#atlanta relationships

[msterpicasso]

@jaydacheaves

[bioethicists]

irt poverty/homelessness + alcohol use (esp with @butchfeygela‘s tags on my post)- people really underestimate the function that substance use/alcohol use can have for someone who is unhoused. being unhoused is boring, cold, painful, + lonely. substances can allow the 8 hours panhandling to get the $45 you need for a motel to fly by. alcohol reduces your perception of the cold + can knock you out whben you can’t sleep. substances can help you cope with the physical deterioration from malnutrition, constant stress, + sleeping outside. substances can provide social connection with others who you would otherwise not enjoy or help you cope with being alone.

not only that but- many unhoused people are stuck in a seemingly inescapable position. the pathway to financial stability or even housing is difficult or even impossible. in the wake of that hopelessness, the downsides of substance use start to seem insignificant. arrest? you’re getting arrested anyway for sleeping outside, peeing outside, standing in the wrong place, etc. physical danger? you’re already beat the fuck up, anyway, right? loss of relationships? you’ve lost most people already. inability to keep a job? nobody will hire you + you can’t stay employed, anyway, because you have no car + no shower.

perhaps for you or me, the cons of heroin use or binge drinking nightly greatly outweigh the pros. that isn’t the case for everyone. if we are really serious about ending overdose/addiction, we need to start looking at giving people lives worth recovering into instead of shaming them for their own hopelessness.

[otamotone-dnp]

oh also I’m going with my parents to Nashville today but I didn’t tell them I was going to tit (partly bc im an adult lol and don’t tell them everywhere i go) but mainly bc my mom especially is super homophobic :)))) she’s gonna be like why are you so tired today and I’m just gonna be like oh couldn’t sleep. nope i spent 150 dollars to watch two gay men in love mom

[bodyalive]

Sarah Neville: Stepping into Rita Charon’s studio, in a Jazz Age-era building in Greenwich Village, I get a quick impression of a white-walled space bathed in the sunshine from two large windows that offer a sweeping view over the Lower Manhattan skyline. Everything in the room seems considered, from the Bach playing in the background to the paintings on the walls. One of them, “The Doctor”, is an idealised Victorian depiction of a devoted medic ministering to a child while anxious parents look on. It used to hang in Charon’s father’s office.

My meeting with Charon, founder of the “narrative medicine” movement that trains health professionals to use the power of storytelling in their work, is one I’ve been contemplating for 20 years. How, I’ve wondered, can such a humane approach fit into the time- and cash-constrained world of 21st-century healthcare? And who is this woman who, sometimes unsung, has done so much to change the way we think about the doctor-patient relationship?

Then, just as we sit down, I realise I’m setting out to tell the story of a practised assimilator of other people’s stories. At the core of her work, she says, is “what happens in the actual [moment of] two humans sitting, contacting one another with language, with the embodied self”. So we begin. Charon graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1978 and began practising general medicine. In the late 1980s, she started doctoral studies at Columbia University, focusing on Henry James and the role of literature in medicine. The work of the second half of her life has been to bring these two superficially oppositional realms together. She believes the emotional and imaginative insights contained in literature, art and music can transform the way healthcare workers treat patients and each other. Around 1990, she began teaching narrative medicine at Columbia and in 2009 launched a masters degree in the subject, the first of its kind. Since then, her approach has been deployed by healthcare practitioners across the US and abroad, from Greece to China. Formal evaluations have shown it improves participants’ capacity for reflection, in one study even reducing racial bias.

Charon tells me that for decades doctors were taught to conform to a model of ‘detached concern’ Her father, a doctor in Providence, Rhode Island, was an important influence. At one point, she goes to a filing cabinet containing all his medical records, which she acquired after he died. This part of his life had always been shut off to her; the close community in which they lived meant confidentiality was especially vital. But it turned out that his files combined the usual medical notations with far more personal references. It seemed to reflect a recognition that ailments could not be divorced from the wider context of their sufferers’ lives. Inspired, Charon began making more fulsome and impressionistic notes about her own patients.

