#a rollercoaster track. but this is My Blog and i can do Whatever I Want as long as i don't hurt anyone <- affirmations!! also Harm Principle | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

queen-of-the-vampires · 5 years

Text

take the leap

characters: stefan salvatore x reader

word count: 1,464

warnings: fluff

summary: stefan wants to try stuff that he’s never done before and asks you to join you for a day filled with fun things.

beta: she wants to remain anonymous

squares filled: a round of firsts

author’s note: this is for my own fluff bingo and if you have any requests, please send them in!

feedback the glue that holds my writing together

tags at the bottom

What to do, what to do. Boredom was seriously going to be the death of you if you didn’t find something to entertain yourself. Everyone else seemed to have something going on except you and the youngest Salvatore. There was the option of going to him and asking him to hang with you, but you were afraid of looking like a fool.

He has been your crush ever since entering his life. He was the first person you met, and even though he seemed a little hostile at first, he warmed up quickly once the rest of his friends accepted you. Being a new vampire, he offered to show you the ropes on how to fight, drink, use compulsion and everything else in between. When you messed up, he was right there to pick you back up.

After a while, your feelings grew more intense for him, and you thought it was because he was being so nice to you. It was only until you two had a night of getting to know each other that you finally realized these feelings were permanent. Not having the guts to tell him, you acted as if he didn’t make your heart race every time his name was mentioned. You wanted to tell him, of course, but he probably had so many ladies lined up, and you just weren’t his type.

So, instead of going to him, you decided to watch whatever was on TV to pass the time. There was the option of going to sleep, but you weren’t tired. Sighing, you rested your head in your right hand as your elbow sat on the back of the couch.

“Bored?” Stefan asked when he walked into the room. Just like that, your heart picked up, and you prayed that his vampire hearing couldn’t pick up your increased heart rate.

“Out of my mind,” you replied.

“Let’s do something then,” he suggested as he took a seat next to you. Turning off the TV, you turned to the vampire in question.

“Like what?”

“I was thinking about everything that is going on with the travelers, and how I’ve missed so much in terms of doing something fun. I have a bucket list if you will, and I’d like to try some of them.”

“Like a round of firsts?”

“Yeah, if you want to call it that,” he chuckled.

“And you chose me, out of all the people living here, to partake in this with you?” you gave him a hint of a smile.

“Yeah, why not?” he shrugged with a shy smile.

“Fine. We can start with the thing you want to do first. Where are we going?”

“Grab your swimsuit. We’re going for a dive,” he grinned.

“This is really high up,” you said as you carefully looked over the edge of the 10-meter-high diving board.

“Scared of heights?” Stefan chuckled.

“Scared of breaking my leg if I land wrong despite the healing,” you corrected. “So, the first thing that popped into your head was diving into water? No, skydiving, scuba diving, see if you can finish eating a 10-pound burger?”

“I’ve been skydiving, and I went scuba diving 70 years ago. And that burger thing doesn’t sound appetizing. Come on, this could be fun.”

“Could be being the operative word.”

“See you at the bottom,” he grinned before walking to the edge of the diving board. Cheers could be heard from strangers below as he jumped not once, not twice, but three times before taking that leap. He went in head first, putting his arms out as a point. He landed in the water with a big splash but successfully came out at the other end alright. It was weird to see Stefan doing this kind of thing, but he was in a good mood, and you didn't want to spoil it.

“Whoo! You can do it!” he called from below.

“Here goes nothing,” you muttered to yourself as you walked to the edge. Knowing he overcame it, you knew you could as well. Jumping on the edge, you did exactly what he did before diving off, going head first. The water seemed so scary, yet you made it like a champ. The rush you felt was like no other, and you gasped with a laugh once you came to the surface.

“You did it!” he cheered as he swam to you.

“That was actually kind of fun,” you laughed.

“This trip was meant for both of us, so now it’s your turn. What is something you really want to do?”

“You know how to drive a stick shift, right?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Why?”

“Because you’re going to teach me.”

“Okay, the first rule is to put your left foot on the clutch,” Stefan instructed. Doing as you were told, you waited for the next step. “Move the gear to the left and then up while keeping your foot on the clutch.”

“You lived like this?” you asked as you did it.

“Yes, now put your foot on the accelerator before slowly releasing the clutch.” Taking a deep breath, you pressed the gas pedal, hearing the engine roar loudly. What you thought was slowly, you took your foot off the clutch, but the car immediately stalled out after jerking forward.

“Damn it,” you groaned.

“No, it’s okay. I didn’t get it on my first try either. It takes practice. Put the gear back to where you found it, turn off the car, and try it again,” he coached you through it. It took more than five tries before you started getting it right. If Stefan wasn’t there, you would have given up before you even got into the car. He was nice enough to let you borrow his car that was just too perfect to mess up. He seemed to trust you, so you knew you had to get this right. Once you got the hang of it, you were cruising around the parking lot with ease, a huge smile on your face. Stefan only taught you because of that damn smile. He never got tired of seeing that smile on your face.

“Okay,” you said once you turned off the car. “What are we doing next? It’s your turn.”

“You’re not afraid of rollercoasters, are you?”

“I can’t believe you’ve never been on a rollercoaster before,” you grinned as the coaster slowly inched up the track.

“I can’t believe the lady just let us in. One look at me, and she was granting us access,” he laughed.

“What do you expect? Look at you,” you chuckled, blushing when you basically called him attractive.

“This better be worth it,” he said as the coaster tipped over the edge, letting gravity do its thing. The ride was fast, fun, and exhilarating to be on. There was an amusement going on in a few towns over, so you thought to go over there. The last time you were here was when you were a kid in high school. Sometimes you’d sneak out just to have a day here with your friends.

“Man, that was fun!” he exclaimed once the ride stopped.

“You’ve lived in Mystic Falls for how long, and you never came here?” you asked as you two walked through the crowds to get something sweet to snack on. Stefan loved cotton candy, and he paid for two before finding a seat to relax on.

“I never had a reason to. When I first came here, it was because of Elena, and then John Gilbert happened with the device, then Katherine showed up, then Klaus right after, then the damn cure, and now these travelers. I guess I got sick of waiting,” he explained as he ate.

“Wow, exciting life,” you chuckled as you did the same.

“Well, it’s getting late, so we have time for one more first. Anything in mind?” Actually, there was only one thing in your mind, but it would cross a line. It would ruin your friendship for the good or the worst. If today taught you anything, it would be to just go for it. Try something you’ve never done before, and that is just what you were going to do.

“Yeah, actually. I know what I want.”

“Yeah? What?”

“This,” you said before planting a kiss on his lips. He was surprised at first but welcomed it after a few seconds. He kissed you back, forgetting there were a ton of people around him. They all seemed to disappear once the two of you connected. The first kiss was always exciting, and this was nothing short of it.

“Wow,” he breathed heavily after it was all done.

“Was that a mistake?” you whispered.

“No, not in the slightest,” he grinned, glad that you took that leap.

wanna be tagged? add yourself to this document! if your tag doesn’t work, find out why!

@jae-sch @choosemyname @cuddlyklaus @sotmperrie @akshi8278 @liberty01 @gh0stgurl @schwankyblock @honeybums-blog @kendall-michele @kpoplover1306-depressedgirl315 @miraclesoflove

29 notes · View notes

pmddnutter · 4 years

Text

Running a business with PMDD

I suffer from a condition called Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder or PMDD for short, its sometimes referred to as severe PMS although it is certainly way worse than PMS. It has only recently (May 2019) been recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a unique condition meaning that PMDD will be considered a separate condition to severe PMS, should see more funding and research and allow doctors across the world to standardise their terms. Hopefully leading to more diagnoses and better treatment and understanding.

The WHO defines PMDD as:

“a pattern of mood symptoms (depressed mood, irritability), somatic symptoms (lethargy, joint pain, overeating), or cognitive symptoms (concentration difficulties, forgetfulness) that begin several days before the onset of menses, start to improve within a few days after the onset of menses, and then become minimal or absent within approximately 1 week following the onset of menses.”[i]

PMDD is debilitating, it has caused women to commit suicide. There are no specific treatments for it; for some women hormonal contraception works well, for other antidepressants, and for a handful of women only a full hysterectomy has helped. Whatever the treatments, PMDD is different for different women – it affects us all differently.

PMDD and Me

For me PMDD is that girl in high school that was a bit two faced, smiles to your face when she needs you but when your back is turned pulled that ‘urgh’ face and rolls her eyes to her ‘real’ mates – you know the one I mean.

She is never the same though, some months she can be quite mild and meek, maybe a bit of insomnia and overeating, sometimes a bit grumpy or irritable – kinda friendly but you know that there is a storm brewing. Other months she is in full on Bitch Mode! She makes me believe my husband is having an affair, she makes me eat ALL DAY, she tells me I’m no good, she makes me want to get in my car and drive as far away as possible.

And when you have this whilst running your own one-man band business it’s really bloody hard! As a small business owner hand making you own products you already question yourself pretty much daily; is my stuff any good, why do people buy it, why aren’t people buying it, shall I just jack it in and go back to ‘real’ work full time? So, add PMDD into the mix and I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster and I bloody hate rollercoasters!

With PMDD I get these amazing times of euphoria, exciting manic times where my creativity and enthusiasm are in overdrive and OMG these times are awesome. I come up with some of my best work during this time, my marketing strategies all just seem to work, I love being around people and go out and network loads.

But then I have to crash, and I kinda know I will but I never know how hard. Sometimes I’ll just have a teary day, one where nothing goes right, I miss stamp literally everything and nothing I post on social media is interesting, so no one comments. But sometimes this just lasts 1 day and I don’t even realise until my period starts that this day happened. But other times I crash bad… I just hate everyone and everything, my customer service goes out of the window as everyone is against me. Why bother posting on social media as I can’t make it sound nice or enthusiastic. I spend pretty much all day holding back the tears and my horrible attitude, I just want to stay in bed but I can’t sleep, I eat EVERYTHING in sight and I literally have to force myself to do even the most menial of tasks.

One of the very worst things about these really deep lows is that I don’t recognise myself, I am usually (for the other 2/3 weeks of the month) a really happy and enthusiastic person which is why I sometimes don’t even realise the manic days have happened until the low starts. The lows that scare me are the ones where I don’t want to be around people, especially when you have a house to run with 2 small children and a husband and a part time job. The ones where I just can’t seem to snap out of it, I know I’m in deep, I can’t stop myself saying some nasty things and snapping at those closest to me. The lows where any orders I get don’t matter, they’ll probably just hate it when it arrives anyway so what’s the point making it at all. Any messages I get I just can’t be arsed to reply as the questions are just so inane and pointless, or they’re just moaning at me for no reason – no your order that you placed 10 mins ago won’t be with you tomorrow as I have to HAND MAKE IT! I have to stop myself replying with a message saying ‘won’t you just f*ck off already, you’ll get it when I decide you’re worthy enough to make my crappy handmade sh*t that you probably won’t like anyway and you won’t bother to leave me any feedback even if you do’ (that’s a whole other blog for another time!)

So why am I writing this blog now?

It is now December 2019 and I’ve been trying to write this since PMDD awareness month back in April 2019! At the beginning of the month I had a plan to do some awesome posts about it, create some keyrings, maybe even raise some money. Then it hits… why would anyone want to buy any of my keyrings, I’d be doing the cause a grave injustice in creating such shit products. Believe me, the irony of this is not lost! The irony of the negative thoughts is never lost once I come out the other side, and it’s this irony that delays me getting the help I need. A few days passes and you convince yourself that it wasn’t so bad, it was just you feeling a bit blue for a day. You get on with life, looking after the kids, bury yourself in work; the high is well and truly convincing you that you are absolutely fine and that next month won’t be so bad. But then you notice the date, it’s a few days before you are due to ovulate and here we go again…

I went to my GP in May 2019 as the symptoms were not getting any better and asked to have the hormonal coil fitted again as it had helped me so much before I had my second baby. It was fitted in June this year and I waited the 3 months to see if it would help, it unfortunately didn’t and in October I had one of my worst lows to date. It was horrendous and I booked a GP appointment at 2am after being awake for nearly 48hrs, having eaten god knows how much food, drunk far too much wine and cried at every little thing I watched. I saw my GP a couple of weeks later, obviously I was feeling much better but I am determined to get this thing sorted and she was amazing and we went through the options and I decided on trying oestrogen for the 2 weeks prior to my cycle. I had to giggle to myself when reading the instructions; firstly because I have to rub 1 squirt of this gel into my thigh at the same time every day, and secondly because this is effectively HRT given to older ladies at the time of the change LOL!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this is working for me, I’m 4 days before I am normally due on and the symptoms are back. Definitely not as severe as the October crash but the feelings of annoyance, self-doubt and pointlessness of it all are here, my next step is perhaps anti-depressants, so I’ll book an appointment with the GP and see what the next steps are.

