angrysheeptime

[angrysheeptime]

thinking again about vampirism as disability

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That's why I've been so fucking tired recently!!! It's the heat!!!

[angrysheeptime]

made this yesterday to tackle the excruciating pain. ough. thank god for moisturizer

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It's not necessarily smart, but sometimes it's nice to affirm I'm not being dramatic or exaggerating my symptoms. Went out in the sun today without sunscreen, just felt the light again and wow I am so fucking itchy, my skin all red and bumpy. Like it was stupid of me but my tolerance for people saying I'm exaggerating has plummeted.

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Why do I have to be convenient to get anyone to stay? When is it going to be my turn to feel cared for?

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I think I'm doing a lot worse than anyone wants to believe I am.

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I've been disabled for almost 29 years. Here's what I've learned.

Tablets sink and capsules float. Separate out your tablets and capsules when you go to take them. Tip your head down when taking capsules and up when taking tablets. Liquigels don't matter, they kinda stay in the middle of whatever liquid is in your mouth.

If your pill tastes bad, coat it with a bit of butter or margarine. I learned this from my mom, who learned it from a pharmacist.

Being in pain every day isn't normal. Average people experience pain during exceptional moments, like when they stub their toe or jam their finger in a door, not when they sit cross-legged.

Make a medical binder. Make multiple medical binders. I have a small one that comes with me to appointments and two big ones that stay at home, one with old stuff and one with more recent stuff.

Find your icons. Some of mine include Daya Betty (drag queen with diabetes), Stef Sanjati (influencer with Waardenburg syndrome and ADHD), and Hank Green (guy with ulcerative colitis who... does a bunch of stuff). They don't have to be disabled in the same way as you. They don't even have to be real people. Put their pictures up somewhere if you want; I've been meaning to decorate my medical binders with pictures of my icons.

Take a bin, box, bag, basket, whatever and fill it with items to cope with. This can be stuff for mentally coping like colouring books or play clay or stuff for physically coping like pain medicine or physio tape.

Decorate your shit! My cane for at home has a plushie backpack clip hanging from the end of the handle and my cane for going places is covered in stickers. All of my medical binders have fun scrapbooking paper on the outside. Sometimes, I put stickers and washi tape on my inhalers and pill bottles. I used my Cricut to decorate my coping bin with quotes from my icons, like "I've seen enough of Ba Sing Se" and "I need you to be angrier with that bell".

If a flare-up is making you unable to eat or keep food down, consider going to the ER. A pharmacist once told me that since my eye flares can make me so nauseous that I cannot eat, then I need to go to the hospital when that happens.

Cola works wonders for nausea. I have mini cans of Diet Pepsi in my coping bin.

Shortbread is one of the only things I can eat when nauseous. Giant Tiger sells individually-wrapped servings of shortbread around Christmas or the British import store sells them year-round. I also keep these in my coping bin.

Unless it violates a pain contract or something, don't be afraid to go behind your doctor's back to get something they are refusing you. I got my cardiologist referral by getting in with a different NP at my primary care clinic than who I usually saw. I switched from Seroquel to Abilify by visiting a walk-in.

If you have a condition affecting your abdomen in some way (GI issues, reproductive problems, y'know) then invest in track pants that are too big. I bought some for my laparoscopy over a year ago and they've been handy for pelvic pain days, too. I've also heard loose pants are good for after colonoscopies.

Do whatever works, even if it's weird. I've sat on the floor of the Eaton Centre to take my pills. I've shoved heating pads down my front waistband to reach my uterus.

High-top Converse are good for weak ankles. I almost exclusively wear them.

You can reuse your pill bottles for stuff. I use my jumbo ones to store makeup sponges and my long skinny ones to hold a travel-size amount of Q-Tips.

Just because your diagnostics come back with nothing, it doesn't mean nothing is wrong. Maybe you were checking the wrong thing, or the diagnostic tool wasn't sensitive enough. I have bradycardia episodes even though multiple cardiac tests caught nothing. I probably have endometriosis even though my gynecologist didn't see anything.

You can bring your comfort item to appointments, and it's generally a green flag when someone talks to you about it. I brought a Squishmallow turkey (named Ulana) to my laparoscopy and they had her wearing my mask when I woke up. I brought a Build-A-Bear cat (named Blinx) to another procedure and a nurse told me that everyone in the hall on the way to the procedure room saw him and were talking about how cute he was. Both of those ended up being positive experiences and every person who talked to me about my plushies was nice to me. If you don't feel comfortable having it visible to your provider during the appointment, you can hide it in your bag and just know it's there, or if you're in a video appointment, you can hold it below frame in your lap.

Get a small bucket, fill it with stuff, and stick it in your bed (if you have room for it). I filled a bucket with Ensure, juice boxes, oatmeal bars, lotion, my rescue inhaler, etc. in October 2023 in anticipation of my laparoscopy and I still have it in my bed as of January 2025.

If your disability impacts your impulse control (e.g. ADHD, bipolar disorder), you should consider setting limits around your spending -- no more than X dollars at a time, nothing online unless it's absolutely necessary, and so on. Or, run these purchases by someone you trust before committing to them; I use my BFF groupchat to help talk sense into myself when I buy stuff.

Feel free to add on what you've learned about disability!

[angrysheeptime]

the flesh is unwilling and honestly, the spirit isn't too keen on the idea either

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Ah yes the sweet smell of medical plastic and non scented cleaners

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Idk who needs to hear this but feeling miserable doesn't make you a failure or a bad person

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The current "could I be turning into a vampire?" List for shits and giggles, from mild to most damning

- mild anemia

- pale as hell

- light sensitivity in my eyes that causes migraines

- dietary issues to the point where the only thing I feel safe enough to ingest is liquids

- constant meat/protein cravings

- allergic to both sunlight and garlic

To be continued lol

[angrysheeptime]

Pain might build character but I don't need any more characters.

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I think I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that I might not be able to work, at the very least for now. with the sun allergy and the fibromyalgia that eliminates all the jobs during the day and all the labor jobs. That's practically everything and I don't have the skills to work from home. While I'm glad I'm lucky enough to have somewhere to live without being a massive burden on anyone it's wild to have that level of independence that I thought was assured stripped away from me.

[angrysheeptime]

[angrysheeptime]

Was reading a book about the cultural significance of spinning and weaving because it's something I'm really passionate about, but I got really diaphoretic because the mythology is so gender specific. I have a lot of thoughts. prepare for a niche trans rant

They equate weaving and spinning to creation but I disagree, it's transformation. Flax is cut and retted then stripped and refined to then be spun to linen thread and then to cloth. Do you think the flax recognizes what it has become? The nettle striped of all it's barbs and left to rot, do you think it recognizes the soft lace we turned it into?

It is really hard not to see myself in that. A harmless thing my parents grew to see if it would bloom, but while she was pretty she lacked the soul I have. She died, was cut from the soft ground just as she was starting to bloom and left to rot. I stripped myself of my barbs in the hopes that even if I wasn't alive and blooming I could still be soft and colorful.

She may have been alive but can't you see that I'm soft and durable? That I can hold and protect what I love? Am I not still beautiful to you?

[angrysheeptime]

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who can routinely and genuinely say "it's 5am and I am full of joy" lol

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So the store was out of my shampoo so I grabbed a different medicated shampoo, not looking close enough at the ingredients and I have some regrets.

There are several sulfates (historically not something my skin likes), several dyes (again I am a delicate flower), and it smells ✨ rancid ✨

I don't even feel clean! The only reason I think it's soap is cuz it says it on the label.