#this is how you avoid being chronically online btw

[ink-man-sam]

"You seem exhausting to be around"

This might shock you, but I actually use the anonymity of tumblr blogs to blow off my annoyingness before interacting with sane people

I'm using this site to be the worst version of myself, I'm not like this irl

[italiantea]

honestly the reason online friendships work is because we dont do things together enough for you to find me annoying or incompetent and i dont know you well enough to be mean to you

[velvetvexations]

Oh btw about predatorjacketing and kinkshaming trans people;

This is generally going on among modern fandoms and among young queer and trans adults outside of just transfems.

I've seen plenty of non-transfeminine nonbinary and transmasculine folk get hunted down and harassed over cartoon porn they draw. I don't know in detail if it's more frequent or violent towards transfeminine folk (it could be, - given how mainstream transmisogyny relates to the gay or gnc men as predators myth).

I'm transmasc and I don't have a NSFW art platform at all because I'm THAT scared of people finding it, associating it with my mains and then slandering me over it. I can not find community around my kinks etc. because I feel unsafe to discuss that with the vast majority of people. And yes, my transness is a factor. I always feel that it if I was a feminine cis woman I would be seen as cute and innocent. I have a very deep instinctive feeling that my transness to many people represents a sexual threat and that it's easier to demonize me over kinks bcs I stick out too much etc.

Even in a women's changing room I feel that my masculinity is in this stark direct contrast with most people I share that space with, - that I have to be really careful of how I move, where I look and how I come across. I have felt for my whole life, even when being a fem presenting teen, that I am clocked as a boy thing that doesn't belong there. Now on T, with boobs... I also have to avoid talking in those changing rooms. In the company of really fem presenting cis women I feel socially and culturally hypersexualized for my deviant masculinity, for being an apparent dyke in the midst of women. I have cptsd from being around feminine people because of how othered I am + some experiences of being subtly ruled out of the Girls TM club.

Being a sexual being with my kinds of sexual interests while having this experience as a transmasculine person is something quite vulnerable and difficult to fully become confident in and love oneself about. I think transandrophobia and transmisogyny have that whole "you're a predatory impostor among women" thing and "you emasculate straight cis men by existing" thing in common... Just from a slightly diff. angle but there's so much similiarity.

A lot of the chronic policing between transmasc people over kink and sexuality is actually a result of internalizing the idea that we are dirty masculine predators. There is a high social pressure to be cute, feminized, sanitized and say "PROSHIT DNI >:/" because transmascs have an instinctive self-awareness of how we're easily thrown to the wolves when our gender-nonconformity or sexuality is no longer cute and Christian Values Friendly enough.

Being terrified to death about some kind of predatorjacketing over writing fanfic or drawing weird cartoon porn isn't exclusive to transfems. Any transmasc person encaging in fandom or any online art subcultures is waaayyy too intimately aware of this fact 24/7.

Oh and? Transmasc people with feminine partners who are tops / encage in some kind of roleplay where they're in the 'aggressing' role are extremely stigmatized too. I see people instantly write this off as toxic masculinity or inherently gross because a transmasc does it.

A lot of transmascs (speaking from experience) who actually prefer these "scary" roles in fantasy etc., feel social pressure to over-emphasize how bottom uwu sluts we are. I've recently stopped doing this because I realized it makes me dysphoric + I only do it to make my sexuality more palatable to other people. And I see so many transmascs as like... Having to reduce themselves to these cute slut boytoys. While I fully believe this is the authenthic preference of many of them, I think as a transmasc there is a strong social pressure to be /that way/ because being seen as Gross Threatening Men is like a social death sentence.

(there's a lot of good discussion about everything on this blog btw and I love to read it. I just wanted to add 2 cents to the anti kink vs trans people discussion.)

I don't think there's any difference literally at all between how transfem and transmasc sexuality is "handled" by the internet. People have it in their head that everything is an exact 1-1 of everything else so the fact that a trans woman is more likely to be visibly tagged as a pervert just for walking down the street (transmasc members of Velvet Nation please let me know if that's inaccurate) gets transferred to the internet as though everyone treats trans men who have being trans in their bio as the first thing everyone sees as cis men.

At most TERFs might report trans women more often and I don't want to downplay the seriousness of that but get fucking real if one doesn't think trans men aren't under constant scrutiny.

