#Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story

[fantomcomics]

What’s Out This Week? 5/3

Free Comic Book Day is THIS WEEK!! 

The Amazing Camel Toe GN -  Claire Duplan

Constance, a modern, young illustrator, takes revenge for the thousands of attacks suffered daily by women with a comic of her own, titled The Amazing Camel Toe, celebrating the adventures of an anti-macho vigilante in tight, panther leggings: A hero who battles against sexism, harassment, slut-shaming, and unrealistic standards of beauty. A form of release that could materialize in a publishing deal for Constance... But in order for that to happen, the author, often full of doubt, must dare to assert herself more. Luckily, she's supported by her gang of girlfriends, her boyfriend, her favorite band, and not to mention Camel Toe herself: who says this comic-book bombshell can't exist in real life?

Ariel & The Curse Of The Sea Witches HC   

 This new kids graphic novel stars Princess Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid! Princess Ariel joins Prince Eric on his trip to the Arctic to oversee the construction of a new port. But when Ariel discovers that the project is endangering the coral reefs below-and the merfolk who live there-can she convince the team to stop work before the merfolk take matters into their own hands? This hardcover graphic novel contains exciting full-color comic panels, as well as pages taken from the princess's very own journals from their adventures.

The Art Of Haikyu!!: Endings And Beginnings HC -  Haruichi Furudate

The Art of Haikyu!! collects the dynamic and lush color art from the hit manga series, including chapter title pages, illustrations, bonus sketches, and more from creator Haruichi Furudate!

Astrobots #1 (of 5) -  Simon Furman, Hector Trunnec & Phillip Knott

Pathfinders, Pioneers...breaking new ground in the furthest reaches of the galaxy...they are - ASTROBOTS.

The clock is ticking for planet Earth and the race is on to find a new world capable of sustaining human life. New, sophisticated machine lifeforms called Astrobots are dispatched to scout far-flung worlds in the hope of crafting a new home. With food and raw materials running out and climate disasters escalating, the evacuation of the entire human population is the only slender hope remaining. On Colony World 1, a catastrophic power struggle forges a new - all-Astrobot - society, and presiding over this nascent civilization is Atlas, an evolved mech with a futureproof plan. A plan that does not include humankind.

Bandita: A Dominican Superhero GN -  Kayden Phoenix & Ari Navarette 

Bandita is the Dominican gunslinger from New York. When Bandita hears about a Broadway theatre gang taking advantage of the talent, she tryouts for them and lands a job as a custodian. There, she befriends Chyanne, the new lead singer, and learns all about the Cientificos abusive ways. On opening night, Bandita faces off against the boss of the Cientificos, Luna Loca.

Basil & Oregano TP -  Melissa Capriglione

Porta Bella Magiculinary Academy is the finest school for the art of cooking with magic, and Basil Eyres is determined to be the top student. On the first day of her senior year, Arabella Oregano, the daughter of a renowned chef, joins the academy for her senior year as well. The two are instantly smitten with each other, but Basil senses there's something Arabella is hiding from her. Still, the two work together to stand out from the class as the end of year culinary festival approaches. But when Arabella's secret is reveled, Basil is faced with the hardest decision of her life, which has the potential to throw her future aspirations in jeopardy.

Blood Of The Virgin HC -  Sammy Harkham

Set in and around 1971 in Los Angeles, Blood of the Virgin follows an immigrant film editor named Seymour who is desperate to make his own movies. Without money or clout, he has no choice but to spend his days slumming it for the worst and most exploitative production company in town. When Seymour is given the chance to make a film of his own, his unbending principles and relentless drive violently clash with an industry that rewards everything but these traits. As Seymour's blind ambition pushes the movie along, his home life grows increasingly fraught. Using the film's production as a means to spiral out into time and space, Harkham creates an epic novel that explores the intersection of parenthood, 20th-century America, sex, the immigrant experience, and the era of grindhouse movies. Like a kaleidoscope, Blood of the Virgin shifts and evolves with each frame, allowing the reader to zoom out and see that at its core, this book is about the making of a man.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Lost Summer One-Shot -  Casey Gilly, Lauren Knight & Mirka Andolfo

Spike is determined to keep the last copy of his embarrassing poetry from being discovered, sending Buffy and the Scooby Gang on a faux-supernatural goose chase to New Orleans to cover his tracks. At an antiques fair, the group is fascinated by The Casquette Girls' clothes on display. When Dawn utters a wish she most likely should have kept to herself, the gang gains a firsthand account of the sisters' identities... beyond what they could have imagined.

Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness In The Golden Age Of American Comics -  Qiana Whitted

Some comics fans view the industry's Golden Age (1930s-1950s) as a challenging time when it comes to representations of race, an era when the few black characters appeared as brutal savages, devious witch doctors, or unintelligible minstrels. Desegregating Comics assembles a team of leading scholars to explore how debates about the representation of blackness shaped both the production and reception of Golden Age comics. Some essays showcase rare titles like Negro Romance and consider the formal innovations introduced by black comics creators like Matt Baker and Alvin Hollingsworth, while others examine the treatment of race in the work of such canonical cartoonists as George Herriman and Will Eisner. Golden Age comics artists, writers, editors, distributors, and readers engaged in heated negotiations over how blackness should be portrayed, and the outcomes of those debates continue to shape popular culture today.

Every Day GN -  David Levithan & Dion MBD

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl. There's never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that-even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere. It's all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone they want to be with-day in, day out, day after day. But can Rhiannon love someone who is destined to change every day? For the first time on the page, A's epic story will be brought to life as a graphic novel with illustrations by Dion MBD.

Fairest Of All GN -  Serena Valentino & Fiona Marchbank

Disney's New York Times-bestselling Villains series comes to life in this graphic novel adaptation of the book that started it all! The tale of the young princess, Snow White, and her evil stepmother, the Wicked Queen, is widely known-the Queen was jealous of the girl's beauty, and this jealousy culminated in the Queen's attempt on the sweet, naive girl's life. But what caused the Queen to become so, well, wicked? Perhaps the Queen hated her stepdaughter for her resemblance to the King's first wife. Perhaps she resented the girl for her beauty. Could the Queen simply have been born that cruel? Or does it have to do with a mysterious mirror, gifted to her upon her wedding and swirling with dark magic? And who is the man in the mirror? Is he the reason for the Queen's downfall?

George’s Run: A Writer’s Journey Through The Twilight Zone GN -  Henry Chamberlain

George Clayton Johnson was an up-and-coming short story writer who broke into Hollywood in a big way when he co-wrote the screenplay for Ocean's Eleven. More legendary works followed, including Logan's Run and classic scripts for shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. Late in life, Johnson befriended comics journalist and artist Henry Chamberlain, and the two had long chats about his amazing life and career. Now Chamberlain pays tribute to his late friend in the graphic novel George's Run, which brings Johnson's creative milieu to life in vividly illustrated color panels. The result feels less like reading a conventional biography and more like sitting in on an intimate conversation between friends as they recollect key moments in pop culture history.

Haunthology GN -  Jeremy Haun

From creatures of the night to even more terrifying creatures of the day, HAUNTHOLOGY is an anxiety-inducing collection of 28 short stories and vignettes from the mind of JEREMY HAUN, the writer and artist behind THE BEAUTY, THE REALM, The Red Mother, The Approach and other nightmarish mindscapes. Whether exploring a claustrophobic old house full of nefarious entities or the heavy thoughts one has during the pending end of the world, this very personal project was written and drawn entirely during the COVID lockdowns.

Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story GN -  Julia Wertz

In her keenly observed graphic memoir, celebrated cartoonist Julia Wertz chronicles her haphazard attempts at sobriety and the relentlessly challenging, surprisingly funny, and occasionally absurd cycle of addiction and recovery. Opening at the culmination of a disastrous trip to Puerto Rico, Julia stands stupefied in the middle of the jungle beside a rental Jeep she's just crashed. From this moment, the story flashes back to the beginning of her five-year journey towards sobriety that includes group therapy sessions, relapses, an ill-fated relationship, terrible dates, and an unceremonious eviction from her New York City apartment. Impossible People portrays the lesser told but more common story of addiction: That the road to recovers is not always linear.

Lo & Behold GN -  Wendy Mass & Gabi Mendez

When you're named after a 250-year-old tortoise, you grow up believing life is full of possibilities and wonder. But ever since Addie's family got turned upside down, those things have been harder for her to see. The last thing Addie wants to do is make a new friend, but when her dad's summer job takes them across the country, she meets Mateo and finds herself caught up in an exciting project. With the help of a virtual reality headset, she's suddenly scaling castle walls, dodging angry kittens, and seeing the world in whole new ways. Plus, she has an idea that could be bigger than anything she's imagined before, but can she right some wrongs first... or is it too late?

