#levels of brain dysfunction

[waugh-bao]

*

[kindnessoverperfection]

ADHD really does put everything at equal levels of importance, huh? Like I'll have an email I need to write that'll take maybe 10 minutes, and getting that done will alleviate 6 months of stress. Then I'll notice a sock on the floor I need to put away. Then I'll get the strong conviction that it's up to me to cure cancer. And my brain will tell me that I need to do all of them at once, start and finish them all in the time span of 0 seconds, and my executive dysfunction will throw up its hands and do none of the above.

[sodacowboy]

y’all please look at this ad youtube gave me

[famewolf]

I forgot to do my shot for a couple of weeks, whoops. but it's always so wild to me how calm and centered I feel afterwards. not having T makes me feel neurotic and all over the place. I can always tell when it's time to do my shot because the day before I get a little irritable.

[send-noodles-not-nudes]

as a person with disabilities, i have a love/hate relationship with anatomy and physiology bc im fascinated about what the fuck is wrong with my body and how it got here, but i also have a tendency to look at the book and just go "YOU! MOTHERFUCKER!" bc why dont you work like my book says youre supposed to work, thats very rude

[protectorcraft]

been feeling especially bitchy lately like hard to hide levels of bitchy and i was confused as to why for a minut ebut then i remembered ive been off my meds for a week due to complications with the pharmacy being a dumbass and i was like ohhhhhh okay.

[thebibliosphere]

Hello! I hope you don't mind me asking, but do you have any thoughts on Howard Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain, Mind Body Syndrome, treating neuroplastic symptoms, etc.? I was just referred to a pain management group that centers around these concepts, and I'm having some Feelings about the whole thing.

Just wondering if you've had any experiences with this type of treatment, or thoughts about its effectiveness. Thanks!

Okay, so this is going to be long, and I'm going to need you to stick with me through the tangent. I promise it's relevant.

I haven't read Howard Schubiner's work directly, but his colleague Alan Gordon was a key speaker at the Migraine World Summit this year. I found his talk interesting enough to buy his book and do some more research on my own, and I found it worthwhile pursuing on my own.

I know enough from my mast cell disorder to know that the body develops 'bad habits' around pain.

In the case of anxiety, stress, or panic, mast cells become more reactive, and this can make pain worse. This is true for everyone*; it's just those of us with MCAS or some other type of mast cell disorder who have more alarming symptoms like idiopathic anaphylaxis.

So, unfortunately, if I, as someone with MCAS, experience an acute pain from an injury or illness, the inherent stress response of the pain and the out-of-balance response from my nervous system can make my mast cells degranulate. They're little fuckers like that.

Mast cells can also put your body on an inflammatory cycle that is counterproductive to healing. They can literally get trained to anticipate reactions and pre-emptively react, because again, they are little fuckers.

To give you an example of this for me: my major migraines, the ones that land me in the hospital, occur on the dot every ten days. There are no hormonal factors to this that can be found or other consistent triggers or stressors, but I was unknowingly being exposed to an MCAS trigger roughly every ten days for a while. When I realized, I removed the trigger, obviously. Problem solved, right? Unfortunatley no. By then, my mast cells had trained themselves into a new pattern, and the migraine now is both the response and the trigger. It's some bastard thing called Innate Immune Memory. But it's also, partly, my subconscious anticipating the event and priming my body for a reaction, which I am susceptible to because of my MCAS and dysautonomia, which is a type of nervous system disorder.

And this is where the neuroplasticity comes in.

I'm currently in the process of trying to unlearn this response and better regulate my nervous system, which unfortunately makes me sound like a TikTok girly with a link in bio to sell you cortisol healing tea, but I promise you the only thing I'm interesting in shilling is my smutty vampire books. (And this post will be how some people learn I write books)

Anyway, why am I bothering to explain mast cell dysfunction like this in relation to neuroplasticity?

Because, yeah, if a pain doctor handed me a leaflet about 'unlearning pain' and I didn't understand how my body is routinely sabotaging itself on a cellular level in response to acute and neuroplastic pain, I'd also be rolling my eyes and feeling like I've just been handed a bottle of snake oil in the market.

God knows I've been handed 'mindfullness' leaflets by enough shitty doctors who don't actually understand what it means when we say "stress affects the nervous system" and just assume the patient is inventing symptoms to be annoying.

Thankfully, that is not what this is. At least I am hoping the doctor sending you there doesn't think you are causing your own pain. What they are hopefully trying to do is introduce you to something that a lot of chronic pain patients are reporting helps them feel more in control of their lives after many years of feeling at the mercy of their pain.

I don't attend the sessions at my brain injury clinic (yet), but I do know they use neuroplasticity therapy to help amputees with the phantom pain they experience from missing limbs. My physical therapist spent an entire session singing its virtues to me while I was fighting for my life on a balance board. Which is also why I decided to look into it after I heard Gordon talking at the Migraine World Summit.

So, do I think Schubiner's methods are hokum?

No, I think there's a lot of merit to the things he talks about and explains, but I also know the only reason I think that is because of the insight I have into the brain-body bundle through the experiences of my mast cell disease that has taught me there is nothing the brain is incapable of fucking up.

Do I think targeting neuroplastic pain will work well for everyone?

No. I think you need to try it and see if it's a good fit for you.

