#there are absolutely no public resources for me to get diagnosed where I live and private practices are crazy expensive!!

[desiretoadore]

You can really tell most of the people who are “anti-self diagnosis” are neurotypicals who have never had to try to get professionally diagnosed in their entire lives. They have no clue how long, frustrating and expensive the process can be, how many places don’t even have to resources for you to get diagnosed and even how often people get professionally misdiagnosed. It’s absurd they think they have a say in whether your diagnosis is valid or not.

[drdemonprince]

Hi I keep thinking back to your book unmasking autism, I recently was diagnosed with level 1 by my new psychiatrist but with losing my healthcare I feel lost on how to function without medical assistance. I typically mask and been learning how not to, but it always feel at the opportunity cost of more money, overly explaining to family or grief. I’ve been in a loop of feeling I shouldn’t exist due to my disability and it a sad feeling.

I am so sorry to hear that you are going through this. I'm certain you already know this, but it's not the case that you shouldn't exist because you are disabled. The vast majority of people on this planet find it absolutely soul-sucking and exhausting to present as what gets called "neurotypical" at work. It's too many hours of pretending to be someone you are not, with no space allotted for your full humanity, with not enough energy or hours left behind to look after oneself, have nourishing authentic relationships, and ample space to recover, be playful and joyful, and dream. Every person requires ample time and space for themselves to recouperate, and to listen to the actual feelings that they have inside, and capitalism instead demands that we suppress all of it, and it can slowly eat away at us and make it difficult to access authentic pleasure or connectedness. For Autistics it's especially pronounced because we are such a bad mismatch with what capitalism demands, and because we need so much energy recovery time, but it's simply the case that you are not broken or defective for failing to fit within such an oppressive system. It is that system that should not exist, and that terrorizes everybody, to varying degrees. I bet if you look at the most "well adjusted" hard working people that you know, you see how their lives have been totally ruined by overworking and killing what's wild and free about themselves, or what used to be those things.

I have spoken to hundreds of Autistic people in the situation you are in at this point, and I have found that for the majority of us, embracing our disability and articulating our needs means that very dramatic changes have to happen in our lives. Some people have to reorient how they interact with their families, establish new boundaries, push to really educate them on neurodivergence, go no contact, or rethink what family means to them altogether. Lots of us leave careers or switch to part-time or remote work, or have to get incredibly creative and resourceful in order to survive in a way that we can stand: going on disability benefits, public assistance, living with friends, pooling resources, going off the grid in some way, finding some side hustle or scam that makes it possible to survive, doing sex work or freelance, taking on childcare or eldercare duties for a friend who is employed, or something of that nature are all options I've seen a lot of unmasking Autistics pursue. None of these options are ideal, and they all come with significant costs and risk factors. But then, so does killing oneself slowly with work.

I have a whole book coming out next year in March about these specific considerations, with lots of tools and decision trees and research and quotes from other Autistics. The book is designed to help Autistics who are in that second stage of their unmasking journey sort out what a life where it is possible to be less masked means for them. Where can they live? Who is gonna support them? What matters to them in their life? How can they reset their relationships in light of their neurodivergence? What does it mean to grow old as a disabled person? These are the kinds of questions the book will hopefully help me explore, and discover the best answers for themselves. Of course, many people would say that their only way out of this is the downfall of capitalism, but I personally am of the mind that we have to make that end happen ourselves by working less hard, consuming less where possible, leaning on other people, providing support to our neighbors, becoming less reliant upon our employers and the government, and building our collective escape from the capitalistic machine. And we can all have some small part in that, even if only for ourselves and those immediately closest to us. That's enough.

I hope that you find a way of life that is sustaining and feels whole and good for you. As neurodivergent people we do things very differently. And that is both the curse and the beauty of us. The prescribed script we've been given for how life is supposed to look is never going to work for us. Indeed, it's not working for most anybody else either. There way forward will not be easy, and the lot you've been given to deal with is not fair, but there are also millions of other disabled people just like you who are leaning on one another, slowing down, refusing to play into the existing system's hand as much as is possible for them, and making a new world. And just by pondering the things that you are, you're helping already to make that new world too.

[the-prophesied-disco-gay]

The comments on this post really show how wildly different homeschooling is from place to place in this country. Because it's not federally regulated, experiences vary wildly.

I homeschooled my eldest for most of school and my youngest for part of it, though she is back in public school now. It was not a religious or fundamentalist curriculum at all and it exceeded all state requirements. We also had to notify the state each year we intended to homeschool and keep all records for review to make sure they were getting adequate education. It was neither unregulated nor extreme, and provided us a way to maintain our kids education when public school wasn't an option. When my youngest reached a point of being able to return to public school, the autoimmune stuff was well controlled enough for it to be safe, she was above grade level. We also made sure they were able to maintain social lives, extra-curriculars (most districts will allow homeschooled kids to enroll in public school extra-curriculars like sports and clubs and band), and field trips.

Now, to be clear, that is not how it usually goes. Our situation is unusual and many homeschooling situations absolutely are abusive and/or neglectful. I'm not sharing this to go "nu uh!" about the issues that have been raised here.

We had 4 MAJOR factors that impacted this process:

1. Homeschooling is not unregulated in my state. They keep an eye on the homeschooled kids the same as the public school kids. There are requirements for curriculum, testing, immunizations, attendance, all of it. It's not exactly the same (for instance, attendance is based on work completed, not hours sat in a chair, because most of the homeschooled kids here are either very ill/disabled or they have a career, like acting or music, that requires travel) but it's enough to help make it both safer and better for the needs of the kids. They even have homeschool options through public school, where kids can video chat with their classmates and teachers. That system was already in place when Covid hit and they simply transferred all students to it when needed. It was one of the smoothest transitions in the country, because we had systems in place for homeschooled kids.

2. I went to college to become a teacher and worked as one for a while. I know how to plan a curriculum, how to build lessons, how to incorporate day to day experiences into learning. Fractions in the kitchen and geometry in the backyard and history at the art museum and econ at the grocery store. Education didn't have set hours. It was incorporated into their day to day, and they still seek out information on their own all the time because of those habits. Being educated as a teacher, even if it didn't become my career, gave me an enormous advantage in homeschooling my kids.

3. We are poor. Like not "oh no how are we going to afford car repairs" kind of poor. "Walking around town to collect change off the sidewalk to get a dollar for toilet paper" kind of poor. But we live in a very poor state, so there are many supports for poverty. Free museum days at both the art museum and the natural history museum, occassional free community days at the science museum, free admission to all state parks and monuments and ruins, lots of library activities, free zoo and aquarium admission certain days, there is SO MUCH available if you qualify, which we did. This allowed us to incorporate a large amount of learning without having to pay for hundreds in materials. The library also had workbooks that we could use as long as we didn't write directly in them. Lots of resources.

4. I am chronically ill and disabled. It is hereditary. My kids are chronically ill and disabled. I was not diagnosed until after they were born, so it's been a learning curve for all of us. My eldest especially could NOT handle public school. It was killing her. That's not hyperbolic. We went through 3 schools in 3 years trying to find accommodations that would work for her. We were unable to. It was her doctor that first suggested homeschooling. My kids are happier and healthier and more successful because I was able to homeschool them. There was an enormous reduction in trauma. Because homeschooling allows a tailoring and flexibility that public school does not, an environment that public school cannot customize in that way, a methodology that can be adjusted based on individual needs. I have kids that *needed* homeschooling because of the ways in which it differs.

Maybe these could be some starting points for how to make it better and safer nationwide? I don't know all the answers, but I know what worked for us and why it worked for us.

Anyway enough lame gifted kid discourse we are in our 20s. Let's talk about how homeschooling in america should be fucking illegal it's insane lol

[ganymedesclock]

So I discovered the trailer for Belle (2021), and it’s making me think about what I love about Beauty and the Beast riffs, and what makes a story scratch that particular itch for me or not.

And I think a huge part of it for me is the examination of monstrosity as a social role. To just use Disney’s animated classic as my base for comparison here, Adam, The Beast, is not literally cursed with fur and fangs, claws and horns- he has those things, and may have mixed feelings about them, others certainly have bad reactions to them-

-his curse is ostracization. His curse is to not be seen as human. What actual, physical features he has are irrelevant to that. They’re just quirks he can learn to live with, or a further excuse to tell himself he deserves this isolation, this frustration, this misery.

So the breaking of the curse, to me, is not the scene where Belle sobs confirmation of what we knew well before then into his stilling chest and brings him back, minus those quirks- if anything, that his happiness comes with the loss of those things has seemed to me (and I’m not alone) as almost something of a betrayal depending on how it’s framed.

By contrast, to me, the breaking of the curse is the ballroom scene, and the moments leading up to it. Adam returns to Adam, rather than The Beast, at the point that he decides that he deserves to be treated like a human being- not as a labor of love from Belle, but from himself. Yes, it’s love with Belle that they dance together, that they have this ball scene when there’s no high society to impress, but before that point, he had to make a decision; that he can clean up and dress nice and have an evening. That he deserves to.

When we first see The Beast, he has all of the means and resources to act like a prince, to present like one. He could make himself comfortable and be surrounded by splendor, but the truest thing he suffers under is he’s ceased to see himself as worth the effort. It’s not as if he could cut the fur down and prune back his claws, file down the horns, and look the way he feels he ought to- the way he thinks he should. He’s broken every mirror in his house except for the one he hides from, and this is a gesture of absolute defeat. He knows what he looks like. He can’t pretend he doesn’t. The only way he can tolerate this is not looking at himself.

As a neurodivergent queer person, the monster in the mirror is something I have a very complicated relationship with. I have an “advantage” in some ways. My appearance is not shocking to most people. I do not benefit from an obvious mobility aid or assistive device; I speak within a range people think of is normal. I have an “unusual haircut” for a “girl” and I don’t aggressively correct people on my pronouns or presentation.

But I’ve always had this feeling, that perhaps, my fangs and fur were simply easy things to trim off, and it’s so easy to wonder, would I still be okay if they weren’t? Because really, it’s none of the granular details that make a monster. For every imagined horror creature, there’s almost certainly a real animal it resembles, and real animals are not monsters. A monster is a monster; anything else, we believe, has a place, has a home. Deserves to exist.

To be a monster is to be a thing that doesn’t fit, or, more directly, to be a monster is to be a thing that is unaccepted. Rejected for not fitting. Unworthy of love, from within, or without.

At the end of the day, I know, factually, I am not a monster. I know that I’m a real person. I know that I deserve dignity and respect and love, even if only from myself. I’m not owed another person to love me just to prove that I can be, but, also, no man is an island; as humans we seek each other one way or another, romantically or platonically. That’s a fact of anyone, not just people who struggle to see a real person when they look at their reflection.

And yet, at this same time, I can’t help but feel betrayed, left behind, when the narrative goes that if the monster does everything right its reward is to be shaped into the likeness of a Real Human Being. Because you can’t just pull a feathered skin off me and make me like I “should be”, like my various diagnoses and self-identifications all present me as an aberration from. If you showed me a me without any of those qualities, that’s honestly the thing I’m the most afraid of, a me without me. A Miss Perfect who’s a good, normative daughter, and in my insecurity I wonder if people would like her so much better than me that they wouldn’t miss if I was gone.

Which, that’s nonsense. I know a lot of people who care about me the way I am. But nobody ever said fears had to be rational.

At the end of the day, as much as I hate the idea of being a monster to others, I also relish the notion of qualities that are categorized as monsters. I love dragons. I love putting big, horrible teeth and leering eyes and wings and claws on heroic characters. Because brought into the light, qualities are just qualities. And if you bring those qualities into the favoring, soft light of stories about human connection, romances, queerplatonic bonds, friendships and found family alike, those qualities can even be charming, alluring, inspiring; a character can look like anything and we still feel a rush of reassurance that this specific character is there.

And that’s the other side of Beauty and the Beast: Adam is running away from being a monster, and Belle is trying to run away from who she is, too. Because Belle is the other side of that trap.

Let’s be honest; it isn’t just that Belle’s an outspoken woman with opinions. It’s that she’s pretty. She’s the prettiest girl in town. She’s someone people want, people have expectations for- and those expectations have little room for what she actually wants. Hell, that’s one of the major dangerous driving forces of the climax- Adam nearly gets murdered by a mob because Belle made a choice that her community really didn’t like, especially Gaston, and it’s easy to point to Adam as the wrong choice because he’s pointy.

“Beauty”, as much as “The Beast”, are dehumanizing categories that people are sorted into. The doll and the monster. One is considered beneath monstrosity; beguiling, an object of appeal and desire but not someone with opinions, oh no, and not someone able to make a choice that you disagree with. People driven to the fringes by opposing forces but regardless find each other in the place they’re trying to find room to breathe in.

And that, I think, is one way some of these riffs can, for me personally, miss the point- and that’s not a mark against them, it’s just that there’s a specific thing I see in this story, and it’s very specifically not, “to be beautiful and desirable to mass public consumption is the way to be happy; we will have a story about how to rehabilitate someone so they can be beautiful too” but rather, “what does it mean when people stop seeing you as yourself, whether the alternative is perfection or a monster? what would you do to be seen clearly?”

[indecisive-behaviors]

Originally I was just going to add this as a reblog to my previous post about the parking lot scene in KK2 but it’s almost 2k words so now it’s getting it’s own post. Be forewarned- this is fucking long.

TW for discussion of PTSD, child abuse, neglect, injury, and death, in relation to topics surrounding the show, under the cut-

Obviously, Cobra Kai is a show based around the premise of “what happened to that Lawrence kid after he got kicked in the face?”, which is honestly a pretty cool idea for a show. Johnny’s story is never explained past sitting on the sidewalk with his head in his hands at the tournament, and there are no real context clue’s to figure out what may or may not have happened.

In the show we get to learn early on that Johnny’s life spiraled after the tournament, going from bad to worse to “holy shit how are you still alive”-dropping out/never going to college, working jobs he seems to hate, becoming an alcoholic, presumably many dead end relationships, and not being there for his kid. And yeah, obviously, this would be a hard pill to swallow for anyone watching the show if Johnny had just lost the tournament. If we never got the scene in KK2, he would have just been some kid who lost a tournament- we see at the end of the first movie that(through tears holy shit Billy) that Johnny is the one who gives the trophy to Daniel with his famous line, “You’re alright, LaRusso.” There’s a level of grudging respect in that moment that isn’t lost on anyone who sees that movie- that Johnny, who throughout the movie only sees Daniel as some whimpy kid, gets proven wrong and respects that. If we didn’t have that scene, there’s reason to believe Johnny would have apologized, tried to make amends, Something, even if it was just being less of a dick at school.

But then, we get the parking lot. We get a far off shot, intended to distance you from the scene, framed over Daniel’s shoulder. This makes sense, Daniel is the main character, the protagonist, the underdog hero- why wouldn’t it be framed in his perspective? But the scene is about Johnny. We get the shouting match, the back and forth- “No, you’re the loser man.”- and again it’s fairly obvious how Johnny sees this situation. This is a man who we assume(and is later confirmed) to be a surrogate father figure, who set his friend up for failure, and then basically forced him to do the same by targeting an injured opponent, and forcing him to fight without honor. This same man presumably follows a teenager out to the parking lot, to harass him, to tell him he’s off the team, to tell him he’s a loser, that he’s nothing.

