Take this NYTimes survey on the opioid crisis & make the voices of the chronically ill be heard! (a few of my responses below…)
Q: In general, are you hopeful that the opioid epidemic in America will eventually be solved? Why or why not?
A: No drug problem can ever be *solved* anymore than any mental health issue – because that’s what it is. And where there is access & addicts, there will always be a problem (look at other so-called drug wars in the past, they aren’t over, it’s just that a new drug pops up & we stop talking about the last one). 2 things would help: legalizing marijuana, which is not chemically addictive & offering a heck of a lot more affordable rehab & mental health access.
A thought that occurs to me is this. People want to say its brave to downplay the pain, to say its a 8 and not a 10. But what no one realizes until they’re there in that position themselves, is that it’s not about downplaying anything. It’s about dreading – about knowing it can be worse, even when you can’t imagine the specifics. So when the pain is just slowly gnawing away at you, when it feels as though you can’t breathe, or even when it is a fire that just won’t seem to fade, you still say that it’s not that bad. Because that fear is even more alive, the knowledge that somehow, someday, something will hurt worse. The knowing that no matter the pain, somehow it can be worse, and you’ll eventually see that day, and even when you do, you won’t be able to call it a ten. Cause even that could be worse.
THIS omg this. When your baseline is 7 you save your 10s.
People don’t seem to understand the cost of tolerence.
My 10 a few years ago is now more like an 8. The cost of it being an 8, the cost of me being able to function in that state somewhat, is permanent disfigurment from heating pads burning me. It’s taking off you shoe after getting home realizing your foot is bleeding only then. It’s the exhaustion from having to live in that state. It’s the lack of sleep because you can’t clear your mind to sleep without clearing the coping techniques holding the pain at bay.
Your number stays at 7. The doctors think this is fine. Your pain hasn’t gotten worse after all, it’s still a 7. But 10 five years ago is now 10. 10 five years prior to that became the 10 you had then. 10 from when you were 16 is now a 4. So is the gaping wound down to the muscle you didn’t notice happen.
Your pain is a 7. You’re fine. No reason to increase the pain management. Why are you so upset. Do you need help learning to cope? Don’t worry your tolerence will take care of that.
We recognize that not being able to feel pain is dangerous. People frequently injure themselves, people who are paralyzed have to be careful to look for wounds caused by them not feeling them. But it’s apparently ok to let someone’s tolerence get so high they keep injuring themselves similar ways because they can still feel pain. Somehow being in constant exausting pain wearing you down, eating away at your ability to function, is safer.
Talking Barbie prototype with a clear torso, used during the initial development stages in order to highlight how her internal talking mechanism looked/worked.
My 26 yr old sister still says things out loud like ‘ermagerd’ and ’___ ALL the things!’ Like…is that what’s gonna happen to me?am I going to be 30 still saying stupid shit like O shit waddup! Are all the youngins gonna be embarrassed by my use of outdated memes….how long until I myself am not Hip With It….how long until I am no longer a trendy memer…
my greatest fear honestly
Listen, I am 40. I was around for the early internet of webrings and hamsterdance. Homestarrunner. Those little cats in the boat singing to Immigrant Song. Longcat. Ceiling cat. Radiskull. Powerthirst.
So to me anything that is funny on the internet is, and always will be, cutting-edge and hilarious. If it’s funny the first time, it’s funny the eleven thousandth time. No exceptions.
I accumulate memes. Social media sites form actual strata in my soul, revealing my geological age in layers: Geocities, Myspace, Livejournal, Tumblr. Memes encrust me, like jewels, just layer on layer of reaction gifs and shitposts, some of which I barely understand, but I refuse to let go of. I cling to them, they are ever-relevant, undying.
You callow youths, who think in your innocence that that memes come and go, you are tepid fools who still smell of milk.
I am where memes go to die. I am where memes go to live eternal.
Someday, if you are lucky, you will join me. Bring your breadsticks meme, your Spiders Georg, your Bode, your big mood, your Supernatural gifs, your oh worm. Come with me and rejoice in pointless in-jokes and long-forgotten references. Embrace your encyclopedic knowledge of comedy sites ca 2006 and come share the knowledge with us. Come with me and lik the bred.
You gotta.
“You callow youths, who think in your innocence that that memes come and go, you are tepid fools who still smell of milk.”
Put this on my headstone, underneath a picture of Ceiling Cat.
Look I still go “but I am le tired!” on a regular basis, sooooooo
At 33 and 32 respectively, @ibnhergyr and I both relish quoting outdated memes, participation around our 17 year old nephew. And new memes? I’ve purposefully waited until something was no longer “cool” before taking about it. I’d you must grow old, take glee from making the younger generation cringe by using issued memes!
Roy’s turning 25 on Jan 24. He is my best friend, my husband, and my partner in survival.
