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blubushie · 3 months ago

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On a note with all this talk, how do you reach out to find out about BPD or any of those without seeming like those “omg I am SO mentally ill 😖😖😖😖😖😖😖” folks?

Like, i am so run down and i feel like something is wrong because I have talked to peers and to make a very long list of observations short, i react ‘wrong’ to situations and stuff (it’s a bit hard to explain, it’s just a long list of me thinking something is totally normal and people going “um.. no??”)

But doctors notoriously don’t listen if you have an idea what is wrong and blame it on it being ‘trendy’

Do you have any tips on how to just, get started on getting help?

Is it even worth it to get help too? I heard that getting a diagnosis can ruin many things in life?

Get a therapist/psychiatrist that can diagnose you. So like a legally licenced psych with the ability to diagnose.

Do NOT approach the topic of diagnosis. Just list out some symptoms you struggle with. List the ones that affect you most and do not list all of them.

Establish rapport. This will take a few months.

Start adding the other symptoms you struggle with other time. Make it look natural like you're opening up to them about things that bother you.

When they start noticing patterns, act like it's a revelation and you have no idea what they're talking about. Don't deny it. Just act surprised. Act like you don't know what the patterns are. BPD? You've never heard of it. "Isn't that bipolar?" kinda shit.

End up diagnosed with the disorder you knew you had from the start.

Do that and your doctor will feel like they're solving some puzzle instead of feeling like you're stepping on their toes and diagnosing yourself. I say this as someone who doesn't like mental illness self-dxers. 9/10 times the diagnosis isn't right and they're just contributing to stigma. Especially since a lot of times the actual problem is something you'd never know existed or had a name because it's not popular enough in laymen's terms for you to even know about (such as AABS we discussed yesterday).

Hell, you might not even have BPD. It might be something entirely different that the doctor is able to figure out and help you with. Don't go in there convinced of you having anything. Don't mention the name of anything you think you might have. Don't rattle off symptoms like you read them on Google or out of the DSM-5.

Also no doctor is gonna diagnose you after meeting you once. It takes years to get a diagnosis because most of the time when people think they have a mental illness like a Cluster B it's actually just individual symptoms presenting in a single person that makes it LOOK like a Cluster B, but the truth is that with therapy most of the time the symptoms go away and what the person actually has is trauma, trauma responses, and maybe some anxiety and/or another mental illness. (For example, I knew a guy who was convinced he had SzPD. Turns out he didn't, he was schizophrenic and autistic and didn't realise he was experiencing psychotic episodes. His schizophrenia and autism presented much similar to SzPD but mostly rectified once he was put on antipsychotics as an experiment to rule out schizophrenia.) Aka, you're fixable with therapy and/or medication. Cluster Bs are chronic, permanent conditions, so doctors won't diagnose them until they've worked with you for an extended period of time and it's made clear that whatever is going on with you is not fixable, is in fact chronic, and it's just the symptoms of a different disorder or illness.

I recognise that I am an outlier with APSD. I was diagnosed just weeks after my 18th birthday. But I was diagnosed with conduct disorder at 14 after a year of therapy, and then I was in therapy for four more years to try and fix it. By the time I turned 18 it was evident the condition was chronic, wasn't going to be remedied with therapy, and so I was diagnosed with ASPD at that point.

So expect anywhere from 2-3 years of therapy before you get a diagnosis, or longer if you're a minor. BPD has no age requirement by the DSM-5 but most psychs won't diagnose in people younger than 18 unless they're very close to being 18 (as in only months away).

As for getting help: yeah do it. I don't think there's a person on this planet that WOULDN'T benefit from some form of therapy. Best case scenario, you don't have BPD and therapy helps remedy what ails you. Worst case scenario, you have BPD, get a diagnosis, and in the meantime therapy helps you learn the tools you need to manage your BPD symptoms (and possibly also gives you some medications that can help with certain symptoms of it). Basically there's no losing here. Find a therapist, it'll benefit you in the long run with or without a diagnosis.