But at that point, Johnny knows the truth, even if subconsciously. At the end of the day Johnny knows that Daniel LaRusso was a worthy opponent, and that regardless of the cheating and manipulation, Daniel could have won anyway, and did win, despite of it.

And then Kreese grabs him, too fast to react to, Johnny too surprised even knowing that Kreese is the bad guy here, not believing that he would ever willingly hurt him- and Johnny isn’t strong enough to fight him off, none of the boys are, so Johnny is forced to suffocate for almost a full 30 seconds(which I double checked for the record- also as a reference, 30 seconds is about the average time it takes for a person voluntarily holding their breath to pass out- this does not account for the oxygen lost during a struggle, and the lack of preparation from both surprise and panic. The only silver lining here is the fact that Kreese was most likely compressing his windpipe, not his jugular, which would have made him pass out in about 5-10 seconds, and would have caused permanent brain damage or death in about 15).

Now, PTSD is a complex thing. I’m not a psychiatrist, and what small amount of information we have is all we have to work off of, but I feel fairly comfortable in saying Johnny mostly likely developed it after the incident. This not an uncommon take in the fandom as far as I’m aware either. But, if we assume this, we also have to assume that after the fact nothing would have been done about this. Not just in the sense that we still don’t really know everything that happened right after the tournament, but that in the early 80s, PTSD wasn’t really a thing yet.

Sure it was absolutely a condition that existed, but Post Traumatic Stress Disorder wasn’t even added to the DSM-III until 1980- and for a long time afterward, was only seen as a condition that affected primarily war vets. Even after an event as traumatic as having a man you considered a father trying to kill you, in public, without remorse, would not have been seen as something to warrant the diagnoses, let alone treatment.

Johnny Lawrence was 17 when Kreese tried to kill him, and this boy would have been offered no resources beyond filing charges with the police. And as we see in KK3, either this didn’t happen either, or someone(presumably Silver) got the charges dropped. So on top of almost being murdered, Johnny had to live with the fact that the man who did that to him was still out there, and to top it off, still ran a dojo at least for a few months after the event. The only relief he could have gotten is after Kreese faked his death.

And sure, Mr Miyagi may have gotten Kreese to let go eventually, but as several people have pointed out in comments and tags, left him and the other boys alone with Kreese still standing there in the parking lot and just... drove off. Kreese has already been established to be a psycho with no problem hurting children, a little bit of glass might not have prevented him from trying again.

So why did I talk about all of that? Because it all contributes to why Daniel LaRusso works as a credible antagonist in season 1 of Cobra Kai.

Think about this- Johnny blames losing everything on Daniel in season 1, but we specifically get a shot in KK1 and later KK2(”You’re alright, LaRusso” and “I did my best” come to mind) where he seems to be at least mostly accepting of the fact that he lost(with what was actually an illegal kick but that’s a rant for another time). So why does he blame him for everything 30 years later?

Because 30 years later, Johnny is forced to go outside, go to work, and pretend like he doesn’t see what feels like every street corner(including right outside his apartment mind you), a literal billboard sized reminder of what happened to him.

The rest of this is mostly speculation but it makes sense in my head so bear with me.

When we get introduced to Robby, it’s made pretty clear that Johnny has not been in his life for a bit. In season 2 we get Johnny’s heart to heart with Miguel, where he divulges that he missed the birth, because he spiraled after his mom’s death. This however doesn’t suggest that he stayed gone, especially knowing that it wasn’t long enough for Robby to not consider seeking out his dad. Because tacked up to the fridge, is a picture of Robby in his soccer uniform as a kid. It’s an early detail you can see in previous episodes, and says a lot about how Robby grew up. To be fair, this could have been given to him by Shannon, and not taken himself, but it’s the sport Robby’s playing that makes me question this. KK1 dedicates an entire scene to Johnny being on the soccer team in high school. Soccer, while maybe not as important to him as karate, is still part of his character. Robby does not know karate in season 1, Johnny obviously didn’t share it with him, but that doesn’t mean Johnny didn’t share anything with him.

So Johnny’s back in his kids life, maybe doing better for himself, maybe cutting back on the drinking. LaRusso Auto is already established to exist at this point but it’s in Encino, a place Johnny has no reason to go to, and probably doesn’t want to. He’s trying again and things are okay. But Robby knows enough about Daniel to know that going to him will piss off his dad. So Johnny had to have talked about him at some point. The billboards here are what’s important- they’re in the first episode, the first scene montage, Johnny draws a dick on one of them as some petty revenge.

The first billboard goes up in the late 2000s to mid 2010s. Johnny sees it, maybe he has Robby with him at the time, maybe he goes home and says something there, but he says something in a way that sticks with even a child as being important. More billboards go up. Dealerships starting popping up more and more. Daniel’s face, and by extension, the memories, the flashbacks, become inescapable. Johnny, for a third time, spirals again. Before he even knows what’s happening, he’s lost his relationship with his son. And it’s all Daniel’s fault. Of course Daniel doesn’t do it deliberately, but the constant reminders are enough to send him back into a tailspin and Johnny blames him for it.

Because it’s Daniel who is a constant reminder of his failures- it’s Daniel who caused him to lose the tournament and almost get killed, Daniel who put up the billboards that trigger his flashbacks, it’s always Daniel Daniel Daniel.

And then Johnny gets it in his head that he wants to be better. He opens a dojo, teaches Miguel and the other kids, wants to try again- and he almost succeeds.

Johnny up to this point has not deliberately antagonized Daniel in any way. Sure he named the dojo Cobra Kai, but Cobra Kai is all he knows. Besides Johnny doesn’t blame karate for his failures, his best memories are Cobra Kai and he’s trying to be better than Kreese. So what’s the harm in this really? His building is in Reseda, there’s no reason for Daniel to ever be there, he doesn’t do it out of spite, it’s because he lives there and rent is cheap. He doesn’t know about KK3, doesn’t know about Daniel’s own trauma. This isn’t an attack. Johnny sincerely just doesn’t know.

Enter Daniel, stage left. Daniel makes no attempt to talk to him- he simply makes demands and accusations, before he starts making active attempts to put him out of business.

Sure, we as the audience know Daniel has good reasons to not want Cobra Kai back. But Johnny doesn’t. All Johnny knows is that the kid he picked on in high school- who won, who got everything Johnny wanted, who grew up to be successful, has a wonderful wife, two kids who love him, a thriving business- is doing everything he can to make his life hell 30 years after the fact.

And this could only have happened because in 1986 John G. Avildsen decided to add in a scene meant for the original movie into the sequel, for absolutely no fucking reason.

[carriecutforth]

The Shit

Tumblr is telling me to go ahead, put anything...so here it goes

I haven't been public about this for reasons that will be apparent but gonna start this with all the trigger warnings. I'm writing it here cause I can't talk to the majority of people about it cause most people can't even grasp, and then questions start, putting me in the situation of feeling like my GIANT SWEATER of trauma is being unraveled answering questions that lead to more questions and gah PLEASE DO NOT RETUMBL-- I just need to scream in the void This is the shit: On the day my sister-in-law's mother died she had to call form-1 my baby brother because his psychosis (undiagnosed mental illness which I will get to) was terrorizing their family (three small kids). My mother WHO IS SCHIZOPHRENIC had him released into her and my ANTI-VAXXER ANTI-MASKER narcissist father's care, but NOT before they found out, incidentally due to the FORM 1, he is ALSO really sick with leukemia. I only found out because I decided to dip into the special folder for emails called MOM that I try to avoid reading as long as they can FOR REASONS. But I felt for some reason an urge to, and then I had to try to parse out what had happened from her ramblings that are A LOT. Then I had to confirm with my poor sil who is at her wits end and was in no position to tell me herself. My dad stopped talking to me back in November when I called him for his anti-vax rhetoric as being EUGENICS when he told me it is just the flu and only killing old people and the disabled. I reminded him I've been immuno-compromised my whole life (he KNOWS this) and got chronic fatigue after a flu in late 2016 (he knows this), and did he not care if I DIED? (apparently not) But I was like lol, fine, don't talk to me anymore. Die mad about it for all I care. A lot of people are like: 'oh, that's tough, losing a relationship with your father' and I'm like YOLO (it really isn't if you knew him). SO THEN I have to reach out to my dad: "Why isn't my brother in the hospital being treated by medical professionals for YOU KNOW, HIS LEUKEMIA." My dad responded that the doctors were JUST GOING TO PUMP HIM FULL OF DRUGS! And that HE is treating my brother's leukemia with I dunno baking soda (he told me before it is a cure for cancer). THEN HE GOES RADIO SILENT. I have no idea where my brother is cause they got him an apartment somewhere in Toronto. *though I do have a Machiavellian plan to try to find out. The reason my brother has untreated psychosis is that even though I've begged my parents since he was a TEEN to get him diagnosed, they refused. It's like they have the opposite of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in that their ABLEISM is soooo bad they refuse to see he has been very sick, and even if he was really sick, 'doctors are stupid' <--quoting my dad. This is the backstory. My dad was always on the road for his job. My mom had my baby brother AGAINST all wishes of her doctor to ever get pregnant again. I'm not talking aborting, she got PREGNANT on purpose again to SERVE GOD'S GREATER PURPOSE even though it might kill her and said future fetus. So he was born with a lot of issues because of the very bad pregnancy's complications on TOP of the very hereditary bipolar/schizophrenia, AND everything else we got going on besides. After he was born, my mom went into a very deep depression for years and then would vacillate between that and mania. Which meant me: THE ELEVEN year old was forced to raise a baby that wasn't hers and had no ultimate authority over. I was called by everyone his *BROTHER'S NAME* SECOND MOM. *More on this later Our relationship is very strained because of this, particularly when at 17 I had enough momming a child while being constantly undermined by my parents absolute shenanigans. So there was resentment when I quit being his 'second mom' and that he equally resented for things like, trying to put him into bed, when my mom would come in and say let him stay up all night or getting him to eat something other than candy for breakfast (you can guess the dynamic with my parents here). Even if my disabled ass could sue my parents for his

care, he doesn't WANT me to be in charge of his care.

And yet still, I tried to advocate for him for years fighting my parents TOOTH and NAIL to get him on disability and out from underneath their thumb so he could have a measure of independence and autonomy. They had every excuse in the book not to get him diagnosed including expense. It was so goddamned awful fighting with them on this cause in their mind: he was going to live with either them or me forever (they decided this for me and my ex-husband and kids with no consultation), so WHY bother set up his future for him??? So when he was 20?, I hatched a Machiavellian PLAN: I got him, against my parent's wishes, into college for the sole reason of getting the resources for him to get diagnosed so that he could get on disability. AND IT WORKED! (kinda) Except my parents twisted him so much into only talking about his autism spectrum symptoms and NONE of the psychosis because their ableism is sooooo entrenched. (but I did manage to get him on ODSP). And subsequent times I forced my dad to take him to a psychiatrist, he's like: 'oh, I forgot to talk about the psychosis we just talked about the aspergers. Besides people with psychosis are untreatable, you can't convince them otherwise' (see again, my mom). Over the years, I have begged my dad to take my brother to get properly diagnosed and treated (I'm not meaning forced, my brother is also agoraphobic, and won't leave his place UNLESS he is driven by my dad and was living in a city far away from me). I said, I was very concerned for his kids but my dad always gaslights me (and tells everyone I'm crazy -- the IRONY). So now my mom is writing me emails about how this is all my sil's fault because 'she is on drugs' (she is not), 'she is sleeping around' (she is not), 'her kids are scared of her not my brother' (it's the exact opposite). WHICH IS A HUGE TRIGGER FOR ME because She did the exact same thing to ME with my other brother (a diagnosed PSYCHOPATH) who used to beat me and the rest of us mercilessly when my parents weren't around (and they never believed me, and told everyone not to believe me because I was crazy), who pulled a KNIFE on me and threw a drawer at me when I was NINE MONTHS PREGNANT, and how absolutely awful I was AS HIS SISTER to kick him out of my house with no place to live or go (cause he was living with me and my ex-husband at the time because THEY KICKED HIM OUT OF THEIR PLACE and didn't want him back.) Are you beginning to get a sense of the dynamic of my family? Soooooooo the last few weeks my brain has just been in total trauma mode going processing, processing, processing, processing as the final total realization of how absolutely awful my family is finally laid bare (I mean I knew but at least I can stop feeling guilty about cutting them out of my life). So back to the 'second mom' shit, as relevant to my trauma brain processing the last few weeks. This whole shit above is just the tip of the iceberg. I was raised as a Joho in which a lot of my trauma comes from a pedophile left loose on three generations of girls in my family over a thirty year period, and if anyone came forward they were threatened with disfellowshipment and there is SO MUCH there it would take me several Tolkien novels to get how absolutely awful, extensive it was, and how the coverup went straight to the top. ANYHOO. So who was calling me my brother's 'second mom???' Well since, I wasn't allowed to have any association with non-witnesses, it was my congregation. No one questioned that I was being parentified and it was a deeply abusive situation. NO WHAT HAPPENED instead was, this sister in the congregation told everyone (when I was fifteen and 80 pounds soaking wet at the height of 5'10 1/2) that my brother WAS REALLY MY CHILD cause it was so obvious the way that I was the one who took care of him. And the elders of our congregation MARKED me as bad association for loose morals for having a supposed child out of wedlock when I was ELEVEN YEARS OLD. AND NO ONE in my congregation would talk to me, and I had NO IDEA why, cause they never told me that I HAD BEEN

MARKED. But the caveat was I was not allowed to talk to people outside of the faith. And we only found out about this a year an a half later when she said the same shit back in my hometown where he was born to a sister who was at the hospital where my brother was born. AND NO ONE thought, hey: maybe if we think she had a baby when she was eleven we should um CALL CHILD SERVICES or some shit? So i was like 16 1/2, not allowed to have any friends OUTSIDE OF MY PARENTS, find out THIS SHIT, and then people wonder why I had my first manic episode at 17??? Yeah, so this is where my brain has been stuck the last month, complicated that I knew I would be at risk for hypomania with things opening back up, and I'm supposed to be shooting a pilot for a potential series I'm the creator/co-shorunner of, so now I've had to go BACK on seroquel and it's the worst while i try to acclimatize myself to the drugs and stave off hypomania at the same time. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

[radicalposture]

Hey, so were you diagnosed with autism/adhd as an adult? If you don't mind me asking, was that difficult to achieve? I'm 25, and I've often thought I might have adhd, but I've held off on looking into it because I hear it's extremely difficult and expensive to get it tested and diagnosed as an adult.

yes I only got diagnosed last october, I was 25 then too! it was kind of a weird journey for me, all of my siblings and my dad got diagnosed with autism or adhd one after the other and I was still saying “but I can’t really be autistic/adhd” right up until I actually got diagnosed lol. but since then my whole life suddenly makes sense for the first time and I really think things are gonna be ok! this applies to autism/adhd/other neurodiverse stuff but autism and adhd is what I know, but I hope it applies broadly as well

so unfortunately yes, it can be pretty expensive to get through the whole process. depends on where you live of course, I live in Ireland so even though we do have public healthcare I would probably have been on a waiting list for upwards of two years to see a terrible psychologist who didn’t know anything about adhd/autism so I went to a private psychologist. I already knew her pretty well bc my siblings had been to her and I knew she knew what she was talking about and I felt comfortable with her. seeing her cost me around €900 which is definitely a lot, different psychologists have different rates but the price can go up depending on what tests u get done. the more tests you do the more expensive it will be as a general rule (at the same time I saw a different psychologist who had a lower flat rate so idk what the “rules” are about this tbh) I got a standard assessment as well as autism and adhd tests which is why it was so expensive. it used up pretty much all my savings lmao but after getting a diagnosis I was able to apply for disability allowance (which was a hellish process) and I got rejected and had to appeal the decision but I got it in the end, which is fortunate bc I quit my job lol.