Lovely Muco! GN Vol 1 -  Takayuki Mizushina

Lovely Muco! is a story that depicts the lovely everyday life of Komatsu-san, a glassmith, and his pet dog Muco. Shiba breed Muco's wish is that Komatsu-san could become a dog!

Maple Terrace: Tales From One Dirty Tree #1 (of 3) -  Noah Van Sciver

From a multiple-award-winning cartoonist, Noah Van Sciver comes the brand new three-part autobiographical comic series, Maple Terrace. Hilarious and forlorn stories from the author's childhood, surrounded by 90s comics, cartoons, toys, deprivation, and painful nostalgia. Noah was a regular contributor to MAD Magazine and has written and drawn numerous bestselling graphic novels including One Dirty Tree (Uncivilized), the Fante Bukowski: Struggling Writer (Fantagraphics), and Joseph Smith and The Mormons (Abrams).

Monomyth #1 (of 6) -  David Hazan & Cecillia Lo Valvo

Magic is all but extinct. When the last ailing wizard casts a final desperate spell to summon the descendants of ancient bloodlines to a school for magic now in disrepair...those chosen ones find a horror of the likes they've never experienced. They will have to confront the deepest parts of themselves, their tragic pasts, and defeat each other to survive the ordeal.

The Princess & The Grilled Cheese Sandwich GN -  Deya Muniz

Lady Camembert wants to live life on her own terms, without marriage. Well, without marrying a man, that is. But the law of the land is that women cannot inherit. So when her father passes away, she does the only thing she can: She disguises herself as a man and moves to the capital city of the Kingdom of Fromage to start over as Count Camembert. But it's hard to keep a low profile when the beautiful Princess Brie, with her fierce activism and great sense of fashion, catches her attention. Camembert can't resist getting to know the princess, but as the two grow closer, will she be able to keep her secret?

Quality Assurance In Another World GN Vol 1 -  Masamichi Sato

You think you're living a quiet life in the countryside. Then, one day, a dragon shows up, and everything changes-not because of the fire-breathing serpent, but because of Haga, the man who shows up and "debugs" the situation. Can it be that your life is nothing like what you thought? And what, exactly, is "QA?" A thrilling isekai action fantasy from a fresh, new perspective!

Star Signs #1 -  Saladin Ahmed, Megan Levens & Kelly Fitzpatrick The constellations of the zodiac fall to earth, granting twelve ordinary people from very different walks of life the superhuman powers of the Starsigns. But each of them is about to learn that power always comes with a price...  

Survival #1 (of 5) -  Sean Lewis, Bryndon Everett & Tom Coker

When Emma Reed journeyed back to her hometown in Alaska, she was expecting little more than a tense family reunion at the annual military alumni get together. But early that morning, a plane crash landed in the thick woods near the mountain. And the creature within brings an ancient terror to the last American frontier, and will turn this unspoiled wilderness into a killing ground.

The Twilight Man: Rod Sterling & The Birth Of Television HC -  Koren Shadmi

We recognize him as our sharply dressed and charming guide to The Twilight Zone, but the entertainment business Rod Sterling got his start in saw him as something very different. This "angry young man" pushed the boundaries of television through the lens of science fiction stories that explored the nature of humanity while rejecting notions of war, censorship, and racism. But the monsters he crafted for the screen were far from the only ones that inhabited Sterling's life, from PTSD to the struggles of working in the entertainment industry.

Welcome To Demon School, Iruma-Kun! GN Vol 1 -  Osamu Nishi

Iruma Suzuki has always been eager to please, even at the cost of his well-being. Worst yet, he's the son of two selfish parents who end up selling him to a demon. Thanks to their totally irresponsible actions, Iruma has found himself living in the Netherworld, where he must live and attend school as the grandson of an older demon. Luckily, his new, doting grandfather is there to help, but Iruma will have to figure out how to blend in with his demonic classmates or risk getting eaten. All he needs to do is subjugate rival classmates, summon familiars, and do other typical demon things while never revealing that he's human... Piece of cake, right?

Whatcha picking up this week, Fantom Fam? 