[97-liners]

tw fatphobia, tw not eating mention (see how easy it is to warn) //

btw u n husbandhoshi are right.. i shouldn’t apologize for simply bringing up a fatphobic fic that has or could potentially harm other ppl. but i simply cant believe ppl r reacting this way.. im kinda very new to fanfic tumblr especially the carat side n this just makes me srsly avoid it now. despite my thoughts of actually wanting to come into this space to write for fat readers but now i know definitely this isn’t the safe space for that. so ig thanks to everyone who ruined that for me. but i don’t regret having it eventually brought to their attention despite them acting like it’s only hate and not even taking it srsly. (this is directed now at them, not u jackie ➡️) i won’t call u fatphobic. but the way ur acting abt it is srsly ignorant and just disrespectful. that’s probably why i don’t wanna message u bc u and ur followers will probably react horribly towards me.

anyway enough of my ranting, idk what’s more to say except thank you jackie and ur followers + friends who validated my concerns and recognized fatphobia. not everything is “y’all r chronically online haha let’s fucking be unsrs it’s just fic” when after reading the snippets i almost debated on fucking eating. ur work can equally and obviously impact people for being good as much as they can for being offensive and problematic. - 🐱

[primaviva]

oki first of all, hai !!! its been sosososo long since ive sent an ask lolololol [i think it was last blog theme], but i just wanted 2 ask u a question bcuz uve written abt minors as a minor before and i have my own writing blog on the side n so far ive only ever written abt characters that r adults in canon but ive been wanting 2 branch out 2 other minor characters [IM A MINOR MYSELF BTW . the link in my bio 4 info abt me is being wack n gross, but i am a minor TRUST]

but back 2 my question, how should i deal with potential backlash ? when i write n publish my stuff abt canonically minor characters, im planning on just putting an adults dni at the top or smthn [bcuz the idea of adults engaging w the potential content of minors i put out makes me feel a lil sick 2 my stomach ngl] but i feel like some ppl r gonna see it n start 2 get defensive abt it which i . rlly dont want 2 deal w [but i probably will tho lololol]

OK . yeah . thats it . ik u havent posted anything since february but ur the only person i could think of 4 a question like that

thank u !!! have a good day ^_^ [n i hope this made sense !! pretty please reach out 2 me in any way possible if smthn didnt make sense !!]

BANAHHAHAA THANK YOU FOR THINKING OF ME omg im so sorry for being like a week late to this ask buttttttt honestly my advice to you is to do nothing. that sounds weird but LEMME EXPLAIN:

at the end of the day it’s the Internet and people are gonna read and do as they please. for example, all of us chronically online growing up have read at least one smut before like everybody and they mama would be lying if they saw a minors dni and they read it anyone and now ended up like this (an absolute fein for fanfiction) because at the end of the day people are gonna do what they want.

don’t get me wrong, you SHOULD put that labeling because some minors may actually want to avoid that content. now, because you’re putting adults interact…lemme just tell you rn if a grown ass mf searched up the tag to find some x reader of a teenager then i promise you that a “adult dni” is gonna stop em💀💀 you should still put the adult dni, but no matter what an adult will interact with it because they gonna read what they wanna read.

my best advice is just to not stress about it. if you get backlash because an adult is offended to not interact with romantic content of a teenager, just block them. but besides that, there’s nothing really you can do and constantly blocking adults for viewing fics would be tiring and it’s never gonna end. ive been weirded out seeing 21 year olds like my fics of gwen, and when you notice it you can block them but it won’t stop them from viewing other content of that character. and those are accounts that actually put they age, most blogs are blank and you won’t even know. if you want to block accounts that shamelessly have their age but like content of minors, then do so, but im just saying not to stress about it because things like people interacting with content they aren’t supposed to is unfortunately UNAVOIDABLE…..it’s the internet 🤷‍♀️

hope this made sense and also HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD DAY TOO SLIME

[firespirited]

Man I have so much to learn. So much. Like, about how to praise without implying that others didn’t do enough. How to convey multiple shades of grey to a person or a thing without coming across as negative or positive or wavering between the two extremes.

I can hold complex nuanced thoughts in my head but getting them out in a way that actually 1/ centers the core of what I mean AND 2/ expresses nuance instead of sounding like a swinging pendulum “yeah but no but yeah but also”.

And somehow I got really good at seeing who wasn’t speaking in the room and engaging them then giving them space to speak but that’s in real life when you can mentally count faces and who’s taking up audio and physical space. Online, voices get drowned out and I need to find ways of visualising who’s present but not getting a say and needs amplifying, sometimes it’s the mere silence, other times there are small text/subtext only clues that indicate frustration so politely you wouldn’t spot them at first glance. It’s something that needs practice and part of me is like “being a better person is so much work I wish I could be stagnant where i am at and not care” but we all know that ends with being human dickcheese resting on old fight laurels.

The widespread of long covid and lack of resources is also threatening that i’m going to have to re-engage with discourse that’s extremely triggering (for almost 15 years now I’d rather pretend my reality and my past survival doesn’t exist, lock it up in a box, hear it murmur sometimes but muffle it fast) because those survival mechanisms are going to be important to the new crop of chronic “end of life exhaustion” folks and we’re going to have to unite with them to make sure any of us has a chance at getting research done and maybe treatments? I’ve only been willing and able to re-engage with the subject inside “old” crip circles, the ones who have at least half done their grief and rejected the capitalist/puritanical/libertarian views of productivity and usefulness to others equaling being worthy of life. It ties in with whether old survivors have a duty of care to new survivors because non survivors can’t possibly comprehend. it’s messed up right? I don’t want to relearn the kid glove approach and watch people enact internalised ableism the way i did until taught otherwise but avoidance is only going to work for so long.