I'll say that the only negative effects a diagnosis has had on me is that I can't adopt children in my home country (this is specifically an ASPD risk factor thing, I don't think BPD has this issue), it's hard for me to buy weapons because I'm a risk factor, and the stigma that comes with my disorder. But the stigma is easily remedied by just not telling people I have ASPD. No one I know will find out unless I tell them. It's not a threat to employment or anything like that.

#blu whos

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mekandawn · 4 months ago

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My char would probably be too awkward to ask for a date since he's already with one of Cay's partners' other partners and he's new to this. But if Cay initiated and asked him out? He'd be so pleased and keen!

Believe it or not, "already dating one of Cay's partners other partners" is a great way to get close to Caythaes! They don't exactly trust their own ability to judge people these days, so if someone they trust says another person is safe, they're much more willing to be open with them.

And of course, since this is anon, it's going to be a bit tricky for Cay to approach! If you want to introduce yourself at Unsent Letters, Cay will do their best to not get dragged off by someone else!

( The real trick is getting around my chronic illness. I'm often tired and in pain, and it makes me cranky or just not up for people, unfortunately. Theoretically, it's fixable, it's just taking a while to get all the pieces into place)

#thank you anon #i've been a bit sad today #this made me smile

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skippygoldfish · 3 months ago

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Just as I thought T_T

If you don't remember, last year I took the goldies to an exotic vet due to Skippy's chronic health issues. They did a skin scrape and couldn't find anything, and thought my tank setup was okay. They said that Skippy likely has an internal issue causing immunosuppression that could maybe be diagnosed with a CT scan. She might have ovary issues, which are likely fixable through surgery; organ dysfunction or tumors, which are probably not fixable; or internal "cysts" due to a mycobacterium infection, which is not fixable.

They were leaning towards the latter, so I did not do further diagnostics, since they are expensive, and she likely has something that cannot be fixed anyway. so it is not very helpful to know exactly what it is other than "her insides are messed up, try keeping her comfortable." Dandy's sudden decline might be further evidence of the not-treatable mycobacterium. But still, I can't stand not knowing, especially with BOTH of them having mysterious illnesses now that I haven't been able to help.

Decisions are very hard for me, and sudden ones, like what to do if they get a new bad diagnosis at the vet, are even harder. I am considering whether I wanna pay up after all just to know what it is. looking back, the vet has a lot of negative reviews, but it's the only vet that will treat fish :')

#g postin

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rum-and-shattered-dreams · 9 months ago

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Writing and life updates (October 1, 2024)

Gahhhh why? Here I thought I was done writing stuff for Engaging Encounter but now I have a need to add more chronic pain/illness Ford content…

Guess it’s not actually done until it’s all posted and even then nothing says my questionable inhibitions can stop me from adding more random one shots or something. XD

This won’t change the schedule for it. It’ll just make the word count higher because apparently I have no self-restraint.

(I seriously wish I was better at art-ing because I have some ideas for companion art for this that just... Won't come out >_<).

Also still working on The Man Downstairs. I'm just trying to sort out something in the next chapter but it's getting there.

Personal/life blather under the cut:

Regarding the hurricane, firstly, I'm sorry if I come off as callous about them sometimes. I've just lived with them for so long that I'm tired. Yeah it's important to prepare for them and be cautious about them and I am but after going through so many times of packing things up, evacuating, putting up the shutters, thinking everything may not be there anymore in a few days, etc, it's hard to not just be tired when another one threatens your area.

For this one, my family and I are incredibly lucky to be okay. Just got a bit of easily fixable wind damage (so easy that it's already fixed). But ten minutes down the road, the storm surge destroyed the homes of friends and businesses that have been part of the community for decades. And I mean the little shops where you knew the owner and they'd been around seemingly forever, building character over the decades. One shop had been there since the 50's accumulating writing on its walls from customers since then. One shopping center of mostly small businesses had been there for so long that it looked like it had been built out of things that washed ashore over decades of collecting it and piecing it together. Another had a collection of decades worth of frog collectibles brought in by regular customers. And those are just a few examples. Heck, my old middle school from nearly 30 years ago with a mural I helped paint on one of its walls was under water.