#WOTW #What's Out This Week? #comic #comics #comic book #comic books #manga #Welcome To Demon School Iruma-Kun! #The Twilight Man: Rod Sterling & The Birth Of Television #Survival #Star Signs #Quality Assurance In Another World #The Princess & The Grilled Cheese Sandwich #Monomyth #Maple Terrace #Lovely Muco! #Lo & Behold #Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story #Haunthology #George’s Run: A Writer’s Journey Through The Twilight Zone #Fairest Of All #Every Day #Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness In The Golden Age Of American Comics #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #Blood Of The Virgin #Basil & Oregano #Bandita: A Dominican Superhero #Astrobots #Haikyu!! #Ariel & The Curse Of The Sea Witches

[communistchilchuck]

Sohaib reached out to me to help share his father's fundraiser. His father Bahaa, a Palestinian architect, is urgently raising money to help evacuate he and his displaced family from Gaza to Egypt and receive medical treatment. He has only made kr1,040 SEK out of his kr1,630,000 goal so far, and the IOF's planned invasion of Rafah is imminent. Please share and donate, and if you can't donate, please still share!

Sohaib's Twitter/X account: @sohaibjazzar

From Bahaa's GFM:

please note

conversion rate is (100 USD = 1087 SEK)

Dear compassionate supporters,

I extend my heartfelt plea to you, driven by the urgency of the dire situation my family faces in the chaos of Gaza, a war-torn region. I am Bahaa Aljazzar, an Architect and university lecturer with more than 23 years of experience, I come to you seeking your generous support to evacuate my beloved 21 family members from the hazardous conditions we currently endure in Gaza and relocate us to safety in Egypt.

I tell my story as one of thousands of stories in the Gaza Strip. I am 47 years old. I support a family consisting of 10 members, me, my wife, six sons, and two daughters. I hope God protects them for me. I also support my father's family, who is 73 years old, and my mother and two sisters. May God protect us all in the light of a fierce war. A person is not the guarantor of his life or the life of his family, especially since my parents and I suffered from chronic diseases (diabetes and high blood pressure) that have affected our health. In the past few days during this war, I suffered a stroke that led to an obstruction in my movement on the right side of my body. I seek to find a speedy recovery.

Meet my remarkable family:

Me(47 years): A creative architect, university lecturer with over 23 years of experience, and the breadwinner of this family.

Eman(35 years): A loving, ambitious, and struggling mother and wife who was the reason for most of my successes.

Sohaib(22 years): My eldest son is ambitious and has big dreams in the world of software development, as the war prevented him from continuing his academic career in his final year of Bachelor of Application Development.

Basmala(19 years): She is diligent and persistent, as she completed her high school studies last year with impressive distinction, with a grade point average of 96.4%, but the occupation soon prevented her from achieving her dream of studying human medicine.

AbdulAziz(17 years), Deema(14 years), Moath(12 years), Anas(10 years), Kinan(8 years), and Fathi(6 years): The rest of my children were attending their schools, but since the beginning of this year and in light of this cruel war, their hope has been cut off and their dream of completing their studies has become almost impossible.

My father's family:

Dad(73 years): A civil engineer who implemented many reconstruction projects and worked with many local and international institutions.

Mom(66 years): Amazing teacher.

My Sister Najwa(32 years): She holds a master's degree in the fundamentals of religion.

My Sister Maha(31): Arabic language school.

I would like to draw attention to my sister Najla (46 years), who is displaced with us. Her husband was martyred and she lost her home in Gaza City. She has a son whom she seeks to raise, Obaida (19 years). He finished high school last year, but the war also prevented him from studying at university, she also has a daughter Afnan (26 years), who is enrolled in studying for a master’s degree in laboratory analysis, but the war stood in the way of all ambitions.

I also want to talk about my brother Muhammad (35 years), who is younger than me and supports a family of 4 people, his wife Hanaa (30 years), and his two daughters, Lana (6 years) and Raneem (3 years). It is difficult for him to fully support them due to the physical and psychological pressures of war, as he worked before the war. Graphic designer and technology educator.

As I write to you, the Israeli army’s planned invasion of Rafah grows ever closer. Asking for help is not easy, but we are left with no choice if we want to survive. As we strive to rebuild our broken lives, we are very grateful for any help you can give. Thank you for your kindness and generosity in our time of need.