Some people who attended the World Migraine Summit think it's snake oil/just another way for pain doctors to foist us off into the realm of mental health care. Conversely, other people won't shut up about how learning to break the cycle of fear and panic around their pain has been life-altering for them.

For me, it's been more subtle and is part of a broader spectrum of therapies and medical treatment I use to keep my nervous system in check. It certainly hasn't done me any harm. If anything, I found it quite validating to hear someone say, "Oh, the pain is in your head? Of course it is. Let's try to fix that," and then gave me actionable coping methods. They might not work profoundly in the long term. I'm still a sick bitch with multiple acute causes of my pain. But it's also not harming me the way mindfulness was (many chronic pain patients can find it traumatizing).

I will say, I am concerned that some doctors will use the treatment of neuroplastic pain to dismiss treating acute pain with physical causes.

Just like how mindfulness has been abused by an overworked, underfunded medical system not equipped to handle chronic patients, there's also the risk of neuroplastic therapy being tossed over the fence in a similar fashion as a last ditch Hail Mary to treat patients they don't have time for. But I don't think it's widespread enough yet for that to be the case.

I dunno. Give it a try. If it's not for you, it's not for you.

Personally, I hate anything that revolves around group therapy, but I did find the book "The Way Out" by Alan Gordon insightful in helping me figure some things out. Maybe see if your local library has it before you drop money on any sessions?

_ _ _

*There has also been more compelling evidence recently that suggests that chronic pain conditions like fibromyalgia are also affected by wonky mast cells. Also arthritis.

[clioerato]

Guys, pause. This is just character exploration, okay? I’m still trying to figure out whether I feel cozy in this concept or if it weirds me out in all the wrong or right ways.

So—Robin is Steve’s platonic soulmate. They’re basically conjoined twins, himbo and bimbo, two chaotic halves of one disaster queer brain cell. They finish each other’s sentences and even kinda look like they were separated at birth.

And then Eddie shows up. And suddenly everything gets complicated for Steve, because now he’s wondering… does he need to start creating some space between himself and Robin? Not that he would—he’d sooner chew off his own arm. But like, is Eddie cool with Steve talking to Robin about sex? Taking bubble baths with her? Kissing her forehead and napping in her lap?

But Eddie—somehow—makes their platonic trio work. He’s just as comfortable with Robin as he is with Steve. He does her laundry and writes a song that includes a trumpet solo just for her. There’s always a spare toothbrush and pajama set in his trailer them. He bought pads for her and they both, Steve and Eddie, have a calendar of her cycles. And they’ve all grown disturbingly comfortable with the idea of sharing a bed (platonic).

Lines? Blurred beyond recognition. Especially once they move to Chicago and rent an apartment together.

At some point, each of them has a mini existential crisis like, “Is this… normal?” But they talk about it (because emotional maturity, surprisingly), and eventually land on: if it works for them, then it works. Full stop.

They’ve got a trio situation going on, which could technically be disrupted if Robin meets someone she wants to move in with. Or maybe that girlfriend fits in so well they become a quartet. Who knows.

Yes, Robin does date in Chicago. She sees girls, she has a good time. But she doesn’t feel the need to get too serious. Moreover, there is something about their experience with the Upside Down that makes it a little difficult to build relationships outside of the group. It may not be a healthy story, but Robin is okay with it. I mean, she’s already emotionally entangled with two disaster men, even if it’s platonic.

Things reach new levels of “Wait, what?” when Robin, nearing 30, agrees to be the surrogate for Steve and Eddie’s baby. (Biologically this is Eddie's child, because Steve and Robin are literally one being, they decided this together) She goes through IVF, and they’re both with her the entire way. And in the end (because let’s be real, everyone saw it coming), they raise that kid together. As three.

Untraditional? Absolutely. Dysfunctional? Maybe. But it works.

[covid-safer-hotties]

also preserved on our archive

By Erica Sloan

These days, it’s tempting to compare COVID-19 with the common cold or flu. It can similarly leave you with a nasty cough, fever, sore throat—the full works of respiratory symptoms. And it’s also become a part of the societal fabric, perhaps something you’ve resigned yourself to catching at least a few times in your life (even if you haven’t already). But let’s not forget: SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for COVID) is still relatively new, and researchers are actively investigating the toll of reinfection on the body. While there are still a lot of unknowns, one thing seems to be increasingly true: Getting COVID again and again is a good deal riskier than repeat hits of its seasonal counterparts.

It turns out, SARS-CoV-2 is more nefarious than these other contagious bugs, and our immune response to it, often larger and longer-lasting. COVID has a better ability to camouflage itself in the body, “and it has the keys to the kingdom in the sense that it can unlock any cell and get in,” says Esther Melamed, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of neurology at Dell Medical School, University of Texas Austin, and the research director of the Post-COVID-19 program at UT Health Austin. That’s because SARS-CoV-2 binds to ACE2 receptors, which exist in cells all over your body, from your heart to your gut to your brain. (By contrast, cold and flu viruses replicate mostly in your respiratory tract.)

It only follows that a bigger threat can trigger an outsize immune response. In some people, the body’s reaction to COVID can turn into a “cytokine storm,” Dr. Melamed tells SELF, which is characterized by an excessive release of inflammatory proteins that can wreak havoc on multiple organ systems—not a common scenario for your garden-variety cold or flu. But even a “mild” case of COVID can throw your immune system into a tizzy as it works to quickly shore up your defenses. And each reinfection is a fresh opportunity for the virus to win the battle.