Yeah it can be rebuilt but that is so much character and history just gone. Some places may not rebuild or reopen because the owners see it as a sign to retire.

So anyway, while I do feel incredibly fortunate to not be in a circumstance like the woman I just talked to who lost the lease on her house because "an act of god" nullified it with two feet of water, I feel horrible for everyone who was affected and definitely feel the loss of community spaces that have been part of people's lives here for as long as they can remember.

#mo's ramblings and such #writing update #gravity falls #fiddauthor #mo's writing and such #the man downstairs au #the man downstairs #the man downstairs fic #stanford pines #fiddleford mcgucket #gravity falls fanfiction

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macgyvermedical · 1 year ago

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Okay so I have a really specific question. Baseline stats? Except my character is already pretty sick, he's got room to get much much worse but right now he ain't great. He's in a fair amount of pain because he keeps having adverse reactions to painkillers from previous drug abuse and yeah. So what would normal baseline be? And then what would a normal baseline for him bc since he's got this illness. It's idk what you call it but one of the illness that get worse with time... degenerative. Except in this world he can be fixed with enough treatment but he keeps refusing said treatment. Yeah I don't really understand vitals and things so I didn't wanna botch it but based on the info what would you assume would be good? Also what's like the worse someone's vitals could be with them still awake and alive although the mental state can be real messed up. (: thanks hon

So our understanding of normal adult vitals include:

BP: 100/60- 140/90 mmHg (a measurement of pressure)

Pulse: 60-100 beats per minute

Respirations: 12-20 breaths per minute

Temperature: 96-100.4F or 36-38C

SpO2: 95-100%

Level of Consciousness: Alert and Oriented times 4 (can answer 4 specific questions about themselves and their environment)

Now, all these "normals" pretty much assume a healthy, white, 20-something male who has a BMI of 18-25 and who has been sitting quietly for at least 5 minutes. So basically very few real humans.

It's very normal to vary from these somewhat if you are exerting yourself, in pain, sick, or otherwise different from the above demographic. So if we're taking vitals, we want to control what we can (generally asking the person to sit relatively quietly for 5 minutes). If we do this and you're out of range, but we have no other data to work with, we will try to get you back into this range. Because again, it's assumed that to get out of these ranges, you must have something going on medically that needs addressed.

For example, if your blood pressure is 160/90 with a heart rate of 110 because you're in a lot of pain, we can correct that by treating whatever is causing the pain.

Now, there's not always an identifiable (or fixable) reason why someone might be out of range, and sometimes we just correct the vitals themselves because chronically high or low vitals may cause problems. For example, as far as we know right now, living for a long time with a blood pressure in the 180s/100s will eventually cause heart failure, stroke, or heart attack, regardless of the reason. So if we can't get that person back into range by fixing something else, we'll give medications that directly lower blood pressure.

But let's say someone's heart rate is in the 40s because they're a runner. That's normal for them. It doesn't cause them any problems, it's not caused by a disease process, as far as we know won't cause them problems in the future, and their other vital signs are in normal range. They are said to have a "baseline heart rate of 40bpm". That tells other medical providers who are working with them that there's nothing to correct there- ignore that weird reading and just fix anything else that needs fixed.

Baseline can also be used if someone has a chronic illness that is as controlled as it can be, but it still has an impact on their vital signs. Say someone has a heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation with RVR and their heart rate without medications is in the 190s or 200s. This may cause symptoms, but if we medicate to control that rate to between 60-100, it may also cause symptoms.

So we might give enough medication to control the rate to 110s, which minimizes the symptoms they experience but still puts them technically out of range. Their baseline, then, is in the 110s. Again, nothing to correct there, it's just normal for them to be out of range on that vital.

Or, someone might have dementia and be unable to answer all the questions that would make them A+Ox4, but maybe can only consistently answer 2 of them. We wouldn't necessarily be worried about that because we know that it's normal for them to be A+Ox2- their baseline, but we would be worried if suddenly they were A+Ox0.