Urgent case:

I suffered a stroke several times, the last of which was several days ago during the war when there were no medical services or hospitals, which made doctors unable to diagnose my condition accurately because there was no CT scan and the a lack of appropriate treatment.

And also my parents who need health care.

Financial Details:

Travel company (YA HALH) costs $5,000 for people over 18.

And $2,500 for people under the age of 18.

A total of $87,500 to evacuate the Aljazzar family from Gaza to Egypt.

And $5,000 to cover the expenses of treating Bahaa and his parents who suffer from chronic diseases (diabetes and blood pressure).

And an additional $30,000 to cover the cost of living and basic family needs.

Thank you for your kindness during this challenging time. Your support is crucial in this humanitarian endeavor.

any additional donations will go for their survival in Egypt and their return when the war ends.

Gratefully,

Bahaa

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #mutual aid

[rubyvroom]

Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story by Julia Wertz

#comics #julia wertz #impossible people

[ezekieltobiasfletcher]

"The 12th street meeting was in a small dingy basement and was attended by mostly people over 50. It was distinctly unhip and undramatic. I loved it. I have found my people."

—Julia Wertz, "Impossible People, A Completely Average Recovery Story"

One of the reasons I love the library and books: reading other people's thoughts gives me anchors to tie my drifting feelings to. These artists' words give my feelings a voice, and once my feelings have a voice, I can communicate with them.

So what did Julia Wertz give my feelings a voice to say this morning? I have always been distinctly unhip and I love striving for an undramatic life.

In my current quest to improve my self-esteem, reading these words gave me a milestone that feels good. Better than good. It feels like a warm hug deep in my soul. I am fully embracing that I am unhip. I've never been one of "the cool kids". I wasn't even hip enough to be one of those outsider types that was cool because they didn't give a fuck that they weren't one of the popular cool kids. Instead of just being me, I've spent most of my life trying to fit in. I've been wearing masks and filled with dread that some alpha of the cool group of people was going to rip my mask off, point, laugh, and yell, "POSER!" Obviously I still have more work to do letting go of the baggage I've been carrying around since I was a US military brat changing locations and schools every 2 to 3 years.

Despite still having a long row to hoe in developing my self-esteem, reading this graphic novel has shown me that I'm on the right path. I now feel more pride than shame that I am unhip. I feel freedom in being unhip. Dare I say I feel thankful that I don't need to worry about being one of those middle age people desperately trying to stay hip. I need to be sure to keep my ego in check; I'm just another bozo on the bus. Building my self-esteem doesn't mean that I am better than anyone; however, I'm no longer less than anyone, anymore.

#me #personal #recovery #spiritual awakening #12steps #wisdom #self esteem #self worth #julia wertz #impossible people #unhip #undramatic

[urbaneturtle]

Random Comic Panel of the Week #109

Random Comic Panel of the Week #109: Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story (2023, Black Dog & Leventhal) by Julia Wertz

Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story (2023, Black Dog & Leventhal) by Julia Wertz

View On WordPress

#cartoonist #comic books #comic strip #comics #Impossible People #Julia Wertz #random comic panel

[chazzbot]

My Year in Reading: 2023

Here is every book I read over the last year, listed in the order I read them. These are the books I read cover-to-cover and completed. Books I particularly enjoyed are in boldface. Books I’ve read multiple times are marked with an asterisk.

James Tiptree, Jr. - The Girl Who Was Plugged In*

Kazuo Umezz - The Drifting Classroom, Vol. 2

Vonda N. McIntyre - Screwtop*

Hitoshi Iwaaki - Parasyte 8

James Spooner - The High Desert

Ernest Hemingway - True at First Light

Adrian Tomine - The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist

Jeff Lemire - Mazebook

Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell - Norse Mythology, Vol. 1

Veronica Roth - Arch-Conspirator

Annie Ernaux - Getting Lost

Seamus Heaney - The Burial at Thebes

John Connolly - Every Dead Thing

Alexander Theroux - The Enigma of Al Capp

Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips - Fatale, Book Two: The Devil's Business

Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips - Fatale, Book Three: West of Hell