My battle with PMDD and keeping sane for my business continues, even as I write this I am questioning all my plans for 2020. I have/had some great ideas but that little well of anxiety is brewing up again and I’m thinking it’ll just be better/easier to scrap it all. I won’t though, I’ll step away from social media, take some time out for me (although with this comes the Mum Guilt fun) and give myself a good talking to that this will pass and next week I’ll be buzzing and posting non-stop and bugging everyone again! Until next month…

Thanks for reading,

Emma xx

For more information and guidance for PMDD please check out the MIND website here or IAPMD here, or feel free to drop me a message.

You can also download an app to track your symptoms here.

[i] https://iapmd.org/position-statements-1/2019/6/11/world-health-organization-adds-premenstrual-dysphoric-disorder-pmdd-into-the-icd-11

#living with pmdd #pmdd #running a business #mental health

1 note · View note

theanxietyopus-blog · 5 years

Text

The anxiety blogs was taken

So I wanted a place to spill my mind on. Something to reflect on what riled up my anxiety during the day. Something to keep track of and maybe have other people read and understand whats going on with them perhaps. I’m not a doctor and I don’t intend to diagnose myself or diagnose anyone else. This is all just what goes on in my head, and what I’m going through in that day or that time and place. I probably won’t do a read through to check all my spelling or grammatical errors, so excuse me in advance. I’m not perfect. No one is, so I guess that’s a good place to start.

Accepting that we aren’t perfect.

I think that’s where a lot of my anxiety stems from. Trying to control and perfect everything. Trying to say “what i’m feeling. experiencing. or going through isn’t what I’m suppose to be feeling. experiencing. or going through,” to myself. When in reality, I don’t know what I “should” be feeling. experiencing. or going through. I’ve got my “old self” to compare to. But no one else. Yeah I see those post about people being happy, enjoying XYZ activity. But I don’t know what they are feeling. I don’t know what they are going through. I don’t know their experience or what they had to do to get there.

But anyway. Today. Today was okay. It wasn’t a GREAT day but it wasn’t a BAD day. I don’t have BAD days anymore. BAD days where days when I couldn’t control what I was thinking. I couldn’t control.........There’s that word again. CONTROL. I guess that’s what we long for. Being able to control. But looking back. Comparing what is going on know to those BAD days. If I REALLY think about it. Things are sort of the same. The only difference is that I’m not so focused on what I am thinking, experiencing, or going through. But rather let it pass, and happen, and ride it out. Sort of like being on a really scary ride after wanting to try something different, or a short plane trip to somewhere new (the scary part is the plane ride not the place you’ll be visiting). It’s sort of like that. Where I’m already on the plane, I’m already experiencing and going through this BAD experience. Rather than focus on what BAD can happen, I just ride it out. Ride the wave of discomfort. Take whatever comes, experience it, and let it pass. Because just like the scary plane ride, or the rollercoaster. It’s only temporary. With anxiety it’s the same. It might take weeks, months, years, but the experience is only temporary. It either gets better completely, or it gets easier to live with. Just as if we had to constantly fly or had friends who wanted us to get on this super scary roller coaster. Over time, after dealing with it so much. It just becomes part of us. And in a way, I’m grateful because I have a different perspective. I have a constant pull at myself that lets me know “hey this isn’t where you want to be.” It’s an uncomfortable feeling that lets me know that my struggles are only temporary. That where I want to be is further down the timeline of my life. I just have to ride it out. Obviously with a little bit of effort on my part.

This is the anxiety opus. Because the anxiety blogs was taken. <3

#anxiety

1 note · View note

dearly · 6 years

Note

Share your point of view about fandometrics & fandom, Louis & Harry

tbh, i don’t even know where to start and i may be under the influence so welcome to a rollercoaster of a post!

i will say that my dash is very, very diverse. i follow about 650 blogs and only a fraction of those are 1d blogs. harry pops up constantly. he’ll show up on aesthetic blogs (whether it’s a live photo from 1d days or a lyric edit or something from his newer photoshoots) and they rack up notes like crazy. he’s tagged on funny posts like this one that has over 15k notes and has nothing to do with fandom. he is also, undoubtedly, the most famous one. he is a name. people will tag posts with various celebrities in order to get more eyes on them (i mean… that was partially the fandometrics project. because posts were tagged that had nothing to do with louis) so he gets used in that way and subsequently he gets more notes/points. he probably gets tagged in dunkirk edits as well. he has a large number of update blogs just for him. he’s allover the site.

additionally, no matter what you think about his solo rollout: the thirst is real. it is. i’ve talked before about the het/solo harries that i know irl and the things they’ve said. i don’t know if i’ve provided an update on what they thought about his actual music? well, most of them don’t like it. they think it’s overhyped and overrated. but has that changed what they think about harry and how much they want to fuck him? nope. (i apologize if that’s crude but it’s the kind of language i have to put up with from them so. there you go.) they still think he’s hot, i’m sure they’re still reblogging and posting photos of him and tagging them ‘d*ddy’ or whatever.

now as far as louis is concerned: his support is minimal compared to that of harry. i don’t know how anyone can dispute this. posts about art in harry’s house racks up over 1k notes. a post about something louis did gets about 100. i was complaining the other day about a post i saw on a random blog that talked shit about louis–it had over 1k notes. this wasn’t a fandom post or a fandom blog. just casual people who hate louis. i wrote a defense post that barely cracked 230 notes (which, sure, there are other factors at play but this is just one example.)

i could probably rattle off a dozen decent/big blogs that used to be larries that have dropped louis entirely (unfortunately, some of those were my friends.) add to that the louie witch hunt and deletions. add to that the blacklisting and blocking of louies which means posts have less traction. we’ve seen louis charity projects get shut out because we apparently need to know what the creators think about harry before engaging. this is not a hurdle that harry or any of the others has. only louies have to pass a purity test before they’re pulled into the fold. and this is on top of the existing divide between antis/hets and larries. and it’s not just (ex)larries that have dropped louis. the more time passes the more the solo fandoms are established the less people will care/post about the others. that’s natural.except it also means louis loses. he’s lost the most support of all of them, particularly on tumblr. i’ve talked about trying to compile a list of promo stuff and how all my sources essentially stopped posting about him in the fall. all of them. and they still post the others. yet louis is just, ‘eh.’ even thet*mlins*nda*ly vanished for a bit. that’s not a good sign for the fandom, is it?

oh also, i’m pretty sure your posts and reblogs don’t count if you’ve marked your blog as not-searchable. because you’re not visible, essentially. so there’s no way of tracking you. i don’t know how much of an impact that would have but a lil lil but at least.

#i may be slightly high so i have no idea if this makes sense #or answers your question but you know #feel free to follow up i guess #can't guarantee the quality of the response #i hope this made sense at least #1discourse #Anonymous

89 notes · View notes

aquietplaceforthoughts · 3 years

Text

Life is One Big Trip

4/30/2021

I’m writing this using Pages (Mac’s word processing app) because I wanted to start trying to write these blog posts offline without an internet connection first, and then later pasting it into Tumblr once I got back home or around a wi-fi connection.

Today was my aunt and uncle’s funeral service and to be honest, it was a little weird attending. Usually we’d be attending these functions shortly after they pass, but because of COVID, things had to be pushed back a bit. It was great seeing my family and cousins though, some of which i havent seen since Ervin’s 21st birthday in Vegas. Wild. But, just like family, you pick up right where you left off with them even after not seeing them for some time.

5/1/2021 - 10:35am

I didn’t end up finishing that last post above yesterday, so here I am today on May 1st to write again.

Last night, I went to my cousin’s place for pizza and white claws. This was hours after my aunt and uncle’s funeral service, we just decided to get together and spend time. It was great to just hang out for a bit and take a much needed break from everything. I’ve been feeling the need to do this more and to really slow down these past few days. I think if 2020 had me on a rollercoaster ride… 2021 is definitely the year to slow down, scale back, and take time for ME.

I’ve been reflecting on alot of the great things I’ve gotten the opportunity to be apart of and it’s shaped me into the person I am today. Since I was about 15 years old, I’ve been involved in alot of “extracurricular” activities outside of the normal. Be it dance, DJing, creative collectives, etc. There was always the need to feel accepted and to feel like I belong to something bigger than myself.

Now however, I feel like I need to carve my own path and my own lane. Not for attention or fame or money, but to make sense of all the things I have learned and picked up in this life. I create something, a new thing, out of “nothing”.

I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my own car right now, outside in the parking lot of my apartment complex. A steady breeze rustles the leaves slightly providing a sort of peaceful “White noise” while I write. It was really hot yesterday at 90 degrees, today however is a really mellow 72 degrees. I have my seat slightly reclined and I’m relaxed into a position where writing/typing feels effortless.

HAHAHA.

Who goes from typing about something so meta in the last few paragraphs to describing their physical surroundings in which they write in. i do. LOL. whatever fuck it.

I dropped my Dad off to the race track not too long ago (Time check: 12:59pm), today is apparently the biggest race day and he wanted to go. My Dad and I have a very interesting relationship… He’s always been the one to question everything going on in the world. He is a skeptic about most things. We like to talk about UFOs, Aliens, the future of technology, the universe, really anything. I can bring up any topic, and we can have a deep insightful conversation about it in minutes. I attribute alot of my own curiosity of the world to my Dad. Growing up with him, he always challenged me to think outside of the box and to come to my own conclusions about things, to not always believe what the news/media/or the internet tells you. He’s a smart dude.

Today, my goal is to plan the rest of this month out, contact who needs to be contacted, and submit my portfolio and resume to my friend who’s got open UX design positions at her company. The opportunities are revealing themselves and with the economy slowly opening back up, I feel a hiring surge is on the horizon.

Really, all I need to do is to put myself out and go for it. This job hunt puts me at a life changing crossroads.

14 days till my birthday…

-end- 1:07pm

The birds are still chirping and the steady breeze is still blowing. Life is one big trip.

0 notes

utopianparadoxist · 7 years

Link

I can’t focus on anything enough to write about Homestuck today, so I’m gonna talk about something that matters a lot more instead. I know this isn’t like, part of My Brand, but Puerto Rico is part of who I am and why I’m here. And since I couldn’t be part of the day of action officially, this is what I’m doing instead. So here’s what it comes down to:

I can’t stop thinking about the Homestucks in Puerto Rico.

And yes, it’s myopic to focus on a people suffering who happen to be part of a fandom. Everyone is human and nobody deserves this kind of suffering. Puerto Ricans deserve help because they’re people, full stop.

But people weren’t designed for numbers to track this scale of suffering, and even having spent part of my life there, the devastation my little island is going through has been more than I can relate to, or even imagine.

So it’s this particular memory that sticks out for me, and those particular people that stand in for the unfathomable many who are suffering right now. I’m going to tell you guys a story, and try to put the place I remember into the context of the Island’s current struggle, and the sorely lacking support of the American government.

Then I’m going to talk about what we can do to help.

I can guarantee that at least one of those things is something you can do. Even if you can’t do anything but blog about fandom and talk to friends online--and trust me, I get it if that’s where you are. There’s still something important I want you to consider trying.