You can also have other measurements besides vitals that are considered baseline stats. Like pain, or blood sugar, BMI, electrolyte levels, or pretty much any other lab value.

As far as what you are describing I don't know that I can give you specific baselines, as I don't know what his symptoms are or how they relate to vital signs. With chronic pain generally vitals eventually go back to normal (say someone rates their pain at a 5/10 consistently, over time their body normalizes around that pain level and other vitals may only go out of range if they have an acute spike in pain).

What I can give you is a few of the following:

Pain: All vital signs go up

Dehydration/blood loss/shock: BP and LOC goes down, everything else goes up

Kidney problems: BP and HR can change but in what direction is due to the specific problem.

Opioid overdose: RR goes down.

Heart problems: Change in HR and BP but directions can change depending on specific problem.

Lung problems: Usually RR and HR go up

Throwing up: everything goes up

Drug abuse and withdrawal: depends on the drug

#whump reference #writing reference #treatment #vital signs #baseline

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thetimetravelinglady · 1 year ago

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Some good news: today was not as bad as yesterday. I'm still very fatigued, but the pain wasn't near so bad and I could actually think.

Better news: had a chat with my boss and he reminded me I have over 100 hrs of vacation time and really haven't had a serious break in over a year and that maybe I should consider taking some time in March, reminding me that my coworkers have all taken breaks and it is good to do that. So that honestly helped my anxiety a lot.

Not so great news: found something I messed up on my currently project at work, but it is fixable, so while I'm not super happy about it, it's not the end of the world.

Chronic illness life is a roller coaster, and while it's not a ride I like being on, I am grateful when there are some quiet spots where I can feel like I can catch my breath a little, and that even when I'm anxious, there's supportive people on the ride.

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gwydionmisha · 2 years ago

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Personal: This Person Just Uncleaned My Apartment

I think I need to tell you about the Cleaner, because OMG, but for that you will need context on my pain/meds situation.

So less pain does not remotely equal no pain. My hip joints were a mess Wednesday, and only a little better Thursday. My shoulder joints, and thus my arms, started to go bad Thursday. The fundamental things wrong with my body aren't fixable, but the new meds are doing a stellar job on what I think of as the secondary pain, IE: everything else not joint or tendon or in their immediate vicinity. It is far more effective than the muscle relaxants I've been using for decades at this since it's hitting the nerves and not just the muscles. It also adds to the tired. So much to the tired. Bonus: on the new dose, I get dizzy if I don't rest enough, and the heart palpitations hit longer and harder when they hit.

Dramatically better means for an extreme chronic pain/chronic illness perspective, not from a remotely healthy person's perspective, if you follow. I was into about a month of unbearable torment when we tried the one pill dosage. I'm still not sure my system can handle the two pills, and I plan to stick to this dose. They are supposed to last eight hours, but I get an extra four hours of partial coverage per pill, and like I said the side effects are scaling up on me.

So right now my balance sucks, I'm exhausted, and my shoulder joints scream at me if I try to do anything remotely strenuous with them, you follow?

So far I've had four different cleaners turn up, two of them twice. Three of those are hard and thorough workers. One of those will not wear her mask. I put up with it because I am wearing mine and turn on all the fans and I'm scared if I don't take her, no one will come. (see five skipped cleaning appointments in a row).

Cleaning is a hard fucking job and they are underpaid, get no benefits, no set hours, and have to pay their own travel costs including for the ferry if they are coming from the reservation and that is a lot of gas. I respect cleaners. I've done it, after all, amoung the many shit jobs I had over the years. I trust them to know what they are doing. This has been the case in three instances. Most of the conversation with those three cleaners has been things like: Where does this go? Where is (whatever) kept? What should i do next? I refuse to micro manage. In my experience, micro managing is dramatically less efficient and just insults the person doing the job. I know I hated it, when I was the person being micro-managed. This works great for Goth Millennial and for the other three cleaners on the other four occasions.

I'm sure you are sensing the big but here.