recently I wanted to look into medication so I had to go to a psychiatrist because you can’t get a prescription for stimulant medication from a gp in most countries I think? BUT he’d only see me if I got rediagnosed by his psychologist, so that was another €300 for each of them. I did get prescribed ritalin in the end but I’ll have to get the prescription refilled a few times a year bc it’s a restricted medication, which will mean paying €100 ish for each time I do. fortunately I don’t actually have to pay for the medication itself bc I have a medical card.

so yes, it can be expensive! all told it’s cost me almost €2000 to get it all sorted and will keep costing me maybe €300 a year from now on, so it’s definitely something you have to budget for. especially depending on where you live, I imagine things are v different from country to country. also I’m very fortunate bc I still live with my family so I’m free of some financial pressure and I’d been saving for it for a while but I know how hard it is to countenance paying out that kind of money, and wondering whether it’s worth it.

as to whether it’s difficult to achieve I think you’ve got to break it down because official diagnosis is only part of it. so if you think you do have ADHD I’d look at it from a couple of different angles:

1. self acceptance/understanding is absolutely the most important thing. I know people who’ve never been to a psych who know they’re autistic/adhd and really flourish, I also know people who have official diagnoses but who won’t accept it themselves and reject help/support and they’re making things so hard for themselves. so the most important thing is to educate yourself about what adhd means and, more importantly, what it means for you. everyone’s brain is different and understanding exactly how your brain works and why you think/behave the way you do is the most important thing you can do. there are a lot of resources out there, especially online, - I’ll put a link to a google drive of books and things I have at the bottom - and it can be good to connect with others online as well. having people who Get It and can help you is really paramount, I know often our irl families/friends can sometimes let us down so sometimes the only support you can get is from following ppl on twitter or something. the adhd subreddit is weirdly helpful and supportive, it’s great to be able to throw out a question like “I think like this am I insane y/n” and have other people go “nah ur fine” it’s very validating (also validation/external perspectives is super important for adhd bc we can be extremely bad at self assessment). so yes, the most important thing is firstly to know thyself by 1) educating yourself and 2) listening/connecting with others like u.

2. is it important to have an “official” diagnosis? no and yes. obviously you don’t need a diagnosis from a doctor to know what you are, and 70% of the things needed to help you flourish are going to come from your own research and the support systems you make. and if you cant afford or access a psychologist or psychiatrist it doesn’t make it any less real or bar you from educating yourself/accessing resources etc. HOWEVER. if you can get a good diagnosis then I really would go for it, bc: 1) it opens a LOT of doors to official resources, whether that’s access to welfare, supports and accommodations at school or college, medication, etc etc. a lot of the time the supports we need are behind this diagnostic paywall, which sucks but it is what it is :/ so that’s one consideration. 2) it can be really validating and help set your mind at ease about whether you “really” have adhd or if you’re “faking”. like I said I didn’t believe that I was “allowed” to be autistic before I got diagnosed. I also didn’t consider that I might have adhd, I went in thinking I’d just get the autism diagnosis so it wasn’t something I would have found out on my own probably. so it can be good to get an outside opinion, especially as, like I said, we can be really bad at self assessment. 3) it feels good to know you have a piece of paper to throw at rude family members/teachers/doctors who don’t believe it’s real 4) if you can find a good psychiatrist/psychologist it can be such a good thing to have that support and to get genuinely good advice from a professional you trust. doesn’t always happen but if u can find one it’s a godsend

wow this got long. to summarise, if you think you have adhd or anything else I would

research and educate yourself. for adhd probably the best thing to do is read driven to distraction and delivered from distraction, written by two psychiatrists who are adhd themselves. they’re both in this google drive along with loads of other resources I’ve collected, there’s also books about autism as well. as a disclaimer not everything/everyone here has my 100% endorsement some of it is there for academic/historical interest or only parts are helpful but by and large it’s useful. also watch this video and feel Seen

look for a good psychologist/psychiatrist if you’re going for a diagnosis. see if there’s an adhd organisation in your country/area and if they can recommend anyone. a lot of the time you’re better going to a child/educational psychologist who’ll see adult clients as they tend to Get It more. do look for someone who is clear about having experience in adult adhd bc unfortunately even qualified psychologists get a LOT wrong so make sure you get someone who knows what they’re doing before you give them your money

yes it can be really expensive. but if you’re needing to access things like medication or welfare I think it’s well worth the trouble and the money. my sister got diagnosed in her second year of college and was able to save her degree bc of extensions on projects and things like that (I didn’t get diagnosed until after college and spent four years torturing myself I WISH I had known) and it can be something that’s better done sooner rather than later. So if it’s something you can do without putting yourself in financial danger I think it’s good to bite the bullet and go for it. like I used up basically all my savings BUT I now can access disability payments and medication so it was worth it for me. it’ll be different for everyone so use your judgement obviously

anyway hope this helped! let me know if you need anything else! and good luck on your journey

[friend-o-dorothy]

The Brittany Spears guardianship argument comes up on my dash a lot and I have a lot of feelings because of what I do for a living. Sometimes I write letters to the court in support of a guardianship decision, but for those not familiar with the language we use, I refer to something called “least restrictive measures.”

Guardianship is the most restrictive measure you can take. You’re essentially saying the person is incapable of caring for themselves, their money, and their health and will either never be able to do so, or that there is no evidence they’ll be able to do so. This essentially leaves ALL major decisions in the hands of the guardian. If someone wants to move, to date, to get married, to have children, to buy a new tv, their guardian must approve first. No official documents can be signed by the person in question, and their guardian has to do that for them. My client (we’ll call him G) is an example where this is appropriate. He would spend all his money on snacks and would be unable to pay rent or bills without support. He does not have the understanding of money to ensure his accounts don’t go over $2,000, which would kick him off Disability after a tax refund, for instance. If he went to the doctor’s office, he would not comprehend what was being said and may agree to actions or decisions that would be harmful to him. He needs his mother, an excellent guardian, to advocate for him and protect him.

The next least restrictive (depending on your state) is partial or temporary guardianship. This may mean someone who is recovering from a TBI or a mental health crisis who needs support for now but will ultimately recover at which time all rights are returned back to them. A student of mine, A, opted for this decision with her family after she obtained a TBI in a car accident. She would regain her memory and motor function with time, but for a period she was unable to communicate effectively and could not advocate for herself as a result.

Then you can look at power of attourney. POA is a good option for someone who is fairly high functioning but struggles with big medical or financial decisions. You can get POA over money and/or health decisions. This has been a great solution for students who are 18 or 19 with a disability. They don’t know how to manage their money yet, but are learning, or may not understand all of their medical needs, but are learning. It’s very easy to lift POA when someone is more ready. This is common with aging parents but also people with disabilities. A client of mine, R, opted for financial POA because while he was very capable in a lot of areas, he still struggled with money and wanted his mom’s help.

The least restrictive measure is something called supported decision making. This is something we all largely do to some extent. If I wanted a new TV I may ask a friend who just bought one what their experience was like. They may give me advice, but ultimately the final decision rests with me. This is what we always advocate for first if at all possible. This gives the client agency and autonomy and there are no legal measures taken. This means the client chooses experts to consult regarding money, health, employment, and personal care and will consult those people before making any big decisions, but that at the end of the day, even if the choice may have negative consequences, it’s their RIGHT to make the choice. This can be frustrating as a caretaker, because sometimes clients make decisions that are harmful to themselves or others and must face the full consequences of those actions. However, if we really believe in supporting the independence of the people we work with, then we need to BELIEVE in their right to make mistakes. Who among us hasn’t made a mistake?! Mistakes are a vital part of growing up. It’s how we learn and improve and develop into who we are going to be. To take that away from someone you better have a damned good reason.

There are times when each of these is the correct choice for that individual. I don’t know Brittany Spears personally. I haven’t looked at her case file, I don’t know her diagnoses. However, it does appear that despite having a very public life she has been largely scandal free, living a quiet and normal life, and raising her kids successfully for nearly a decade.

One parent I know has attempted to get guardianship of each of her kids. She managed with one, and settled for POA on another. In neither case was it appropriate or necessary and she only won because she is very smart and hired very smart lawyers. The system can fail in this way. A good lawyer can erase the autonomy you have a right to. And as an 18 year old, you many not have the resources or know-how to fight the decision.

So if you really believe in the rights of people with disabilities you’ll follow the pathway from least restrictive to most, only ruling out least restrictive measures if absolutely necessary. And unfortunately it doesn’t seem like that happened in her case. It gives me big Female Hysteria Institution vibes. We have moved away from the physical institutions, but the attitude that says “I get to make decisions FOR you because I don’t LIKE your decisions” is very much prevalent and real. And it’s unacceptable.

[robogreaser]

This is a Long Time Coming...

It’s been a relatively hard task to sit down and make sense of, well, a lot of things as of late. I could chalk it up to the state of the world, but it’s been troublesome for significantly longer than that.

Long Story Short Version: I’ve been in a hell of a place, mentally, physically, and otherwise.

The proper story is a hell of a lot more involved than that and I know damned right well it’s going to take me a fair bit to explain myself and my various professional and social failings over the past... while. I’m gonna try to contain this under a read more, of course, but I apologize to mobile users if tumblr fucks that up.

Okay. That took a fair more bit of effort to figure out than I remember. Which, I suppose, is a fair enough bit of a segue into one thing that’s happened to me.

Tumblr has been deteriorating.

Whether I like to admit it or not, tumblr has been my go to social media platform since... 2011. Yeah. I’ve spent the vast majority of the decade here. I’ve seen a lot. Sure, I’ve lurked elsewhere, but I really cannot stand the interface and nature of a lot of other social media, especially the likes of twitter. Unfortunately for me, this place has been in constant decline for years now at this point. It extends well beyond the porn ban, but that’s a whole separate discussion.

I’ve lost touch with a lot of people I care about, some vanishing into the ether, some ghosting me, some just drifting into other communities or onto other sites. I’ve come to terms with the majority of this. It’s been happening for a while. It’s the very nature of digital relationships. It hurt, and I do think it’s contributed to a fair bit of stress and depression that has resulted in my... withdrawal from online spaces. It’s not a major factor, but its here, it’s present, it’s a factor in all of this.

I’ll be honest in that, well, I’ve tried to make this post several times over the past several weeks and months. It’s hard. Talking about my issues, using ‘I’ and ‘me’ so much in a post... it’s a bit jarring. But I’ll try to suck it up.

It’s been ten years (god I fucking hate time) since I’ve graduated high school. Yeah. It’s a fair thing to say that, on reflection, that’s incredibly jarring. The vast majority of that time has been... relatively unstable. I spent a fair few years working on my book and my publishing journey, now all but scrubbed clean from this blog (more on that later) and... well... Trying to be an adult. I’ve applied to, gotten accepted, and had to withdrawn from my dream school twice in this time. I’ve had a fair few jobs, nothing worthy of my resume, and lost all of them in one form or another, whether being fired for retaliating to my shitty work conditions, or, well, quitting for the sake of my own health during this pandemic. There has been a lot of family troubles. I’ve been through a lot of... ‘varied’ living situations, some horrendous, some just stressful, some, like now, actually really good compared to the others. And for the past few years in particular, it’s been constantly one thing after another, nonstop.

In short, progress is slow, but it’s happening. I don’t care to delve into a lot of these sorts of personal details lest this get to a ridiculous length, but that’s the short of the stuff I’d rather gloss over.

I’ve been on a health... Let’s call it a journey. I’ve been on a health journey. Over the past few years I’ve gone through the long processes of being diagnosed with ADHD, discussing my options regarding my depression and anxiety, and finally getting myself on a medication regimen that works. And then, because the health care system is a joke, I was without insurance. I had been off my medication, an absolute lifesaver and release of burden on my garbage tier brain, for eighteen months. Until last week. I think it’s fair to say, between my revolving door of living situations, employment, and then being un-medicated in a continually more stressful environment... That this is the main reason I’ve been absent. I’ve had no focus. There were weeks where I had no drive to do anything outside of routine that others depended on. I had not only gone back to how I was before situating my mental health, but in some ways, found a worse state.

Finances have been slowly eating away at me. I had been working a part time retail job until November, which made decent enough money, but not nearly for the amount of work and responsibility I was handling. I got fired. I found work with one of the big, corporate postal services. The pay was phenomenal, but it began to actively destroy my health, mainly physically, but also mentally, especially considering I was working a graveyard shift. Eventually when I began having prolonged health issues there, and then a whole lot of the symptoms of covid-19, on top of them turning me down for an entry-level position outside of the package handling, I had to quit. This was shortly after the lockdowns, in early April, and I refuse to look back despite people like my parents insisting on me trying to get work there again. Sure, the pay was phenomenal compared to anything else I had until then, but I cant continue to sacrifice my health. As of now, I’m unemployed, and... well...

I’m working on my commission queue. It’s art. It’s stuff I’ve owed friends (luckily those who are incredibly understanding and good to me) for an embarrassing amount of time, even before moving to and from Oklahoma at the end of 2016. I’m terrified of being the person who is known for taking commissioners’ money and running.

I know, I’m not good at giving updates. I’m not good at a consistent work schedule. I’ve had numerous tech failings over the past few years that constantly slow my roll on any progress I have made. Hell, I’ve had files corrupt despite being two thirds of the way complete when transferring from one computer to another. I’ve lost my cable for my external hard drive. I’ve had my tablet go to hell and back multiple times. But I am working. I am trying. I am sitting down as often as I can between looking for work and managing family nonsense to try and get my workload tidied up.

Which... brings me to my next point. And one I’m rather... ashamed about.

I have used trello, infrequently, since taking on a large load of commissions, and despite not being faithfully updating it and checking back on it, and using it to it’s fullest potential, I had kept, at the minimum, a list of all the work I did owe people using it. Well. Dumbass me attempted to use a mobile app. In short, in an effort to try and make myself tech literate and allow me easier access to my queue, I ended up deleting it. Somehow.

I’ve gone through and slowly flagged all my paypal notices and various emails concerning my commissions. I’m putting it together again. I’m trying. Granted, I am damned sure I am going to be missing someone, somewhere, somehow. I know it. I’ve got a shit brain, and despite my need for organization and minimalism, I don’t put it past me to have missed something along the way.

If you have commissioned me, please, do not hesitate to reach out and contact me regarding your commission. I owe every last one of you a massive apology for my continued failure to produce what you have paid for.

More likely than not, I have a wip already started somewhere, and if not, I have a slew of reference and thumbnails already compiled together somewhere on my computers. I am not ignoring this work. It’s been painfully, embarrassingly slow. It’s been one obstacle after another. But I have every intention of doing this work, and, likely, upgrading the quality of the finished piece past what my commissioners have paid for simply because I do feel bad about the wait time.