If you have the spoons and mental wherewithal, and you care at all about what I do here, or about Homestuck, or about the friends you’ve made and the people you’ve met through fandom, or about any story that has ever moved you to reach out and make a friend,

Then I hope you can find the time to read and signal boost this. No pressure. I know it’s hard and we’re all tired. Still, It would mean a lot to me.

(A description of PR’s Capital city, dated Oct 10th.)

Upd8 culture isn’t something that all the fans here have been exposed to. Fans have gotten flashes of it like on 10/25 last year or, of course, with Hiveswap’s release. But back during the days of Homestuck’s height in popularity, we were all wired, all the time.

An Upd8 could happen any second, and anything and everything could change with any upd8. This was the height of update culture, and it was like being on a neverending rollercoaster. It was a sense of communal excitement and thrill that made me feel connected to everyone sharing the ride.

(The Federal Emergency Management Agency fails to keep up with the Island’s food shortages.)

I went to a con with friends only once in PR, but while there, we hung nearby a Homestuck meetup. I didn’t really engage with them, but I did have MSPA Notifier on my phone, and it just so happened an update hit.

I was the first to notice.

(x) (Jason Maddy, Marine Vet’s Facebook Page)

I remember grinning and telling my (Non-Homestuck) friends to watch. That was the first and only time I got to yell the word “UPD8” to someone else in person. The result was spectacular.

The explosion of yelling and the flurry of activity was too overwhelming to follow. Suddenly, teens were yelling and scrambling to get near the closest screen. The one who sticks out in my head is a God Tier John--pretty sure the outfit was homemade--pressing his tablet up against a wall.

(Trump throws rolls of paper towels at a crowd in a Hurricane relief center.)

For a good ten minutes, we watched as what was a pretty chill meetup beforehand talked and traded screens with fervent excitement. My friends, exposed to nothing but my self-indulgent blather about the comic up until then, looked at me in bewilderment and asked: “What did you do?”

But of course, I didn’t do anything. I was just a lucky messenger. What moved me, what moved us all with the same joy and excitement, was a shared moment of love for a story. A common passion.

I didn’t make friends with any of them that day, and I wish I had now. Really, I just wish I knew if they were alright. Any of them.

I wonder if they enjoyed Hiveswap in the few days between the release and Maria, or if they got the chance to play it at all before the electricity grid collapsed. I wonder how many got off the island. How many have stayed behind.

How many are LGBT, now cut off from access to what was my only lifeline on the largely conservative island? I think about the reports of sky-high rates of depression and PTSD pouring in whenever I can bring myself to listen.

I hope all of those kids are still alive and well. I should mention: All of these tweets and news reports are verifiably true. I can confirm them myself, because I hear the same thing whenever I manage to get in contact with anyone on the island.

My family hears supplies are coming, but never seem to see them arrive. The woman who drove me to school contacted me today, saying the same thing. Wherever there’s contact on the ground, there are reports of inadequate support and desperate need. Food in grocery stores is near running out.

Everyone I know who is able making plans to leave. Everyone I know cries and hurts most for those who cannot make these plans. Those who are stuck. Those who will be left behind to survive the nightmare.

What can we do for them?

Of course, donating to verified and trustworthy charities is an option. For those of us who are able:

Donate to Puerto Rican Farmers.

The Hispanic Federation’s Disaster Relief & Recovery Fund.

Eco-Kit uses Amazon to distribute life-saving survival tools.

And More.

But maybe even more important than that is adding our voices politically:

Petition for Immediate Large-Scale Relief Package for Puerto Rico.

Use this handy Call Script to find and call your representatives.

We can also simply talk, learn, and educate. It goes without saying that this devastation is in part a product of climate change. But we can also talk about the Jones Act that slows aid to Puerto Rico.

We can reckon with Puerto Rico’s long history of colonial subjugation by the U.S. And we can increase understanding of the massive debt crisis that threatened the island even before the hurricane.

I will continue to post about this when I am able and have useful information to spread, but it may also help to follow blogs such as @tumblricans if you’re able.

But even if you can’t do any of this: Believe me, I understand. I know how hard and unbearable it all is.

Even if you can’t do anything but talk to people online, try to keep your mind off it, try to focus on fandom and friends and whatever gets you through these days,

There’s still something you can do.

Choose to be kinder. Here, in this space that you share with so many progressives, coming from so many walks of life, that have all been hurt by this world through so many cruel and unusual punishments. Even if nowhere else.

Choose to be kinder here, in this nebulous place where many of us come to forget our sorrows and share our joys and pains with others.

Try to remember that everyone has a story. That everyone has something they’re dealing with, and you have no way to know what it is. Try to choose kindness and compassion over instinctual judgment and ideological superiority.

Extend this kindness to creators as well as your fellow fans and users, because the people who make art for us are people who are struggling and trying hard just like me and you.

Extend this kindness to yourself and your friends in your moments of weakness, just...remember to extend it to your perceived “enemies” on this website, too. In the grand scheme of things, they simply don’t exist.

Fandom spaces on Tumblr and Ao3 are predominantly made up of lgbt women, and lean highly towards progressive sentiments besides. Wherever we turn to this hyper-critical behavior, we are making threats out of allies. It’s not necessary, and worse, it drives us apart.

Remember that ultimately, we are all in this together. The world is a scary place right now. There are people out there in the world who deeply and truly want to hurt us. You can even find them online, if you really want to.

But like...fellow fans invested in the progressive agenda? Creators making progressive art? They are not your enemies, and for the progressive agenda and anyone identified as basically any kind of minority, the shit is hitting and will increasingly continue to hit the whirling device.

We all need support now more than ever, and it is really only going to come if we begin to choose to support each other.

And that’s important work to do. Because the kinder we are, the closer we are, the better we can connect. The better we can organize. And the more good we can do for places like Puerto Rico or people like Rune.

Sometimes, making the world a better place is just a matter of being nice to each other. That alone could well have the power to change everything.

Thank you for reading all this. I love you. Keep rising.

#puerto rico #homestuck #fandom #hurricane maria #world news #natural disasters and extreme weather #us news #politics #purity culture #radical empathy

169 notes · View notes

charliesthoughtsforeveryone · 4 years

Text

As we approach the end of March I’ve realised how quickly this year is going by and think it’s the right time to reflect on things I’ve learnt and things I’d like to achieve. So let’s being...

5 Things I’ve learnt since in the last six months:

1) It’s ok to want things to go your way. Sometimes it’s important to stand one’s ground and not take ‘no’ as an answer, no matter how ‘selfish’ you appear.

2) Learn to let go and accept it as a life lesson no matter how much it hurts. Whether it’s a friendship or someone you hoped to have more with, sometimes things don’t always go to (your hopeful) plan. Life is a rollercoaster and want goes down must come up. While I’ve lost people this year I’ve also gained friends or enhanced old friendships, which I will be grateful for.

3) Stepping outside your comfort zone is one of the best things you could ever do. Don’t wonder about whether it could happen, make it happen. You are in control of your life’s journey, take control and make goals become past podium events. Be that champion in your own eyes.

4) Being jealous is something of the norm, but don’t get it tear you apart. We all have hopes and dreams and sometimes others achieve them before us. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never been jealous of something/someone but I haven’t ever let it take over of me. The last six months have been slightly different and I think that was partially because I was graduating University and had large ambitions of how I wanted to start my adult life. Seeing and hearing from friends who had achieved what I wanted with such ease (based on social media posts) was something that was hard to fathom. Was I ever going to get there? It’s safe to say I’m on the right track but looking back I wish I didn’t let it take over me for several hours a day when I could have been enjoying the sunshine outdoors instead.

5) Social media is social media- do not let it take control of you. It’s ok to unfollow people who make you feel shit about yourself, but remember too that the life one lives on social media isn’t necessarily that persons real life. Don’t let the number of likes, comments or followers justify your worthiness. I’ll happily admit that I use to (and sometimes now too) care about what people think of me objectively- how many likes will I get on this photos of me? Is it even a good photo? Should I have chosen the other one? Will people find me less attractive?... While looks are important, personality matters more (in my opinion) so don’t let one photos take control of your identity.

5 Things I’d like to achieve in the next four months (basing on the fact that I’m most likely going to be housebound and social distancing is key):

1) Re-connect with old friends. How many of us have a million (I like to exaggerate sometimes) friends on facebook but only talk to a handful even though some might have been your best bud back in the day? This time might be the perfect opportunity to re-connect with old mates and see what they’re up to. Too often are we caught up in our day-to-day lives and forget to check up on friend and family.

2) Do something creative, either a painting (how cliché), learn a dance (tik tok here I come!) or record myself singing a whole song (scary for someone with stage fright!)

3) (Assuming we will still be allowed out to exercise) Learn to run 5k again... in Toowoomba. For those that know me, distance running has never been my BFF nor is incline running. If you’ve ever been to Toowoomba you’ll know it has a lot of hills and that’s an extra challenge, but I’m willing to give it a go!

4) Write a letter to someone. Since my grandmother died last year I haven’t written anyone a letter. While it might seem old school, I think receiving something in the mail, something personal, is a beautiful gesture.

5) And last but not least, continue to learn to love oneself and be content with life. I’d definitely say I’ve been very content with my life. Though being in a new surrounding and environment can be daunting, making one question everything about yourself. Questioning my worth (more physical than personal) is something I’m starting to struggle with again, but this time I’m not going to let it take over me as much as it has in the past.

I’ll check in again in four months (July 30th 2020 to be exact) and see how I went with my goals. But for now, enjoy reading whatever else will appear on this blog.

-Charlie

0 notes

mikazukikannagisjourney · 4 years

Text

The Metaphysical Importance of Monthly Periods (based on my own experiences)

Sub-context: I have been testing this metaphysical idea since December 2019 and so far I have some interesting and liberating results. Also I have no idea if anyone else in the spiritual and metaphysical community has already posted something like this so I am putting this long-@ss post here, to support other ladies who are still hating on having to bleed at least once or twice a year and feels like it makes absolutely no sense.

Some months ago, a healer told me I hated having periods. And I felt a bit touchy about it because I just finished my week-long bleeding and I saw nothing fun about the entire process: feeling pain in almost every part of my body, bleeding like crazy, everything that I start feeling just seems 100% more intense, painful zits keep popping up, and being an emotional wreck for no logical reason just tops the cake. So yeah, in a way, I do hate having periods. It’s like getting a dementor visit every month at the very least.

And yet after bleeding for about 21 years now (yeah sure go ahead and try computing how old I am in years, I am not even minding that lol) only a few periods ago did I just got an epiphany on how important it is to enjoy the entire process of having periods, and even coming out more alive in the process. It kinda sucks that I got the information a tad too late but if this helps more ladies who are still struggling on that aspect, I hope this helps you, or at the very least eases some discomfort of some sort.

No I am not just talking about the easing of the cramps and the tenderness of the entire body as it releases a lot of blood and linings. Well, not just that but more on the spiritual side of periods. If you have been following this blog, you’ll probably see that most of my posts are about energetic releases, shadow work, healing the self, etc. and most of these processes are around the same time as the full moon. You’ll see that my posts on full moons are mostly focusing on releasing things that no longer serve, since it is more beneficial to the body and soul to let go of so much excess baggage.

Energetically, full moons can either be a time to supplement aka manifest or to release, depending on how a person resonates with the full moon energy. For the longest time since I started my awakening journey, I have always associated the full moon with release as well as clearing, and the new moon for manifesting things. But during the Gemini full moon of 2019, I randomly did something that I have not done ever, and that is to tune in to my emotions during my period. Maybe it was intuitive, maybe I just got bored with the pain, or I was just desperately trying to forget this guy I got infatuated with because the connection just got cut and I felt nothing yet I feel guilty at the same time. So instead of focusing on the physical pain and the weird scenarios my brain just started feeding my thoughts, I started asking my body what it wants me to know. And I just got intuitive nudges to start clearing my womb.

Yeah, right, like it wasn’t doing it already. A whole lot of blood loss isn’t enough?