When it boiled down to it in real life, it just *happened* you don’t really get a choice when you’re looking right at someone falling apart, I’ve given countless hours of free therapy to carers displaying chronic exhaustion or in abusive relationships or with neurodivergent kids, knowing that they’d leave to care for themselves or their kids once they came to acceptance. Which is incidentally why I have two new carers this month (Cindy finally refused to go back to her useless man and is working less hours so she can self regulate her fatigue, Maeva is leaving the carer business to either go into management or small farm life because we convinced her to change before she got completely burned out, Aurélie took a deskjob so she could be there for her autistic little girl who is adorable btw.) New carer Julie is nice, she enjoys speaking english to mum as she spent a year in oz and has a kiwi bf. It’s super unsettling to learn to trust a stranger in each carer though, they gradually get access to your fridge, bedroom, your nudity, your worst moments of vomit and whatnot...

But yes so much to learn about reaching out to folks, media critique, political topics like ableism, expressing any opinion really: in ways that say this isn’t about *me* this is about this, and this is the carefully thought out expression of what i mean not sponteanous word-vomit then 10 different followup messages of “but no but also yeah but also no” or using jargon with folks who don’t use jargon or not using the exact jargon with folks who need to hear that you know your stuff and yeah going back over conversations to see who got overlooked.

I also need to find ways of communicating more clearly to my sis, when i speak too loud she loses all sense of tone except angry, when i avoid exacting technical/scholarly terms due to my dislike of jargon she doesn’t like the ambiguity. I need to find a way of communicate that i’m listening and trying to understand not silently sulking or anything (resting grouch face ya know). I’ve spent so long rejecting my type of neurodivergence that putting myself in neurodivergent shoes feels taboo and cringe and means fighting a lot of intrusive avoidance/self loathing thoughts when i’m trying to concentrate on someone else *shut up bullied-brain* OTL.

This is of course stuff that probably won’t end up that regularly on this tumblr, this is a mostly dolls, creative people and cool animals space. hence the read-more. Just wanted to say i’m a work in progress too and if i have less brainspace for dolls it might because i’m trying to absorb better social skills, not etiquette (that can burn) but better listening, learning and communicating skills.

<3

[onisionisacanceronthisearth]

Greg vs Alleged Classmate Part 5: Skipping information and Relationship With Skye

So this one is hilariously suspicious, Greg totally skipped over the section about Skye, this was one of the biggest things in M’s posts and honestly one of the biggest parts of this interview. I’m not sure if Greg accidentally skipped too far or if this was deliberate but either way I’ll mention all that he skipped before going onto his rebuttals again. Also, this is two-thirds into the video. We’ve got half an hour left. FINALLY. Wow, I didn’t realise just how long this would take. And it isn’t just cause I’ve got one hand. This is a long one. Greg doesn’t actually counter anything but goes into detail of his relationship with Skye and reveals a lot about his personality. Spoiler alert: it’s disgusting!

What Greg skipped:

Skye was ignorant to Greg sleeping around and using girls

She also didn’t know about how he acted with other students

When they started dating, he suddenly changed as a person for a while. He was acting nice, no mood swings, and treated her as an equal

This apparently changed when he started doing things online but M doesn’t know much of that as he was busy doing other things in life. He just knew he went to his old manipulative ways (Greg listened to the tail end of this, just the superiority and manipulation part)

You know, one part of this is a bit suspicious, Greg said he met Skye in computer class the first time but didn’t really notice her because he was dating Shiree at the time. I wonder why Skye didn’t know anything about Greg if she did know him before dating (or at least of him). Too bad Greg totally skipped this cause he could have brought this point up himself

Greg is manipulative and his influence on Skye

Greg doesn’t counter him being manipulative, just asks for specifics. He then takes M saying he saw less and less of Skye to mean she didn’t ever go to school and went into a big thing debunking that thing instead of listening to the rest of this section where M explains it as Skye spending all of her time with Greg and none of her other friends anymore. We get it, Greg, you’re a moron. (oh my god he’s googling the number of days a person can miss per year wtf??)

OH MY GOD GREG YOU IDIOT, HE’S NOT SAYING SKYE DIDN’T GRADUATE OR THAT SHE MISSED CLASS. YOU ARE ACTUALLY THE DUMBEST PERSON ON YOUTUBE HOLY SHIT

Ok, now he’s talking about how terrible M is for just giving up and not reporting the abusive relationship to the authorities and how “isn’t M playing hero?”. M never said that, while yes I wish that if he is real that he had actually reported this issue, I can understand feeling defeated and not knowing the best course of action when you see someone in a relationship like that at that age. Or any age for that matter. I can say with certainty though is that if you see a friend in a situation like this, please talk with them about it. And if they’re too far gone that they even stop being friends with you over it, please talk to your, or their guidance counsellor. It’s hard, but it could save them.