The practised narratologist, she says, can pick up a lot in a short period, even at a time when there is pressure on doctors to keep appointments as brief as possible. “As you develop your skills of attention, you will notice things about your patients. You will be listening at a much higher pitch.” As doctors, the human body is, she says, “our material . . . I’m sitting here looking at you, noticing how you sit in the chair.” Emboldened, I ask what else she has picked up about me. She has spotted that my purple outer coat tones with the pink lining of my jacket: ��You have taste because you’re not just helter-skelter putting the aqua with the olive green.” She has noticed my eyes: “Mostly the expression is filled with curiosity.” My sense of her, which deepens over the next three-and-a-half hours, is of a woman with a vast well of compassion, lit by a righteous fury about the inequities of US healthcare. “In Yiddish, we call it the Shanda, which is ‘the shame’. The shame of the system,” she says. “More and more clinicians . . . feel they’re being used by their employers. They know they’re doing shoddy work . . . They get tired of saying, ‘I’m sorry, I can only listen to one complaint per session. Bring that up the next time.’”

Truly listening to patients can be transformative, she says. “Patients on the whole really know what they need.” She recalls a young woman with poorly managed diabetes who arrived in her consulting room angry and frustrated. “I did my routine, which is get away from the computer, put my hands in my lap. Don’t write. Just say, ‘I’m going to be your doctor. Tell me what you think I should know.’” The woman looked as if she was going to cry but pulled herself together and glared. “You really want to know what I need? I need a new set of teeth.”

It was only then Charon noticed she’d had her hand covering her mouth as she talked. She had no upper teeth. Instead of fussing with the woman’s insulin levels, Charon arranged for her to be seen in the university’s dental clinic. “She shows up in a couple of months, and she is dazzling. She started a [catering] business in her house. Her [blood] sugars were better than they had been in a while. And she was much more active — she’s going to parties, she’s dancing! It was such a lesson to me. Why on earth would you start anywhere else but ‘Tell me where we should start’?”

I’m intrigued by the extent to which this approach requires an inversion of the traditional power relationship between doctor and patient. She tells me that for decades doctors were taught to conform to a model of “detached concern”. In fact, “engaged concern is going to get you farther than detached concern. Detachment looks an awful lot like coldness.” Instead, Charon believes in making space for the imagination. “The more you exert your own creativity, the better your medicine will be. It’s making leaps . . . I don’t like the word intuition because it sounds like magic. But the ability to see the known from the unknown — that’s what poetry does.”

In the early 2000s, Charon tried something new. After finishing a consultation and making notes like any doctor would, “I would turn the keyboard and the monitor around and say, ‘I know what I saw. But please finish the note.’ I would leave them alone for five minutes, and they wrote the damnedest things!” A college professor wrote “that she knew that she was a good teacher and that this really gave her pride.” The sentiment astonished Charon because it had not surfaced during their conversations, which had been dominated by the woman’s health woes and difficult relationship with her daughter. An idea occurs. As I am drawing our conversation to a close, I ask her to finish this interview. Is there anything else I should know? She confides that after she quit her practice in 2015 to concentrate on running her programme at Columbia, she felt an overwhelming sense of relief that she could hand over responsibility for her patients. (“Somebody else is going to worry about Lucy.”)

It was several weeks before she identified the gap that had opened up in her life: “I was terribly missing the chance to do random acts of kindness.” As a physician, the scope for moments of generosity is “drastic”, she says, whether ringing a patient’s sister to update her, helping put someone’s socks on after an examination or rubbing the feet of a terminally ill patient. There is something heartbreaking about the disproportionate gratitude these interventions elicit, she says. “I think their expectations for us are so low.”

Narrative medicine can, she suggests, endow clinicians with the ability to see an issue from multiple perspectives, a power she likens to “the compound eye of the fly”. It can help them to understand and value those they care for in all their uniqueness and complexity. “We ought to treat every patient as the deepest mystery,” she says.

Sarah Neville is the FT’s global health editor

[guavagyal]

you mean to tell me there was a cute, wealthy man who hated health insurance CEOS in Atlanta and no one told me??? I really do miss out on good things 😩

[tamsavage]

Thought Dump - 10/24/24 -The Tell All Edition

So look ... I don't have a therapist yet and I have just been thugging it out. I have been a little more quiet than usual, but my mind is going a mile a minute. I have to dump this mess on you guys and hopefully you all won't run away from me.

I believe that I am going thru a depressive cycle right now. I only noticed that it may be an issue when I saw my clothes from my AUGUST trip to the Dominican Republic were not put away. They are clean and folded but just sitting in the chair in my corner. So weekend goal is to put up my shit.