Well, I have been using binaural beats to heal parts of my body for a time longer than I have been awake, so yeah sure why not, I told myself. So I did, I found a womb-clearing meditation on YT, which was originally meant to heal the symptoms of PCOS but honestly I just listened to it to reduce the pelvic pain and cramps. I believed it to be so, and I felt a lot better after listening. I even get to sleep soundly that night, which is a rarity whenever I get periods because I get some form of insomnia or shallow sleeping.

But come morning and MORE PAIN CAME BACK. It just hurt so much more than it did the previous day. And what’s more is that I just started to release more and more uhm, linings and membranes, and that just hurt so much I actually wanted to die. I was off any form of medication so I wasn’t taking any painkiller, and not even my red tea was consumed. I was just drinking a lot of charged water and that’s about it. What’s even more scary is that my empath mode was more amped up than usual and I kept getting too much stuff, it was just too much, like a hellish emotional rollercoaster ride. There was just no way to escape it.

And I started to tell my body to get rid of all the stuff that has been anchoring in my energies and causing me so much pain. I also did a lot of cord-cutting (good-bye, crush-sempai lol) and cord-cut everything and anything that started to trigger my anger and sadness and all the low-vibrational stuff. I cord-cut the people who deliberately hurt me, the people who unknowingly hurt me, and the stupid things I did that hurt me. Just all of the painful stuff. I asked my body to just flush those things out of my body because I have too much stuff to worry about. By the time the full moon came I was already physically exhausted and I was so tired I actually did the actual spell-casting release ritual two days after.

This process of releasing a whole truckload of spiritual and energetic gunk was quite draining, but after doing the full-moon release as well as listening to the track to help with the pelvic pain and cramps, by the last day of my period I actually felt a lot better, and even more amazing is that aside from the cramps finally disappearing even if I was still releasing some blood, some of the emotional triggers disappeared along with it. By the time Christmas time came, during the Capricorn new moon I was still feeling the effects of the womb clearing. I was a bit more resilient with the emotional triggers, despite the fact that I was still being my empathic self. It was like the emotions don’t cut so deep anymore, and if I intend to release and cord-cut, it actually does its job. I was actually feeling the positive effects of cord-cutting, finally. It didn’t use to be that effective before, but a lot of the negative emotional anchors were like, 50% less effective and therefore it was a lot more noticeable when my energies were returned to me. This felt so new to me, and it made me quite happy, but still a bit doubtful.

I thought this feeling of release was a fluke so I tried this method again when I got my period on January 2020. I started setting the intention of releasing a lot of the emotional and energetic garbage and hoping that by the time my period ends I would feel a whole lot better. I also listened to the womb-clearing track again, daily, and again, my pelvic area started getting more painful cramps, again. But that time, the cramps stopped by the middle of the period, so even if I was still doing some form of energetic and emotional release, I could feel a weird sense of clarity. The even weirder thing is that I started to remember stuff that I probably stuffed somewhere in my subconscious. They were mostly the painful garbage and beliefs. I decide there and then to purge them out of my system while I was still bleeding the heck out. Once more, my body started to move out a lot of the linings and membranes and boy oh boy the pain just won’t stop. But I still did my best to release as much as I could, just solely relying on what triggers come up. I was also having anxiety because I have to meet some old friends from highschool and to be honest I was not in my best shape, mentally and physically. I just did my best to purge whatever has been bugging me, just to assert my power. I had no idea what would happen next, and I did not expect to feel something different.

Normally whenever I felt like being in a state of limbo and not knowing what I should be doing it just keeps me in a depressed state. But after my period finished, I started trusting the universe, a little more than usual. I was also feeling a sense of empowerment, I just went with the flow and started listening to affirmations, subliminals, the whole works. I started manifesting free online webinars which seem to support my intent of healing and improvement. The emotional triggers also started to loosen up and I was able to take back a lot of my time spent in ruminating in anger and envy.

I felt so much freer than I was before the limiting programmings started.

I was so happy with the results, but again, I told myself that I need a third time of doing this in order to be empirical and be statistically sound. Also to remove the emotional highs and attachments of the results I got.

Come February, a month later, my period didn’t come as scheduled. I thought it was that time of the year that I skip a month, so I just let go and enjoyed the extra time of not worrying about bleeding. I also started to consciously release emotional triggers, heal energetically, listen to more subliminal tracks, and I felt like I was really, really reaching a huge breakthrough. But then the Mercury retrograde came and I became a huge emotional wreck again. I started crying more than usual, and the triggers just kept getting stronger by the hour. It was like hell on earth 3.0 and everything just keeps crashing on top of the other. The more annoying thing was that all of the stuff that I thought I already dealt with came popping up again. The emotional triggers were super-strong and I just spent each night crying and crying. It was hell-hole everyday and I could just feel the need to end it all come closer and closer. But I forgot to do stuff and I got another intuitive nudge again.

I almost forgot to release all of the garbage that needed to go, so when I remembered to energetically cord-cut myself from all of the stuff that needed to be let go of, I just kept doing it. I also started to clear my room on a regular basis, aside from clearing my own energetic field. I enhanced the energetic seals in my room so that I would stop absorbing low-vibrational energies, and I guess it was 50% effective, which was a lot better than nothing. It just helped my clearing sessions because then I stopped absorbing other people’s stuff, so I could clear more of my own stuff and transmute them so other people won’t absorb anything. And with such stuff in my personal world, my womb got triggered so after a month and a half of delay it started wanted to release a lot of stuff. It did hurt a lot but I still did my best to listen to the womb-clearing track in the event that I was eventually getting my period, and two days after that weird nudge the blood and lining started. I’m like excited at this point because I felt like I could magnify the amount that can be released once I started bleeding out.

I was not disappointed.

All of the triggers that popped up I placed a strong intent to get released through my blood flow. It felt great afterwards, despite the pelvic pain every now and then. I actually felt more in tune with what I needed to release, so instead of getting angry whenever something from my past pops up, I just bless the event and release the heck out of it. The triggers kept coming and I just did my best to release. I even maxed out doing emotion code because of the mysterious aches and pains that came along with the period. The scarier thing that happened, well creepy is a bit more applicable, I was just sitting and listening to womb clearing tracks and some really painful areas would spring up, and I wasn’t even doing anything, pain would just come. I had to energetically work on those without moving, just to make sure that they’re not due to physical pain. Sure enough, after listening to the tracks the pain would disappear. For the stubborn ones I just do some kundalini yoga or just simple movement to move the energy out and they just disappear. I also started massaging the spots I can reach with some liniment. So far I am still doing that but I could manage it better than having to confront the emotions head-on, I just end up crying and telling all of my guides to just let me cry and fall asleep, even if my eyes swell in the morning. Weirdly I felt a whole lot better in the morning when I wake up, even if I can’t open my eyes lol.

Of course, the dark side of this is that pushing too much to purge more can really drain the physical body, and it also means that more layers get to be released, which one may or may not be prepared for. Because I wanted to purge and get rid of so much energetic garbage so much, I ended up releasing more layers than I intended to, and suddenly issues from 8 years ago and older started popping up. Those were even more challening because again, I thought I already dealt with them and then the emotionally-charged memories came rushing back in. It just felt horrible. I have never felt so lonely and out of luck and in despair than the previous months. Honestly the only thing I could do then was to ask my body to release everything that needs to be released. I already ran out of options and I just felt so cornered and disconnected to everything.

I just basically fueled my need to release with whatever emotion I was feeling at that moment. Feeling envious of other people? Release that crap. Feeling angry due to abandonment issues? Release that crap. Feeling sorry for looking ugly? Release that crap. I just did my best to keep doing that over and over. I also sent Reiki to myself just to give myself some ease. I also binge-watched some light language videos, did some japa chanting, started revising some of my memories, or those that I can manage, and started doing my best to enter a lucid state when dreaming. I mean, I was bleeding a lot and sleeping a lot so might as well get some work done lol. I guess it worked to a greater degree than usual because aside from releasing things in layers, I also got to enter the earliest memories that needed to be healed. Again, not a fun job but I am the only one who has to do the heavy grunt work and rely a lot of the energetics to the higher dimensional realms. I already ran out of rope so I just did whatever I could. The feelings of releasing low vibrational stuff helped me get some better sleep, and I was starting to reconnect again.

I may have been enjoying the whole purging too much, my period extended for two days than the usual. LIke, I thought it was already over so I thought I was OK, but I was still purging and releasing and listening to various tracks, then I’d get surprised by more stuff popping out. It did got a bit annoying but I just tried to think and believe that I get to purge even more that way. It finally stopped and I actually felt a whole lot better. A lot of my triggers also left me, so I just had to focus more on the basic emotions that needed to be healed. I felt so much lighter, and that was a week ago. So for this past week I just continued to purge and release, especially the horrible self-sabotage and self-anger that has been causing me issues for a long time. But I think that the most important healing I got to unlock is that I started finding out the emotional patterns in my DNA and the stuff I needed to release further. So instead of doing just 10 minutes of emotion code, I ended up doing it for 2 hours. Doing these also made me ran out of energy and got exhausted for two days. Not gonna complain since now it’s easier to see patterns and heal and release them. I just hope it continues toward the future.

Just to make sure that I am doing something substantial, I am planning to do the same stuff on my next menstrual cycle. For now I am just enjoying that a lot of the chunky and dense stuff is already over. Maybe I ‘ll make an update post after 3 more months lol.

To sum up this entire post: Release emotions and energies during your periods to make the process even faster.

If you reached this part of the post, congratulations, and thank you for reading. I hope the information in here helps you in your journey towards finding your true self and manifesting your best possible life.

May you become the healing you seek.

三日月🌙

Mikazuki

PS. If you found the information in this post to be very helpful, insightful, and of great value to you and your own personal journey, please feel free to reblog, share and heart/like, or if you feel super-generous, energetic exchanges are welcomed! Please click here. Thank you so much and be blessed!

#period post #important period post #the importance of monthly periods #there is a period post for every lady out there #yeah this is based on my own experiences so far #the spiritual side of periods #the metaphysical importance of periods #spiritual journeys and periods #menstruation and spirituality