And he’s never celebrated his birthday. He is the fifth of eight kids from a poor family – cake, presents, candles, parties, all the fun parts of having a birthday, were never part of his life.
Can y’all help me give him a special birthday this year?
He’s worked so goddamn hard this year, doing a plethora of shitty (literally, sometimes) labor jobs, keeping the van running (I could write a whole new post about the work he’s done on our little home on wheels), and taking care of my ass. He’s had to work by himself to feed us and keep us warm countless times because my spine wouldn’t let me go to work those days. He’s sat up with me through endless nights of panic attacks and PTSD episodes. He’s taken care of me through my abortion, breakups, and cold nights.
He deserves to be fucking SPOILED! I, however, am much too poor to do that myself. So I am planning a Denver birthday tour for him – establishments that give you free (or nearly free) stuff on your birthday. If you know about a good one other than Denny’s breakfast, hit me up!
If you want to spoil him a little yourself, however, I know he’d loooove to see some new donations on PayPal.me/roydieu or in his gobank (roydieu@gmail.com). You can also send him something off our wish list (I’ll be adding a few things for him through out the next few days).
If you want to send him a package directly, hit me up for our mailing address!
A couple hours after I made this Roy was arrested. Last year we lived in a car and couldn’t afford to insure or register it and apparently at some point we got ticketed for it (I’ve been trying all day to remember this, but all I’ve got are memories of cops specifically telling us they were NOT going to ticket us because we obviously can’t afford it). But even if I could recall the incident, we wouldn’t have been able to pay for it anyways.
His bail was set at $1000. Obviously, I don’t have that kind of money. So, instead of a fun loop pedal or a mini amp for his birthday, I’m asking you guys to help me get him put of jail for his birthday.
I’m severely depressed and physically disabled and living homeless by myself puts me in just so much more danger than I was before. I’m alone, I’m scared, and I’m begging for help right now.
Microhyla borneensis (junior synonym Microhyla nepenthicola), also known as the Mantang narrow-mouthed frog, is a species of microhylid frog found in the Matang Range in Sarawak, Borneo. It was once the smallest known frog from the Old World (the current record holder is Paedophryne amauensis from New Guinea). Adult males of this species have a snout-vent length (SVL) of 10.6–12.8 mm. Tadpoles measure just 3 mm. It is one of 30 species in the genus Microhyla, 5 others of which live in Borneo. It is endemic to Borneo. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and intermittent freshwater marshes. The International Union for Conservation of Nature does not consider it threatened. Frogs of the species that was eventually described as Microhyla nepenthicola had been known to scientists for at least 100 years prior to its description in 2010. However, scientists had always assumed that the frogs were juveniles of another species. Researchers Indraneil Das and Alexander Haas recognized that they were actually adults when they heard the frogs calling in Kubah National Park, since only adult frogs make calls. Adult males call from the pitcher plants at dusk. The smallest known Old World frog species prior to the description of Microhyla nepenthicola was Stumpffia pygmaea, with a snout-vent length of 10.9–12.0 mm.
OP: It’s awful the direction income inequality has taken in recent decades. Productivity is up, the stock market is up, the money is there, but working-class wages haven’t risen to match. Our generation is poorer than our parents, and many of us will never be able to buy homes, help our children pay for college, or retire.
Commenters: Sounds like someone needs a Personal Finance Lesson!!!! Try putting away just a few dollars at a time and you’ll be amazed how it adds up, sweaty :))))
Also: it’s frustrating how often the Personal Finance Lesson comes out to “have you tried living desperately?”
It’s understandable, if someone is in a jam or saving up for a major expense, that they might have to spend a few years living in a cramped and/or far-flung place, eating cheaply, thrifting clothes, and so forth.
It is not okay if this is the lifelong condition of people who are working full-time.
I don’t blame the personal-finance-advice people, nothing they say is technically wrong, but it’s frustrating and exhausting that this is where our society is at. Where “tighten your belt and live without any luxuries” is advice not for students or people recovering from financial catastrophe, but for adult professionals.
Sure, if all you can afford is rice and beans, then it’s helpful to get some recipes for spicing up rice and beans. But it shouldn’t fool you into thinking that spicy beans is all you deserve, that there’s nothing wrong with a world where CEOs have scientific-notation amounts of money and the working class is scolding each other not to waste money on name-brand beans.
“Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty.
But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It
is like advising a man who is starving to eat less. For a town or
country labourer to practise thrift would be absolutely immoral. Man
should not be ready to show that he can live like a badly-fed animal. He
should decline to live like that, and should either steal or go on the
rates, which is considered by many to be a form of stealing.”
Oscar Wilde said that.
Also, if you’re disabled no amount of saving will do you any good. The state has already decided how much you get, and that’s it. That’s the limit. You can never rise above poverty unless you miraculously get better, and they don’t want to give SSI to people who might get better to begin with.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
You must be logged in to post a comment.