#the pain post

[bluespring864]

Make the post you want to make, I’m curious now 👀

Okay, here we go. This is not my usual kind of post.

A little tip on how to deal with pain/chronic pain (not a cure in any way)

(not a rant against painkillers either, please take your medication when needed everyone)

So, for various reasons it might sometimes be unadvisable to take (more) pain medication, i.e. because of reactions to the pills, bad side effects, waiting times before taking the next one etc.

What helps me sometimes in these moments is to use something i read about in an article (can't find it right now, in the Guardian maybe?) a while back, which is to try to reframe the pain a bit. That is, to imagine it as a long, slow, flowing river that goes through my body. Especially if the pain is quite sharp in one spot, try not to shy away from it too much but to locate it and imagine it dissipating slowly through your body. You're not trying to get rid of it, you're just trying to redistribute it. Conscious breathing while doing it can be helpful. I find that this sometimes dulls the pain, and sometimes even makes it go away for a while, especially if I don't move too much.

Then, there's a second thing I try to consciously think about (for the more rational side of the brain) which is to remember that pain is a warning signal. My body is trying to warn me about something - maybe about not taxing myself too much because I'm getting my period, maybe about having eaten something that was bad for me, maybe about having gone past my physical limit, maybe about something as of yet undiagnosed. So, I try to tell myself "This is a warning signal, and i have received the warning signal. I will act accordingly (i.e. take a break, not do anything strenuous, do some light exercise to alleviate muscle pain, go to sleep, go to the doctor etc.). Dear body, please let me take a break/go to sleep etc., we will feel better afterwards.

Both of these exercises might sound ridiculous to you. In that case, this post is not for you, or at least not right now.

But as someone who has gone through periods of chronic pain, I wanted to share this, because god knows, the relief of even getting your pain from a 7 to a 5 can be staggering sometimes.

[nondivisable]

I need to say something and I need y'all to be calm

if it isn't actively bad or harmful, no representation should be called "too simple" or "too surface level"

I have a whole argument for this about the barbie movie but today I wanna talk about a show called "the babysitters club" on Netflix

(obligatory disclaimer that I watched only two episodes of this show so if it's super problematic I'm sorry) (yes. I know it's based on a book, this is about the show)

this is a silly 8+ show that my 9 year old sister is watching and it manages to tackle so many complex topics in such an easy way. basic premise is these 13 year old girls have a babysitting agency.

in one episode, a girl babysits this transfem kid. the approach is super simple, with the kid saying stuff like "oh no, those are my old boy clothes, these are my girl clothes". they have to go to the doctor and everyone is calling the kid by her dead name and using he/him and this 13 year old snaps at like a group of doctors and they all listen to her. it's pure fantasy and any person versed in trans theory would point out a bunch of mistakes.

but after watching this episode, my little sister started switching to my name instead of my dead name and intercalating he/him pronouns when talking about me.

one of the 13 years old is a diabetic and sometimes her whole personality is taken over by that. but she has this episode where she pushes herself to her limit and passes out and talks about being in a coma for a while because of not recognizing the limits of her disability.

and this allowed my 9 year old sister to understand me better when I say "I really want to play with you but right now my body physically can't do that" (I'm disabled). she has even asked me why I'm pushing myself, why I'm not using my crutches when I complain about pain.

my mom is 50 years old and watching this show with my sister. she said the episode about the diabetic girl helped her understand me and my disability better. she grew up disabled as well, but she was taught to shut up and power through.

yes, silly simple representation can annoy you if you've read thousands of pages about queer liberation or disability radical thought, but sometimes things are not for you.

[just-spacetrash]

the 'what if you played it a little risky' post literally Changed my life but i cant fujkign find it in my blog because its. a tiktok screenshot

[lesbianralzarek]

"life doesnt get better, you just get stronger" does NOT include ages 11-17. life does in fact just get better from there. those years are dogshit. like, you do get stronger but its mostly just a factor of not being 11-17 anymore. positive thinking helps but it doesnt fix whatevers going on at 15, you have to brute force through that one raw

[celeste-tyrrell]

is it really true that the average person's pain level is a 0?

[owlmylove]

the flesh is unwilling and honestly, the spirit isn't too keen on the idea either

[thedisablednaturalist]

Kinda fucked up that we all coo and sympathize with "former gifted kids" but never talk about the students who had to stay late after school or over the summer for remedial classes/clubs, who struggled to get above a C, who were given up on or punished. Who tried so hard to understand or just couldn't. Who were grouped with the "stupid kids" (a classmate called us that in remedial math btw)

Autistic kids and adhders who can't relate to their gifted peers and are constantly alienated by them. Kids who struggled in school due to dealing with a chronic or mental illness or physical/learning/developmental disability. Those of us who have had to drop out of highschool or college. Kids who worked so hard and wanted to be seen as smart, but never were. Who watched as their peers seem to fly by them in school, while they were left behind. Who were bullied and put down by those in the gifted and honors classes. Whose confidence was absolutely destroyed by education.