So the cleaner who came today, turned up the other time she was here high as a kite. I don't mean a little buzzed, which is fairly normal in this town and this state. Weed's been legal here for ages. People with shitty service jobs occasionally come to work a schootch high. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things if, say, your barista's a little buzzed. I don't partake myself for a host of reasons, but most of my friends since... I'm going to say 1985, have/do. A little high is no big deal.

Orbiting Pluto without a suit is. She was way out of it girl at a party who's friends have to watch her like a hawk high. She was barely coherent high. She drove here. O.o. She drove home. This terrifies me. after some consultation with my friends including them seeing the mess she made and me acting out vignettes, our best guess is she must have dramatically misjudged an edible. (It had to be vape or edible. I would have smelled smoke. Edible makes the most sense for both the degree of Jesus fuck high and the thinking she was fine when she left home, but waaaay not fine when she got here. Surely she would have cancelled otherwise, right?).

So basically instead of my working away at the aggregate or tumblr queue programming or whatever, it was a lot like baby sitting a toddler who would not shut up, only the toddler would make more sense and the mess would have likely been confined to things in a toddler's reach. I had to go around after she left and actually use the forbidden to me for safety reasons ladder to save a bunch of my cups and glasses from the accident I could see happening the second Squirrel opened a dish cupboard because he had jammed them in their so precariously that the door was the only thing preventing them falling. Goth Millennial came the next day and had to take everything out and restack it. I could live with the fitted sheet being inside out, so we left that for today.

I did not turn her in to the asshole agency because 1. worker solidarity. I never went to work on a substance, but I've worked so, so many shit jobs and the Asshole Agency is terrible. 2. I was pretty sure it was a mistake involving an edible. 3. I was big on giving people another chance when I was teaching. On fuck up shouldn't lat for ever unless that fuck up was malicious or really damaging to other people.

Well, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me.

No, she was not noticeably high this time, though I couldn't rule a mild buzz out. She also had a shamefaced and subdued demeanor that clearly told me she knew how badly she'd fucked up last time. She said she'd signed up for me on purpose instead of her other option because I was really nice to her and my apartment was full of interesting things to look at while she cleaned. My apartment is full of interesting things to look at and I suspect she liked me because I was consistently kind to her when she was a mess last time and hadn’t turned her in. She really is sweet and nice and she is clearly trying her best but not remotely the sharpest tool in the shed. Which can be fine. I've known a lot of good workers over the years with significant developmental or accident related challenges and they did fine. She wasn't in that category, but I realized she'd need extra supervision compared to the others. I underestimated how much.

She did walk right up to Tavy and start petting him right away like last time which again confused and alarmed him. Sure, Squirrel and I and a couple of the Millennials can do that because we are his particular friends, but he barely knows her and and she would NOT stop doing that last time no matter how many times I told her he was a biter and apt to maul when he was worked up. I was so proud of him because he did not attack her the first three times, and honestly the forth time, I would have bitten her too in his place.

Tavy was noticeably wary of her. He did want to watch what she was doing, but he remembered her. (By contrast, the other cleaners he'd watch from a distance for a while, and then follow around and in a couple cases, get me to pick him up so he could get a better look. He really took to the GNC person who came once, and kept sniffing their legs). He did let her pet him without biting her, and she was together enough to stop when I told her he was down, and leave him alone for the rest of the two hours when I said he was in a mood to hang out and watch but not interact.

I got her through the linen change okay and last time she was so high she forgot we had a dishwasher after she'd emptied it and it took her most of her shift except the linen change, but the dishes looked and smelled clean, so I set her to that and did not remotely supervise her enough. This I did not discover until evening, but we'll get to that.

Then I set her to sweep and mop, which... Like I've worked a lot of restaurant jobs, often with people in a supported worker with severe intellectual challenges. I've never seen one who'd been doing it for years who couldn't do it correctly. She said she'd been doing this for several years.

Assuming makes an ass out of me, doesn't it?