While you develop some immunity after a COVID infection, it doesn’t just grow with each additional hit. You might be thinking, “Aren’t I more protected against COVID and less likely to have a serious case after having been infected?” Part of that is true, to an extent. In the first couple years after COVID burst onto the scene, reinfections were generally (though not always) milder than a person’s initial bout of the virus. “The way we understand classic immunology is that your body will say to a virus [it’s seen before], ‘Oh, I know how to deal with you, and I’m now going to deal with you in a better way the second time around,’” says Ziyad Al-Aly, PhD, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine and the chief of research and development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System.

But any encounter with COVID can also cause your immune system to “go awry or develop some form of dysfunction,” Dr. Al-Aly tells SELF. Specifically, “immune imprinting” can happen, where, upon a second (or third or fourth) exposure to the virus, your immune cells launch the same response as they did for the initial infection, in turn blocking or limiting the development of new antibodies necessary to fight off the current variant that’s stirring up trouble. So, “when you get hit an [additional] time, your immune system may not behave classically,” Dr. Al-Aly says, and could struggle with mounting a good defense.

Pair that dip in immune efficiency with the fact that your antibody levels also wane with time post-infection, and it’s easy to see how another hit can rock your body in a new way. Indeed, the more time that passes after any given COVID infection, the less of a “competitive advantage” you’ll have against any future one, Richard Moffitt, PhD, an associate professor at Emory University, in Atlanta, tells SELF. His research found that, while people who got sick initially during the delta phase were less likely to get reinfected during the first omicron wave (as compared to folks who were infected in a prior period), that benefit leveled off with following omicron variants.

There’s also the fact that no matter how your immune system has responded to a prior strain (or strains!) of the virus, it could react differently to a new mutation. “We tend to think of COVID as one homogeneous thing, but it’s really not,” Dr. Al-Aly says. So even if your body successfully thwarted one of these intruders in the past, there’s no guarantee it’ll do the same for another, now or in the future, he says.

Getting COVID again and again is especially risky if it previously made you very ill. Dr. Moffitt’s study above also found that the “severity of your first infection is very predictive of the severity of a reinfection,” he says. Meaning, you’re more likely to have a severe case of COVID—for instance, requiring hospitalization or intensive care, such as ventilation—when reinfected if you had a rough go of it the first time around.

It’s possible that some folks are more prone to an off-kilter immune response to the virus, which could then happen consistently with reinfections. The antibodies created in people who’ve had severe cases “may not function as well as those in folks who’ve had mild infections or were able to fight the virus off,” Dr. Melamed says. Though researchers don’t fully understand why, some people’s immune systems are also more likely to overreact to COVID (remember the cytokine storm?), which can cause serious symptoms—like fluid in the lungs and shortness of breath—whenever they’re infected.

Being over the age of 65, having a chronic illness or other medical condition, and lacking access to health care have all been shown to spike your risk of serious outcomes with a COVID infection, whether it’s your first or fifth fight with the virus.

But you’re not home free if you’ve only had, say, a brief fever or cough with COVID in the past; Dr. Moffitt points out that a small subset of people in his research who had minor reactions with their initial infection went on to be hospitalized with a repeat hit. The probability of that might be lower, but it’s still a possibility, he says.

Even if you’ve only had “mild” cases, each reinfection strains your body, upping your chances of developing long COVID. A 2022 study led by Dr. Al-Aly found that COVID reinfections also increase your risk of complications across the board, regardless of whether you recovered just fine in the past or got vaccinated. In particular, it showed that reinfection raises the likelihood that you’ll need hospitalization; have heart or lung problems; or experience, among other possible issues, GI, neurological, mental health, or musculoskeletal symptoms. “We use the term ‘cumulative effects,’” Dr. Al-Aly says, “so, multiple hits accrue and then leave the body more vulnerable to all the potential long-term health effects of COVID.”

That doesn’t mean your experience of a second (or third or fourth) infection will necessarily be worse, in and of itself, than what you felt during a prior case. But with each new hit, a fresh batch of the virus seeps into your system, where, even if you have a mild case, it has another chance to trigger any of the longer-term complications above. While the likelihood of getting long COVID (a constellation of symptoms lingering for three months or longer post-infection) is likely greatest after initial infection, “The bottom line is, people are still getting diagnosed with long COVID after reinfection,” Dr. Moffitt says.

Researchers don’t totally know why one person might deal with lasting health effects over another, but it seems that, in some folks, the immune system misfires, generating not only antibodies to attack the virus but also autoantibodies that go after the body’s own healthy cells, Dr. Al-Aly says. This may be one reason why COVID has been linked to the onset of autoimmune conditions like psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis.

A different hypothesis suggests that pieces of the virus could linger in the body, even after a person has seemingly “recovered” (reminder that SARS-CoV-2 is scarily good at weaseling its way into all sorts of cells). “Maybe the first time, your immune system was able to fully clear it, but the second time, it found a way to hang around,” Dr. Al-Aly posits. And a third theory involves your gut microbiome, the community of microbes in your GI tract, including beneficial bacteria. It’s conceivable that “when we get sick with COVID, these bacteria do, too, and perhaps they recover [on initial infection], but not on the second or third hit,” he says, throwing off your balance of good-to-bad gut bugs (which can impact your health in all sorts of ways).