I am starting to think that the men I like do NOT like me. Now don't get me wrong, these men LOVE me but they don't necessarily like me. I always discuss how LIKE and LOVE are two different things. And for me one is more important than the other.

Too piggyback that notion, love is an action word in my world.

My Dad came to visit and I learned so much about him. my family and why I have been trying to date men like him for all my life. The damn psychology people really know their shit.

My feelings aren't hurt, I am just disappointed. I am tired of saying that about my experiences.

When you really begin to work on yourself, there are just some things that are no longer worthy of your time. Also it makes your phone bone dry. People sometimes do not like the new you.

I had to admit to myself that I want a thoughtful and caring person as a partner. I am a hopeless romantic and I need a bit of romance in my relationships. I have been functioning like a fuck boy for so long that it is my default. But that never ever gets me the things that I want.

Last thing that I want to say is that, I want what I want. I have always felt like I never get what I want. But I am not going to stop until I get what I want.

That was a lot this week. I hope you all enjoy.

[virginpornstar]

Free Zimbabwe

My first boyfriend Zimbabwe and I may have only dated for 6 months, but it was the most intense 6 month emotional roller coaster of a toxic relationship that I may ever expereince.

The first cut is the deepest, and the first relationship is definitely one that always sticks with you.

It's been over 5 years, almost 6, since we broke up. That was the last time I ever saw him, but even all these years later he's never left my mind.

I did truly love that man. It's crazy how things can start off so beautifully in the beginning, but then by the end it's so unrecognizable from that beautiful beginning.

I don't have any regrets. Well besides agreeing to have threesomes while in a relationship, but even that is a lesson learned to know to never repeat that mistake in future relationships. So no regrets. This relationship taught me so much about myself, and who I am when I'm in love.

Even though I was 26 in my first relationship, we all are young and dumb in our first relationships.

I'd been thinking of Zimabawe a lot lately. Well every year during Cuffing Season Snapchat does send me non stop old memories of me and Zimbabwe. We dated August - February which is all of Cuffing Season, so every 6 months I'm reminded of him with photos popping up every time I open SnapChat.

I don't have Zimbabwe's number. We aren't connected on social media, since he had my blocked when we were together and pretended he didn't have social media. Along with pretending to be DL/closeted while having an IG with 70K gay followers. The entire relationship was crazy, but I just chalked it up to well this is Atlanta...

The last time I heard from Zimbabwe was when he messaged me on Instagram nearly 2 years after our breakup to apologize for how he treated me. That didn't last long, since he had a bf and we were flirting, but he was acting like he was trying to be faithful. He also backed off once he realized I'd moved away from ATL.

Part of me thought he was sending feelers to find a new victim if the old one wasn't working out. To see if he could circle back to me.

I've always suspected that was Zimbabwe's M.O. The typical bum nigga tops in Atlanta. Professional hobosexuals. They just go from bottom to bottom for a place to live, which is easy to do. There's a lot of lonely bottoms with their own places in Atlanta, and so many bum homeless tops. It's easy to get seduced and love bombed, and move in your new boo since all you want to do is spend all your time together.

I hate thinking that, because i don't want to ever feel like Zimbabwe's love for me wasn't genuine, and he's assured me many times before and after the breakup that he did genuinely love me. Since he truly had nothing and was at rock bottom of his life when we were together. Still...there's always that little doubt.

I was hoping Zimbabwe and I would cross paths while I visited Atlanta for the first time in the 4 years since I moved away. Granted we never crossed paths after we broke up and were both still in Atlanta. Granted I lived in the city and he was always in the outskirts, and he wasn't ever in the gay scene, so we never had reasons to cross paths.

I was hoping he'd see me on Jack'd, and hit me up, and we'd spend the evening together and have sex. Lack of sex was a big issue in our relationship since I wasn't on PrEP back then, and I was too scared to have sex in Atlanta. Even while in a monogamous relationship, since being poz has always been my biggest fear.

I didn't see or hear from Zimbabwe while in was in ATL. Though now I know why.

Since I have no way to reach him since I don't have his number/email/social media, I did a google search of him days after I returned home from Atlanta.

Nothing really ever comes up whenever I searched him in the past. Besides an old LinkedIn profile that hasn't been touched in years. Though something new did pop up this time. A mugshot.