0 notes

tinymixtapes · 6 years

Text

Live Blog: LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem Hollywood Palladium; Los Angeles, CA [11-18-2017] by Sam Goldner on 12-19-2017 To put it in James Murphy’s terms, I was there. I remember the day that LCD Soundsystem announced their tenure as a band would be coming to an end, that after three albums they had decided to put a cap on what I thought at the time was one of the most legendary runs in modern rock music. I remember trying to buy tickets for the final Madison Square Garden show, only to be thwarted by one of the most insane scalping-bot buyouts I have seen to this day. I remember the relief that washed over me when Murphy announced there would be a string of Terminal 5 shows the week before, all comprising the same three-hour, career-spanning setlist, and I remember buying my ticket and taking the bus from Boston to New York to say goodbye to one of my favorite bands. The LCD Soundsystem reunion has, to put it lightly, caused me a great deal of self-reckoning and re-evaluation, and James Murphy knows this. His post-announcement apology to the fans that he let down by reuniting was, if anything, a testament to the idea that Murphy remains a fanboy-as-rock-star, as close to being “one of us” as it gets when we’re talking about the constantly satellite position of being a nerdy record collector. It was that embodiment of the outsider-looking-in that drew me to LCD Soundsystem’s music in the first place, but in the five years that passed in the band’s absence, my perspective on their music changed. Where before, it felt exciting to listen to a group of artists whose observer’s stance in music felt in tandem with my own, now it seemed strangely embarrassing to listen to a song in which a 32-year-old man lists off all the obscure bands he likes in an attempt to reclaim his “edge” (and its supposed irony only made it worse). What I had begun to realize since leaving college is that treating music as if it is the center of the universe, rather than just as one beautiful reflection of it, is a dangerous way to go about living life, making the once-lovable nerdiness of LCD Soundsystem now seem like an image of my younger self that I’d rather leave behind. But all personal associations aside, when I saw the band at FYF a year ago, any reservations that I had about their reunion just washed away. Even as I stood in the crowd, thinking about how this was the first time I had seen a band both before and after they had broken up (which even at age 24, made me feel old), it simply didn’t matter compared to the sheer joy I felt dancing along to songs like “Us v Them” or “Yeah.” They sounded as amazing as ever, and I walked out of the festival relieved to know that a group of people having fun making music together was ultimately more important and satisfying than any B.S. notion of a perfect, untouchable three-album canon could ever be. Fast forward a year, and the band is touring on the back of their not-bad/not-great new record, American Dream. They lined up five nights at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, and our same group of friends that we lost our shit with at FYF the year before all agreed to go. The tickets came out to a devastating $100 each, which right off the bat set an unfortunately high level of expectations for the night, and stood as a sobering reminder of just what sort of act LCD really are these days. Nonetheless, we were all excited, and even if the new album only had two or three keepers on it, we knew the band weren’t ones to walk on and do nothing but new material. The hits would be played. Unfortunately, this Hollywood Palladium show would end up confirming most of my original anxieties about LCD’s return. One of the driving sentimental themes behind LCD Soundsystem’s music is the idea that no matter how cool and young you may have been at one point, no matter how golden your glory days might have been, you still can’t go back. That melancholy reach towards the past is at the heart of Murphy’s party music, and though at their best, LCD Soundsystem manage to use that nostalgia to uncover invigorating new emotional territory of their own, this show at the Hollywood Palladium felt more like a formulaic re-tread than an inspired victory lap. For the first time, the band just didn’t have that spark, and as they ran through all the necessary crowdpleasers and a small helping of new tracks, it began to set in that this reunion was perhaps less an act of old friends getting together to do what they love, but instead something much more dreary: we were just watching them clock in. The show was off from the very beginning, with normally electric cuts like “Get Innocuous!” and “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House” sounding muddied, lacking their usual sense of gradually building bite. LCD songs thrive on their dynamics, their sense of patience, but for most of the show the band just seemed to plow through track after track, with little of the nuance that has epitomized their greatest work. A few songs into the set, Murphy asked everyone in the audience to shut off their phones, requesting that we all stop taking pictures and instead share this moment together and experience something real and blah blah blah. This type of comment has always struck me as pretentious no matter the show, but it seemed especially strange in Murphy’s case. For a band whose rise coincided with that of social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, whose very first single declared the social currency implicit in saying “I was there,” and who even went so far as to stage a “final” run of concerts that essentially drew a line in the sand for fans of the band – either you were going to be one of the people at these legendary shows, or you weren’t – it seems to me that the very idea of taking pictures at a concert to show one’s friends is one that Murphy’s music has fed into from the beginning. I find it odd and a bit hypocritical that Murphy would act above this kind of behavior. In spite of the show’s weaker moments, there were a handful of songs wherein the band’s chemistry would suddenly kick back into gear, illustrating how exciting they can be when they’re truly in their element. “You Wanted a Hit” was a slow-burning monster, and the immediate one-two follow-up of “Tribulations” and “Movement” made for a mini rollercoaster of mosh-dancing that brought the evening to a delirious frenzy. The encore began with a powerful take on “Oh Baby,” the best song off American Dream, and climaxed with the still-amazing “Dance Yrself Clean,” which, as expected, lifted every single person in the room off the floor once the beat dropped three minutes in. During these intermittent periods of high-energy release, I regained some kind of hope that perhaps LCD does still have some life left in it as a project, that in spite of the band’s weaker versions of classics like “Someone Great” and “All My Friends,” there was still a well-oiled rhythm machine in there somewhere, one capable of making bodies move regardless of whatever legacy it may have wrapped itself up in so tightly. By and large, it was still a fun night, if just for the fact that going to a show with all my friends to see a band that we all love will always be fun. Even the band’s limper songs were still enjoyable to have happening in the background while I caught up with my crew, but until now, LCD had never been a band that I would’ve willfully talked over at a show. We’re all getting older, and to be frank, with LCD Soundsystem aging the way they have, I couldn’t really be too surprised that the show would end up being somewhat lackluster – I had been expecting as much a year before when I had seen them at FYF. But the fact is, that show a year ago was incredible, and it gave me the hope that this one would be just as good, which renders it all the more disappointing. Maybe Murphy was wrong; maybe you can actually can go back to the glory days for one night. You just can’t stay there. http://j.mp/2ByZdOY

1 note · View note

the-bounce-back · 5 years

Text

“F*CK A FAKE FRIEND, WHERE YOUR REAL FRIENDS AT?” - 4 WAYS TO EVALUATE YOUR FRIENDSHIPS

So… These past few weeks have been a bit (a lot) of a rollercoaster.

As you know from my previous post, I haven’t been doing very well lately on the mental health front lately, and I definitely needed to take a step back from blogging - just to place my focus on sorting myself out and getting back on track again. I do feel a bit better now - the way I was feeling in terms of getting bad news has kind of worn off, I’ve let myself process things emotionally, and things have been going well at work despite everything. Things are feeling a bit more positive and I’m starting to feel like myself again, little by little.

The most important aspect of these tough few weeks, though, has been something that’s been on my list of things to write about since I started this blog - friendships. Namely, how imperative it is to ensure that the people you associate and surround yourself with have your best interests at heart, genuinely f*ck with you and want to see you win, that you know without a shadow of doubt will be there for you when times are rough, will g-check you when you’re moving mad and that will defend you when you’re not there to speak for yourself.

It’s actually a bit funny, because before this little slump I was actually going to do a post about this, but I was struggling with how I was going to go about writing this post and still keep it positive. I feel like the past year or so has left me with a lot of examples of how to not treat people you swear are your friends, and I was trying to think of ways to keep it upbeat and not… well… a petty post full of scathing and unconstructive indirects. In that sense, this slump came at a great time because now I genuinely have positive examples from my actual friends that actually care about me to draw upon. I also get to write this post as a follow-up to my previous post, which means I can put another snazzy Drake lyric as the post title. Happy days.

With that being said, the purpose of this post is to evaluate and discuss the characteristics of a genuine friendship (by my standards, that is), how to deal with fake friends, and - in true Bounce Back spirit - evaluate myself as a friend and be honest with myself about what I need to improve upon to be able to be the support system the people in my life deserve.

Consider whether you’re even compatible as friends.

This is a bit of a funny one, because it really does seem like a no-brainer. But I think there are so many aspects to compatibility as friends besides the obvious liking each others vIbE and sharing the same sense of humour.

Firstly, compatible friendship styles are extremely crucial for a friendship to work. By this, I’m referring to how “hands-on” or “hands-off” the friendship is. For example, some people like to be in constant contact with their friends over texts, calls, FaceTime, social media and then linking up every week on top of that. Meanwhile, some people are content with a monthly check in and waiting to have a big catch up when they finally have time to link up in person.

There really isn’t any “right” or “wrong” style of friendship, as I see it. The hard part is identifying and making friends with people that are the same as you, so no one ends up getting frustrated with the overload/lack of effort. Personally, I have been a very hands-off friend since I was young. I’ve never really liked constant texting and hanging out, because it rarely leaves you with anything of substance to talk about if you’re constantly in touch. I’ve always had this understanding that people - including myself - need time to themselves and sometimes are too busy to talk, so I generally try to check in with my friends every now and again or even leave them alone until we finally can meet up and have a fat catch up.

Some may see it as antisocial and me being a lazy friend, and some may see it as extreme interpersonal awareness and maturity beyond my years. I’m inclined to go with the latter.

All jokes aside, I know that this approach to friendships isn’t the best one to have - especially while growing up. I’m painfully aware that I’ve probably lost out on a lot of good friendships, and I used to feel really bad when I’d get scathing messages about not being a good friend because I “never reach out” - which at that time meant that we hadn’t spoken in two days. Shock horror.

However, as I approach my mid-20s, I definitely think that having this friendship style works for me now. My friends have their own lives, jobs, relationships, responsibilities and kids (!) to focus on, so now there’s more of an understanding as to why talking every single day isn’t optimal. Hell, I even live with one of my closest friends and we sometimes don’t speak for days because we understand and respect that space and time alone is needed at times. With that being said, I sometimes make the mistake in assuming that friends I haven’t spoken to in a while ~magically~ know that I would drop everything for them in a heartbeat if they needed me - definitely something I need to reiterate to them more often.

Another important aspect of compatibility is considering how and why you became friends in the first place - as in, what’s the common denominator between you? Also, would the friendship even still be there if this common denominator is removed?

Personally, I found that a lot of friendships that I formed in my teens and early 20’s in relation to sports, college, uni and work were almost entirely reliant on that common denominator. All conversations, banter and the occasional whine and moan would be surrounding this common denominator, too. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, as long as you are clear on what it is and don’t expect things to get much deeper than that - unless you’re willing to make the effort to make it so. However, I’ve found that sometimes it’s better to just leave it at what it is - especially with friends you met in school as a kid/teen.

I say this because when I moved back to UK from Sweden for uni, I had a few friends that I genuinely considered my closest friends. For the first few months after I moved, we were skyping pretty much every day and keeping in touch on every single aspect of our lives. They even flew over to visit me a few times, and whenever I’d go home to Sweden we’d meet up for drinks and a catch up or whatever. However, as time went on and we grew up, it soon became clear that we literally have nothing in common anymore outside of us going to school together. It was quite sad when I first realised that we had grown apart, but now I can confidently say that once you understand that growing apart doesn’t necessarily mean the loss of a relationship or invalidation of the good times and memories, you won’t feel as bad about focusing your energy on people that are more relevant to your current life situation. Furthermore, it definitely doesn’t mean you have to stop talking to them - they just aren’t the first person you reach out to anymore.

To summarise, friendship compatibility is a very important thing to consider. No one likes feeling like a burden for reaching out/like a piece of sh*t for replying slowly, and no one likes the feeling of trying to force a friendship when there simply isn’t much substance there anymore. This kind of stress really used to mess with my anxiety, so take the time to make sure your efforts - or lack thereof - are matched.

Pay close attention to how conflicts and arguments are resolved (if at all).

Let me start by making it very clear that wanting to clart your friends in the jaw at times doesn’t mean that you aren’t good friends.

At the end of the day, we’re all very different people with opposing opinions, values and ideas. That’s what makes relationships interesting and blah blah blah. You’ve probably heard that before. The most important thing here is respecting each others views and striving to have a calm, collected and civilised conversation, and being able to accept that not everyone will agree with you.

It really is that simple, but for some reason people love to make it unnecessarily complicated for no f*cking reason whatsoever.

As someone that genuinely enjoys a healthy debate/argument and learning to see things from different perspectives, it honestly perplexes me when “friends” deliberately commit themselves to misunderstanding, twisting and disrespecting points that they don’t agree with. I really don’t get what someone would gain from blowing an argument or disagreement out of proportion… but to each their own, I guess. Maybe they’re just bored and want to stir sh*t for no reason.

Anyway, no point in speculating because I’ve done enough of that already, and to be honest I’m tired of it because trying to figure people out is such a task. I’ve tried so many different approaches for conflict resolution - like direct confrontation, physical/verbal altercations (when I was younger and a lot more hot-headed), blatantly ignoring the instigator and vehemently apologising for offending them to avoid further arguing - and I’m telling you now that nothing has brought me as much peace of mind as this:

Just drop it.

Seriously. Just say “Ok” and move on with your life.

The reason why this brings me so much peace of mind is because I’ve let go of the notion that there has to be a “winner” and a “loser” in an argument or other kind of conflict - because what do you actually gain from shutting the other person up besides momentary smugness and that person liking you less than they (probably) already do?

Furthermore, it’s not even about RiSiNg AbOvE the conflict, trying to come across as more mature, trying to diminish the person's argument by not giving it attention or anything like that. It’s genuinely not even about anything more than just saving your energy for things that actually matter. Having the last word, petty remarks and shade really is extremely unnecessary and doesn’t resolve anything - so I just stopped doing it.

So - what does this mean in relation to friendships and conflict resolution?