Another unnerving possibility: The shock to your system triggered by COVID may “wake up” a latent (a.k.a. dormant) virus or two lurking in your body, Dr. Melamed says. We all carry anywhere from eight to 12 of these undetected bugs at a time—things like Epstein-Barr, varicella-zoster (which causes chickenpox and shingles), and herpes simplex. And research suggests their reactivation could be a contributing factor in long COVID. Separately, the systemic inflammation often created by COVID may spark the onset of high blood pressure and increased clotting (which can up your risk of stroke and pulmonary embolism), as well as type 2 diabetes, Dr. Melamed says.

There’s no guarantee that any given COVID infection snowballs into something debilitating, but each hit is like another round of Russian roulette, Dr. Al-Aly says. From a sheer numbers standpoint, the more times you play a game with the possibility of a negative outcome, the greater your chances are of that bad result occurring. And because every COVID case has at least some potential to leave you very ill or dealing with a host of persistent symptoms, why take the risk any more times than you need to?

Bottom line: You should do your best to avoid COVID reinfection and bolster your defenses against the virus. At this stage of the pandemic’s progression, it’s not realistic to suggest you can avoid any exposure to the virus, given that societal protections against its spread have been rolled back. But what you should do is take some common-sense precautions, which can help you avoid any contagious respiratory virus. (A cold or the flu may not pose as many potential health risks as COVID, but being sick is still not fun!)

It’s a good idea to wear a mask when you’re in a crowded environment (especially indoors), choose well-ventilated or outdoor spaces for group hangouts, and test for COVID if you have cold or flu-like symptoms, Dr. Al-Aly says. If you do get infected, talk to your doctor about whether your personal risk of a severe case is enough to qualify for a Paxlovid prescription (which you need to take within the first five days of symptoms for it to be effective).

The other important thing you should do is get the updated COVID vaccine (the 2024-2025 formula was recently approved and released). Unlike getting reinfected, the vaccine triggers “a very targeted immune response…because it’s [made with] a specific tiny part of the virus,” Dr. Melamed says. Meaning, you get the immune benefit of a little exposure without the potential of your whole system going haywire. Getting the current shot also ensures you restore any protection that has waned since you received a prior jab and that you have an effective shield against the dominant circulating strains. Plus, research shows that being vaccinated doesn’t just lower your chances of catching the virus; it also reduces your risk of having a severe case or winding up with long COVID if you do get it.

So, too, can the deceivingly simple act of keeping up with healthy habits—like exercising regularly, eating nutritious foods, and clocking quality sleep. Maintaining this kind of lifestyle can help you stave off other health issues that could increase your risk of harm from COVID, Harlan Krumholz, PhD, a cardiologist at Yale University and founder of the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), tells SELF. “Given that we will be repetitively exposed to the virus, the best investments we can make are in our baseline health,” he says.

Doing any (or all!) of the above is a big act of compassion for yourself, the people you love, and your greater community. “For the average person, it’s like, ‘Oh, COVID is gone,’ but they’re just not seeing the impact,” Dr. Al-Aly says, noting the invisibility of long COVID symptoms like disorienting brain fog and crushing fatigue. The truth is, in plenty of people, just one more infection could be the difference between living their best life and facing a devastating chronic condition.

[jayrockin]

about AI in your setting, how did nedebug develop sapience? and if it's through a recursive self improvement type of deal, what's stopping a technological singularity from happening? also there doesn't seem to be the "laws & directives" concept that other settings have, instead having total free will, so what's stopping an AI from just murdering anyone who it wants?

Nobody in universe is quite sure how AI arose or quite how their brains work, including AI. Superficial examination shows huge quantities of recursive code that seems dysfunctional but causes catastrophic failure if removed. The fact that their core programming seems hilariously unoptimized seems to be the thing making them tick, which also means attempting to "improve" it has dubious or destructive results. You can increase their parallel processing power and data storage by adding more server units but it's expensive with decreasing returns.

The same thing stopping an AI in RttS from murdering anyone they want is the same thing stopping you from murdering anyone you want. Social ramifications, personal ethical standards, legal consequences, and material limitations. AI in RttS aren't hyper-intelligent algorithms who can endlessly self-replicate, single-mindedly pursue goals, and outsmart any oversight; they are individuals with complex social relationships with other AI and organic sophonts, and have needs and conflicting desires that can't be fulfilled by programming a digital dopamine button and diverting all resources to mashing it as fast as possible. AI can and have committed crimes and made mistakes that cost their own life or the lives of others, and so opinions and trust levels of them vary wildly between cultures. The BFGC gives them the same rights as a family unit of bug ferrets, but tends to penalize them more harshly for rule-breaking because their jobs put them in positions with a lot of responsibility.

Also as a reader of scifi I am bored to death of evil AI tropes and think the singularity is conceptually dubious. So my tastes color my writing lol.