I have been inexcusably unprofessional. I know this and I am working as best I can with the time and resources I have to correct it.

In a similar vein, as I mentioned before, I have slowly been cleaning up my rather unimpressive publishing attempts. I’ve gone through and cleaned this blog recently, deleting reference to my work by name and the process of trying to get myself published. I may have missed a few posts here and there, but for the most part I would like a clean slate in regards to building a social media platform surrounding my written work. And this is the part where... I am probably going to be the most upfront and honest with you reading this than I have been publicly before.

I am not ashamed of who I’ve been online these past ten years or so, but it reflects only a sliver of my personality, a sliver of who I am as a whole. I catered to a very specific subset of who I am in pursuit of finding acceptance in communities much larger than myself. I’ve learned a hell of a lot about myself in that time. I figured out what’s important to me, my health, my sexuality, my relationships and my long term goals. I’ve found a very important group of friends. I’ve found people who understand and empathize with a lot of the things I have been through, experience, and am at my core.

But the fact of the matter is, this hypersexual, sci-fi aesthetic-oriented, very open person is only a singular facet. And it is not nearly enough of a reflection of who I am, or who I want to be as a professional, public adult. Will I always be gay for robots? Yes. Will I, when time permits and creative energies are present, continue to make nsfw art? Absolutely. Will I always have a toe dipped in erotic literature and the like? Most likely.

But a lot of me, a lot of my emotion and strife and feelings regarding most things in the world, are completely separate from this. It’s separate from me liking porn on twitter or having a homestuck roleplay blog. It’s separate from who I am in real life, with my boyfriend or with my family or with my work. And I have been dwelling on this, sincerely, for a while. I need to allocate more energy into my life. The separate life offline and online too, where I am pursuing an actual professional career, because, at the end of the day, I want to be an author. I want to have a career telling stories. And, in my time online, I’ve found a lot of skeletons in authors’ closets, the kind that really put mine to shame, and the kind that will always be a footnote to their work. You know the ones.

I want my creative work to speak for itself. I want people to be able to enjoy what I do without a specter, without my time and energy having to explain to a future audience why it is I had explicit thoughts about x,y, and z. I want to be able to write a book, write many books, and have people enjoy them without a footnote about me, a person with a sexual life and a history exploring it through years of depression and isolation, clouding it. It’s not fair to my work. It’s not fair to a future reader. It’s not fair to me.

I’ve got several social media accounts made and slowly coming to life that I need to spend more time with as I try and pursue this new, second leg of a very long journey into publishing. I’m not going to link those here, now or in the future. It’s likely a few people I know and trust have access to them. But I am, effectively starting over from scratch trying to build a platform as a writer. And it’s hard. Juggling that, alongside all of the things in the world today, alongside family and my relationships, alongside my commission queue? It bears down on me and if I didn’t have experience handling more than one thing at a time, I might trip up more frequently. Hell, I forget to post and use those new accounts regularly.

But I’m trying.

I’m not moving away from my current social circles or hobbies or anything like that. I’m not abandoning any fandom or friends or communities. But I am going to be trying to balance myself more thoughtfully moving forward, past just commissions, past just writing.

I’m here. I’m moving forward, slowly but surely, and I am making an effort to improve.

[only-one-king]

(NAME.) jaidev acharya / (AGE.) forty-one /  (GENDER.) cis man / (PRONOUNS.) he + him / (OCCUPATION.) academic advisor / (POWER.) telepathy / (ORIENTATION.) greyaromantic bisexual / (ETHNICITY.) indo-mauritian / (RELIGION.) atheist / (ORIGIN.) chester, united kingdom

ℙ𝕃𝔸𝕐𝔼𝔻 𝔹𝕐 GHOST / 30; he + him

𝙸𝙽 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙱𝙴𝙶𝙸𝙽𝙽𝙸𝙽𝙶...

TELEPATHIC LIABILITY !

» whenever you think of a telepath's origin, how they discovered their powers, you imagine the same thing; they start by hearing voices, only to realise before long that they're not losing their mind, but that instead their mind is tuning in to those around them.

» if I told you this is how Jai discovered his abilities, I would be lying; his telepathic ability has never been soft or gentle, it's never been about reading minds and speaking in thought alone - no, that came later.

» Jai's telepathy has always been an inately destructive force; from a young age, when his mind was not yet sharp enough, but his telepathy already potent enough, he'd scratch at his parents’ minds, day in, day out; same spot, same intensity, and although it was something bareble at first, eventually he'd break through their defences.

» a year after his birth, his mother would be diagnosed with post-partum psychosis, and his father would find temporary relief at the bottom of a bottle; tragic, really, to see two successful academics succumb as they did.

» what happened to his parents would happen over and over in his life to others; people exposed to him would just start acting irrational, and despite the destruction he caused, the little boy couldn't really be blamed, could he?

» until he could be; there's a moment that Jai starts to realise what he can naturally do, break down people's mental defences and tear at their minds like a dark bestial shadows raking claws sharp as razors through the fragile flesh of people's psyches... there was not a moment of horrified realisation, no disgust or guilt or lamenting the monstrous nature of his powers.

» he honed it, instead, and where previously claws extended mindlessly, they reached out with purpose now, more vicious; bending people to his will with ease, and leaving them a veritable vegetable if they didn't.

» his telepathy developed backwards; his mind reading came later, after he'd learned a more gentle hand that wouldn't immediately lay waste to every mind he touched - the subtleties of his powers, the telepathic speaking, predicting behaviour, nudging attention away from himself to render himself as good as invisible, all these things came with rigorous discipline and restraint.

I DIDN'T COME THIS FAR ONLY TO COME THIS FAR...

» MIND READING / THOUGHT DETECTION -- the ability to read/sense the thoughts of others

» MEMORY READING -- the ability to read the target's memory

» PSYCHIC COMMUNICATION -- the ability to open up secret conversations and relay covert information

» BINDING -- the ability to restrict the movements of others via the mind

» TELEPATHIC INVISIBILITY -- the ability to become invisible via telepathy

» MIND CONTROL -- the ability to manipulate the minds of others via thought processes

» MIND WALKING -- the ability to enter the mind of another

» PSIONIC INUNDATION -- the ability to launch psi-bolts to cause mental damage

» PSYCHIC TORTURE -- the ability to torture victims mentally and spiritually

» PUSHING -- the ability to implant memories, thoughts, and emotions into others

» TELEPATHIC PREDICTION -- the ability to know an opponent's moves and attacks by reading their brain waves

» POSSESSION -- the ability to project one's mind into the body of a living being to inhabit and control them

» PSYCHOSOMATIC ILLUSION -- the ability to create powerful illusions that may cause severe physical damage

» SUBCONSCIOUS MANIPULATION -- the ability to manipulate the subconscious

» TELEPATHIC DILATION -- the power to water down the abilities of others by blocking neurological signals

» TELEPATHIC SURGERY -- the ability to perform neuropsychic surgery, healing and/or damaging the mind

𝙰𝙿𝙿𝙴𝙰𝚁𝙰𝙽𝙲𝙴

(FACE CLAIM.) mahesh jadu

(HEIGHT.) 6′3″ / 191cm

(WEIGHT.) 179lbs / 81kg

(EYE COLOUR.) brown

(HAIR COLOUR.) black

(STYLE.) when loose, his hair falls past his shoulders, but it’s most often in a bun, making his undercut visible

THEY CALL ME DEVIL !

for the most part, jai is incredibly difficult to read. there’ll be no grand displays of emotion on his face; the emotion expressed will be small tells. flared nostrils, narrowed eyes, a jaw muscle jumping under his skin. his entire behaviour is carefully curated and monitored, to the point where immediate aggression won’t make him flinch. such things are weakness, after all, cracks in the armour, and a way for the hostile outside world to break through his mental defences. just like his facial expressions, so his words are curt and concise. he’s not one to mindlessly reply — words mean things, and he’ll not simply throw them around without intent behind them. a threat is not a bluff. a promise is never empty. sometimes thoughts are better left as just that; thoughts. and sometimes, you don’t need to speak of the dagger before you plunge it into someone’s gut. they’ll know why.

HELL BENEATH A TIE…

jai puts no meaning to the word ‘relaxation’, and it shows in his manner of dress. full suits, ties, pressed, steamed, cuffed; when he’s working, he’ll look the part. there’s very few people who will catch the man on off-hours, and indeed, some might contemplate if he even has any, or knows the meaning of ‘time off’. his idea of casual is a suit without a tie. those close to him will know that when the suit jacket and tie come off and sleeves are rolled up to his elbows is when the real work starts. but otherwise, anyone might believe he even sleeps in a suit, and he won’t bother correcting them.

𝙸𝙽𝙲𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽

(MBTI.) intj

(ENNEAGRAM.) type 8w9

(TEMPERAMENT.) choleric

(ZODIAC.) scorpio

(MORALITY.) lawful evil

(TRAITS.) + / perceptive, independent, self-confident, resourceful, intelligent; - / forceful, unforgiving, condescending, pragmatic, cruel.

THE DEVIL WITHIN !

if jai is hard to read, then he’s harder to get to know. he’s private and business-like to a fault, and he doesn’t ‘fraternise’, with anyone. needless to say, he’s never claimed friends in his forty-one years of existence, and he’s fine to keep it this way. those who do know personal details about him have obtained this information through sheer patience; such information is extended at the same pace as a glacier shifts down a mountain. there’s a few things that are public knowledge about him, however. he’s thorough and a detail-oriented problem solver — one would think he’d value order and structure, but these are exactly two things he absolutely loathes. order and structure only has value in how far they can be exploited, and otherwise he prefers dynamism and unpredictability.

A PROMISE, A THREAT…

anyone with eyes and a working brain can attest to jai's immorality. the idea of ripping life from another person doesn’t make him blink, especially if that person gets in between him and his goal. he likes hurting others, exerting control, causing fear, but certainly won’t go out of his way for it either. the duality lies in that his word is his bond. a deal is a deal, and he’ll keep to it; aside from delivering good work, it’s how he maintains his reputation. he’s exacting and critical of those in his professional life, but in the same breath, those worthy earn loyalty and dedication. the same work ethic that leads him to maim, torture, and kill will lead him to protect, avenge, and care for those in his charge.

𝙰𝙳𝙳𝙸𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽𝙰𝙻 𝙸𝙽𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙼𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽

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[drdemonprince]

Regarding your “informed consent for all drugs” essay, I have a burning question I haven’t seen you address (if you have and I missed it, sorry!) What about things like antibiotics? IMO if you’re taking drugs that only affect you that’s one thing. I’m willing to give it consideration. But I honestly do think there should be some gatekeeping of community resources like abx, where use where it’s not warranted decreases the efficacy for the entire community. And I’ve heard way too many stories of people demanding abx for viral illnesses to expect that the general public will be informed enough to steward those resources wisely—a small number of people can genuinely ruin it for everybody, including very vulnerable people.

True

Informed

Consent !!!

Guided

Decision-Making

With the Help of a Doctor!

The leading cause of antibiotic overprescription is sloppy, overly 'efficient' work on the part of prescribers. I once went to an urgicare clinic with a months-long bout of laryngitis that I knew for a fact was caused by teaching 8 hours per day, not by a bacterial infection, yet the nurse practicioner prescribed me antibiotics anyway.

Because the clinic was trying to maximize profits and it was understaffed and each provider only had about fifteen minutes with each patient, if that. The provider didn't listen to me when I told him there was no way I had a bacterial infection, and he took absolutely no time to inform me about the effects of antibiotics and the massive risks of taking them when you don't need them.

Today, the average patient seeking healthcare is sorely ill informed about just about everything. Doctors disdain them for being self diagnosed on web MD and for seeking out information about their desired medications online, but what other options do they have? It takes weeks if not months to see a doctor sometimes, and they barely stop moving and interrogating you for one second to answer your questions or explain complex concepts to you once you get in their office.

Within this environment, is it any surprise that patients don't stick to their course of antibiotic treatments all the way through, hoard pills, take them for the wrong conditions, and request antibiotics when they don't need them? And considering that antibiotics are among the cheapest medications available, and most patients can't afford alternate treatments for other conditions on their own, is it any surprise they keep requesting these meds?

In order to move forward, we need a true informed consent model of accessing all drugs. Exactly like a dispensary for weed or Mexican-model pharmacy. You report to the pharmacist, explain your condition and what kind of help you are seeking, and an educated, patient, compassionate provider explains to you exactly the effects you can anticipate from the substances you are seeking -- as well as the risks and use cases.

If it were possible for people to access not only antibiotics in this fashion, but also weed, painkillers, tamiflu, and paxlovid, we would not have the scale of antibiotic overprescription and misuse that we see today.

People tend to glance over the "informed" part of the "informed consent" model that I am advancing, and that's really unfortunate. But I think it's understandable, because many of us have never experience actual informed consent basically any time in our lives. Imagine what it would be like to actually have the authority to make good decisions about what goes into your body, with a doctor seeing themselves as a support person for you, rather than an authority over you.

Imagine what it would be like to have a doctor who listens to you, who has time for you, who sits down with you and breaks down complicated topics and trusts you to make your own decisions once you've been educated and given their support.

[yoosungiib]

I know you did an hc of MC having a panic attack but can you do one where MC has depression and anxiety and blames herself over little things and easily cries. All the characters please.

Hello darling, thank you for your request; I most certainly can write this. However, I am just putting this out here now that this was hard for me to write. I have suffered with depression for four years now, and yet writing about it has always been difficult for me. The reason so is that sometimes I don’t even understand it, even though I am diagnosed with it. I did this to the best of my ability. I realize that depression, panic attacks, mental illnesses are different for everyone. Really, I understand. I based a lot of these off of experience with my depression and in others.

For those who suffer with depression or panic attacks, please remember that there are always people who are here for you and are supporting you. You are never alone though it may seem like that sometimes.