Adopting this approach to conflicts has actually made it painfully clear to me who are my real friends and who aren’t. I could go into excruciating detail about situations I’ve been in with friends in the past year to illustrate my point, but there’s really no need to even bring it back up and dwell on it because I have moved on. I’ll keep it very brief:

Real friends will respect that you don’t want to give the situation more energy, and understand that there is no such thing as “keeping score” of who “won” what argument in a friendship. Even when conflicts/arguments arise, they won’t let the disagreement spoil the connection you already have, because they know that the connection is based on mutual respect and an actual desire to be in eachothers lives. They know that a conflict isn’t the end of a friendship, nor a reason to talk sh*t about you behind your back. They actually want to nip disagreements in the bud and move past unnecessary drama.

Fake friends, on the other hand, seemingly live to have an issue with you. They’ll either be upfront about it and make you feel like sh*t about yourself for no reason whatsoever, or - even worse - will pretend that everything is gucci between you while secretly b*tching about how much of an issue there is between you to anyone who can be bothered to listen to their bitter asses. I really can’t believe that I spent so much time worrying about what these kind of people used to think of me and being manipulated into trying to change myself to be a bEtTeR fRiEnD, when really and truly they’re the ones with a problem that they’re too p*ssy to address in person. The bottom line is that people that treat you like this don’t even like you - for whatever reason.

Maybe they’re jealous. Maybe they see you as a threat. Maybe they see what you are doing for yourself and are pissed off because they don’t have the capacity to do it for themselves. God knows.

Either way, I’ve come to the conclusion that making an effort to resolve conflict with people that get a kick from causing stress and having someone to talk sh*t about really is pointless, and way too tiring to even think about anymore. Not allowing these people the luxury of wasting my time and draining my energy has worked wonders for my mental health… and may or may not have cleared up my skin. I’m not sure.

Anyways - that’s the tea on that. Love me a good chamomile.

Of course, there are exceptions to my real vs. fake friend theory - it all really depends on what you value and expect from a friendship. Personally, I find loyalty, honesty, positive energy and support the most important things from the people I associate myself with, and if I realise that I’m not getting this from someone… I just leave them alone. What’s the point of exerting myself over people that lowkey hate my guts?

I want to end this part by making clear that we’ve probably all been that fake and toxic friend at some point to someone in our lives. If it was in the past, that’s fine - hopefully you’ve matured and grown away from it. If you can g-check yourself and admit that there are people in your life that you treat like trash, then a) well done for being honest, and b) take time to think why treating someone badly makes you feel better from yourself, and consider what you can do to make your own life better so you don’t have to put other people down.

Always pay attention to their energy towards you.

I definitely think that this is the most important one for me right now. There’s been an extreme mix of good news and bad news in my life right now, and as someone who usually keeps stuff to myself I’ve really tried to be more open and tried to share what’s going on with me to my friends. I’ve definitely made some interesting observations in this process, which I will try to outline in this section.

As the heading suggests, seeing how people’s energies change when you tell them things is an excellent way to see if the genuinely f*ck with you or not.

Watch their energy when you have good news.

Watch their energy when you have bad news.

Watch their energy when you can’t provide what they want from you.

Watch their energy when money is involved in any way, shape or form.

Of course, there are infinite examples of instances where you should clock on to a change of energy. I chose to focus on the ones above because these are the ones that have been recurring themes in in my friendships in most of my adult life, and I have loads of examples so let’s go down the list, shall we?

In terms of good news, obviously your friends should be happy for you. That’s a no brainer and seemingly a simple concept to grasp. What makes it tricky, though, is that people - especially girls - have a tendency to either downplay and minimise the things that are making you feel happy in that moment by giving you embarrassingly weak accolades, or - arguably even worse - pretend to be overly hyped and happy for you while secretly burning on the inside.

A perfect example for this that I recently made my first sale at my new job. I literally told everyone I assumed would be happy for me in excruciating detail. Most of my friends came through with truckloads of gassage, love and support as always and as expected, but I noticed that there were a few that for whatever reason didn’t have much to say. Obviously, there can be multiple reasons for the lack of enthusiasm. But considering the unwavering support and hype I give my close friends, I definitely expect the same energy in return. My best advice for receiving sh*t energy is - again - to just leave it, make a mental note and to not share important things with them again because they don’t deserve to know it.

Similarly, the energy when you come with bad news is very important as well. I’ve altered between keeping everything to myself and leaning on friends for support in the past few weeks, and I definitely noticed a difference between those that genuinely care about my wellbeing, those that were prying for information and tEa, and those that were just asking to be polite and really couldn’t give a f*ck about how I was coping.

The way I knew how to differentiate between the three was simply to do with their responses and follow up questions, and the energy in the calls and messages. Anyone can say that they’re there for you if you want to talk, but there’s actually very, very few that will follow through and not make you feel like a burden or a downer for offloading. I’m actually bad for this - I try my best to help my friends when they need someone but sometimes I just don’t know what to say to make things better. I think the best thing here is to make clear that you want to listen and sympathise, but that you don’t want to make things worse by giving trash advice. But for f*cks sake - do NOT claim you are there for your friends if you know for a fact you aren’t. You’re hurting their feelings.

When it comes to energy changes in relation to a friend not being able to get what they want from you, there really aren’t many grey areas here. If they’re your friend, they’ll accept it and there will be no awkwardness or weird tension. If not, they’ll make you feel like a bad friend for not doing what they want, or even end up manipulating you into overexerting yourself to do what they want regardless of your objections.

The first time I learned this was when I was working as a bartender/FOH staff at a large nightclub back in uni. As you can probably imagine, people would genuinely harass me for free drinks/vouchers, free entry, discounts and so on. For the most part I was very strict about not doing anything that would get me into trouble if managers found out, but that’s not the point. The point here is that people’s reactions to me saying that I wasn’t going to give them free stuff vastly varied - from quietly accepting it and enjoying the rest of the night, to literally spilling drinks on my till and having to be kicked out for kicking off when I said no, followed by talking sh*t about me to anyone that cared enough to listen.

Obviously that’s a very extreme example, but the reaction people have to you telling them “no” really does show where you stand with each other. Again, when you clock negativity just because you can’t accommodate someone else's wishes - just leave it, because they don’t deserve your energy.I hope you are beginning to see a recurring theme here.

Finally and probably the most important - watch how things go in the friendship as long as money is involved.

First of all, we all have different approaches when it comes to money. Some of us are “can you send me the 26p you owe me please” types of people, and some of us adopt a “you paid for this so I have it next time” kind of mentality. Either way is okay, but again - when it comes to money you should definitely consider the points I made above about finding friends that you’re compatible with, because if you know in your heart that you are stingy, you are going to catch a headache from hanging around people that like to chop money like it’s nothing.

Personally, I have a semi-relaxed approach to money and friendships - if I consider you a close friend and know for a fact that you can pay me back, it’s really no issue if I have funds to help out with. At the same time, I avoid borrowing money from others like the plague because I know that people can move extremely mad as soon as there is money involved. There have been instances in which people I know have genuinely gotten into fights, arguments, stopped talking and indirected each other on social media (!) over money that no one forced them to lend out. I honestly don’t understand why people put themselves under financial strain just to be able to dangle it over someone else's head. It’s perplexing - but it does show people’s true colours, which is why I think it’s important to take note of how people act towards you when money is involved. Regardless of if you’re the lender or the borrower.

Once again, if you find yourself in a situation where you’ve borrowed money from someone that will make your life a living hell until you pay them back - just pay them back and leave them alone, because you’ve seen their true colours now. Even vice versa - if you’ve lent someone money and they’re taking the piss in terms of paying you back, just tough it out until they pay you back and then decide if keeping them in your life is worth the stress.

To summarise this section: decide what energy you expect from your friends, and make mental note of those that don’t provide it. Of course, you should generally be putting out the energy to your friends that you want back - so don’t come and say I told you to cut everyone off when you haven’t even been making an effort to be a good friend yourself, please and thank you.

Trust your gut.

As cringe as it may sound, you usually have a feeling when someone isn’t being genuine with you. If you’re anything like me, even the most miniscule shifts in vibes, tone and energy - both in person and over text/social media - sets of a trillion alarm bells in my head. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had an “off” feeling about someone I’ve considered a friend, only to later find out that there’s apparently an issue between us that I had no idea even existed at the time - and this is after they’ve willingly spent time with me in my house, actively made an effort to link up, and chatting to me like we’re friends and everything is fine.

There isn’t really much you can do about this, unfortunately - no matter how upfront, honest and confrontational you are, it’s really not your fault if the person keeps insisting that they don’t have a problem when they’re secretly hating your guts for whatever reason they’ve conjured up in their heads. As someone that has always been the type to straight up ask if there’s an issue and tell people when they’re doing something I don’t like, I guess I sometimes forget that not everyone is like that and that’s why I find myself feeling like I’ve been let down or betrayed so often.

Either way - it ends now, because I’m tired of letting “friends” think that they can a) not give a sh*t about me while offloading all the crap that’s going on in their lives on to me because they kNoW i’Ll LiStEn, and b) treat me however the f*ck they want just because I’m an accommodating person. They don’t deserve my time and energy anymore, and that’s that on that.

Of course, there are many more aspects to friendships and allowing/trusting someone outside of yourself enough to be a support system you can count on. As cliché as it sounds, it is important to remember that all friendships are different and have their own little quirks and dynamics that aren’t as easily identifiable as the points outlined above. Consider this post a general guideline to who genuinely deserves your time, energy and effort, as well as an opportunity to evaluate yourself as a friend and your existing friendships.

As mentioned earlier in this post, hard times or any type of major life event tends to put all aspects of your life into perspective - friendships being one of the biggest ones. I can only really speak for myself, but I think that many young adults in my age range can agree that as life gets tougher and we take on more responsibilities there isn’t any time for petty drama, nonsense, negative energy or toxicity. Life is already hard enough as it is, so what’s the actual point of stressing out over people that aren’t even remotely close to being on the same wavelength as you? Make it make sense.

I genuinely wish I had these revelations and realised what type of friendships I deserve earlier on in life, because it definitely would’ve saved me a whole lot of ugly crying over feeling like fake friends take advantage of my kindness and treat me like sh*t for no reason whatsoever. But we move, I guess - hopefully this post gives you some things to consider next time you feel like your fRiEnDs seem to think you’re a d*ckhead.

Spoiler alert: You’re not, and your friends are trash. Do better, beloved.

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #selflove #opinions

0 notes

andrewuttaro · 5 years

Text

New Look Sabres: GM 47 - CGY

In case you were lucky enough to miss Monday night’s catastrophe in Edmonton let me just fill you in: The Sabres have six wins since late November and there is a bit of a crisis unfolding. To many angry fans delight there were reports midday Tuesday of Phil Housley running a very “not so fun” video session before practice in Calgary. There were strongly worded statements from guys who wear letters like Zach Bogosian, and Housley said some nice things about Eichel but ultimately the motto we heard early in the season of not getting too high or low emotionally won out. I’m not that kinda even-keeled guy when it comes to my sports so I wanted to tear this team a new one after that embarrassment Monday Night. Instead I’ll focus my energy on the Flames here: they’re the hottest team in the West all puns intended. They caught fire (yes, more puns) late in the first half of the season and now sit atop the strong West and weak Pacific Division. Before any of the recent success the Flames stayed neck and neck with the Sabres in their last meeting back in Buffalo. Tight games make for rattled nerves and this game was the higher scoring version of another tight matchup. I had no chill in the third period of this game. Calgary may be a good chill pill though for us panicking Sabres fans: consider the makeup of that team. They have their special talent, a couple of franchise centers, a top D-man and a developing young core. The club has been in something of a rut the last couple years just not being able to go anywhere if they do make the playoffs. Just like us Sabres fans earlier this season all it takes is a good stretch and you’re outlook changes. They timed theirs a bit better but I digress: it’s coming friends; a consistently competitive Sabres squad is coming one way or another. I took most of this game off from social media because that’s been so rough lately and perhaps I do that more because this game was a nice little shot of refreshment in dower times for Buffalo once you get past the nervous jitters.