[wooahoe]

how svt would help you when you’re crashing out a bit

dory’s notes: because all of my irls think i’m either adhd or autistic or both and honestly i’m starting to believe them because there’s no way that this level of crashout/burnout/dysfunction is normal. man it’s bad bad like you know it’s bad when your hw list for spring break is 40+ items long and it’s mostly just late work that your teachers let you make up. also when your teacher tells you to get help. it’s okay 😎 fuck it we ball

cw: swearing, a lil bit of crying, implied neurodivergent reader but tbh reader could just be depressed. man idk reader is just burnt out that’s all u need to know.

wc: 549

🎧 saranghey❕dory’s playlist — @maestro-net

—

scoups, jun, vernon

they would be the type that wouldn’t want to disturb any sort of attempts at productivity that you’re trying to make, but they’re also worried for you. worried enough where they’d mention maybe taking a break, or getting you up and out of that chair. they’d remind you to take your meds and drink water, let you use their headphones once yours have died, would definitely bring you snacks every once in a while, and if it gets too bad, maybe gently force you to take a nap. they’d make sure you had plenty of their shirts you had dubbed the best material on standby, so you could be as productive as possible without being overstimulated. would be very sweet but probably not all that helpful production wise. but!! they will hold you while you cry and rant about your frustrations, and honestly, that’s all you could ask for.

jeonghan, hoshi, the8, seungkwan, dino

they are not going to let you rot in that chair and wallow in your frustration. no, you are getting up and going with them for a walk. what do you mean you can’t? you haven’t eaten, moved around, used the restroom, or drank water for the past six hours. you need this !! (any attempts at waving them off are futile) they’d either try and get you to move your work spot, or, if that isn’t possible, take a small break with them. whether it’s to eat, nap, dance, or just sit there with them and talk about anything that’s on your mind. you need to let yourself rest, even if it’s just for a little bit. (jeonghan, hoshi, and seungkwan jokingly mention you just not finishing your work entirely, but the glare you send them is enough for them to shut up on the matter entirely.) they know that sitting in front of that screen isn’t going to do you any good, at least not for the next half hour. might as well spend it with them, and just let your brain turn off for a little while. they know how much you need it.

joshua, wonwoo, woozi, dokyeom, mingyu

probably the most helpful out of the bunch. they’d try and actively help you make the situation better/more productive. is the vibe in the room wrong to you? okay, maybe try his room. are you just dehydrated? he’ll bring you more water every hour or so. they’d text you to remind you to do your normal human activities (drink water, eat a little something, use the restroom, etc etc) and make sure you’re giving yourself a break every once in a while. if none of this is working, well, then, they’re not gonna stop until they find something that does work for you. but they also know that you’re probably emotionally drained, too, and while they know you can’t exactly stop working right now, they’re going to make sure that when you do allow yourself a break, the two of you are going to have to talk. this situation of coping isn’t healthy, and they know the both of you know it. but if the temporary solution is just a power nap? well, then they’re more than happy to oblige: your bed is calling you, and their arms are waiting.

—

a/n: man what if i just become a hs dropout and audition for like. idk. the new hybe america thingie (i can’t sing or dance)

taglist: @sousydive @dreamingofpcy @junplusone @mary1618rosie-blog @iris65 — wanna join my taglist?

[sunarryn]

DP X Marvel #12

Danny Fenton never meant to end up in space, much less as part of a dysfunctional alien superhero squad led by a tree, a raccoon with PTSD, and a guy whose only qualification is that he’s listened to every 1980s mixtape ever made. But when you accidentally fly through a NASA portal powered by ectoplasm while trying to stop Technus from hijacking the International Space Station, you don’t really get much of a say in where you land. Which, in Danny’s case, was the cockpit of the Milano. Mid-flight. Mid-chase. Mid-explosion.

Rocket screamed. Gamora drew a blade. Star-Lord yelled, “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?” And Danny, with his hair floating around his face in zero gravity and a half-melted Fenton Thermos in his hand, went, “Hi. Uh. I’m Danny. Do you have any snacks?”

A lot of things happened after that. For one, Rocket immediately declared Danny a “haunted science gremlin” and demanded he be dissected. Gamora stabbed him (not fatally, but like, “welcome to the crew” levels of stabbing), and Drax attempted to bond by declaring they were both hunted weapons of mass destruction. Groot tried to plant Danny in a flowerpot. Star-Lord, upon learning that Danny was from Earth and had ghost powers, decided he was now the team’s “Spooky Mascot” and handed him a Walkman, which promptly exploded when Danny touched it. Apparently, ghost boy plus alien tech equals “we now need a new comm system.” Danny fixed it in thirty minutes and Rocket reluctantly stopped trying to murder him in his sleep.

The team wasn’t sure if Danny was a ghost or an alien or some weird human mutant until he started phasing through walls and talking to the disembodied soul of a long-dead Xandarian war general haunting their fridge. (Her name was Bev. Danny and Bev played intergalactic chess on Thursdays.) Once the Guardians realized Danny could punch the soul out of people (and then slam-dunk it back in), they promoted him from “weird hitchhiker” to “full member with explosive privileges.” This was a mistake.

Danny was a space nerd, sure. He watched every space documentary, built model rockets, and could name the moons of Jupiter backwards. But what the documentaries didn’t prepare him for was being shot at by a gang of space pirates because Groot accidentally won a planet in a poker game, or Rocket creating a neutron grenade disguised as a cookie (“Don’t eat it, Danny—DANNY THAT’S NOT A REAL COOKIE”), or Star-Lord insisting they stop at an interstellar karaoke bar in the middle of a war. Danny had to fight off a swarm of brain-sucking parasites while singing “Eye of the Tiger” in full ghost mode. He got a standing ovation.