My inbox is always open if you need to talk or just want to vent. <3

Link to MC having a panic attack; RFA + Minor Trio MC having a panic attack

RFA + Minor Trio MC w/ depression

~~~

★ Yoosung ★

Yoosung just wants you to be happy all the time, always smiling,

But he understands that sometimes you are just sad, and you may not know why.

Sometimes, you will just cry and Yoosung will honestly have no idea what to do. It could be over the smallest thing and you just couldn’t help yourself.

He found you once on the bathroom floor, curled into a ball as you cried softly. Yoosung was conflicted. He wanted to help and comfort you, but he also couldn’t tell if you just wanted to be alone. He was still trying to figure these things out for yours and his sake.

In the end, he sat next to you and was glad that he did because you wrapped your arms around him and pulled yourself to him. “MC? Would you like me to carry you to our room? It will be much more comfortable there and we can talk. Or if you want… we can just sit in silence.”

You nodded, so he heaved you up smol boy is strong and brought you to the bedroom. He tucked you in and crawled in beside you. He wrapped his arms around your smaller form and pulled you against him, your head just above his heart so you could hear its steady beat. He talked you through your small breakdown, helped you to figure out what was wrong if there were something wrong, and let his warmth and love be your comfort.

Yoosung does whatever he can to help you. He’s always asking you open ending questions, and makes sure that you don’t keep anything from him.

Though he understands there are times where you will not want to share things with him, he wants you to know how you feel, and he wants to be certain you are always feeling supported and loved.

“Thank you for telling me, MC. I hope you don’t think I am prying. I just want you to feel comfortable telling me your feelings. I care about how you feel, and I want to do what I can to support you. I love you, cutie.”

♪ Zen ♪

He figured out pretty soon after you having moved in with him that you had depression by your downcast mood and other symptoms he spotted.

For one, you never cared about how you looked; meaning you never showered, never took care of yourself. You never kept things clean, and you didn’t mind living in a dump.

As well as that, nothing ever interests you. Or things that once interested you, you now can’t be bothered with.

There is hardly any light in your eyes, and it devastates Zen. He wishes you could always smile, because you are so beautiful with your smile! But he understands it isn’t that easy. He remembers finding you in his dressing room at one of his rehearsals, balling your eyes out because you thought you held him back.

“Jagiya, why would you say such a thing? What makes you feel that way. Please tell me.”

“I’m not good enough, Zen! You deserve someone who is stable, who is capable, who can manage you better. You don’t deserve to be stuck with me.” Zen frowned, cupping your face in his hands. He gave you a soft smile as he wiped away one of your tears.

“Oh, my lovely MC… Don’t you see that you’re the only girl I want? Don’t you see that you are good enough?”

Zen is very ominent that you get help. He knows that it cannot just be him that helps you, but a doctor too, so he suggest a therapist. He’ll offer to accompany you to your appointments. He reaches out to your friends and organizes days out for you guys. He does whatever he possibly can to make you smile, and remind you that you are not alone.

“One plus one is cutie pie! Two plus two is cutie pie! Hehe~ There’s that smile I love so much, Jagiya. I treasure it.”

❀ Jaehee ❀

Jaehee was well aware of your history with depression and anxiety. Before you two became a couple, you had mentioned it to her. You felt safe sharing that information with Jaehee; not only was she your best friend, who you felt should know, but she was also the woman you were falling in love with.

One thing Jaehee has noticed when your depression is particularly bad is that you can be incredibly forgetful, and have trouble concentrating.

That can be a problem some times at the cafe. And you realize that. And you hate it.

You had forgotten two orders one day and had to deal with the angry customers alone while Jaehee was in the back room. The shame ate you up as the customers yelled until finally you ran to the storage closet and broke down, letting everything out. Jaehee sat outside the closet for an hour trying to get you out.

Another time she found you crying because you were having suicidal thoughts, and you didn’t know what to do.

She took your hand and brought them to her lips, kissing it softly. “MC, I think it’s time we find you a therapist. You know I’ll always be here for you. It hurts me to see you in so much mental pain.”

Jaehee is great in providing you resources.

If you are up for it, she brings you to support groups where you are able to talk with others who have the same turmoils as you.

She helps you in finding a therapist, and if you ask her, she’ll always accompany you, if that is what you want.

“Hey, MC. I can see that the colour has come back to your face! How are you feeling? Would you like to have a cup of coffee and talk with me? If not, we can just cuddle for a bit if you want.”

☂ Jumin ☂

Though Jumin knows what depression is, it is not something that he is familiar with, and he has no idea at first what to do when he discovers you are diagnosed with depression.

It pained him to see you never sleep. He used to not get a lot of sleep, but at least he got more than two hours a day. He’d be lucky if he got you to sleep for at least an hour and a half.

And you never take care of yourself, which can sometimes lead to Jumin being a little harsh on you, which he instantly regrets when he sees you beginning to get upset.

It tears him apart when he finds you in the bedroom crying because you are too afraid to go to a banquet with him or to go out in public. You express how you feel you’ll bring his reputation down, or you will mess something up for him.

These are the times that Jumin feels absolutely helpless. Comfort is not his strong suit. He has been able to help you through panic attacks, but when you express how utterly pathetic you feel, he feels paralyzed, and useless to you. But nevertheless, he tries to help you. He sits besides you and wraps his arm around your shoulder, caresses your cheek while he turns your head to face him. He gives you a soft smile and whispers, “I don’t think you realize just how much you mean to me. Do you really think I care about reputation? I’d give it all away to be with you.”

Gets you the best therapist money can get you. He literally holds interviews finding one. You deserve the best, and he refuses to settle for anything less.

He encourages you to exercise, and will go on little walks with you. He always makes sure that the bodyguards are close behind to make sure nothing happens. 

“I will do whatever I can to make sure you smile. When you are in pain, I am in pain. I wish I had a better understanding of what you were feeling, but please know I will try to my very best to understand.”

☺ Seven/Saeyoung ☺

Seven understands all too much about depression.

He can’t bare to see the one he loves, you, always in pain, mentally and physically. He’ll try to do what he can if he can get away form work, and rub your shoulders, massage your back, bring you heating pads. He’ll do whatever he can to alleviate as much pain as possible.

It utterly tears him apart to see you so numb sometimes. Some days, you just don’t feel anything, and he’ll find you just staring out a window with a lifeless expression. He will then try and get you moving, but it doesn’t always work.

Seven is past those days where he used to push you away and reject your affection. If anything he craves your tenderness now. But sometimes when he is so focused in work, you’ll take some of what he says the wrong way. For example, he may tell you to go back to bed if it’s early in the morning and you’ve come to check on him. You’ll get worried, and you begin to hyperventilate thinking he’s pushing you away.

And you can’t lose him. He’s what is keeping you going.

You’ll just break down in front of him, and all jokes aside, Seven will rush to your side to comfort you. There are some things that jokes just can’t fix. This being one of them.

He holds you against his chest and kisses the top of your head, rubbing your back gently and soothingly. “Listen to me, MC. I’m not going anywhere. Not now. Not ever. I made a promise to be by your side through sickness and health, didn’t I? You were there for me, and I will be there for you.”

To help you, Seven will do anything. You helped him, and he will help you.

Seven is always ready to talk to you if you need someone to talk to. If you need advice, comfort, he is there. If you need someone to just listen to you, he has all ears open. Sure, some jokes may come out every once and awhile, but these are the times that he likes to be earnest. He wants you to see that he is taking you seriously.

When times are particularly bad, he will contact your family, asking for advice on what they would do to help you and asking if they would like to visit.

“This may sound really cheesy, but it’s a quote I really liked. ‘I lost the battle, but I’ll win the war.’ It goes a little something like that. This breakdown is just one battle that you may have lost. But this whole war; you are going to win. And I believe in you, and I will continue to believe in you.”

❆ V ❆

V was probably the best for this. 

After the whole ordeal with Rika, he knew how to help those with depression and/or facing anxiety. Thankfully, you were not like Rika who planned to create an entire religion and cult based around her, so helping you was a little bit easier.

He took a lot of notice to how numb you would get. You would aimlessly walk around the house sometimes, not feeling sad, but not feeling happy either.

You were always tired and always sleeping, which he wasn’t opposed to at first until he realized just how much it was affecting your daily schedule.

To help you, he’d encourage you to talk to him about how you were feeling. Of course, if you really did not want to talk, he wouldn’t force you, but he always lightly coaxed you into letting out your feelings.

He also provides many resources for you such as support groups and therapists. He makes sure you go to one of the best therapy groups, and that you get the best help possible.

“Hey, MC? Do you think you could stay awake so I can paint you? You see, there just isn’t anyone as beautiful as you for me to paint, and I am so desperate to paint something beautiful. Everything I find just doesn’t compare to you.”

☻ Saeran/Unknown ☻

Like Seven, Saeran knows about depression all too well. And having lived now with a numerous amount of mental disorders like depression and anxiety, it really bothers him to see you facing it too. He hates knowing that you feel the same pain as him.

He recognizes it immediately. You are always in pain. Whether it is your arms being sore, your feet hurting, your back aching or your shoulders are stiff.

You are never interested in anything besides him or maybe a few books. He isn’t the best at encouraging you to ‘do stuff’ like maybe riding a bike or going to a gym, but he’ll try to coax you into doing something productive. It just usually doesn’t work. And he doesn’t feel like he is one to talk.

You will cling to him, and not leave him alone. Which he can put up with since he is clingy towards you as well, for the same reasons that he is afraid of losing you.

But you cry a lot, and that can be really bothersome for him. However, he puts up with it and will comfort you to his best ability, considering you have endured all of his yelling fits and breakdowns, so the least he can do is put up with some crying.

That leads to another thing; whenever he raises his voice just the slightest, you start to cry. His loud voice terrifies you, even if it isn’t directed at you, but directed at Saeyoung. You will burst into tears and curl into a ball, cuddling yourself as you try to block out the sounds of his shouts.

“I.. no, just please stop crying, please. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to shout. I’m trying, I really am. We are trying together… I’ll help you, MC, just like how you’ve helped me. I’m not going anywhere. We have each others backs…. I love you.”

You also cry whenever you are in the shower. Saeran doesn’t understand why because aren’t showers supposed to make you feel better? They always helped him. So why were you crying?

Saeran determines if either of you are going to get better, you’re both going to have to put some effort in. So you two start going to therapy together, which is easiest for the both of you. You guys feel much more comfortable, safe, and open being at each others sides.

Saeran always listens to what you have to say, and you do the same for him for that matter. Any rant, cry, vent, and he is all ears. He isn’t the best at advice, but he’ll try.

You guys will also go on frequent walks, which has proven to be very therapeutic and helpful for you guys. You guys will walk silently holding each others hands, enjoying the soft breeze against your faces and the birds chirping in the distance. It’s very peaceful and relaxing.

“You know, MC. We may not be perfect in health, or perfect in general. But… I think that is ok. I don’t think there is anything wrong with us. I just think we need a little extra help from each other. And I’m so happy that you trust me with your problems and your pains. I hope you continue to come to me whenever you are in need so I can help you.”

✌ Vanderwood ✌

Vanderwood wished he understood what you were dealing with, because though he may hide it behind a stoic look, he is truly, truly concerned for you.

For one, you sleep way too much. He is always having to get you out of bed and keep you from going to sleep by giving you gallons of coffee.

You walk around in baggy clothes, barely showering, never brushing your hair; just not bothering to keep yourself clean or healthy.

You will over eat, shoving food down your throat and never seeming to gain a pound, which lead Vanderwood to become ever more concerned.

For the longest time, Vanderwood never knew about the small crying fits you would have in your closet of all places. You didn’t want him to see you crying, you didn’t want him to think you were weak.

So you hid in the closet,

And cried.

But Vanderwood came home early from work one day, and the first thing he heard was your sobs coming from the bedroom. He slowly entered the room and saw that the sobs were coming from the closet. His felt an odd tug in his heart when he saw you curled in a ball on the ground of the closet. He asked you what was wrong, and you poured your heart out to him. You told him you were afraid of what he would think of you.

Weak is the last thing he would ever use to describe you, and he wish you knew that. “MC. Take my hand. Don’t hide away from me, and let me help you.”

Vanderwood is in frequent contact with your family, keeping them updated on your well being and how therapy is going for you.

He makes sure that you are always at your appointments, and that you never miss one. If he has to drive you, he will. If he has to take a bus with you, he will. A train, so be it. You are going to your appointments. And if you need him there, he will stay, no matter how uncomfortable he may feel.

“Look. I’m not the best at expressing my emotions, or how I feel. But you know that I love you. I’m not going to leave you. I’m going to keep helping you, and keep supporting you. Don’t try to hide things from me because it doesn’t work. I know you better than anyone else… I’ve really missed your smile. Come here and give me a hug.”

~~~

Requests are closed right now, but to find rules of requests you can check out my masterlist page!

[cum-villain]

You severely overestimate how good schools are.

There are many resources for school curriculums pre-planned, so even on the chance the parent doesn't know themselves, they can still teach their child using that curriculum. If they don't have the money for that, there are library books that can assist and teach, and the parent will always have at least SOME knowledge of their own.

There are social benefits... if the child isn't ostracized, either due to class, race, unknown neurodivergencies or other disabilities, or just the teacher choosing them as a punching bag. Everyone who went to middle school has horror stories of that time, and plenty have horror stories from other times. And teachers are very rarely effective in stopping bullying, and it's not uncommon for them to be bullies themselves. Additionally, there are many homeschool groups where homeschooled children can meet up with other kids for sort of field trips and make friends that way.

Kids are getting diagnosed with disabilities in school? Where?? If anything, the majority of the time kids are pushed to their limits due to teachers refusing to accommodate for unknown disabilities, and in the few times kids ARE diagnosed, they're shunted into "special ed" and face horrific ableism there. Good parents will understand their child's needs and help them grow despite them. But, I can't expect someone who is so afraid of saying disabled and uses "differently abled" to understand how ableist the whole damn system is.

Do you know how many conservative kids will go to liberal public school systems their whole lives, and still be conservatives? Parents have FAR more influence on their kids then you seem to realize. There's many many instances of kids being horrifically abused at home and not being noticed at school.

I've been in public school and homeschool, both have been shitty at times. But with school it was the whole damn system working against me, an undiagnosed nd + physically disabled kid facing heavy-duty emotional abuse at home that led me to having a personality disorder later on. The system didn't help me, it made things worse. And homeschool was also shitty at times! But it wasn't because of the education I received; it was actually better education then that in school. Homeschool was shitty for me because I had an absolute dogshit family. So, ultimately, if I could go back, I would have asked to be homeschooled earlier, despite the Family Bullshit.

some of y'all gotta realize that just because public school sucks it doesn't mean you should homeschool your kid

[gethealthy18-blog]

322: Coronavirus & COVID-19: A Common-Sense Approach With Pediatrician Dr. Elisa Song

New Post has been published on https://healingawerness.com/news/322-coronavirus-covid-19-a-common-sense-approach-with-pediatrician-dr-elisa-song/

322: Coronavirus & COVID-19: A Common-Sense Approach With Pediatrician Dr. Elisa Song

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to this special edition of the Wellness Mama Podcast, where I will be focusing quite a bit on coronavirus, COVID-19, and all of the things we need to know about this. I’m here with someone I really highly respect and I’m excited to share with you on today’s podcast on this topic. Dr. Elisa Song is an MD. She’s a pediatrician and a pediatric functional medicine expert. She’s also a mom. She runs an integrative pediatric practice and has been quoted across the media when it comes to coronavirus and COVID-19. She has a really well-researched post that goes into detail on this, and that will be linked in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm, for all of you who want to find it, along with all of the resources we talk about in this episode. And I think her perspective is really valuable, both from the medical side and as a mom. She’s in the data daily. She is seeing patients daily. She’s keeping a very close pulse on the trends as we’ve now upgraded to a pandemic. And in this episode, she’s going to really go through, basically, what we need to know medically, what we need to know as parents, and how to handle both the societal and economic issues that come along with this and if anyone in our families were to catch it. And so, we’re going to go deep on all of those topics today, and she’s going to really break down the myths related to this, what we do need to know and why, while we do need to take this seriously, we don’t need to panic and be afraid. So, without further ado, we are now going to join Dr. Elisa Song about all things coronavirus.

Katie: Dr. Song, thank you so much for being here at such short notice to answer all of our questions.

Dr. Song: Oh, yeah, no problem. I mean, this really is sort of a last-minute kind of a thing because it’s such a moving target with coronavirus and really we need to keep updated every day.

Katie: Exactly. And I knew that I wanted to make sure I spoke with you about this because not only are you a pediatrician, but you’re also a parent and you’re also a researcher and you are staying on top of all of this information. So, to start broad, I know a lot of people have a lot of questions about coronavirus, specifically COVID-19. To make sure we all are on the same page, can you just define what this virus actually is?

Dr. Song: Yeah. That’s a great question because you’ll see a lot of different names in the media. So, COVID-19 is actually the name of the respiratory illness that’s caused by the novel coronavirus that was just detected in Wuhan, China back in December. Fast-forward we’re actually not even three months from that time and just yesterday as of our recording March 11, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus now a global pandemic. Well, you’ll see the virus is actually circulating and now there’s been a mutation so there’s two different strains that we’re aware of. You may see it in the news as 2019 novel coronavirus. You might see it as 2019-nCoV or you actually may see it as SARS-CoV-2. Now, why is that? Because years ago when another human coronavirus that caused SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, that was SARS-CoV and so this one looks very similar. So, those are all the same names 2019 novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV and SARS-CoV-2 and then COVID-19 is the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Katie: Got it. Okay. That’s really helpful.

Dr. Song: Yeah. And so what we have to remember is coronaviruses have been circulating forever and so we have this huge range of coronaviruses. They’re named coronavirus because of the Latin word corona which means crown. So, if you look at these pictures, it’s actually… I mean, I have to say from the pictures, it’s a really pretty virus with these crown-like spikes that are sticking out from the virus that then attach to our cells. But coronavirus can cause very, very mild symptoms like the common cold to more severe illnesses like what we’re seeing now in COVID-19 and in SARS and in MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. So, we wanna really understand that, yes, this is a more virulent and pathogenic virus that is circulating, but I’m so glad you’re doing this podcast because we really need to break through a lot of the hysteria and the panic. And I’ve been telling my parents in my practice, let’s just be rationally prepared. Let’s try to, you know, kind of weed through all the panic and see what we as parents really need to do for our kids.

Katie: Absolutely. And that’s exactly why I wanted to have you on today. And I know as you said that just as of the time of this recording, I know it was very recently upgraded to a pandemic. And I know that now there are travel bans being put in place and a lot of major events in the U.S. have been canceled because of this. But based on the numbers, how many people actually have this version of the coronavirus that we’re actually seeing? Is it more people than the flu? Like, what are we looking at proportionally?

Dr. Song: You know, right now it’s not necessarily more than the flu. I think what the concern is, is the mortality rate, and of course, you can’t help but pick up the paper… I don’t know how many people actually pick up the paper nowadays, but, you know, open up your laptop, look at the news, turn on the radio, scroll through your whatever social feed you’re on and hear of another death here and there. And that’s what is frightening parents, grandparents. It’s frightening kids too. I mean, my son just literally last night came home and said… He asked me, “Are all grandparents going to die?” And I thought, “Wow. Where did you hear that?” Right? And he heard it from another boy in his class. And so, you know, it is the mortality rate that is very concerning. And the way that I’ve been tracking it, and there are lots of flaws in the different trackers, but Johns Hopkins University has a tracker that uses five different databases. So, I do think that they’re probably the most accurate and they update… It’s literally a live update. You can go on there and look at the timestamp. Here in the United States we’re seeing an increasing number. And there are some challenges with tracking and knowing the actual numbers because we in the United States have had a paucity, I would say a really unfortunate paucity of test kits. It’s only just this week as we’re speaking, so March 11 that clinicians like me, you know, out in the field, we are the ones who may be seeing coronavirus and diagnosing COVID-19, but it’s only now that I just have the capability to test patients. But even that’s very, very limited because we are limited by the supplies that the labs have.

So, right now, we know that on March 12 there’s little over 1,300 cases in the United States and there have been 38, you know, tragic deaths here in the States, many, many more in Italy and China. But looking at the mortality rate, we have to take into account given that there are very, very likely and this is not to sound scary at all, but there are very, very likely many, many people in our communities, children and adults who have coronavirus and have no idea. And we don’t know. The public health department doesn’t know because we haven’t tested them. So, when we look at that and then look at the number of deaths, we’re likely looking at a much lower mortality rate than what’s been reported. In the news, it’s been reported to be, you know, anywhere from maybe 2 to 3.5%. Some experts think that it is likely well under 1%. We just don’t know. I mean, that is one of the concerns is that because it’s novel, brand new, the world has never seen this before December 31 when Wuhan, China announced it. But there’s a lot of unknowns, but even in the short amount of time, you know, less than three months, researchers are really trying to identify what’s going on, the characteristics of the coronavirus, the clinical symptoms and how we can better identify and maybe even treat coronavirus and COVID-19.

One thing that I want parents to know, as far as symptoms go, children and infants seem to be really very spared of serious illness. So, we can breathe a sigh of relief in that sense except that, you know, what I’m concerned by is that many children are likely then, you know, asymptomatic transmitters. And what we do want to be mindful of is that, you know, many of our grandparents, you know, people over 70 years of age. Age seems to be the most significant factor in serious illness and also death. So, you know, we do wanna do our part to stay healthy ourselves and minimize the transmission of the novel coronavirus to those susceptible individuals. But to date, there have been no deaths reported in children under nine.

So, now the symptoms of COVID-19. They run the gamut. I mentioned that we can have asymptomatic carriers and we know that’s absolutely the case now. It wasn’t quite clear in the beginning could you be asymptomatic and carry it, but now we know, yes, people can be walking around with the novel coronavirus, be infected but with zero symptoms, which is what we see with influenza. About 50% of patients with influenza will have zero or mild symptoms. So, the same thing with this novel coronavirus. The initial symptoms are often reported as fever which might not be present if you’re really young or if you’re really old or immunocompromised, and then upper respiratory symptoms, cold, sore throat, you know, stuffy nose, headache, you know, all the same things that we might think about with colds or flus which is confusing right now because we are still in the middle of influenza season. I mean, last week, I saw two kids with influenza B that I tested. Just yesterday I saw a family, the entire family of 4 including the 10-month-old baby and the almost 5-year-old boy had influenza A, and I will say, you know, the baby actually had it the least, was the least symptomatic. I mean, he was walking around smiling and playing. But then we worry about COVID-19 becoming more serious, becoming a lower respiratory infection with difficulty breathing and mild pneumonia and then some will progress on to more severe pneumonia and something called acute respiratory distress syndrome. This is what we’re hearing about, you know, patients really in the ICU, the intensive care unit, with severe lung disease requiring ventilators, and then ultimately, their organs can start to fail and they may go into what’s called sepsis, which I know a lot of people are familiar with that word sepsis, may not necessarily know what that is. But sepsis is not good because many, many people will die of sepsis and that’s eventually what people die of. But I do want to emphasize, the vast, vast majority, 80% or more of people who are infected with a novel coronavirus have very mild symptoms and possibly no symptoms.

So, do we want to then test everybody? If I had it my way I would test everybody because I just want to know. Not to stigmatize or alienate and you have to be really careful of that too because there are a lot of misperceptions especially with children that I’m hearing in my kids or the kids at their school. When this first came out in China, there were questions like, “Well, so, should we not eat Chinese food? Should we stay away from all Chinese people?” We cannot, you know, really spread those misperceptions and we really wanna talk with children about what’s real and what’s not but in a non-scary way and we can go into, you know, how do we talk to kids about this because there are a lot of misperceptions. But bottom line, what I tell kids and what I tell parents, the vast majority of us, we’re gonna have really mild symptoms, it’s gonna feel like a cold, so we don’t want to walk around panicked, but we also want to be mindful of the fact that there are people who are susceptible to having more serious illness and we wanna be aware and mindful of reducing the risk of transmission.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. I think from a parent’s perspective, it’s a wonderful time to talk to our kids and explain how their immune system works and why hand-washing is so important. It’s obviously something we’re all already doing, but something that we can really help get across to them why it can be helpful. Like, there’s so many lessons in this that we can, without being fear-based, impart to our kids. And I think you’re absolutely right. I don’t worry at all for anyone in my immediate family because I know that we’re all in low-risk categories. But I think all of us living in our communities locally have an obligation to at least consider the ramifications for others, like you mentioned, the elderly population that we would encounter or I have friends who are immunocompromised or who have been, you know, organ donors who for different reasons would be more at risk. And also the fact that I know that some of the projection models, one of the bigger concerns is if this virus takes off too quickly and too many people are infected at once, we will run into issues like hospitals being overcrowded. And so making sure that we take into that community, like, effect into account as well as we’re considering not just, is this going to hurt us, but how could this really drastically impact our communities and our economy going forward? So, to that note, what do we need to watch for as parents? I know you said kids can especially potentially be asymptomatic and be able to transmit without even knowing, but what symptoms do we need to be on the lookout for and then also how can we reduce the chances of transmitting it?

Dr. Song: Yeah. So, that’s a great question. So, the symptoms to look out for, initially, you know, as I said, it’s confusing right now because they’re really gonna be mild cold symptoms, and we’re not going to know whether or not you have the common cold, you know, a coronavirus cousin the common cold, the sort of COVID-19 or influenza unless we test. However, I really want to urge all of you listening, do not rush to your doctor’s office. Do not rush to the ER. Do not rush to an urgent care clinic to get tested because what we saw in China is the rapid spread was likely due to many, many people in the waiting room in the ERs lining in the hallways waiting to get tested and if they did not have coronavirus in the first place, they may be exposing themselves or if you did have coronavirus, exposing people who didn’t have it. So, I would call your doctor’s office first. Figure out, is this something that you need to be tested? Otherwise, do what we would normally do. I mean, Katie, you have such amazing resources on your blog on really how to support our children, you know, really naturally and, you know, boost their immune systems when they are sick. And we do the very, very same things. This is not different. I still recommend to my families, “We’re gonna up your vitamin D. We’re gonna up your vitamin C. I use Oscillococcinum. We use different immune boosters. I do use elderberry.

So, there are lots of different things that we can do that would be the same. So, we’re gonna treat initially your child’s cold or flu symptoms in the very same way regardless of what is going on, but if your child starts to have difficulty breathing. Now, what are the signs of difficulty breathing in your child? Well, if they start to breathe maybe a little bit more quickly, you can count how many breaths they’re taking in a 15 second period. One breath is an inhale and an exhale and then multiply it by four. That’ll give you how many times they’re breathing per minute. If they’re breathing more than about 40 times per minute, I would want you to call your doctor. Other signs that your child might be having difficulty breathing, of course, if you hear any wheezing, whistling sound, and sometimes that’s from the nose, we can’t tell, but if it’s also associated with flaring of the nostrils when they’re breathing or really their stomach muscles or the rib cage pumping in and out using extra muscles to help them breathe or if they’re grunting every time they exhale. Those are signs that they’re increasing their “work of breathing” that they’re using a little bit more energy to breathe. So, those are times when I would want you to call your doctor. And again, I would urge you to call your doctor first before you go to urgent care just to assess what you should be doing. Now, you know, that being said, you know, the best way to really prevent coronavirus transmission and also reduce the likelihood of our kids and ourselves getting infected, the number one is washing hands. And I know that you’re seeing that in the news. It’s so common sense, but really and truly, this is so important.

There was one study… There were statisticians that looked at airports and really looked at what could the impact be of properly washing our hands? And I’ll go into what properly means. But the first statistic to know is that, you know, when people have kind of watched, you know, other people in the bathroom after they’ve gone to the bathroom and, you know, leave the restroom, about a third, one in three people don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom. And so that’s something that is really startling. And I would bet that many more kids don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom. So, just, you know, talk with your kids about that. And then they looked at, you know, were they doing it the right way? And when they looked at that, they saw that only about 50% of those people who actually did wash their hands were doing it the right way. And I can tell you when I’ve watched my son, right, what does he do? Run his hands quickly under the water. Maybe just put a tiny little bit of soap on and wet his hands and that’s it. Right? That’s not proper hand-washing. So, how do we do it the right way? And I wrote a blog on how to teach your kids how to wash their hands the right way because this is really, really important. We wanna wash their hands I would say at least 30 seconds because some of the studies looking at influenza virus they found that 30 seconds is really what we need to do. Not singing your ABCs one time through, right? Most people can sing their ABCs in about 30 seconds. So, we wanna wet our hands, lather with soap, and then what’s really, really important, get not just your palms like most people do, backs of the hands, in between our fingers and under our nails. And you can get under your nails by opening up your palm and rubbing your nails on the inside of your palm and doing that for 30 seconds. And then we wanna rinse and dry and then, of course, we wanna… When we turn off the faucet if we’re in a public restroom, not so much in our own home, but in a public restroom, you wanna turn off that faucet either with a paper towel you use or with your elbow or something else because we don’t wanna recontaminate our clean hands. But why is this important? They found that if people could wash their hands the right way, if just 60% of air travelers wash their hands in the right way and maintain clean hands, it could slow down the spread of coronavirus infections by almost 70%. That’s huge.

And really, you know, one of the things that I looked at, it wasn’t clear in the beginning of what was then the epidemic now the pandemic was, could this novel coronavirus live on surfaces like, you know, handrails, you know, like your cell phone, laptops, countertops? It wasn’t sure. But now we know, yes, it can live on surfaces. And when we look at other similar coronaviruses like the SARS coronavirus, the MERS coronavirus studies have found that, you know, we know that the coronavirus can live on surfaces for at least three hours, but maybe even up to nine days. Now, that is not to panic you, but to let you know that if you’re out and about and you’re touching anything and, of course, we are touching things all the time, you want to make sure that you wash your hands effectively before you eat, before you touch your face at all. Now, when we… That’s another issue too. I was just actually… I spoke with a reporter who wanted to get my tips as a pediatrician on how do we keep our kids’ hands away from our faces? Right? I know, you know, Bodi… And not that Kenzi is perfect in all of this, but, you know, Bodi is younger and he just… I mean, he’s just a little grosser, right? I mean, he kind of touches things all the time, puts his hands in his mouth. I mean, he’s just, you know, everywhere. And so really, you know, how do we keep our kids’ hands away from their eyes, their nose, and their mouth? Because we know that, you know, adults, when they’ve looked at adults, we touch our faces at least on average 23 times an hour. That’s more than once every three seconds. And for kids, it’s likely more than that. And, you know, when we do touch our face, it’s usually around our mucous membranes, eyes, nose, and mouth exactly where we can have coronavirus enter. So, we don’t want our kids to panic, or we don’t want them… We don’t want to constantly be nagging them, “Stop touching your face. Don’t do that.” What we wanna really do first is helping kids be aware of when they’re touching their face because if we’re not aware and paying attention, we can’t stop that habit. So first have them just notice, while you’re sitting at the dinner table while you’re sitting reading a book, notice how often they’re touching their face. And then when we ask… When we want them to stop doing that, instead of saying, “Stop touching your face,” you wanna frame it in a little more positive way. We wanna frame it in the way that we’re telling them what to do, what positive action to take instead of what not to do. “Keep your hands down. Keep your hands in front of you. Put your hands on the table.” Whatever it is that we want them to do, but, you know, bottom line, we want them to stop touching their face, but if we constantly nag and yell at them, they’re gonna tune that out eventually. So, we wanna frame it in that more positive way, right?

