#(note: i don't do p.e bc of the knee)

[viilpstick]

NOT THE GUY IN MY CLASS APOLOGIZING BEFORE HAND ME A PAPER ASKING ME ON A DATE (I think??!??!?!), I ALMOST PASS OUT OMG

[shwarmii]

also last post i said my body was "likely-POTS-raddled" and like. that is very true BUT ALSO I WANNA VENT A LIL REAL QUICK

i get why i probably have undiagnosed POTS

i can't be outside in the sun/anywhere warm or hot for long without feeling nauseous and sick. meaning i might as well be agoraphobic with how little i go outside since i live in Southern California where our seasons are "hot" and "hotter" with a day or two of rain dispersed randomly. despite feeling like this, i only sweat sometimes, AND no matter what i do my circulation is so poor that i feel icy to the touch even though i feel like i am boiling. as a result, i have the a/c on always (to the point my mama has said i "live in a meat locker" lmao rip), tend to do errands late afternoon or evening, and prefer hanging out with friends into the night. a very frequent symptom of POTS is the body have an inability to regulate its internal temperature, resulting in heat making a lot of POTS patients feel nauseous. poor circulation is also common in POTS patients

while packing, i fainted about four times even though i was eating well-enough and whatnot, simply because i was bending up and down so often due (1) to these boxes i had to fill up and move about and, (2) instead of the usual "i sit for hours" stuff i do (due to chronic leg pain making walking/standing painful), i was taking breaks by sitting for a bit and then getting up. like i started to actually feel dizzy getting up/down even when i wasnt fainting (yet), like i could FEEL it almost happen. and when it would happen, it wasnt "oh, light black dots surrounding my vision with somewhat jelly-legs because i stood up too fast" that id get once in a while for my whole life (i forget if thats bc of low blood-sugat or low blood-pressure but still) but it was proper FULL BLACKNESS and my knees buckling all because i slowly stood up and took a step forward. i had to grab onto things to keep from hitting my head on the floor and got very lucky i didnt lose consciousness >> be unable to grab something and protect my head, bc i was risking getting a concussion from how i was Not Falling Safely (i never learned to fall safely, unfortunately). though a majority of POTS patients dont faint, it is a key-note symptom of the condition and usually happens when the person is going from sitting to standing and whatnot as their body disregulates and overracts to the movement

my medical practioners have gone "huh" and taken my heart-rate twice or three times bc it was "way too high". like. sometimes its been "a normal level of high, lots of people get a faster heart-rate bc going to the doctor makes them nervous" and thats my "normal" with them. but lately theyve been going "...okay let's do that again bc all youve done is walk over and sit down, i get youre severley anxious/have PTSD/have medical trauma but c'mon". apparently, it's common for POTS patients' heart-rate to disregulate and treat standing and walking over somewhere as rigorous exercise, which could explain my "way too high heart-rate"

and other symptoms (my chronic migraines, shakiness, chronic fatigue, brain fog, chronic memory loss, and so many more) and even masked-symptoms (i used to have a lot of shortness of breath so then i got REALLY GOOD at breath control very young to mitigate the issue, like to the point that singers in my life have complimented me on it and said its impressive (i cant sing well tho alas, its in my bucket list to take classes and develop the skill). but i still have trouble breathing after exertion of any kind, but i always have this memory of one P.E. teacher in my head forcing me to take a step back to regulate my breathing back, bc he once told us "Don't you ever stop breathing or hold it in or do shallow breaths when doing somrthing hard. Shit could kill you. Do you know how many old people die on the toliet because they held their breath as they tried to take a shit? Do you want that to be how you die? Your pants down, failing to take a shit? Breathe. Long and deep. Force it to happen. Don't you ever hold it in." lmao thanks, teach)

like

i gET IT. POTS IS LIKELY ONE OF MY (MANY) CONDITIONS

but also im not allowed to have POTS

because the only reason i already knew what POTS was when my friends started going "Hey. Hey, maybe you should look into POTS? Like, maybe ask your doctor about it?" (which she said i couldn't have it bc i dont faint (which i found out is untrue) and we have since discovered ACTUALLY I DO FAINT, i just dont bend up/down often and i also tend to stay seated for hours on end once i do sit) is because of tiktok. like. my fyp put me on POTS Tiktok and i stayed there for a few weeks bc a lot of POTS Tiktok is usually these women showing how their partner cares for them, that love and romance is possible while disabled, that their POTS didnt ruin their date but just meant the pair of them had to sit down on the floor for a while while their boyfriend helped raise their feet. very cute shit, it helped like a soothing balm on my internalized ableism ass' "nobody could ever wanna date me bc im sickly" heart. but yeah. so i was in that hub for several weeks and learned a lot of things about it via osmosis. but so many of these videos featured women fainting so i was like "lol not me" bc i hadnt started packing to move >> bent up/down a lot >> fainted several times yet. but yeah no i (jokingly) refuse to have POTS tho because then that shit means TIKTOK DIAGNOSED ME FIRST. ILLEGAL. NOT ALLOWED TO HAPPEN. NO. UNCONSTITUTIONAL BEHAVIOR. THAT ALGORITHM IS NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE DIAGNOSED ME FIRST, FUCK NO LMAO