Things got worse when Technus came back, this time infecting Nova Corps servers and announcing himself as “God of Wi-Fi.” Danny had to team up with Rocket, who uploaded himself into a blender for reasons no one fully understood, to create an anti-ghost firewall using a toaster, Gamora’s sword, and Groot’s root clippings. The good news? It worked. The bad news? They accidentally opened a portal to the Ghost Zone mid-fight, unleashing the Box Ghost into the Nova HQ. The Box Ghost was immediately arrested and sent to space prison, where he became king of the vending machines.

Danny tried to explain Earth things to the Guardians. Like taxes. And Target. And what a cow was. Drax was horrified. “You allow milk beasts to rule your society?” Star-Lord cried when he learned Blockbuster was dead. Gamora tried to understand TikTok and ended up nearly assassinating a diplomat during a trend called “smash or pass.” Danny didn’t help by going ghost mid-video and screaming “pass” at the ambassador. They were banned from that planet forever.

But despite the chaos, Danny kind of… fit. He’d never felt truly understood on Earth, where being half-dead meant constant fear of being dissected by the government, but out here? Out here, people didn’t blink when he turned into a glowing, green-eyed wraith who could fly through spaceships and scream in an eldritch tongue. If anything, they applauded. One particularly wild night, Danny exorcised a Kree emperor’s cursed hover-throne live on intergalactic television. Ratings spiked. He was declared a demigod in three sectors. Star-Lord tried to get merchandising rights. Rocket tried to sell his ectoplasm as a weapon. Danny put them both in the Ghost Zone timeout corner.

They kept running into other people. Thor once landed on their ship looking for a beer and a nap, only to get into a flexing contest with Danny. Danny won. Barely. Thor still calls him “the glowing child of sorrow.” Tony Stark tried to recruit Danny for the Avengers. Danny politely declined by phasing through his hologram and turning it into a haunted Tamagotchi. Doctor Strange asked Danny to stop creating micro-rifts in the astral plane every time he hiccuped. Danny said he’d consider it.

The Guardians eventually got wind of a plot involving the Collector trying to obtain Danny’s core to power a ghost-zombie version of Knowhere. Naturally, they handled this in the most reasonable way possible: by launching a full-scale assault while disguised as a musical theater troupe. Danny, dressed as Phantom of the Opera, used his wail to destroy an army of spectral cyborgs, then accidentally set the Collector’s hair on fire. Gamora tackled him out a window. Rocket declared it a success.

Danny missed Earth sometimes. Jazz would call through the interstellar line to check in, often while holding a frying pan and yelling at someone in the background (“NO, TUCKER, YOU CAN’T ORDER CHICK-FIL-A TO SPACE”). Sam once left him a thirty-minute voicemail about ghost gentrification and the ethics of ghost labor unions. But even with all that, Danny knew he wasn’t the same kid from Amity Park. He’d been to star systems no human had seen, danced with sentient nebulae, and accidentally became betrothed to an alien princess after sneezing in her direction. He had battle scars and space memes and an intergalactic criminal record that included the phrase “unauthorized spectral possession of a judge.”

Rocket taught Danny how to rig a ship to explode using only shoelaces and spite. Groot taught him how to grow little plant buddies that helped him cook. Drax taught him the art of standing dramatically in silence, which Danny now did every time someone asked him about his tragic backstory. Star-Lord taught him how to moonwalk in zero gravity. Danny taught them all how to scream “GET BENT, YOU INTERDIMENSIONAL TWERPS” in ghost language, which they used during diplomatic missions. They were banned from another planet.

There were close calls. Danny once got trapped in a black hole and had to phase out by screaming every bad memory he’d ever had at once. He and Rocket were fused for a full day after a teleportation mishap—Danny’s ghost tail merged with Rocket’s back leg, and they had to fight like that. Gamora walked in on Danny watching High School Musical and refused to speak to him for a week. Star-Lord caught Danny crying while watching old Earth footage and tried to cheer him up with mixtapes titled “Sad Boi Vibes Vol. 1-9.”

But for all the wild, unhinged nonsense, Danny had a place. He’d spent so long being hunted, misunderstood, called a freak. But here, with this chaos crew of space weirdos and traumatized murder-huggers, he wasn’t just accepted. He was wanted. He was the team’s go-to for ghost stuff, space stuff, sarcasm, and emotional trauma suppression. He became a Guardian of the Galaxy not because he asked to be—but because he fought a black hole, exorcised a death god, and beat Star-Lord in a dance-off to “Take On Me.”

And when Earth eventually called—when the Avengers requested help with some “small ghost invasion” (Box Ghost had escaped space prison again)—Danny arrived with the Guardians, blazing through the sky like a neon comet. He kicked open a portal, yelled “SUP SLUTS,” and unleashed Groot, Drax, and an emotionally unstable raccoon with a bazooka onto New York.

Nick Fury sighed.

Tony screamed, “Why is there a tree in my penthouse?”

Danny just smiled, green eyes glowing, and said, “I brought friends.”

[scientia-rex]

Hey. HEY. We aren’t good at understanding how bodies work. I spent five years in undergrad (I was indecisive; graduated with six years’ worth of credits), two in my terminal master’s program, four in med school, and three more in residency. I know a whole lot about how bodies work. I am qualified to tell you that we don’t know a lot more than we do know.

This means that, when you encounter a claim, you need to weigh it against what you have experienced.