Also Greg, please keep in mind that hearsay isn’t all the same. To say someone has sex with goats for no reason is different from saying that they heard (but cannot confirm) that Greg started controlling Skye because he was scared she might leave him. Sure it’s not as solid as if they witnessed it themselves, but that’s why they gave that disclaimer. Especially as they said everything after the first story is based more on hearsay than events witnessed

Greg is now acting like people talking about how they stopped seeing Skye after high school took place in high school and is saying “with what money” could he have taken Skye. But it’s well known she went to Korea with you so....? Also, his dispute that he was living with Skye doesn’t actually dispute him potentially stopping her from going out and seeing her friends. It doesn’t matter where you are as long as you have influence over her. And I’d say living with her gives you that influence, even in her own home. During high school you spent all your time with her, then afterwards you stole her away to Korea and she didn’t see her family for a while. Not all that wacky when you take Lainey in mind. She spent all her after school with you, then when she graduated you stole her away to Washington and got married while her parents thought she was in university. Is it true? No idea, but it isn’t outlandish for Greg. Especially when his defence is that he, Skye, and her sister constantly played games together which plays into the idea that when they started dating her whole world had to be him.

Now Greg is going into the old videos he made with Skye and her 14-year-old sister where they pretended to have sex. Lovely

Side note, Greg mentions he can’t remember exact details of a story involving Skye and the order or date things happened yet apparently M needs to remember everything. And if he doesn’t, he’s a liar based on that. Oh btw, I’m guessing Greg doesn’t like Skye’s dad cause he just called him a perv, how routine of you Greg. Can’t you come up with some better character slander than “he’s a pedo and a perv”?

Greg keeps up the narrative that M is saying he literally kidnapped Skye instead of her dropping contact with friends and arguing that that would be illegal. Good thing M didn’t claim that, cause that would be stupid

Greg dodges how he treated Skye

Greg is avoiding the point of how he treated Skye by still talking about kidnapping her despite it being clear we’ve moved onto M’s opinion of events he found out about later through people’s videos on Greg.

Greg is now victim-blaming by saying he told Skye he could never make her happy. True, but cheating on her and telling her you were in love with her younger sister is still out of left field and crazy to experience

Greg is also still showing that despite his experience with a chronically depressed Skye, he still thinks one just gets over depression by getting happy things. He even pointed out that buying her a house because she liked it wasn’t enough (no shit Sherlock, that’s why rich people can be depressed). This whole thing makes me feel so much worse for Skye, she was a person suffering from depression and she gets Greg of all fucking people. How fucking terrible

“We made love before I left [for the military], but we were still broken up”. You had just broken up with her to go to the military then still “made love” with her. Damn, that whiplash. You made loveless love. Something tells me that this wasn’t entirely loveless, at least on her part. Then you asked her to be at your graduation and made love in the hotel room. According to you it wasn't loving, but it was a relationship where you felt like “bros hanging out” and you made love. I’m sorry but the way you’re describing it doesn’t sound like a friends-with-benefits situation. Especially when you shit on Adrienne for having had casual encounters in the past. Also, I love how the picture during this section is a picture of Lainey and Greg together. Nice one to have while talking about your first wife. The one you took to Korea (for work, but still) and bought a house for and felt like “best bros” with. And the one you are currently describing your former sexcapades with.

Ok, so the reason it wasn’t true love to Greg was that he didn’t simply lust after her (complete with sound effects, thanks Greg). He’s literally throwing away how great of a person she was, how well they got along, the fact that he felt love towards her and love so many aspects of her because he didn’t feel, and I’m trying to quote here, “she’s so hot, ugh, oooogh”. And he didn’t feel like she was as hot as Thor, Andy Biersack, and Jensen Ackles is while saying that “it’s saying something” that he listed all dudes. Wow, I can’t tell if this is insulting Skye because he’s basically just saying she was perfect but it didn’t matter because she wasn’t hot, or insulting Lainey by him saying Lainey is only attractive to him because they look like a 30-40-year-old dude. Or he’s saying that Lainey just isn’t hot to him. Or maybe this was a mix of all of these, plus he had gone too long without a gay joke.

Ok, he’s saying a person isn’t a friend if he’s aroused by them and he married Skye as a friend because she didn’t arouse him but he loved doing “these things, making love things” to her. I just can’t. I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to offer much more than variations of “this makes no sense” on this, but I just can’t. What on earth is wrong with this guy, and why is his defence of treating Skye like shit just shitting on her more and saying that it’s fine because she was a friend he liked “making love” to but didn’t find arousing. Yet is now going into “[his] arousal, and her arousal and their mutual arousal”

