year, with or without fertilization or even companionship of another bird (species and gender notwithstanding). Also if said ladybird has bonded with her human; she don’t judge. They can produce clutches of a couple to five (or more, if feelin’ sassy) at a shot, and it’s typical to have maybe two clutches a year if any at all.

Unless you’re Petrie.

If you are Petrie, you can churn out stupid numbers of little white ovoids, each one of which contains enough craziness fit to drive your human off the deep end. I lost count after she’d pooped out thirty just over the course of one year; there was maybe a three-week span when she, for the love of some deity somewhere, took a breather. (That’s a little under ten clutches; at the time I was removing them as she laid them when I could distract her before I realized I was making the problem worse.)

Thing is, Petrie is very pretty. She has an apartment next to her buddy Loona, a Very Old Man who has no interest in her That Way. There’s one brain cell between them (spoiler: it’s his) and Petrie typically has the memory of a gnat. Cockatiels and similar small parrot(lets) are thought to possess intellect along the lines of a human toddler. Cause-and-effect are something Loona understands quite well. You can see him mapping out his path from where he is to where he wants to go, and then watch him implement it. He knows where the bathroom is down the hall, and how to get there. He knows where he is not allowed to go in the kitchen, and goes there anyway. He has specific calls for “Where are you? Okay, thanks!” and “Hey, I’m hungry and don’t WANT these pellets” and “WE’RE OUTTA WATER BC SHE SHAT IN IT AGAIN.”

Petrie, tho. She will fly from her cage, land upon the floor in front of it (near the ladder that leads up to the entrance), and walk in circles backwards, screaming, until rescue.

...she is very, very pretty.

So Cockatiels aren’t laying hens, right; their tiny bodies are not designed to churn out calcium-fortified baby-containment units on the regular. Chronic layers can become egg-bound--they run outta calcium to the point that the egg’s shell is neither hard nor soft enough to pass. It gets stuck, jams up the works--being birds, there’s one business-end orifice for all functions. She can’t poop because the egg is in the holding position, and her body doesn’t stop making poop especially if she continues eating. Her strength wanes, and her calcium deficient and heavily-taxed body is not built to handle this shit.

In short, she becomes even more highly stressed, malnourished, possibly septic, and dies.

It’s a shitty way to go.

Solution(s): 

Provide plenty of calcium, discourage laying and breeding behaviors. 

Avoid overfeeding and reduce free-feeding. 

Rearrange the cage frequently, try to eliminate cozy spots that look very NestableTM. 

Don’t touch her on her back, and do not engage when she’s sticking her butt in the air and squeaking. 

Redirect, distract, do anything that gets her out of make-babies mode and go on with your lives.

As you might have guessed, Petrie is a Chronic Layer to end all chronic layers. She shan’t cease egging for no man. You can’t take away an egg she has made, as she will immediately get to work on cooking another. Rearrange the cage all you like! That perch and dish combo really make that corner pop. Change the photoperiod to the point that you are genuinely worried about her psychological wellbeing, until telltale squeaking emits from a covered cage at three AM. Balance out her diet with regulated mealtimes (how DARE you father i am sTaRVinG) that inevitably regresses into free-feeding chaos because she needs all the nutrients bc shitting out eggs. 

You can consult avian vets, plural, on other solutions.

Purchase expensive, stressful shots (as in needle-y injections into this tiny borb) that are intended to have a stern discussion with her single functional ovary. Being governed by hormones, it can, in theory, be deactivated by the same principles--throw the right kinds of hormones at the birb, the birb stops egging.

Petrie’s utterly-fucking-determined drive to create egg after egg after egg is so insurmountable that she has laughed in the face of said injections on a quarterly basis for more than one year. These shots, btw, are $75 a stick.

You can discuss with an avian veterinarian possible surgical options--but removing the ovary in a cockatiel is a high-risk operation on a healthy bird; the prognosis for coming out of the operation alive is fifty-fifty.

Never mind if your bird is stressed and already egg-bound. If you’ve gently massaged her bootie above where the egg sits, and you’ve vaseline’d her butthole (technical term for gentle application of approved oils to cloaca, of course) and given her the equivalent of a bird sitz bath. All short of gently taking this fluffball in hand and just squeezing her.

Thus you find yourselves at the emergency vet at two in the morning because she collapsed at the bottom of her cage, too weak to hold her head up. She’s checked in, and you go home with an empty carrier and stare at the stupid eggs she’s left on the floor of the cage away from any hospitable nesting configurations and amidst all the barriers and deterrents you’ve placed there.

You get the call at work that she’s holding steady but not looking good; she’s malnourished and they can’t risk trying to crack the egg, suck out contents, then gently crush and remove the shell. She won’t survive any sort of stress, never mind surgery. At this point, it’s touch and go if she’ll see the morning.

You can keep her checked in, and hope.

You get the call that she’s made it through the night, holding steady. And then in another day or so, she’s passed the damned egg, is scarfing enough food to feed a rottweiler, and is ready to come home.

That’s just the first time shit got real over the last several years of hyped-up egg production, the first thousand bucks and change.

After she’s back to a healthy weight and shows good on her bloodwork (another stressful test), Petrie goes back on the hormone injections.

She lays three eggs, her average clutch.

The vet says “hey, maybe it didn’t work, let her finish with this clutch and bring her in for an early next shot.”

She ‘finishes,’ as in loses interest in the unfertilized eggs long enough for me to distract her and remove them, rearrange the cages anew, and watch closely that she doesn’t immediately start going ass-in-air squeaktoy. We go to the vet. She gets the shot.

She lays three eggs.

The vet scratches her head, and reminds me of the half-chance of survival should we try to de-ovarize this bird.

She gets another shot, and lays three more eggs.

We stop the shots.

She bulldozes through a bunch of creative, bird-safe debris and obstacles placed at the bottom of the cage. I have found her underneath crunched-up water bottles sitting on eggs, happily poofed up and looking up at me like “I maked these!!”

She became egg-bound a second time, and that was a second vet trip, though not as dramatic or in the wee hours. She passed the egg overnight, to the tune of another cool grand.

This bird. This friggin borb.

She came home, and amazingly went for several months without egging. I was thrilled. She crapped out five eggs in January 2020, a big clutch for her. She rolled out the dummy eggs when I tried to get her to please stop, baby. She lost interest in them faster than usual, and then came another blessed fiveish weeks of egglessness.

And yet, as I sit in my mancave-turned-office for work-from-home, I hear the distinct sound of a fluffy borb shuffling through crunchy water bottles and squeaking as she goes. I can only hope to fortify her, love her, and support her as she works on her next set of freaking giantass (for a cockatiel) eggs.

Petrie contains her own fortitude and sheer will beyond any I can imagine. She persists, against all odds, and survives her own best efforts to do herself in, and when I look at her in exhausted exasperation, she gives me this little cute squinty-eyed cockatiel smile and chirps.

This gorgeous idiot cannot do otherwise, and I love her and hope to love her as long as I can, as I cannot do otherwise.

[melindadahl19-blog]

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