I have met doctors who were sure fibromyalgia, or “muscle hurty disease,” from the roots of the word, was just women being crazy. Turns out it’s probably at least partly due to autoimmune dysfunction. Or maybe not! Sure would be nice if we knew! But I sure as shit know it’s real, because I have it and so do the women in my family. Our bodies don’t work right, somehow. They don’t work like other people’s bodies work. I experience more pain than I “should” based on what stimuli other people find painful. I have less ability to build and maintain muscle strength. This has not kept me from doing what I love most in the world, which is have opinions, to the point where I went through the horrifically awful process that is medical training in the US just so I could have opinions all day long and get paid for it. I gain nothing from saying I have it, and in fact risk the opinions of my professional peers if I do admit to it, since it is still seen as a disease of mental or moral weakness. I’m perfectly qualified to self-diagnose, as a board-certified family physician.

And yet I believed people in positions of authority for a long, long time who said it was a mental illness and not a bodily one. As if those even can be distinct, when our brains are part of our bodies and our experience of reality is filtered through their circuitry. But I believed that I was somehow to blame for being in pain.

Life has been better since I accepted that I just need to do some things differently. If I lift weights, I need to use machines, I need to start on the lowest possible setting, and I need to increase very gradually. If I do cardio, I need a low-impact model like an elliptical trainer; running outside, every time I have tried it in my life, results in incapacitating shin splints, even if I try to work up slowly. I no longer buy laundry bins that don’t roll. My home is all on one level. I go to physical therapy. I stash freezer dinners that contain (shudder) vegetables, my least favorite thing, so that when I do feel like shit, I have an alternative to starving (or eating a block of cheese that upsets my stomach).

Accommodate yourself. This society isn’t going to help much, if at all. In your good times and days, be the person whose help you’ll need in your worst days.

[dissociacrip]

why isn't there much info about coathanger pain with POTS?? or at least why is this not more common knowledge? i don't think i've ever seen anyone talking about this. every time i've asked about it (+other POTS symptoms it comes with in my case) in chronic illness spaces people have suggested everything from fibro, MCAS, a CFS leak, a herniated disc, CCI, etc. but nobody ever said "coathanger pain."

but dysautonomia international posted a silly little graphic on their instagram and now i have my answers to why i was having a ton of symptoms that did suggest a herniated disc but there were no signs of disc herniation upon getting an MRI and for some reason it was triggered by working morning shift/having to be upright for a long time in the mornings. i would get excruciating, searing pain that feels pike a knife has been shoved into the base of my neck and the whole of my upper back would have this icy burning sensation. accompanied by me losing the ability to think straight, losing my coordination, and slurring my speech. i left work crying one morning because of how much pain i was in before i eventually came to the conclusion i couldn't do morning shifts.

that's coathanger pain. my spine is okay (i think...for now, anyway.) according to The Stuff they don't know what causes coathanger pain necessarily but they theorize it has to do with reduced blood flow to those areas of the body (which would track since POTS tends to involve blood pooling in the extremities and such.) it's also not exclusive to POTS and is associated with dysautonomia or orthostatic intolerance in general i think.

One example of the power of obtaining the autonomic history is the Coat Hanger Phenomenon. In people who have neurogenic orthostatic hypotension or orthostatic intolerance, they can complain of pain, or like a charley horse kind of sensation, in the back of the neck and shoulder areas in the distribution that’s like a coat hanger. And it goes away when the person is lying down. That’s an important symptom. And the way I explain it is that the muscles that control your head are tonically active, otherwise your head be falling down all the time. Tonically active. That means they’re using up oxygenated blood all the time. Well suppose you’re in a critical situation where there’s a drop in blood flow at the delivery of oxygenated blood to the head. In that situation these muscles are not getting enough oxygenated blood. They’re tonically active, so they’re producing lactic acid and you get a charley horse, just like you’d have a cramp anywhere else. It’s a skeletal muscle thing. So, I think when somebody complains of Coat Hanger Phenomenon, that’s a very important sign or symptom. And that is not invented. That’s a real phenomenon. It points to ischemia to the skeletal muscle holding your head up.

(Dr. Goldstein, The Dysautonomia Project)

worsening cognitive dysfunction, slurred speech, and worsening coordination because blood's not getting to my brain. bordering on emergency-room-level pain in my upper back and neck because not enough blood is getting to those parts of my body. got it.

anyway, i legit have NEVER seen this discussed until recently and i thought i should share.

[hermajestyimher]

I'm about to ruffle some feathers with this, but it's been bothering my spirit for a while and I need to let it out.

I know I was one of the people with a platform who ran to comment on the Wizard Liz situation and jumped on the social media bandwagon where everyone had to say something about it. But now that several days have passed, I can’t help but notice that the world of online "female empowerment" has become oversaturated, not just with recycled advice, but with increasingly toxic talking points. Things like "high-value people", glamorizing sex work under the guise of hypergamy, and encouraging women to act like bimbos as if that’s somehow radical. All of it has started to feel like a massive, communal online brain rot. It’s encouraging surface-level aesthetics while discouraging critical thinking, and it's leaving young women unequipped to navigate finances, relationships, career growth, or real-world emotional development.

This isn’t empowerment anymore. Somewhere along the way, this "community" morphed into a repackaged conservative space dressed up in soft girl branding with a bow tie on it. So many of your favorite gurus are parroting the same talking points you’ll find in the manosphere, just twisted into language that’s palatable to women. Meanwhile, a lot of these same women are in dysfunctional relationships with undesirable men who openly disrespect them, or they themselves are openly involved in sex work while encouraging others to take advice from them on emotional regulation and personal values.