New picture of him kissing Lainey in the background over: “what would be better than marrying this person who I had a friends-with-benefits relationship with, and living off [military] base with them, and watching anime with them, and playing video games with them, etc. So I proposed this to her, I said ‘hey, we should get married so we can hang out all the time’. And so we continued this friends-with-benefits relationship where we loved each other, and we made love, and we were exclusive”. But then goes onto how it wasn’t “typical” because it wasn’t (said in a monotone voice versus animated up until this point) “ever since I met you, my soul has been complete” but instead “ever since I met you I’ve felt content and complete, for the most part”. “We would make videos together like friends would” but it wasn’t passionate, and “by the end of the relationship we wouldn’t make love that often”. I had to write down the above because it needs to be heard/read. I have no idea what Greg thinks love is, but by the sound of his voice and what he’s describing here, this is it. I don’t know why making videos seems to only be a thing which friends do. I also don’t understand why he states he wasn’t aroused by her yet later says he was. It wasn't loving, but here’s why it is, oh wait but we made videos together like bros do.

Finally, Greg has come to his point which is that their relationship wasn’t the love M describes it as being. But this now contradicts the point he made at the beginning of this video to defend his remembering all his past girlfriends, even from grade 2. He said it was because he is a passionate person who falls in love fast and hard. So he told this whole story only to contradict himself and make himself look even worse with all this extra info on Skye. I can understand not being in total passionate love with a person but they’re comfortable, but what he describes is so weird it isn’t that. Especially with his weird reasoning that he ended up contradicting

“You know who I was really in love with? Shiree” Said over the Lainey picture. Lol. Also, he slips up then talks about his love in the first person. Anyways he goes onto talk about losing his virginity to her at age 14 and talked on the phone for 9 hours which was “real passion” vs Skye where when together you “simply played games together”. Cool bro, guess my marriage is passionless cause gaming is something only friends do

Sharnell confirmed?

Minor thing but Greg suddenly partially remembers the name of his long-distance ex as Shannon or Sharon or something. I suspected this ex was Sharnell and the name seems similar enough that this is likely it as there are no other girls listed which are similar enough in name, and no one matches the bacne story of him breaking up with a girl because of it.

Greg skips details again:

Greg finally realises this is all post-high school and skips forward because he decided against talking about the Shiloh situation, coward

He also accidentally skipped details on the girl he cheated on Skye with in high school. By the description, this sounds like either Tanisha or Shiree due to him calling them “a trashy whore who does drugs” one minute and their best friend the other which is kind of how he describes Shiree. Tanisha was another ex at that school who apparently did drugs though so I figured I’d add her here too. It’s a shame he skipped this part, I’d have loved to hear his response.

The contract

Oh boy! Greg’s talking about the stupid contract he tried to get Skye to sign! I’m sensing an alimony statement :D

For those who need a refresher:

Either live with him for two more years

Or get 1000$ a month from him for one year (using the youtube money he was raking it in the 6 figures that she helped him achieve while he prevented her from getting her own job)

Greg is now showing off his lack of humanity by getting mad at her and saying how he doesn’t understand why she didn’t want to live with her cheating ex-husband for two years while he made all the money on the channel she helped create. He’s now acting very confused and is trying to parse her words which were that “she still loved him and it was too painful to live with the person she loved but couldn’t be with”. But he still doesn’t get it because he was fine coexisting with her (right after explaining that he never loved her for about 20 minutes) and he was the one who broke it off and he wasn’t mad at her and is now talking about how he didn’t want to be married in a passionless relationship with his friend. This guy is legit really confused right now. He has his answer right there but he’s still confused and sounds like it. It actually sounds like he’s still trying to figure this out, what? 7 years later? Wow, that was an emotional ride. I almost feel bad for the guy, he actually doesn’t understand empathy, he doesn’t understand that just because feels one way, doesn’t mean the other party feels that way too.

And is now talking about his 6 years of alimony payments. I’m glad Skye got them. She made your channel Greg, you made millions, she got nothing while in the relationship but a partner who confesses to using her while she loved them, and who she worked as an employee for free. She was entitled to half this creative property and you basically gave her pennies compared to your wealth.

Now he’s saying the reason this happened was because she didn’t sign a prenup. Yeah, cause it’s a shitty thing to do, especially because it’s not like you had money then. Your prenup was “if we make any money together I keep all of it when I divorce you, which I expect to do”. Both of you made the channel, she did the editing and taught you how to do it while you stopped her from getting her own job and shut your depressed wife in (depressed people should not remain shut-ins, that’s the last thing they need). Prenups are for rich people so, in the case of a divorce, your former partner can’t take money made before they came in the picture. Yes, it’s used for other clauses too but those people are all assholes or are in a relationship just for the vanity of having a hot person as their partner for sex and will drop them when they get too old. The later one is basically sex work. “Marry me and for the time of your employment (our marriage), I’ll buy you expensive things and give you pocket money in exchange for sex and various other work”

“It’s pretty mean to cry so someone loses more money” (in reference to the prenup) Fuck you Greg

Next part is the final one until I make my condensed summary which I think would be useful for future use. It will include fixes and come out within a couple days. I need a break from this video after this so I’ll focus on the appeal instead

[indirispeaks]

HS Fact Sheet

I completed my fact sheet that I’m going to update my Gofundme with.  I’m going to toss a link to this entry on my gofundme post here because it’s long.