I love you all and I'm so sorry the school system failed you. I'm sorry you weren't properly accommodated and given the education you deserved. I'm sorry people put you down for something that they never had to fight for.

[novelconcepts]

I Saw the TV Glow is such a uniquely, devastatingly queer story. Two queer kids trapped in suburbia. Both of them sensing something isn’t quite right with their lives. Both of them knowing that wrongness could kill them. One of them getting out, trying on new names, new places, new ways of being. Trying to claw her way to fully understanding herself, trying to grasp the true reality of her existence. Succeeding. Going back to help the other, to try so desperately to rescue an old friend, to show the path forward. Being called crazy. Because, to someone who hasn’t gotten out, even trying seems crazy. Feels crazy. Looks, on the surface, like dying.

And to have that other queer kid be so terrified of the internal revolution that is accepting himself that he inadvertently stays buried. Stays in a situation that will suffocate him. Choke the life out of him. Choke the joy out of him. Have him so terrified of possibly being crazy that he, instead, lives with a repression so extreme, it quite literally is killing him. And still, still, he apologizes for it. Apologizes over and over and over, to people who don’t see him. Who never have. Who never will. Because it’s better than being crazy. Because it’s safer than digging his way out. Killing the image everyone sees to rise again as something free and true and authentic. My god. My god, this movie. It shattered me.

[murielsbottombitch]

why is it so hard for able bodied people to believe that doctors are sometimes just incompetent? you realize doctors are people, right? people that can be bad at their job. that happens sometimes. they don't know everything because there's a piece of paper on their wall that says they're smart, actually. they can sometimes be wrong, actually. they can sometimes cut corners and take the easy way out, actually. they can sometimes hate their job and make that their patients problem, actually. doctors aren't all saints who do everything right the first time. please stop invalidating disabled people when they complain about their terrible treatment at the hands of medical professionals. please stop putting the feelings of doctors over the lives of their patients.

[queerstudiesnatural]

good sensations can sometimes be extreme, and i know i personally enjoy a good few of those, so i wanted to know which of these types of pain are the most commonly enjoyed :)

basically my question is. am i such a touch deprived weirdo that i'll enjoy fucked up sensations no one else likes or am i normal

[1nfcteds1llnesz]

HI HI HI HI HI HI HI HI HELLOOOOOOOOOO

Posting here because geez… I get 0 attention on Twitter…. I got faith in tumblr

Anyways appol Grian inspired by a post on twit …

Thank yewww for your attentionnnnnnnn

[willgrahamscock]

t-shirt that says 'touch starved' and on the back it says 'for violence'

[crippledpunks]

i was recently denied life-saving gallbladder removal surgery by my GI specialist due to being "too fat" (i'm 300 lbs and very muscular) and "needing to lose 10 -15 pounds and waiting 2 - 3 months in order to get the surgery". i was then signed up for bariatric weight loss surgery before i could get the gallbladder removal despite the gallstone stuck in the neck of the organ as well as the other stones inside of it causing me to be incapable of keeping down food

i ended up getting the surgery done by a local hospital with far better doctors, but the initial denial had me so defeated. if you are fat and have ever been denied important surgeries, life saving or otherwise, because of your weight, i am so sorry and you should never have to face that. most surgeries are not impacted by weight in the slightest. this is usually an issue with the surgeon's skill as a surgeon.

i was told by every other surgeon i met that weight has no bearing on a laparoscopic gallbladder removal surgery. at the other hospital i was also told that anesthesia wouldn't work on me or that i wouldn't survive it. yet again i was told by other surgeons that was also not the case. most surgeons worth their paygrade can do these surgeries after just... trying and learning how to work with fat bodies.

i was told by the surgeons and nurses in the ER that it's ridiculous for the other hospital to behave as though fat people will never need surgery of any kind ever throughout their lives, for one reason or another. it's unrealistic. most people will encounter a potential surgery in their life times, no matter their weight and it's unprofessional to just give up when someone above a certain weight threshold needs help.

my heart goes out to you especially if you're trans, intersex, gnc, and queer and have been denied top surgery or other gender affirming care surgeries because of your weight. this is also medically unethical and done for no reason other than fatphobic transphobic bias. you do not need to lose weight to get top or bottom surgery.

take care of yourself. my heart goes out to you and you don't deserve this treatment at all

[moresandmanstuff]

[hobgoblinimpersonator]

how do they fit on that little couch

[danielsarmand]

I Saw the TV Glow (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun