thethingything

[thethingything]

so to taper off our pain meds and try to reduce the amount of withdrawal symptoms we've been slowly lowering the dosage each day and trying to space out the doses we do take as evenly as possible by taking them at certain times, and it still sucks but it's not as bad as it would otherwise be.

but then yesterday we missed a dose and today we missed 2 doses and holy fuck this is so much worse.

[thethingything]

invertober day 16, yellow-spotted isopod. my road sign ☝️

[thethingything]

what is it about needles that fucks us up so badly? like we had dental work last Wednesday and our face still hurts from where the anaesthetic was injected, and my left arm is currently really painful (there's a dull ache but I also keep getting sharp jolts of pain radiating into my shoulder) from having the flu jab, and I'm still having issues in my hand from where we had the cannula 3 whole fucking months ago, and every time we have a blood test it fucks our arm up for like 2 weeks.

like, it's a needle, it's not exactly a big injury. as far as I'm aware it shouldn't be this painful. it feels ridiculous that it is this painful. for years we kept getting told we were being dramatic and then found out that other people just don't experience pain so bad they can't use their arm properly for weeks after a blood draw. I have to assume it has something to do with us having fibromyalgia but who knows

[thethingything]

we all know pokemon was made by an autistic person but consider the idea that it was made for autistic people as well:

1. absolutely nothing in the entire game requires dexterity or quick reaction time. you can beat the game with no problems even if you have the reaction time of a shuckle

2. game mechanics based on categorization, things placed neatly into categories that are easy to memorize

3. there are multiplayer elements but the game itself? completely single player. no social interaction required to enjoy the hell out of this game

4. you are not only encouraged but expected to have empathy for and form an attachment to these virtual creatures that do not actually exist, which is very easy for an autistic person with hyperempathy to do

5. the whole point of the game is collecting things. autistics will understand this one

[thethingything]

Alright he's getting worse, I just need help please. He needs help.

[thethingything]

My left-hand-drawing practice again 🐍 (I swear I don't draw only snakes)

[thethingything]

Yeah I can’t come in today. Yeah it was a cryptic instagram post. Yes it will take all day.

[thethingything]

Something else abt cockroaches is that they can also hold ur hand

[thethingything]

we got our flu jab and I guess we'll see how we feel later but the rest of the appoinment went well, and then when we got home we looked around the garden a bit for stuff to get iNat observations of and found a fuckload of really tiny snails all chilling in one area

[thethingything]

today's invertebrate........ancyra

do you see a weevil??? do you?????? because if you do, then you've been TRICKED by cheeky ancrya, who loves pretending to be a weevil with his suspiciously weevil shaped wings

everyone thinks they found a lucky weevil when ancyra is around but whoops! it's just good ol ancyra walking backwards as usual

great animal! (photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rainforests/)

[thethingything]

pigeon loaf

[thethingything]

(Hermosa galianoae, via iNaturalist)

Ant-mimics H. galianoae may be, but this particularly rotund individual is halfway to a bee cosplay.

[thethingything]

When I was little my mom’s meatloaf was my favorite food. But ONLY her meatloaf. I didn’t like anyone else’s, and she told me that she would teach me how to make it when I was older. And when I was like 19? She finally taught me, but she told me never to tell anyone else and I was like weird but okay

Anyway, she was super fucking homophobic and abusive to me when I told her I was gay, so here’s the recipe

4-6 lbs of Hamburger/turkey burger

1 pk onion soup mix OR ranch mix

1 TBs ketchup

1 Tbs spicy brown mustard,

1 Tbs bbq sauce

1 Tbs steak sauce

1 egg

mix, shape into a loaf in a big pan, and bake at 350 for 2 hrs (maybe 2 and a half if you’re feeling dangerous)

You can get almost all of these ingredients at the dollar store, and have leftovers if it’s just you. The leftovers make great tacos if (taco seasoning is also like a dollar). Enjoy your revenge loaf

[thethingything]

I do appreciate that the two times this year where we've actually managed to add a load of posts to the affirmationsfromants queue all at once the way we kee meaning to have both been because our psychosis flared up and we started getting lots of very chaotic thoughts and then 🍬 went "okay time to queue some ants posts"

[thethingything]

its terrible for any number of reasons, but i think if we invent immortality there should be an extreme sport called civilizational speedrunning where teams of 20 go into the wilderness somewhere and try and be the fastest build the first internal combustion engine. i bet you could get it down to like 3 years tops

[thethingything]

okay yeah our brain has been going fast and we've been very rambly and aso paranoid in a way that feels a lot like the way the start of our psychotic episodes usually do so that probably is what our brain's doing which is whatever, we're used to it, but the paranoia fucking sucks. at least we recognised it early this time

[thethingything]

Hey. You know what they taught me in my environmental studies classes, about how to work in this field and be able to keep doing it without burning out and crashing? And also about how to get the general public to care about what we do?

Ragebait isn't actually a very good strategy. Hope is. Showing people it's possible to make a difference is. Imagining a better future is. I think other movements need to learn this.

For years the strategy was to show people horrible things so they'd be angry and want to do something, but it turns out it's really easy to cross the line into them thinking 'oh god it's all horrible and we're doomed' at which point they get paralyzed with hopelessness. So that's not the recommended strategy anymore and instead we try to connect climate issues with things people care about and show them how they can help in concrete, achievable ways. Anyways, I'm still in this field three years later and I don't feel crushing despair about it so I guess it's working. Y'all should join me. Put down the images of sad polar bears and other assorted horrors; pick up something hopeful and useful instead.