And then, you know, with washing hands… I mean, washing hands with soap and water is the number one way to keep our hands effectively clean if we’re doing it the right way, but we’re out a lot and many of us are hunkering down. Some schools have closed, so your kids are gonna be at home more and maybe not out in public places and so you have your bathroom to wash your hands with soap and water, but many times we don’t have that. And so, you know, hand sanitizers are the next best thing, but when the studies have looked at what actually can kill or inactivate coronaviruses, human coronaviruses on surfaces, what they found to be the most effective, a few things, but one of the things that was found to be most effective is an alcohol solution with at least 60% alcohol. They’ve also found that like 0.5% hydrogen peroxide or a point 0.1% bleach solution can be effective, but we’re not gonna… Hydrogen peroxide and bleach may be fine on surfaces, but that’s not what we’re gonna sanitize our hands with. So, that’s where you’ll see the recommendations online, at least a 60% alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Now, if you’ve gone to the store or if you’ve gone on Amazon, I mean, there’s no Purell to be found unless… well, that’s not true. There may be, but it might be $100 for a tiny little bottle, right? And so, you know, there are lots of ways that we can make our own hand sanitizers and I know that you’ve written about that as well, but we wanna make sure it’s at least a 60% alcohol base. With that, you know, I just literally yesterday put up a blog post of how do we do that, because it does take some math, some calculations, and you might have different percentages of isopropyl rubbing alcohol. So, if you have a 99% rubbing alcohol, you’re basically gonna do two parts alcohol to one part aloe vera gel. If you’re allergic to aloe vera gel and I just had a mom, you know, comment that she just can’t find any aloe vera gel, you can use glycerin. That’s a fine substitute. More commonly you’ll see 70% rubbing alcohol or isopropyl alcohol. So, with that, you need to use more alcohol to aloe vera gel to make it a 60% solution. So, nine parts alcohol to one part aloe vera gel. And so I have three different options with the rubbing alcohol depending on what percentage you have whether you have 99%, 91% or 70% in an article that I literally just put up yesterday and, you know, parents are really appreciating that practical breakdown, right? Because if we’re gonna go through the effort of making our own hand sanitizer, we want it to be effective.

Katie: That makes so much sense. And I love that you… You’re right. I do have a post. I know you do as well. I’ll link to both about the hand sanitizers and a lot of the things you just mentioned. And I love that you also mentioned vitamin D because this is something I always am cognizant of this time of year anyway because I know I’ve read data that having optimal vitamin D levels can reduce the risk of a lot of respiratory issues and the severity of lots of types of illnesses. So, even if we’re not worried about coronavirus, this is still cold and flu season, there’s still a lot going around. And I know you can speak to this better than I can, but since it is a fat-soluble vitamin, it’s one you don’t want to just overdose on. So, I know I test our whole family this time of year and make sure our levels are within range, but I feel like that is one evidence-backed thing that I think is important to be aware of and to take this time of year. Do you have any additional advice on the vitamin D front?

Dr. Song: Absolutely. So, one thing that I just wanna make sure people know is that as of now, we have no idea what an effective treatment against COVID-19 will be, whether it’s pharmaceutical or natural. We just don’t know. I mean, this is a brand new virus. And so I do want people to, you know, exercise caution and use their common sense when reading, you know, any number of posts online that may claim that certain natural supplements may treat and cure COVID-19. Now, that being said, we know that there are a lot of things that can theoretically help reduce our likelihood of getting the new coronavirus in the first place and significantly reducing our symptoms. And we have evidence for that, which is, you know, for me, as a pediatrician, I really wanna make sure that I’m recommending things that have solid evidence of potential good and also are not gonna harm. So, vitamin D, as you said, I mean, that is one of the supplements that I am the most religious about in terms of giving my family and myself to keep us healthy throughout the wintertime because there are so many other germs circulating besides just this. And you’re in Florida, but even in Florida where the sun is shining and kids are outdoors a lot more, many, many kids, in fact, the vast majority are still deficient or insufficient in vitamin D. So, I do recommend testing if you have that option because, you know, as Katie mentioned, vitamin D is fat-soluble, it does get stored up in your fat cells. It potentially can get to “toxic levels,” although, you know, I have never ever seen that even in kids who are taking quite high doses.

But why vitamin D? Well, when we look at COVID-19, and I had mentioned that one of the complications that we worry about, although not common, but, you know, can be fatal is sepsis. And we know that vitamin D actually can help reduce your likelihood of developing sepsis if you get any infection. It’s been called a “pro-survival molecule” and it actually helps our body produce a protein called cathelicidin that has amazing antiviral and antibacterial properties. So, maintaining our vitamin D levels at really optimal healthy levels is really key to keeping our immune system strong. Keeping our immune system strong with the right foods and with the right supplements is I do believe going to be the key to keeping us healthy and keeping our own coronavirus illnesses as mild as possible. So, you know, in general, once our levels are “optimal,” the maintenance dose recommended by the vitamin D council of vitamin D3 supplementation is 1,000 IUs per 25 pounds of body weight up to, you know, 100 pounds and then they really, you know, have you… recommend limiting it to 5,000 IUs daily unless you can monitor it with your physician. So, I mean, my kids are getting, you know, 3,000 and 4,000 IUs of vitamin D3 per day. They are 8 and 10 years of age and that’s the appropriate dose according to their weight. And I know they have good levels because I’ve checked them. I take 5,000 a day, but if I’m starting to feel a little under the weather, I’ll take a little bit more.

So, there’s vitamin D and then I’d also mentioned vitamin C. Now, vitamin C. What they found in studies is that IV vitamin C when given in the intensive care unit to patients with sepsis, you know, full organ failure, multi-system organ failure, can significantly absolutely reduce the death rate compared to those patients who didn’t receive vitamin C. So, you know, I’m not gonna say that vitamin C will cure you of coronavirus if you do contract it, but certainly as a powerful antioxidant, it is a very important part I think of prevention and if we start to feel sick, you know, really, you know, helping support our immune systems to fight and ward off any infections. Really when we’re sick with any infection, our body creates inflammation, of course, and produces a lot of free radicals. It’s these free radicals that make us feel sick. When we have more free radicals we feel more sick. So, that’s why, you know, when we see people with a range of symptoms, it is, I do believe, those people who have a higher level of antioxidant reserve that don’t feel as sick and don’t get as sick and, you know, don’t get as many complications because those free radicals once they’ve done their job, you know, we want them around to fight the infection, but once they’ve done their job, we want to bring those free radicals down, get rid of them and mop them up with antioxidants. And antioxidants are gonna be, you know, vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin E, think all the colorful fruits and vegetables, which is why we have to go back to the foundations of how do we keep our immune system healthy and really looking at food as medicine, getting rid of the sugar because sugar absolutely suppresses our immune system’s ability to fight off infections. So, this is not the time to be… If your children are, you know, anxious or fearful, we don’t want to give them sweets or, you know, treats that then help them maybe feel better temporarily because a lot of us may think about doing that. Oh, I know, you know, reach for the ice cream when we’re nervous. But we don’t wanna do that right now. We wanna really, you know, help our kids with their anxieties in another way, not using food and really using the power of food to keep our immune system strong.

Katie: A 100% in agreement with you on that. And to echo what you said, I think it’s important to realize this is a virus, so it’s not something that we have, like you said, even conventional treatments or cures for, but with any illness, we always have the option to support our immune system, to support our overall health, to get good sleep, to spend time outside, to take vitamin C. The things we do know have a benefit just for overall health and for supporting the immune system, and that’s something positive we can focus on versus falling into the fear side which is also bad for your immune system to begin with.

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I know one question that comes up around this and I’ve been getting online as well, is to do with explaining what a cytokine storm is and ways that we can help our body to, again, have a strong immune system and to be able to handle if that was an issue, because I know that’s something that apparently from what I understand, at least, a lot of these mortalities are related to sepsis, not to the actual virus itself. And the cytokine storm comes into play here, but I know… Can you explain this a little bit better?

Dr. Song: Absolutely. So, you’re right on in that, you know, typically let’s say with, you know, even with influenza, but also with the coronavirus with SARS or the current coronavirus, it’s our own body’s reaction, our own immune system’s reaction that, you know, makes us symptomatic. And oftentimes, the actual infection, right, the coronavirus may be completely eradicated. It’s not there anymore. But the inflammatory cytokines that your immune system have produced, then creates this cascade of effects that then can create what a lot of people are now talking about this “cytokine storm.” Now, this is not a new concept. In fact, even last year, every time influenza season comes around, there’s questions about the cytokine storm, then the next question is, “Well, should I use elderberry because can’t elderberry cause a cytokine storm?” And there’s so much information out there and I’ve seen both sides say absolutely, no elderberries. If you’re… During the flu season and if you’re sick, elderberry is completely fine. And I think it’s somewhere in the middle. Remember with sepsis, the cytokine storm, it really… If we can have enough antioxidants on board to mop up those free radicals and those inflammatory cytokines, that’s gonna be the most protective thing. So, when we look at elderberry, in particular… And this post that I actually did on elderberry, I called it “Elderberry and the Cytokine Storm. Do you need to worry?” I mean, it’s still, years later, one of my most popular posts and I’m being asked about it.

So, I do want to write a post with more evidence, but what I want people to understand and parents to understand is that elderberry does have immunostimulatory effects, but in beneficial ways, right? So, yes, it can actually create increased levels of inflammatory cytokines. And we wanna really understand that inflammation is not a bad thing, right? Just like when you get a cut and maybe there’s a little pus and a little redness and then it heals, that’s inflammation, right? When you get an illness and your body mounts a fever, that’s inflammation. But those are beneficial because they’re helping us fight whatever is going on. So, that’s inflammatory cytokines. And then we have anti-inflammatory cytokines that are also produced by elderberry. So, when we have inflammation that’s normal and healthy, we also need, you know, anti-inflammatory cytokines to come and say, “Well, you’ve done your job. Let’s regulate the immune system and go back down to baseline.” Go back down to our usual state of good health and hopefully we are in a usual state of good health. Now, that’s where I think it can be sort of a double-edged sword. I think that elderberry can be beneficial. But I also think you can have too much of a good thing. So, I am not recommending that people take elderberry on a daily basis right now, but I am, you know, still using elderberry for my own patients when they come in with flu-like symptoms because I know how beneficial it can be to help fight that infection initially and then reduce the inflammatory response as they’re healing. So, you know, that is where, you know, we wanna just understand that, you know, inflammatory cytokines is not a bad thing. Cytokine storm, yes, a bad thing, but elderberry is not necessarily the evil that some are making it out to be.

Katie: Good to know. Yeah. Thank you for clearing that up. And I know people still have a lot of concerns, especially in the last 24 hours even there have been travel bans that are announced. What’s your take both as a doctor and as a parent on if we should be avoiding travel at this point? And if people are going to travel, do things like, for instance, wearing a face mask, will that actually help because I’ve seen conflicting reports on if that’s even effective?

Dr. Song: Yeah. That’s such a good question. I mean, that is the million-dollar question, right, because as we head to… I mean, some kids have spring break next week. In my school, you know, our kids have spring break in the middle of April. So, we’re now in this next month of, you know, a lot of travel plans. And a lot of these travel plans will include flying. Now, the U.S. just announced that there is a travel ban to and from Europe. So, you know, for folks who have had…. you know, made travel plans to go to Europe over spring break, that decision has been made for them. But domestic travel, families who have planned to go to Disneyland next week or families… My sister in Colorado, had plans to fly with her, her husband and her two, you know, almost-three-year-old twin girls to Florida to see my mom and my stepdad, you know, both of whom are in their ’70s. And my mother, you know, just in November was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and went through her chemo and had surgery and she’s recovering. So, what do we do there? Right? And so we wanna think, who are we gonna visit? What are our risks for contracting coronavirus? How do we minimize those risks? And so, you know, I will say if you are traveling to see potentially vulnerable people like maybe your elderly parents, your grandparents in this case, I would reconsider right now because we are sort of on the cusp. We’re sort of in this… I don’t want to call it a honeymoon period because we are seeing people getting sick and, of course, people dying in the States. But we’re in this window where the projections are that in the next couple of weeks we are going to see many, many more numbers, you know, rapid doubling. So, we’re not there yet. So, on the one hand, perhaps this is a good time to travel. On the other hand, we don’t want to be one of those vectors for increasing the spread. So, if you do decide to travel, there are things that you can do to minimize your exposures.

Now, with masks, you know, the surgical masks that you see that have all the gaps on the side, those are not gonna do anything to prevent you from getting coronavirus infections. Those, however, will prevent others from getting infections from you if you are sneezing or coughing. So, you know, if you do or your child does have any upper respiratory symptoms, I would not fly because you are then exposing all the other people on the plane. But if you are healthy and you do choose to fly which I do know many families who are, wearing what’s called an N95 mask that filters out, you know, at least 95% of the particulate matter may be effective. My husband, actually, he’s going to Las Vegas for a hockey tournament. He’s leaving today. We had a discussion, decided, you know, he would go but, you know, he will likely be wearing a mask on the plane just to prevent himself from getting any unwanted exposures. The mask does have to be really well fitted. There cannot be gaps. And unfortunately, there are no N95 masks that are gonna fit a child’s face well enough to protect against coronavirus or even influenza virus infection. So, if you’re traveling with kids, that’s really probably not going to be an effective option. The other concern too just from a public health standpoint is we really do need to… I mean, there’s been a run on masks. You’re not gonna be able to find N95 masks if you don’t have them already. I happen to have them because of the fires here, the tragic fires in California. So, we’ve had them, you know, for the past couple of years, actually, the past three years when we’ve had these, you know, horrible forest fires in Northern California and the air quality has been so, you know, devastatingly horrible. But, you know, we do wanna be mindful of the fact that, you know, we are at risk for running out of protective gear and supplies for, you know, really the medical professionals, the doctors and the nurses who are in the ERs and the ICUs who will be caring for sick patients.

So, what would I do if I did choose to fly? Just make sure, remember the surfaces, right? All the surfaces that your kids could touch. I do wipe them down now. I used to think, “Oh, I’m not gonna wipe down. That’s okay. I’m not gonna be worried about that.” But you know the screen in front of you, the handle, your armrest, the seat button that reclines the chair, the window shade, the seat belt buckle. I wipe down all of that. And again, in this case, right now, I would use hand wipes that have at least 60% alcohol in them. When you’re wiping down surfaces like that you could use a bleach wipe as well. And then, of course, when you’re flying, just make sure that you’ve gotten enough sleep the night before, that you are not up packing at all hours of the night because sleep deprivation does suppress our immune system’s ability to fight off infections. Make sure that you’re not, you know, snacking at the airport on, you know, muffins or chocolate or, you know, candy or a lot of the things that we often… I know your audience doesn’t, but that many parents do “treat” their kids with because they’re being so good on a plane. Staying hydrated, all those good things to really keep our immune system strong. As of now, I’m not necessarily recommending that people don’t travel, but that will likely change in the coming week. So, I think we just have to pay attention to what’s going on and be as safe as possible. My sister was on the fence about flying. She was supposed to fly in two days as we speak and did decide last night not to go not because of her concern with her children getting sick, because, as I mentioned, children are relatively spared, they seem to have mild to no symptoms, but really out of concern for possibly bringing anything to my parents who are elderly and my mom especially who has an increased risk because of her recent chemotherapy and surgery.