Here it is, without the ooey gooey bits.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional.  All of the following information has been gathered from my personal experience and/or the research I have conducted myself via online library and medical journals and should not be used as a substitute for a medical diagnosis.  We good?  We good.

HS: What it is and how it's treated 1.) Hidradenitis suppurativa (sometimes called acne inversa) is a chronic skin condition that usually manifests in late teens to early twenties and affects roughly 1 percent of the population. 2.) It's an auto-immune disease so immuno-suppressant drugs are sometimes used to try to keep the symptoms under control. This leaves you vulnerable to many other diseases. 3.) There are three stages of progression on what is called the "Hurley Stages of Involvement".  The severest cases are sometimes unofficially called Stage IV, but these are very rare.  Mine is one of those cases. 4.) HS is extremely painful and disfiguring.  The shame associated with avoiding a doctor to diagnose it is due to the nature of the disfigurement. It is also often misdiagnosed, sometimes for years. 5.) It is not caused by obesity, lifestyle, or poor hygiene.  Those conditions do exacerbate it but it's specific cause remains unknown. It may possibly be genetic or chromosomal.   6.) Symptoms include painful swellings that range in size from tiny pimples to abscesses the size of baseballs, depression, anxiety, sharp, stabbing pain, and inflamed areas of involvement that are bright red and hot to the touch.  Severe symptoms include open, oozing wounds that constantly drain blood and/or pus, an unbearable stench similar to fresh dog feces, depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts/actions, sinus tracking (where cysts are connected under the skin to make one, huge, cyst with multiple openings.  Your skin looks like it's melting and/or disintegrating) and lifelong debilitating chronic pain. 7.) Side effects include or may include subsequent arthritis, onset or exacerbating of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stiff, swollen joints resulting in inability to walk, stand, hold a pen or eating utensil, or dress/undress without excruciating pain if at all, hematoma, inability to regulate body temperature due to removal of infected lymph nodes and sweat glands, certain types of cancer and loss of immune system resulting in frequent colds, flu, pneumonia, and other communicable diseases, as well as a shortened lifespan as a direct result of loss of immune system.   Pneumonia, strep, and staph are the three most common life-threatening infections. 8.) HS is treated with antibiotics, probiotics, acne medication, experimental injected drugs like Humira, excision of involved area and/or individual cysts, targeted radiation therapy or major surgery that involves complete removal of the infected area followed by skin grafting.  Treatment varies case by case and no one treatment is guaranteed to work continually, or from one patient to the next.  Some patients treat by holistic methods such as dietary change but none of this has been evaluated scientifically. 9.) There is no cure at this time. Symptom management is the best possible outcome. You are considered to be "in remission" if you remain outbreak free for 2 years. 10.) Areas of involvement may be any or all of these places: Scalp and/or hairline, behind the ears, on the neck/face (imagine open, bleeding pus filled cysts on your face) under the arms, under and on the breasts, groin and inner thighs, elbows, sides, any place skin folds, buttocks and anus, sometimes within the anal track itself.  Males may also have areas of involvement on the scrotum and directly on the penis.  Doesn't THAT sound fun...HS boils can also be internalized anywhere on the body, which can lead to large, heavy, drooping "sacs" of loose skin filled with pus and fluid.  Especially with internalized boils, even clothing can be too painful to wear. My case used to be strictly external, but in the last five years has become internal. 11.) Pain management is key to symptom management.  Hot packs may be effective for some patients, others cannot stand heat and use ice.   Lidocaine cream be used over internal cysts but not open wounds.   Tramydol, gabapentin, dilaudid, and oxycontin are controlled prescriptions that are used sparingly, as they can lead to problems with addiction or dependency. (There's a difference between the two) 12.) I have had eleven surgeries since 2009.  My last major surgery was in July of 2014 when I went to the Dallas emergency room with a very close to fatal strep infection. 8 pounds of infected flesh were removed as well as 26 pounds of drainage fluid.  I remained in the hospital for 2 weeks and in a long term recovery hospital for a month and a half. (The wifi sucked there, btw.  They didn't do so hot with pain management or treatment plans either.  They wanted to keep me another month, but I escaped and then had four months of home health care and removed my picc line when my skin started coming off.  That was fun)

13.) This disease has left me permanently disfigured. I've had multiple skin grafts, mastectomy reconstruction (the weirdest part of that was when they asked me if I still wanted nipples or not) misshapen tissue, and no naval.  I don't like going out in public. Underclothing is STILL too painful to wear.  I dislike talking about HS, usually referring to it as "my chronic illness" simply because of the all......THIS.  I'm talking about it now because I want people to understand how much this surgery could change my life. HS and Weight Loss