Oh gods the mess she made! I should have known it was too hard for her when she started prepping for mopping before sweeping. So I told her to sweep first, which she did. I told her to dump the water in the sink, not the tub, which turned out to be very, very lucky. (The tub is the most expensive thing I own. A city program that remodels for elderly and disabled people paid for it. I will never be able to afford to fix or replace it. There are super strict cleaning directions for a reason, because the mechanism is delicate.) I told her to use the liquid all purpose cleaner under the sink. I should have got it out and prepped the bucket myself, but bending hurts and I was exhausted and dizzy and my arm situation was deteriorating. I should have done it anyway, because this is So. Much. Worse.

She used a ton of water. Like way, way to much water in a way that suggested she did not wring the mop and/or she was dumping puddles out of the bucket. It was a terrifying fall risk situation because this was the end of her shift and I really really needed to get ready for bed as soon as she left and forage delivery was late so I had to go drag it in, just as I'd given up and settled into bed. So I'm dizzy with unreliable legs, using both hands and going careful back and forth over this swamp of a floor with a weird gritty, soapy texture. Which is... not what you want in a cleaner for elderly and disabled people. I could fall and end up in the hospital under those conditions. And it;'s not like I could want a couple hours for it to dry. There was no point in washing my feet in the bathroom, so I kept using wipes on them before getting into bed.

Then I woke up to pee and realized just how bad it really was. *head desk* My best guess is she used Ajax, which is stored under a bookshelf in the bathroom, not under the sink. Like a TON of Ajax. The kitchen sink and nearby counter was caked with it and the floor was tacky and gritty and full of muddy footprints. I couldn't leave it like that. I cleaned the sink. I took the other mop with the disability friendly easy to wring it out attachment which had been to complicated for her head and wet mopped it all again, frequently rinsing and wringing it out, until my arms basically gave out and I had to wash up and take a nap.

It's still incredibly dirty. I feel like crying, because I can't feel clean unless my feet are. I've been skating around on damp towels, but though my hip joints are a lot better this evening, I wear out fast and it hurts quite a bit if I do it too much. I hate leaving a terrible mess like this for the millennial, but I simply can't mop any more with these arms. I'd have been so much better off giving her something else to do, but I couldn't think of anything else simple enough for her, and I know from last time she will not leave early no matter how much I tell her she can just clock out at the end of the hour.

At this point I was debating what to do. I had settled on calling Monday and asking them to put her on my no list without giving a reason, because I simply can't go through this again. It's too hard on my body and it's incredibly could seriously injure me dangerous.

Then I went to feed the Empress Livia and discovered something worse.

I'm medically fragile. Amoung so many other things, I have an immune system that is far more interested in own goals than fighting pathogens. I can and will catch anything you expose me too. Anything. I also have a dicey digestive system. Anything I use to prepare food or eat or drink needs to be really fucking clean. We prewash for grease and stuck on food then run them through the washer to make sure the soap and anything else is off. yes, I know this is bad for the environment as it uses extra water, but it’s a serious safety issue for me.

I was very, very clear on directions because I remembered last time. “Wash the dishes and then put the in the dishwasher. The dishes in there are dirty, so don’t put them away. I will run the washer after you leave.” Did she do that? No. Were the dishes cleaned and dried, which would be reasonably acceptable as an alternative? No. They were jammed in with the clean dishes, soaking wet and covered in soap bubbles six or seven hours after she left. We'll have to go through all the pans tomorrow. I pulled the pans and dishes I remembered were in the sink yesterday. I have no way of guessing with the glasses and flatware and I don't know which things Squirrel put in there.

I am exhausted and I hurt and I've been pushed way past the limit of what my body can handle in a day and I can't trust my dishes or the glass I'm drinking out of and I can't get the dirty Ajax grit off my feet. I'm going to go take a bath, but my feet will be dirty again the second I touch the floor.

She's another poor person. I feel like a class traitor just putting her on my no list, but she could theoretically kill an elderly person with her mopping, and I can't decide if I should say something, because anything I do will be a terrible option.

This person literally uncleaned my apartment. I just....

Look, I know it’s a free service, but this is so very much worse than when they don’t send anyone.

#WTF?!?#Asshole Agency

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