The Flames played their game from the opening puck drop. Luckily, at least early on, the Sabres frustrated many of their efforts standing up in the neutral zone and breaking up some of the scariest plays. While the home team would get the edge in shots by the end of the first that category seemed rather even for most of the frame. Calgary leads the league in short-handed goals and nearly got one on the Sabres powerplay halfway through the first. Jeff Skinner took a nasty tumble into the wall in a battle in the corner but was back out two shifts later. Johan Larsson played very well for his role throughout this game. Jason Pominville tripped Matthew Thachuk in a very obvious way late and got penalized for it. The period was in its last second when Bogosian’s skate bounced a puck to Johnny Gaudreau right in front. Johnny Hockey didn’t miss and the clock read .5 seconds with the Flames entering the first intermission with 1-0 lead. The second period played like the rollercoaster of emotion this season has become. The first ten minutes it was clear the Flames had some momentum. They took over the possession game and hardly let the visitors out of their own zone for half the period. Linus Ullmark made more than a couple great saves but the one that you’ll see in the highlights is him leaping and rolling to stop a rebound shot. If it was to be a much needed win for Buffalo it would be in no small part because Ullmark kept them in this game.

Then our pal Johnny Hockey gets called for the softest hooking penalty you’ll see this week. Don’t worry Calgarians, the Sabres don’t do shit on the powerplay. There was a momentum shift in that fruitless two minutes though and shortly thereafter the puck was cleared from Ullmark to Mittelstadt who saw the opportunity to sky the puck to Evan Rodrigues who had just jumped on the ice. It was a full breakaway and E-Rod just tapped in five-hole on David Rittich. I didn’t give this guy his due for scoring last game so today we celebrate Rodrigues: two goals in two games after only having two goals through the prior 39 games. Rodrigues worked his way out of the lost three in preseason and has become a consistent contributor this season if not in goals than assists and plays. Last night it was a goal. A late hit on Lawrence Pilut (who may have also had one of his better games ever) touched off a brief scrum shortly after showing the Flames were somewhat annoyed. I would be too because without Ullmark this game would’ve been a rout through two periods. It was not and it was tied at 1 going into the third. The third period would show just how much the Sabres wanted out of this losing streak.

The visitors came out with the snarl they had developed in the second but Sam Bennett drew a penalty via Rasmus Dahlin and the Flames went to the powerplay where Elias Lindholm and Matthew Thachuk teamed up for a tap in goal. Lindholm has been a great pickup for Calgary and we here in Buffalo can relate to robbing Carolina blind. Anyway, the 2-1 lead for the home team could’ve been it with how the Sabres have been playing recently. Luckily, less than a minute later Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart forwarded the puck along the boards in the O-zone to Rasmus Dahlin setup at the blueline. Dahlin took a real hard shot that must have taken a deflection or two because when it went in the top right corner over Rittich shoulder there was some surprise from all involved. Tie game. The spark was fully ignited now and Jake McCabe had hardly gotten into the O-zone when he took a similar slapper shot and, redirected or not, the puck got past Rittich: 3-2 and the visitors’ first lead of the game. It was at this point that Lindholm was battling Pilut in the Sabres D-zone when he attempted to murder Pilut with a cross check to the neck. No call as Pilut struggles to stay up and Noah Hanifin, another robbery from Carolina, finds the equalizer. Had the game been played in Buffalo that play would’ve gotten loud boos. Mikael Backlund got penalized a couple minutes later as a clear make-up call but nothing came of it, the Flames outshot the Sabres through the remainder of the period and this game went to OT. In spite of dominating play for large stretches of this game Calgary never had the puck in overtime and at 1:10 Jack Eichel outmaneuvers Mark Giordano and took the lane to shoot high and end it. Sabres win 4-3 in OT.

In my “Points in the Standings Acceptability” scale for this Western Canada roadie I put 3 points as the bare minimum. Really, we have to want a win tomorrow against Vancouver to have any good feelings going into the bye-week/All Star weekend. This middle stretch of the season has been a disaster and in spite of the joy of this win there needs to be some consistency to get out of crisis mode. A Two game stack of wins going into the break probably doesn’t do that but it’s a start. Coming back to Columbus and Dallas after the break is not a tremendous help either but these guys got themselves into this mess and they’ll have to get out… well unless something else happens in the intermittent time. I don’t want to speculate about trades at the moment, too pissed. Bench Scandella and fix that ugly friggin powerplay. The powerplay of this team continues to be unacceptable and frankly heads should roll for that. Your ugly stretch as of late looks that much different if you capitalize on even half of your powerplays. The Sabres have scored once on their last 20 attempts: disgusting. On a lighter note, Eichel is back on track and Rasmus Dahlin now holds the longest point streak for an 18-year-old defenseman in NHL history at 5 games played. The Sabres fought hard last night, could not be denied and got rewarded for it with the most refreshing two points in a while, eh?

The teams ahead of the Sabres in the playoff race aren’t slowing down unfortunately. You can’t do anything about the week and a half off but narrowing the gap a little tomorrow in Vancouver is somewhat helpful. Like, share and comment on this blog, I would love to hear from you. I for one am just happy to go about my normal tasks today with a Sabres win hanging over my head and not the storm cloud of doom that’s been there awhile… er… maybe the storm cloud isn’t far behind but we won! We won, dammit! The Buffalo Sabres just beat the second best team in the league and we ought to take that for what it is. We’ll have to wait and see if it’s the turning point this team needs.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. With Nathan Beaulieu requesting a trade (or just asking for more minutes depending on who you ask) it might just force Jason Botterill’s hand in a larger move. That said you could have just benched Scandella but whatever.

#buffalo sabres #hockey #nhl #blog

0 notes

newhologram · 7 years

Text

New’s Atlas Subluxation and chronic illness timeline

It’s in my nature at this point to document things and it’s smart to keep track of my healing post-procedure anyway, so I might as well make a timeline here and share the experience as usual :p

Feel free to ask any questions, it doesn’t bother me at all. We need to let patients be teachers too, I think.

So here is my atlas subluxation and chronic illness timeline with backstory leading up to the procedure before it gets super specific with dates. I will try to update this during my healing as much as I can to document changes. I’m putting lots of links to posts where I talk about things as well, but you can also go into these tags on my blog to find more information: #personal #atlas subluxation #fibromyalgia #chronic pain #chronic illness #invisible illness #narcolepsy #ulcerative colitis 1.16.17 Posted with info up until this day. 4.12.17 3 month update!

1989: Born December 29th at a 3 1/2 lbs. Taken out prematurely because there was a complication with the umbilical cord and I was no longer growing. I had to stay in an incubator for 11 days until I weighed enough to go home, which was 5 1/2 lbs. It’s unclear whether or not the subluxation was present after birth; it’s possibly that I could’ve been pulled out in a way that caused it, but we have the next event as a definite marker for when things started getting worse.

Summer of 1996, age 6: While playing with sister I accidentally fractured my collar bone. I went up into the air, I remember seeing the ceiling coming closer, and then I fell straight down onto my back pretty hard. I cried and cried and said over and over again, “I broke something, I broke something” until they took me to the hospital. I vividly remember how I shook when they put me on the table to x-ray me. The doctor cheered me up by pointing out the gas in my chest. But basically they were like yep, there’s a fracture right there. And they sent me home with a sling. I remember that it had dinosaurs on it and it made me happy.

1996~2000, age 6 to 10: Always sick. Daily stomach aches, digestive issues leading to restrictive diet, nausea, back pain, bad posture, fatigue, insomnia, nightmares, sleepwalking, always cold, chronic bronchitis, hypersensitivity to stimulus like sound, light, color, taste, smell, temperature, and even experiences whether positive or negative, auditory processing disorder making it hard to understand what people said, problems with being “too excitable” and having intense reactions to rejection which was hard because I was constantly bullied and controlled by peers for being “weird” and “different”. I struggled in most subjects, but especially math, and I could never really handwrite properly, even to this day. School in general was just very hard because I never felt well and couldn’t keep up with others. Crying on the floor meltdowns whenever there are loud sports games or if a friend goes home early from a sleepover or if a parent gets mad at me (or I think they are). These meltdowns persisted into adulthood. I was always just called dramatic for them.

2001~2009, age 11 to 19: Middleschool and highschool were even harder. I struggled in most classes except for creative ones. Health problems persisted: first sleep paralysis with hallucations episode at age 12 or 13 and often had episodes after school that would eat up my early evening and wear me out mentally, still had problems with bronchitis, ovarian cyst caused me a lot of pain and missed classes, then I started having even worse digestive problems. By age 15 I had my first upper endoscopy and colonoscopy where they discovered ulcers in my esophagus, stomach, and intestines. Feelings of isolation, unable to feel like I could connect with people, noticeable depression, loneliness. First vomiting panic attack at age 17. At 19 did a homestay in Japan; an amazing experience but made difficult by vomiting, fatigue, insomnia, anxiety leaving the house and exploring by myself and freaking out when I got lost.

2010~2016, age 20-26: Health problems begin to worsen in early adulthood. Age 21: I’m vomiting a few times a week and having a ton of other problems, diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Sleep and fatigue problems making it hard to work at my retail job especially while I’m in college. Age 23: suddenly the sleep paralysis and insomnia are impossible to manage and I go several months with very little sleep, getting worse and worse, every day having looong hard sleep paralysis episodes that leave me with horrible headaches and slurring like I’m drunk. I still go to auditions and work jobs I book as best as I can but get a narcolepsy diagnosis after a long process of sleep study and being yanked around by insurance not letting me actually see the neurologist for my diagnosis. Depression is getting to the point where it almost paralyzes me but I do my best. Health problems cause fights with family. Age 24: not long after the narcolepsy diagnosis: the pain and fatigue become excessive and debilitating and I get the fibromyalgia diagnosis. Condition worsens and worsens, a bump forms on my upper spine that causes horrific pain and distress. 2014 I’m in the ER/urgent care 4 times because the pain makes it unable to rest or stop vomiting for days on end (the most being 6 days where I lost 12lbs). I go to an Ayurvedic healing center because the doctors were useless. There is some improvement but I still struggle, at least I had a lot of good coping tools to keep myself a live, if only barely at times. In bed most days in horrible pain and exhausted by simple things such as getting up to use the restroom. Depression is horrible and a cloud of suicidal urges hang over me for almost 2 years because I feel like a failure who is ruining my family’s happiness by being sick and I feel an intense hatred for myself. I try to work a very mellow part time job at a perfumery but the pain makes it too hard and I’m eventually let go. Age 25: Depression persists but I force myself to start doing background TV/film work on a weekly basis. Making money helps calm me but it’s incredibly difficult with my health problems and I often vomit on set from fatigue and pain. I start seeing a chiropractor to help alleviate the pain and depression. It helps but I have to see him twice a week at first, then once, then every other week, but during a flare up it’s back to once a week. I also start seeing an acupuncturist which helps with organ function and eases some symptoms but I still have to see her regularly and the expenses add up and cause more problems with my family since I’m barely able to afford them on my own. Age 26: I get a part time job in retail to help supplement me while I do background work. With the skills I learned I’m able to manage things but I still suffer a lot every day and don’t sleep well because of the pain. Later in the year I stop doing bg work and get an additional part time job. I had accepted long ago that I would be in pain for the rest of my life and that all these tiny minimum wage paychecks I worked so hard through agony for would just go straight into managing my symptoms. I accepted that by age 45 I might be bedridden but at least I was doing my best now in my 20′s and I needed to accept whatever time my body had on this planet and do my best to be a source of light for others going through the same thing.

Starting the week of the December 18th, 2016, I have a lot of work days in a row and I’m slammed with auditions. It’s getting colder and colder, my pain is higher, I don’t have much time to rest. By Christmas Eve I’m in bed all the day with only short sporadic moments up to pee or try to soothe the depression with an activity. It’s so bad I can barely last 20 minutes at times before I have to stumble back to bed green in the face and weak.

This flare up continued until Wednesday, January 11th, 2017. 25 days of high pain and fatigue levels and going a few weeks only able to eat yogurt and a few crackers with one or two proper meals a week if I can. Lots of throwing up, usually two nights in a row, maybe a little break, and then back to it, just horrible persistent deep nausea. This is why I got down to 103lbs. Oops.