I was shocked. It was definitely a recent pic. The most recent pic I'd seen of him in years. It said he was arrested in September 2022 for trespassing/public indecency.

I was shocked. Well not about the arrest. He'd been arrested while we were together, and I was freaking out after not hearing from him for over 24 hours. Also I used to search his name while we were together/freshly broken up and so many court dates would pop up for Zimbabwe. Usually unpaid speeding/parking tickets/driving violations. That man would always be in trouble with the law...I do love a bad boy.

I assumed that with the date being September 2022 that this case would've been wrapped up by now, since it was over a year ago. It's October 2023. But then I started to dive deeper down the rabbit hole.

Luckily court documents are public, and you can also search if someone is locked up. I'd never had to search for an inmate before, so this all was new to me. Learning how to look up inmates and court documents. Though I learned quickly, and I learned a lot.

I learned that the arrest was actually for attempting to steal/break into a car and indecent exposure. I'm still confused about this all. I didn't find the arrest report with full details.

My first thought was was he arrested for cruising? That's been happening in ATL lately. Everyone's always fucking in public places in Atlanta. Especially with all the content creators.

But that would explain indecent exposure, but not the attempting to break into/steal someone's car. Like was he trying to break into someone's car naked?

One time Zimbabwe did get pissed about me blogging about us, and he grabbed my laptop and stormed out into the hallway in his underwear threatening to smash my laptop, and we were arguing in the hallway. It was so ghetto.

So maybe he got into a fight with a guy he was seeing, and stormed out while naked/half naked, and tried to break into their car/steal it? Then his dick fell out, and that lead to the indecent exposure?

I have no clue. I want answers! I need to find the full arrest report. I want details!

Then when I really started digging in court records. Zimbabwe wasn't arrested in September 2022, the court records I found said he was arrested in May 2023, and he didn't get out until the Saturday I was in Atlanta.

He was locked up from May to October, for the trying to steal a car and public indecency. Which is crazy. I read his letters to the court, which are publicly available, where he's begging to be released.

Zimbabwe admits to having a mental health issue, which explains a lot. You have to be mentally ill to think it's ok to lie to someone you're dating and pretend to be someone you're not for months. Though he could just be playing that up for sympathy to get released. Bringing up his mental health issues and being a vet. Though I believe it. He always had intense mood swings, and a lot aligns with bipolar disorder. Especially the hypersexual urges, mood swings, violent outbursts, lying for no reason, pretending to be someone he's not, etc...

Though I feel bad for Zimbabwe. I feel bad this is his life currently and what he's going through. Here I was hoping I'd reconnect with my first love, and he's been locked up in Fulton County for months. That jail keeps making headlines for the terrible conditions.

As much as this man has hurt me in the past, I do still care about him. I do still love him, or have love for him. It's just crazy how much can change in 5 years, but also not.

Zimbabwe would always talk down to me when we were together. Like I was a downgrade from his previous bfs since I was broke and struggling too. Granted he got 2 cars repossessed while we were together, and he was homeless, suicidal, and a rock bottom but I still always loved him and was there for him.

It was struggle love, but I definitely was madly in love. I mean on the bright side he's now finally free from jail. Court records still list his case as open, so I don't think he's in the clear yet.

Though 5 months locked up is crazy, but trying to break into/steal a car is a felony charge. The public indecency is just a misdemeanor.

I want to talk to him still. I'm nosy and want his side of everything, but also I do still miss him.

As toxic and tumultuous as my relationship with Zimbabwe was, I did really love that man. I definitely loved him way more than BMore Bae. Zimbabwe is the one that got away in a way. Granted we needed to get away from each other, and with all these issues he's still going through all these years later, I'm glad I got away.

Yet I do always wonder how life would've been had we did continue to date, or if things would've gone differently. Granted he's clearly not matured if he's still getting arrested now like he was 5 years ago, and this time the charges are worse.

So this should be the wakeup call I need to realize that I shouldn't be reminiscing and nostalgic for an ex that literally just got out of jail less than 2 weeks ago.