1.) Weight has always been known to exacerbate HS flare-ups as well as arthritis, type 2 diabetes, and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) 2.) Weight loss has been proven to greatly improve the condition of HS, resulting in fewer flare ups of very diminished intensity and duration, significantly improve mobility and arthritis and PCOS as well as greatly improve if not entirely cure Type 2 diabetes. 3.) Gastric bypass has been shown to eliminate some cases of Type 2 diabetes in less than 24 hours after surgery by changing the way the body processes insulin.  The rapid weight loss associated with bariatric surgery improves health much faster than traditional dieting, and is more effective for people who have tried other dieting methods and become frustrated with plateaus and self-deprivation. 4.) Rapid weight loss/improved health associated with gastric bypass surgery has dramatically increased self-esteem, resulting in patients being more motivated to embrace lifestyle changes and healthy eating habits. 5.)  An improved diet has been speculated to help control the symptoms of HS 6.) Medicare and Medicaid have acknowledged that gastric bypass surgery for people with life threatening diseases such as Type 2 diabetes can be considered a medical necessity. 7.) I am no longer in remission, but am now in a state of limbo where my HS cannot be treated because it is not severe enough to be considered a non-elective surgery to excise individual cysts. 8.) In short, bariatric surgery would drastically improve my quality of life and prolong my lifespan by an estimated 7 to 10 YEARS.

[sasquapossum]

Surviving a Urinary Tract Infection as a Male

Yeah, I know, this subject is going to be either irrelevant or uncomfortable for a lot of people. I also think it's important to get information out there, because there seems to be too little of it. Doctors, manufacturers, and retailers all seem to think UTIs are purely a female problem, even though that has very obviously never been the case. It's an interesting flip on the usual situation where health-care things are too narrowly focused on cis men, with everyone else left out in the cold. I like to think that my own experience has given me an opportunity to reflect on that and maybe gain some empathy, though it's not for me to determine whether I'm successful in that. Anyway, that's enough intro.

Diagnosis

Disclaimer: none of this is medical advice, which I'm not even qualified to give, and should not be construed as such. I'm just trying to share information from a personal layperson's perspective. Caveat emptor.

First, how do you even know you have a UTI? As with so many things medical, pain is going to be your most obvious clue. Does urination hurt? That's not normal. If you think it's normal, you might have some more serious chronic problem and should see an actual doctor. If it's something you're not used to but it's happening now, a UTI is the most likely explanation. Unusual color or odor are also tip-offs, especially if things are cloudy. What, you don't pay attention to these things? Well, start doing so, especially if you're over 40. These observations will tell you a lot about your day-to-day health, not just about UTIs. Producing smaller amounts more frequently, compared to whatever's normal for you, is also a hint. Maybe it's just the result of consuming diuretics like caffeine or alcohol, but if those are things you do they should already be incorporated into your baseline. I'm talking about *unusual* urinary behavior.

As it turns out, I'm more susceptible to UTIs than most cis men. My first encounter happened nearly 25 years ago. I've had a couple more since then, plus some raised eyebrows when doctors looked at whatever they look at to gauge kidney/urinary health. Some investigations ensued, but nobody ever really found anything. I have a couple of theories of my own, but even I have limits on what I'm going to talk about in public. Suffice it to say that I've been around this block a few times, most recently starting a couple of weeks ago. At least this time it didn't start with *blood* in my urine, which only happened that first time. That one will really freak you out. Again, if you see that, go see a doctor ASAP because there's a significant chance that it's something even more serious. And when I say ASAP I mean urgent or emergency care, not just an appointment a week out.

OTC Treatments

I don't happen to have a primary care doctor right now. Yeah, I know. Be that as it may, when I started experiencing symptoms my first impulse was to do the things I could do myself, regardless of whether I also got to a point where I needed/wanted real medical attention. There are quite a few over-the-counter products that are available for this.

The most common treatment is based on the idea of acidifying urine, creating an environment less hospitable to the good old e.coli that is practically always the culprit. Cranberries are the source of choice here, either as plain old juice or as extracts in pill form.

Vitamin C (a.k.a. ascorbic acid) is sometimes recommended for the same reason, but if you're not used to it then large doses of vitamin C can also cause some pretty nasty digestive effects. You have been warned; try at your own risk.

Some cranberry-based pills also contain d-mannose, which is a simple sugar. The idea is the same, to make the bladder a more hostile environment for e.coli.

Another common ingredient is probiotics, supposedly to displace e.coli. I was even able to find some scientific studies supporting this theory for a couple of ingredients - l.rhamnosus and l.reuteri. Unfortunately, even though I love this idea in the abstract, the actual organisms present in most probiotics - even probiotics sold for this speific purpose - are likely to be absolutely useless.

The last treatment-oriented option is methenamine, which is one of the few oral antibiotics (for any condition) that you can buy over the counter. The reason it's an exception is that it's highly specific; AIUI it combines with acidic urine - see above - to produce the actual antibiotic agent which I believe is formaldehyde or some relative. This drug will do absolutely nothing for any other kind of infection, and won't even work for this unless your urine is pretty highly acidic (very high correlation here). The chemistry is kind of cool, actually.