Katie: It makes sense. And I love that you are bringing such a calm and level-headed perspective to this and giving people practical tips that they can do to keep their families safe but also to reduce the fear and calm the panic which I think is even potentially more of a pandemic at this time than the actual virus itself. I know you’ve also written some great articles on remedies if you or your child do get sick and just things you can do, again, to support the body through that. And you also have a course. I will make sure that I link to both of those in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. And of course, they are also on your blog at healthykidshappykids.com. And I also know that you are an active practicing doctor who needs to see patients in eight minutes. I wanna respect your time. But any just parting advice or words of wisdom to parents who are just worried about navigating this with their families?

Dr. Song: Absolutely. Like you said, stress may be more of a pandemic than anything else. And I just want to emphasize that stress, how we’re feeling, our own anxieties, which then can fuel our children’s anxieties, that may actually be one of the most inflammatory things, the most immunosuppressing factors that we are encountering. Now, I want to really help parents to be, you know, what I’ve told my patients, just let’s be rationally prepared, let’s be rationally cautious, but not panicked. We really want to try to focus every day on self-care for ourselves so that we can then be present and calm and help our kids navigate this time. I just yesterday recorded an interview with one of my favorite child psychologists. I would say favorite child psychologist except my sister is one, so I can’t say favorite. But Dawn Huebner, H-U-E-B-N-E-R. She is incredible. She is a child psychologist that teaches kids cognitive-behavioral techniques through her self-help books just for kids or the what to do series, “What To Do When You Worry Too Much,” “What To Do When Your Temper Flares,” “What To Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck.” She’s got a whole series, but her latest book, you know, “Something Bad Happened.” That’s the title of it, “Something Bad Happened.” That came out last fall. And she wasn’t writing it specifically for coronavirus, obviously, because we didn’t know about coronavirus then. But it’s really how to help our kids navigate really bad news, tragic events. And we are already seeing tragic events in the news. I’m hoping that people don’t have their radio on just all the time or the TV on or casually flipping through their news feeds while their children are watching over their shoulders because it’s too much for brains even, you know, middle school and high school brains to really, you know, comprehend fully without our help. So, we recorded an interview on how to talk with kids about coronavirus that I’ll be posting up, you know, very, very soon. And by the time you post the podcast, I will get that link to you because I want parents to know that they do have tools to help themselves keep calm and help their kids keep calm and I think that’s gonna be one of the most powerful ways that we as families and as communities can get through the coronavirus pandemic together.

Katie: I love it. And I will make sure that all of those links are in the show notes. You guys check it out. It will be the podcast at wellnessmama.fm is where you can find it. And I will also, Dr. Song, link to your social media, especially your Instagram, you’ve been posting some resources there and some update so people can follow along with you. And we’ll ride this thing out together like you said and I think parents are the frontline of defense. And I’m so grateful that you are sharing all this practical, common-sense information without the fear and I think that’s gonna really help a lot of families. So, thank you so much.

Dr. Song: Thanks for doing this, Katie. It’s so important to get the word out. And you can do that, you know, so well. And really I appreciate your time today.

So grateful to Dr. Song for sharing all of that information and for very balanced approach on this. I wanted to follow up with a few things into some practical measures that I’m personally taking based on a lot of questions I’ve gotten from you guys. And to start, I also just really want to reiterate what Dr. Song said in the interview, which is that while it makes absolute sense to take a rational preparedness approach to this. We also do need to stay calm and maintain some sort of balance as well.

I know that things like this can seem extremely scary, but especially as parents, we have the ability to help maintain the calm and to pass on a calm attitude to our children and also to take the proper preventative steps without overreacting or being overly afraid. And I’m not at all trying to diminish the potential of what this can be or to minimize the fact that people have died from this and people will continue to die from this. But I just want to reiterate like we talked about with Dr. Song that fear and stress do not help the immune system and nothing is to be gained from that. And so to whatever degree possible, I think, like she said, just once again, to reiterate, we need to be rationally prepared to be ready for what may and looks likely will happen at this point, but at the same time to maintain calm and composure and community and support each other in local areas in whatever ways that we can.

So that’s my first step to this. My own personal approach right now is stay calm, take a deep breath, don’t stress out. That said, to reiterate a lot of the stuff she said, I’m just going through my personal checklist of things that I am implementing in my home with my kids. Extra stuff I’m taking right now just to, as we talked about, boost the immune system, increase the body’s own defenses. Like she reiterated again and again, there is no right now known cure for this, not in conventional medicine, not in alternative medicine, but there are some things that may be helpful in just supporting the body in either hopefully avoiding getting sick or in shortening the duration if we do get sick.

All of the experts agree that hand-washing is extremely important and she talks about…she you talked about this when I spoke with her a few minutes ago and you will see this advice in any official document in CDC papers, everything coming out. Experts agree that hand-washing the right way is one of the best steps that we can take to stop the spread of this or at least to lengthen the curve, which will give our health care system the best shot at handling the potential up flux of people who are going to need to visit the hospital.

So I will put links in the show notes to everything I talk about in this part of the podcast. But I have stocked up on big staples like liquid Castile soap, which I use to make big batches of homemade foaming hand soap and which can also be used on its own as a hand soap. And I’ve been adding in a few drops of different types of antibacterial essential oils and antiviral essential oils into the hand soap. So current for me is germ destroyer or germ fighter from Plant Therapy. I’ll put those links in a discount code in the show notes if they are still even available and not sold out online.

And to echo her advice, this requires proper hand-washing. She quoted the statistics of how big of a difference this can make if we were all washing our hands the right way. But that is important to. It needs to be at least 30 seconds, ideally up to a minute with warm water and soap and that needs to happen, especially anytime we visited public places or touched surfaces where the virus can live. I’m also normally not a huge fan of hand sanitizer, but it’s something I am making and keeping on hand right now. If you have been to any stores, you know that it’s pretty much sold out online and in essentially all stores. So I have been making big batches of my homemade hand sanitizer recipe to use whenever we’re out of the house or if we’ve been in public areas where we can’t wash hands as easily or there’s more potential for the virus to spread.

There’s multiple recipes in that post. So a word of advice. She explained that for, to meet CDC standards, hand sanitizer needs to be at least 60% alcohol. And if you know what percentage your alcohol is, this is a simple math equation. Most rubbing alcohol is 70% or above and some of them are as high as 99%. So you need to make sure whatever alcohol that you use, not just the percentage of that alcohol mixture, but the percentage of actual alcohol is above 60% if you’re trying to meet the CDC standards. And then I dilute that with either aloe vera, which is also largely sold out online or glycerin. And then add essential oils just for an extra layer of defense there and also for scent.

Something else I always do this time of year and I’m just also making sure we do right now is nasal irrigation, especially if we are traveling or have been in public places. This is something, like I said, it’s not specific to coronavirus or Covid-19. This is something that I do during cold and flu season anyway because there are lots of things going around besides just these. But I use several different types. There’s one from Genexa, a Genex saline, both an adult version and then infant and children’s versions as well. And then I also had used other different methods of nasal irrigation at home, similar to a neti pot, but with premixed saline and all of those will be linked in the show as well.

In our home because even though there are viruses going around, my house is still the place where all the neighborhood kids hang out. And I always wanted it to be that. I’m not discouraged that even with all of these things going around, but I am taking a few extra precautionary steps. So I have pretty much been diffusing different essential oils on repeat 24/7. Right now I’m using Germ Destroyer KidSafe Essential Oil and Germ Fighter from Plant Therapy, also Immune Aid and Defender. And I have their oils like respirate and immune boom on hand in case any of us do get sick, but I am just a fusing those pretty much all the time in our home.

I’m also running air filters, which I normally have in the home as well. But I’ve ordered a few more. So I have AirDoctor Air Filters, which you guys might have heard of for me before and also Air Oasis and they have discounts for both of those, which will be in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. There’s some evidence that certain types of air filters can filter particulate sizes small enough to get viruses in the air. So since there isn’t an airborne nature to this, it’s just a cautionary step that I am.

And then personally and with my kids, there’s a few additional supplements that I’ve added into our routine or increased our dosage on. I just stocked up on Genexa remedies. So again, there’s no treatment or cure for this that we know of, but there are things that might help shorten the duration or at least improved symptoms if anybody does get sick. So you can find links in the show notes to all the Genexa remedies, but they have saline ones that I already mentioned and they also have Cold Crush and Flu Fix, both designed to help with comfort and duration during those types of events.

So those were the show notes as well as Dr. Song mentioned. Two other big ones that seem to come into play with any type of respiratory illness are vitamin D and vitamin C. And I’ve linked to my post on both of these in the show notes. I do think it’s important to test for vitamin D levels, especially this time of year when we aren’t in the sun as much.

And so that’s something I do for our whole family and that we supplement with regularly. We use drops of vitamin D, high dose vitamin D in the mouth, in the doses based on body weight and testing to keep those in range as well. And I’ll put some of my other tips and suggestions in the show notes as well. But I just wanted to give a look at what I’m personally doing and what I’m not doing. We’re not wearing face massk. We’re not a right now quarantining or staying inside. We are limiting any unnecessary travel or big gatherings of a lot of people.

But just to reiterate what she said, I am not afraid at all from an illness perspective for our family because none of us are in high risk populations. But that said, anytime we are dealing with a relatively rapidly spreading now pandemic, I do think it’s important for us all to just be aware and rationally prepared again to use that word so that we aren’t passing this on without even being symptomatic and we aren’t putting people that we love at risk. But that needs to be balanced with keeping calm and not letting the fear and the overwhelm take over. And using this as an opportunity to spend more time together in community and small groups and family and to talk to our kids about important things we would want to teach them anyway. Like what happens in types of events like this, like preventative measures that we can take, like what our immune system is and how it works and how we can support our body and how the body works as an organism, as a whole and not just an individual parts.

And so I think there’s a lot of, many, like very many valuable lessons in this. I have no doubt that communities like this one, the amazing Wellness Mama community will only come together more and strengthen in times like this. And I’m just so grateful to all of you for being the leaders, this in your own families, communities and homes, and for caring, for listening, and for sharing. So thank you again for your time today. I hope that this was helpful to you and your family. I hope that you stay healthy and happy. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the ”Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/coronavirus/

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[voltagefanfic-angstlover-blog]

Jin namba fanfic: Obstacles part 8

Jin’s POV:

It’s already 2 days after YN’s admission to the hospital, but she is yet to come to consciousness. In fact, her condition is getting worse and worse. She continues to cough up blood and her body is deteriorating fast.

I’ve dropped all my works and haven’t left her side for the entire time. How could I leave her? I am absolutely in no mood to complete any work or to leave her side. I’m scared….I’m scared that she would leave me if I take my eyes off her for just a second.

I hold her hand in mine and lean my forehand against it, I feel a cold sensation. It’s our engagement ring. It brings back the memories of that day in how happy we were to promise ourselves to each other, her glowing smile and bell like laughter. A small smile appears on my tired face. I gently kiss her hand and the ring.

Wake up little bird. I need you. I cannot imagine my life without you. It’s OK if you want to take a rest, I know you are tired, but please….. please remember to wake up alright? Please remember, my love, I’m still waiting for you.

Just then, Goto walks in.

“Chief, how’s her condition?”

I shake my head with a bitter heart.

Goto sighs.

“…Chief, I know you are worried and this is hard on you. But you really need to take some rest. I’m sure YN wouldn’t want to see you in this state either. Plus, the higher up has been summoning you for urgent matters. I’m sorry that I have to tell you this but you must return to the academy.”

It will take a thousand men’s strength to separate me from YN but I cannot abandon my duties as a public safety officer especially as the chief.

Sigh, Why do things all have to happen at a bad timing. Although I’m reluctant to leave but my work ethics does not allow me to be indecisive or be irresponsible.

I pull my fatigue body up and look to Goto,

“Let’s go, let’s deal with all the stuff quickly.”

My gaze fall onto YN’s sleeping face covered by an oxygen mask. I pick up her hand again and kisses it softly.

YN, I’ll be back very soon. Be a good girl and wait for me to return OK?

I take another long hard look at YN before finally dragging myself out of the room along with Goto.

As I’m walking out the room, a conversation earlier with the doctor replays in my head.

 Flashback:

“Doctor, why isn’t she waking up? She’s still cough up blood.”

“The patient has ingested a rare type of toxin.”

“Rare toxin?” The word ‘rare’ hangs suspiciously in my mind.

“Yes. This toxin is synthetic and not produced by pathogens. Which means it’s highly likely that someone created this and poisoned the patient.”

Someone did this intentionally? What for? Why would they target YN? My lips press firmly together into a thin line and my fist clench in anger.

“And….unfortunately we currently do not have a cure for this toxin.” The doctor continues but his words were like death sentence for me.

NO CURE?!

Those 2 words hit me like a bullet.

I desperately restrain my urge to grab the doctor’s collar to shake him and demand him to reconsider his words.

“Is there no any other ways? What about making new drugs?” I ask with a shaky voice.

“Creating new antidote can take days, weeks or even years. Even with that amount of time, we cannot guarantee that the new drug won’t have side effects. The best thing we can do now is to suppress her symptoms and stabilise her the best we can with currently available medications. However, I’m afraid to inform you that it’s having very little effects.”

My heart sinks and is filled with despair, all the strength are sucked out of my body. Does that mean YN will …..DIE? And I’m just going to stand here unable to do anything and lose her to this unknown culprit while my dear little bird is suffering? I do not even know how and who she was poisoned by. I don’t even have a hit at who the culprit might be.

NO! I’m going to find and catch this person NO MATTER WHAT.

Seeing my anger, the doctor thinks pensively for a while and speaks up again.

“But, I’ve seen a similar case where a woman has also been diagnosed with the same poison 5 years ago. To my memory, that specific antidote research has already begun and it was close to finish. But unfortunately, the researcher conducted illegal clinical testing without approval. That cost quite a few subjects to lose their lives. He was arrested and the research was forced to stop. After his arrest, all his data were lost. I heard the woman was the researcher’s wife as well. Unfortunately, his wife passed away while he was still in jail. Only if we can get our hands on those data, then we might be able to create an antidote.”

Finding data will be easy work knowing all those competent instructors will have my back. I’m a man who separates work and personal life. But, for YN, I have no hesitation to break the rules. For my little bird, I will do anything. I will utilise all my connection and resources to find the lost data. Little bird, for you, I’m willing to go to the extreme if it means I can save you.

End of flashback.

There is a still a chance to save YN. The doctor said the research was arrested. I’m sure the academy would be able to pull out his criminal record.

I pull out my phone and dialled a number.

“Ayumu, I have a favour to ask.”

When it comes to computer and finding information, there is no one more suitable than Ayumu.

As of the culprit, I will catch him with my own hands and let him know what the consequences will be for messing with my woman.

 The now empty room is eerily quiet with only YN laying still on the bed. The door quietly opens and a woman dressed in nurse uniform steps in.

The nurse walks in, takes out a syringe and quickly injects it into YN’s IV drip. The nurse smiles evilly and quickly exits the room making sure no one sees her.

Few minutes the later:

BEEEEEP-------

Only a flat line is visible on the monitor. The heart rate reading is: ZERO

Continues into part 9.

A/N: Please don’t abandon this fanfic yet! There are more surprises to come. Spoiler, I like happy ending.

Sorry for weird sentences and grammar, I wrote this in a hurry and didn’t read through my own writing. >.< Please go easy on me!