[atlantablack]

Nancy Wheeler is so much more than Steve and Jonathan and who she's going to end up with at the end of season 5 like !!!!! you know what who cares about Steve (me but that's not important), who cares about Jonathan (also me but ignore that), in fact even Robin doesn't matter in this particular case

I don't care who Nancy's endgame love interest is!!!!! it doesn't matter!!!!!! you know ?? i want to know if she forgives herself for Barb, how severely she crushes everyone else at Berkley, if she forgives herself for Fred because you know some part of her blames herself for losing sight of him, I want to know how she feels about Eddie dying and about her little brother always on the front lines of every goddamn fight!!!!

I just think that's she so much more than who she wants to kiss and distilling her story arc down to that is such a disservice to her and she deserves battle hymns being written about her not love sonnets

[viakristinasbrain]

[moany-lisa]

february 3, 2023

when the full Thee Sacred Souls album dropped last year, we were just starting to fall in love. we sang and danced to it often with hot breakfast on the stove, fresh coffee in the pot, and warm sunlight flooding in the new morning. it became our go-to for car karaoke, the backing soundtrack to our days teleworking beside each other, and a familiar companion on our evenings on the balcony holding each other in our arms.

we’ve become creative with the way we express our love, but the lyrics have often spoke for us when we were at a loss for words of our own. as musicians and music enthusiasts both, we knew immediately that this album was something special, but i think discovering it together as our love was blossoming allowed us to *fully* appreciate every song, every message, every single piece that created past versions of us and led us to be together, here & now.

we both spent years almost hopelessly seeking this kind of human-to-human connection: one sparked by instant & unmistakable chemistry, that starts and grows with sincere patience and understanding, and has the breadth and depth of a lifelong love (yet never fails to makes long strides every day). this connection made even the skeptics in us believe in ‘meant to be’. when you find something that rare, it’s easy to wake up each day and choose to nurture it.

so we’ll continue falling into this love that swept us up from the start and still, somehow, shows no sign of slowing down - just as we’ll continue spreading that love and joy to others because we know it’s something everyone deserves to feel. i’m also starting to think it’s this kind of love that will save the world.

btw: if you’ve never heard of thee sacred souls, here’s a playlist i made my dad to introduce him to the band + retro soul. ♡

[mansorus]

Get me right baby ☺️

[maiteo]

SAY SIKE RNNN

[guavagyal]

one thing I miss about dating is looking up a person's birth chart and seeing the ways we are compatible.

[bodyalive]

A Case of "Military Neck" I had the most extraordinary session with a client this past week! I have a client with an intractable stiff and painful neck that’s lasted for decades. She had consulted and worked with DC’s, PT’s, and massage therapists. Most of the work done to help her has simply ameliorated the pain and enabled her to function. Computer work seriously aggravates it. We had our 5th session this past week and as a result of sequential NMR sessions, some of which were performed by others and not me, the accumulated improvements enabled us to reach and extraordinary degree of freedom for her neck. There are functional reasons for this event. 1. The neck tissue was softer and more malleable and negotiable as a result of past work. 2. The work has been progressive and cumulative. 3. There were coordination functions that had never been addressed before, such as the ability to do forward/anterior translation and side bend while doing so. For those who know muscle testing, here’s what I found: This intractable problem was a consequence of a dramatic torque to the right at the sub-occipitals. In spite of the Rt dominant rotation, she could not turn right past 15 degrees. Very confusing. The right Obliquus Capitiis Superior was locked ‘ON’ but the partner muscle for right rotation, the Lt SCM, was inhibited/non functional. All kinds of muscles on the right side of the neck were rigid along with OCS: Rt Scalene, Rt Rect Capitiis Minor; Rt Longissimus Capitiis side bending. Many unusual muscle patterns were involved in this confusing pattern. Lt and Rt Cranial extension inhibited the Cervical extensors and Lt and Rt Cervical side bending. When both sides of the body are simultaneously dysfunctional I usually anticipate a deeper level of Contralateral Confusion and the need for Brain Buttons. But that wasn’t happening here. When the neck was translated forward to enhance the Cervical curve the LT side bending muscle inhibited the RT one, but not when her neck was straight. So this client locks back her neck on the left side, flattening the Cervical curve. There was also gait pattern dysfunction with Lt Iliacus being tight but inhibited to the Rt Pec Min. Every crazy dysfunctional pattern we corrected led to more and more mobility. When we finished all directions were moving through full range and testing strong. It was a miracle! Can’t wait to see how it’s working next week…

[Jocelyn Olivier]