So, here’s where the timeline of atlas subluxation discovery and treatment starts:

12.18.16 ~ 1.11.17: Flare up from hell that wouldn’t end. It was suddenly back to the intense high levels I had back in 2014 when I didn’t know all these pain management techniques. Naturally, I was terrified and used every possible coping technique possible to get through it. Since it was so high I was just. Hoo. Each day was a rollercoaster. The pain gives me hella moodswings. Zip, zip, had to just keep it zipped as much as I could so I didn’t look like an asshole. If I had to work one shift I basically had to make sure I didn’t do ANYTHING beforehand to save those spoons and keep the pain from spiking, but I didn’t want to pass up auditions so I forced myself to a few. The pain got so bad I couldn’t even sit up in bed most nights. Missed a lot of work. Had to meditate like crazy to keep positive thoughts in the front of my brain but it was very difficult.

1.5.17: Barely clinging to positivity but trying my best, since I’m always in bed I work up the strength with a LOT of rest and pain management to play a little Pokemon. Meanwhile I’m trying to work on gross crunchy calcium in the back of my neck (yeah, it’s nasty) and this huge chunk comes off inside my neck, like just... a crunchy chip floating in there that I could move and scrape against my neck

UM. I YELLED and immediately posted about it and freaked out because by googling “hard crunchy back of neck floating” I discovered atlas subluxation. http://newvagabond.tumblr.com/post/155495266822/atlas-orthogonal-changed-my-life-migraines

1.6.17: Appointment with primary care physician to update her on my rapidly worsening condition and talk to her about atlas subluxation. She got flustered and was saying, “this isn’t something the healthcare system considers as treatment” and I was like WHY and at this point I was done being pushed around and I said many times, “Sorry, I just need you to hear everything that I’m saying” as I went over this whole page of notes I made for her about how this procedure could give me my life back. I lamb’d her into submission in order to get her to write several referrals to try to find someone. All she could do was refer me to the bone doctor and the neurologist.

GUYS IT’S LITERALLY LIKE, oh, your brain and body are breaking down because this one bone might be out of place? It’s that simple and obvious and we can find it in x-rays easily if we know what we’re looking for and there are already specialists who do this specific adjustment around the world?

Hmm... nahhh... nah... don’t even check there. Just treat this girl’s depression and pain with drugs FIRST, before we determine that it’s the organs themselves with the deficiency. We’ll just try that and see what happens, $50 please. I have been on 3 different depression/anxiety meds, zofran, xanax, ativan, tramadol, various colon steroids?? Just a ton of crap.

Even knowing I will need to pay an atlas doc out of pocket, I get so depressed that I can’t even bring myself to make a phone call for an appointment.

1.11.17: Crying and screaming level of pain, very weak, depression so intense all I could think while obviously very, very ill was “I’m the worst/I should die/I’m just a problem/I’m ruining my dad’s life/I’m an unreliable loser and all my coworkers and employers think I’m lazy and dumb/no one likes me because I’m too weird and always sick” etc etc. My dad almost took me to the hospital because the pain was just way too intense and making me lose my shit.

1.12.17, day of procedure: In the morning my dad called me and suggested we just do it, just call one of those specialists. I was in no state to make phone calls so he did it for me. He picked the closest one and called her. He said, “my daughter has fibromyalgia and she’s in bad shape” and the doctor said we could come in that day.

My post after the adjustment describing the experience with photos Even walking is different Other details about the visit Brain activity is high at bedtime but I can feel my body 1.13.17, day after procedure: Wake up sharp at 8am, do yoga. Got some pretty intense back and neck pains and fatigue but it’s different. I feel sore and aching like my body is letting go after holding onto something for a long time. I have an appetite. Talking about how this is the first doctor I’ve ever met who was just so confident in her ability to help me instead of shrugging and giving me drugs Reeling because everything is making so much sense and how our medical system is awful Prophetic dream? 1.14.17, day 2: Went to school, had fun because I could think properly. My dad took me to do errands after. I got really tired and had pain but it was still very different. We picked up some suggestions the doc gave me to help my body during the healing process. Thinking about how crazy it is that my body is going to be slowly adjusting and healing over the next year or so More thoughts as I feel my body change and think about what lead up to all this Hope and healing Already seeing a drastic change in sleep

1.15.17, day 3: Back to work at my retail job. Kind of difficult because I’m under strict orders from the doctor not to lift more than 5lbs as not to make my atlas go back out of whack. Lots of pain and fatigue by noon from having to use my body so much. But brain is still sharp, having fun with customers. On my break I start looking up atlas subluxation and how it affects a child’s brain development since I realize that this means that I grew up with a compressed brain stem. Unfamiliar feeling of peace and calm Sad thoughts remembering my childhood Suspicious of the medical system not recognizing this A thank you to friends and followers during this hugely important time

1.16.17, day 4: Day off. Pain levels got pretty high so I did my best to rest a lot. I was too tired to play more than a little video games. Noticing I look different in pictures Anon asks if the bump on my spine is gone More research, ebook with alarming symptoms that match mine Exposing a secret Text post talking about the pain and family members looking into this now/ Meant to be Stepping stones Having another look at my MRI More info 1.17.17, day 5: Very tired. Slept in until 9am, managed to do 5 pushups, yoga, and some light hula hooping. Had a good breakfast and got about an hour of editing done by 11:30 before I was just way too tired, so I napped until a little after 1 and had a small lunch. The pain wasn’t so bad, it was mostly fatigue. I ended up needing another 30 minute nap before I went to work. I felt kind of depressed but I’m not sure if it’s because of my worry about work. I worked today and I have to work tomorrow, I’m just worried 2 days in a row will be rough like it usually is. I still really wish I could just take time off completely and not force myself through these shifts. But I don’t want to lose my jobs. :( We’ll see. Epic upper body spasm while trying to make a snack 1.18.17, day 6: I slept really well despite waking up randomly at 3. I felt calm and warm without my heated blanket on for awhile, and fell back asleep easily. I ate a really good breakfast and lunch and work wasn’t too bad. I’m still very sore and aching, and having to move around so much definitely doesn’t help that. My mood was back up again, but I do feel a bit emotionally overwhelmed by all this information. I’m feeling anger and the urge to call my primary care doctor and ask her how she can even call herself a doctor. Wondering what differences my acupuncturist will notice Crooked glasses no crooked atlas yes Sharper brain at work Frustration and wondering how much worse I would’ve gotten Positivity is important but it doesn’t fix a spine by itself Happy to have answers but feeling a lot of sadness 1.19.17, day 7 and my follow up with the atlas orthogonal doctor: Follow up post here with “after” x-ray pics Thoughts on Snapchat Ashwagandha Lots of fatigue and also depressive mood swings keeping me in bed. 1.20.17, day 8: Fun day out with a friend, very much needed. She got me a gemstone for spinal alignment! Pain wasn’t too bad all day and by 5pm I was getting tired. VERY squirmy feelings.

Atlas noise is grossing me out Dear my body Reflection on my experience in the crystal store and how life has been the past 4 years being so sick Thinking about a classmate saying something kind of inappropriate 1.21.17, day 9: Bad depression and fatigue. Missed school and had a really rough time at work. 1.22.17, day 10: Mood improved a lot, felt okay at work and had a good massage. Super hungry. Sat at my desk for so long! But also so much wiggliness that I hate

1.23.17, day 11: I felt good so I vlogged a lot! I pushed it a little and had to rest a lot after though, oops.

Pain is high at bedtime, I need some kind of memory foam pillow 1.24.17, day 12: Acupuncture appointment went well, she was pretty amazed. Worked, pain came and went. Felt energetic. Even played OW when I got home. Depression is coming in smaller waves now but they’re still strong and can knock me over. Answering an ask about x-rays Another ask about fixing the atlas yourself Depression coping tips

1.25.17, day 13: A lot of depression first half of the day. It got better once I got to work. Pain got up there at night but I managed to get some OW in. Forgot to buy spicy patches but I have a new magnesium oil spray.

Brain reprogramming

1.26.17, day 14: Went to the market by myself and regretted it because I ended up in bad pain by 11am. Didn’t get much done the whole day, slept on and off like a toddler.

Thoughts on growing up Spoonie snaps: food and owies Night sweats pretty much gone 1.27.17, day 15: Another day of lots of pain and fatigue, but I managed to do a little bit and play some games. The impact of choosing not to suffer in silence Fatigue depression

2.6.17, day... omg idfk! I’ve been so wiped out I haven’t had the energy to sit at my desk and keep this updated.

Basically, things have still been a wild ride. I had a little over a week of high pain levels and fatigue but thankfully no vomiting, but looots of depression and badbrain. I’ve been doing my best to manage everything and stay on top of my self-care routine as usual. Each day is different and things are changing little by little.

Since so many of my updates/thoughts are in text posts I’ll just link them like I was already doing.

1.28.17 Chronic pain problem of trying to time medicating

1.29.17 I feel like I’m not allowed to rest One day I’ll be big and strong Recent snaps of pain management and finding comfort in cats and facemasks

1.30.17 PMS messing me up and such

1.31.17 Before and after x-rays and thoughts about my MRIs Got an adjustment at my regular chiro and it went great

2.1.17 Recent snaps of special spine pillow and such Missing gaming because too much pain ;(

2.2.17 Vlog teaser: working on medical marijuana vlogs! Advice for an anon Relating to a follower about overstimulation caused by a new pain

2.3.17 Spoonie actor visibility Snapchat story Heard back from the MyStrength people Intense flare with bad spine and rib pain and fever

2.4.17 Vlog about getting my handicap parking placard

2.5.17 Tonsil stones ; ; Morning depression Spoonies, Stay (about spoonie suicide) Intrusive thoughts, healing is painful, and on being a late bloomer

3.14.17

Time has gotten away from me. It’s hard to keep track of things. I’m having good days but more bad days. Lots of swelling in my upper neck now. Video here to show how big it gets��http://newvagabond.tumblr.com/post/158336271242/this-is-what-i-mean-when-i-say-ow-my-upper-spine possibly because I didn’t rest and stuff, chiro had to do a lot

Depression was pretty bad too. And there’s been a huge weather change. It’s possibly that’s related to my flare up. Feeling hopeless.

Frustration at being told I’m lucky to be so skinny when I am skinny because of health problems Going to school in pain and realizing other people don’t have any idea what this is like Spine pain feels like spine is moving slowly, like braces on teeth Feeling pressured to work when my body is not well I wish I’d known it’s not normal Bad pain, acupuncture, experimenting with oils Threw up for the first time since January Being happy isn’t only for the neurotypical ER doctors hate us Malingering, teachers thinking I was faking Low spoons from having to keep up with people who have near infinite spoons

March got better towards the end with more frequent massage and me getting very serious about my Ayurveda self-care routine. Yoga deep stretch 2x a day, strict rest breaks, lots of ashwagandha, etc. Sleep became difficult again, both at night and during the day.

Neurological tics and SP Spine spoonie end of March Appreciate the time a spoonie gives you Emotional detox the past 4 years Low pain day despite stress and activity ?? didn’t have to medicate until 9pm Ashwagandha powder feeling changes Two days in a row of low pain and good brain function Survival is anything but typical More ashwa goodness Glass half full Suddenly back to being in bed most of the day Medical records showing just how incompetent my old docs were What does it mean to be strong? Spine swelling stealing my days I want a spinal implant Spoonies are always performing Losing friends when you get sick

Sesame oil and hot/cold pack life New vape cartridge for spine pain relief! Golden milk with ashwagandha every night!

Had a very busy week even with low pain days and got worn out after 6 days, high pain, but still great mood. I felt very positive and optimistic. Reality felt very strange with low pain. But I was back to my usual struggle the next week.

I still feel very much like the only way people will take my health seriously is if I push myself into collapsing. Also spine is so noisy when I do my yoga. I got my tax return and I’m so thankful because I was able to stock up on pain relief products! But I’m still kinda worried about the neurological symptoms I’m having.

I saw my new doctor and was really surprised.

4.12.17 3 month update and thoughts.

#atlas subluxation #chronic illness #invisible illnesses #disability #personal #teku #new's medical timeline

18 notes · View notes