Speaking of interesting chemistry, that brings us to phenazopyridine. This stuff is a pain reducer, not a treatment, and it's funky. For one thing, it will turn urine a very bright yellow or orange, sometimes even bordering on red. I think it's really pretty, but the color has a downside that it could obscure blood in the urine. Also, the packages don't mention this, but it seems to make the urine significantly more viscous. Among other things, this means you have to work a bit harder to fully empty your bladder, unless you like making double trips as the first still leaves you uncomfortable. Practice, practice, practice. Also, I should mention that phenazopyridine has been known to cause neoplasms (benign tumors) in lab animals. Benign is benign, but it's probably still a good reason not to use it long term. Save it for those extra-unpleasant nights, or other times when you really can't afford to be going every 15-20 minutes.

Lastly, there are products that are supposed to help with long-term bladder function. Most of these seem to be based on the same set of pumpkin and/or soybean extracts. I don't know if they work - too soon to tell - but something to consider if you're like me and find yourself in this situation repeatedly.

Miscellaneous Info

This is where we get to the "UTI as a female thing" part. You might go into a drug store and try to find some of these products in logical places. Maybe near "digestive health" since those systems are near each other (and related)? Nope. Maybe in that aisle full of Depends and other old-person products that we all avoid? Nope again. Nine times out of ten, it'll be in the "feminine products" aisle, between pads/tampons and fungicidal creams. I personally have absolutely no problem browsing there, but I guess some other guys find it awkward. If you still don't find it, ask for "azo" products, since that seems to be the big brand. The name's almost certainly from azopyridine but they have multiple products covering most of the other categories as well.

Now, let's talk about leakage. You'll have some. Good fun. If you prefer to go commando ... well, stop. Especially if you're using the orange stuff, because it stains. (BTW it's kind of a dumb idea in general, for reasons ranging from hygiene to sensitivity.) To contain leakage, one option is to buy or borrow some "feminine" pads. Since I have both a wife and a daughter, I had multiple models to choose from. As it turns out, though, a folded-up paper towel works pretty well too. I'm told that this is not a great approach for those with female parts, but it seems like folded-down male parts and briefs keep things pressed in place pretty well. Don't try this with boxers. In fact, for the duration here boxers are kind of as useless as going commando.

You'll want to cut down on both caffeine and alcohol, because they're both diuretics and that's the last thing you want right now. Alcohol also doesn't interact so well with most of the medications you'll be using.

Lastly, you'll want to avoid sex. For one thing, it's likely to be pretty uncomfortable both in the moment and over time. More even than you'd think. For another thing, all these pipes are connected so it's another way for infection to spread or persist. And if those two reasons weren't enough, it's also adding complexity at a time when you might be trying to zero in on what works or doesn't for your own personal physiology. Yes, this includes solo sex, because all of these reasons still apply in that case.

Personal Experience

We're all different. You will probably have a different experience than I did. Nonetheless, I'm including this as one data point that you might consider when you're thinking about which options to try or skip.

Once I realized I was in UTI-land again, my first approach was cranberry juice and vitamin C. This might have worked somewhat, but it also meant being in the bathroom for one reason or another every half hour at most day and night. Unpleasant. So I hit the drug store to pick up some cranberry extract plus d-mannose, and also some azo for the discomfort/frequency. I couldn't find any pills containing probiotics with any science behind them, so I ordered some of those online and switched to those when they arrived.

This seemed to help, so after a couple of days (as long as you're supposed to keep taking azo anyway) I tapered off to see if I was done. Unfortunately nope. These things are all very highly personal and variable, as I said, but for me this approach didn't seem to be working. Time to switch gears. Back to the drug store, to replenish on azo and also get some methenamine this time. I tend toward the acidic side naturally, but I also tried to keep an eye on my diet to keep things that way so the methenamine could work.

Fortunately, third time seemed to be a charm. I was still going more often than usual, with some discomfort, but I chalked that up to the treatments themselves being a bit irritating plus some residual inflammation. The actual infection seemed to have abated, and in particular I hadn't seen any cloudiness for a couple of days, so I tapered off again. This time it seems to have held. The old pipes are still kind of beat up, so I figure it'll be another week before I'm fully back to normal, but it's normal enough that it's no longer interfering with my life. I can drive places further than half an hour away, and back, with confidence. I might even be able to consider flying, not that I have any plans to, but that would have been beyond tolerance before.

Summary

The key is to try something that's generally known to work. Pay attention to whether it's actually working for you. Consider that the treatments themselves are irritating, as you do your evaluation. Don't keep taking anything, especially azo, too long. If what you're trying isn't working, try something else. Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and sex. Expect about two weeks from onset through treatment and full recovery. If your trajectory seems to be taking longer than that, stop reading crap on the internet and get some real medical help.