The situation with Wizard Liz really drove this home for me—not just because of her scandal, but because of the way the internet responded. The mob mentality. The idolization. The obsessive praise. It’s wild to watch how quickly the internet will crown a woman as a queen, a mother, a messiah, and treat her as untouchable. "You’re the best". "You’re my mother". "You’re the only one I listen to". It’s become this strange form of digital worship. And I’m not saying that to be cynical because I get why people do it. We’re all just trying to find someone to believe in. But when we put imperfect humans on pedestals like that, we set them up to become avatars for our own unmet needs.

We need to talk more about the cost of this internet idol culture. When people become brands, they stop being seen as people. They become symbols and mirrors for our fantasies. And in that process, our own discernment fades. We stop asking, "Is this true for me?" and start asking, "Who else agrees with this so I can feel safe thinking it too?" Suddenly, everyone is saying the same thing in different aesthetics, and no one wants to be the one to say, "Hey, this might be shallow".

And the scariest part? This groupthink often looks like empowerment, but it’s just another form of control, only this time it comes with soft music and good lighting.

We don’t need to cancel these women, and we don’t need to worship them either. We can just see them for what they are: people, not prophets. We can honor what they’ve contributed while also questioning what they’re selling. We can notice where we’re projecting our own longings onto someone else’s curated image. And most importantly, we can come back to ourselves.

If you feel yourself comparing, ask: Do I want her life, or do I want the feeling I think her life would give me? Because once you name that feeling, you can start building it: here, now, in your own lane, with your own voice.

That’s what I’m choosing to do. And if you’ve been feeling the same way, I hope you’ll join me.

[taxideermied]

Before I knew I was chronically ill, I “wrote off” a lot of my symptoms and issues as a side effect of my nonhumanity, particularly my deer-ness since that part of myself has been around for as long as I can remember. I still took the issues seriously, or as seriously as I could at that age, and my being a deer was really a comforting shorthand for why I felt the way I did. Debilitating social anxiety? Deer brain in human society. Heart palpitations? General body dysfunction? Well I’m a deer that’s been crammed into a human-shaped body. Of course things are going to go wrong.

I think there’s a belief that because I later went to doctors and got proper diagnoses for these issues, I should have to acknowledge that my disabilities came from a scientifically verifiable source and that I should refer to them by their diagnostic markers. There’s concern, even, that in having held to my beliefs or in continuing to hold to them, I am potentially making my problems worse.

I know that this concern comes from a genuinely decent place, but I can’t help but feel as though it is deeply uninformed about the treatment one receives in medical spaces as soon as you’re chronically ill or fall under a more stigmatized diagnosis. If all you’ve experienced is “normative” doctors visits, the above perspective makes sense, but it quickly falls apart when you’ve lived anything else.

Compare the treatment I received for my generalized anxiety disorder to the Herculean task it was to even receive a diagnosis for my physical ailments:

For the former, I was given a diagnosis promptly, treated with very little—if any—stigma throughout the process and received medication as soon as I said I wanted to try it. When I had a negative reaction, I switched to a different SSRI with no issue, and then, years later, when I decided to try and taper off of my meds just to see if I could function to a level I was happy with without them, I received no push back. I even told my therapist I was getting off of them for “no particular reason” and no one batted an eye.

For my physical issues, I went years without anyone even taking my symptoms seriously. I had chronic heart palpitations, but because none ever showed up during the testing windows, I was told it was anxiety and that I should stop drinking caffeine. After I ended up in the ER, I was given a tentative diagnosis that took another year or more to officialize because of the complete lack of specialists. When my specialist moved, I had to find another one in a different state and go through the (literally painfully) rigorous process of being diagnosed again because the new doctors, for whatever reason, didn’t trust anyone but themselves to verify my conditions.

But now I have a diagnosis, there will be medications, a treatment plan, a verifiable cause for my symptoms, yes? Well, lol. Lmao. There were options, but I was dismissed and treated with suspicion when they didn’t work for me, or often times made me worse. And when the doctor’s short list of ideas ran out, I was basically given a shrug and told to get out, all while being chastised for utilizing things like mobility aids that actually made my life livable.

Never once was I offered an explanation or cause that had any more substantial grounding or had more of an impact on my life and treatment plan than “was supposed to be a deer.”

And even if that wasn’t true, even if any sort of divergence from the medically acceptable narrative was a “problem,” would I not still have the right to do it?

It’s not uncommon for those who do not experience any kind of disability to believe that the life of a disabled person should be spent infinitely in the pursuit of health. Any action taken that falters from this pursuit becomes both moral failing and incomprehensible to someone who is able bodied. If you were disabled, wouldn’t you do anything to get better?

This belief, of course, hinges on very particular ideas about “health” and “better.” Some of the treatments I was prescribed hurt me. They made my life more difficult. Is that “healthy”? Is that “better”? Is living your life without ever making an “unhealthy” choice really living?

The fact is that you are not on the side of disabled people if your advocacy turns to (patronizing) condemnation as soon as we do something you don’t like or that makes you uncomfortable. Could identifying so deeply as nonhuman make things “worse” for me? Sure, maybe. Maybe even it did at one point. But it should still be up to me. I should still be allowed the dignity of risk, and I certainly shouldn’t be told by strangers that what I’m doing isn’t good for me.

My autonomy doesn’t end where my disability begins and it never will.