Jason - Upside Dawn

Nick Hornby - Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius

Scott Snyder & Jeff Lemire - A. D. : After Death

Kurt Cobain: The Last Interview and Other Conversations

Alisa Kwitney & Mike Norton - Mystik U

Kelly Barnhill - The Crane Husband

Steve Brodner - Living and Dying in America: A Daily Chronicle, 2020 - 2022

Hua Hsu - Stay True

Stephen King - Billy Summers

Heidi Julavits - The Folded Clock: A Diary

Salman Rushdie - Joseph Anton: A Memoir

Alberto Moravia - Agostino

Don Winslow - City on Fire

Paul Auster & Spencer Ostrander - Bloodbath Nation

David Milch - Life's Work: A Memoir

Larry McMurtry - Horseman, Pass By

Patti Smith - A Book of Days

Gahan Wilson - Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons, Book Three: 1994 - 2008

Claire Keegan - Foster

Lucinda Williams - Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You

Fantasy & Science Fiction (Oct/Nov 2000)

Fantasy & Science Fiction (January 1972)

Michael Connelly - Dark Sacred Night

Denise Mina - Three Fires

Jon Fosse - Aliss at the Fire

Kristen Radtke - Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness

Bob Layton - Hercules: Prince of Power*

Gahan Wilson - Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons, Book One: 1957 - 1973

Annie Ernaux - The Young Man

Julia Wertz - Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story

Sean Murphy - Batman: Curse of the White Knight

Paul McCartney - 1964: Eyes of the Storm

[tiny-tigers]

✨ Helloooo! Apologies again for the radio silence 😭💖 things are a bit hectic on this end! How's your recovery getting on sweetie???🙏🏻🩷

OMG I didn't know that about Jacky's dad!!! 🫨 Okaaaay now lots of things are beginning to make sense....

*insert 'the pieces have been put together' meme*

I think unless he comes back better from this injury then you're right, I don't see his play improving too much? 😬 It's kinda weird that I no longer think of them as 'junior players' as they've done so much, but even though they're still young they seem to have lost that zesty youthfulness of 'trying to break into the first team' edge they had - if that makes any sense??

Drunk Fred is not the one, thanks Ellis.

I completely agree - I can defo see Fred leaving for a new challenge one day? Seems that sort of character - likes to be out of his comfort zone? *bleurgh no thnx* 😂

Interesting message from that fan! I've been getting the vibe for a while now that he's stopped enjoying fan interaction as much? Not surprising given his bigger profile now but sounds like I'm wrong! 🙈😆

No worries no worries , all is getting in place slooooowly. I Feel frozen in time ? I still have 4 jabs left before being left alone and still under painkillers, one scar is a bit nasty still impossible to sleep like I used to. No flip on the belly for sure I am like my eggs I sleep sunny sided.

I hope it could cool down a bit for you as well everyone need good vacay and family time during this period.

Yes totally !! Jeff played for sarries as a forward and 1 big man came and took his place 😤 poor papa Jeff... Bye Bye rugby career. Jacky wanted and was a fly half anyways before becoming who he is so I think he is not afraid of shifting for a role but being replaced and issues that can be linked to that oh well.... always in the moove uh. Idk how you analyse it the bigger picture But yes papa Jeff is his idol.

His mom was selling his stuff on Facebook btw 🤣 I bloody love one of his pants I bought while in norfolk it is super practical for this weather and fencing but omg does he actually walks on his butt ? 🤣😂 it is always the most used part. He can clean and mop floors with that bum. *Sorry*

Mmmmh he is a sweet potato but he is average. I do realize that , when his brain isnt used to his full potential and light up like a christmas tree he is losing a lot of his depth. He was bloody fantastic in U20 but since thenn.. eeeerhm... Even for a scrum half his stats are against him he should have marked as much tries as Fred already due to his speed and position. He has nothing special for him as a weapon except the power of his kick but he uses it super badly. Like Idk what he has in his legs but he can throw missiles but it lands super bad when he could do balls like George🎯.... 🤦‍♀️....And still not a bloody drop goal in 22 years. Easy peasy for me to criticize when I love him more than myself I might sound harsh but I want him to stop being relucant and afraid.

They are on full speed circuit and there is more motivated and more talented behind them if they lose their will to fight so no they aren't young player anymore.

No excuses.

I think Fred would beneficiate from another mindset and club than leicester more suitable to his envy and goals. I cannot see him settle for long in Leicester while on the other hand it is in Jack dna to be new ben youngs and to be the next goofball farmer 9 that will die on that welford road pitch ! I do love ben for that honestly !?. ...And Dan Cole ??? Amazing.

I hate When people are not faithful to their club... I was broken for George but he gave his most beautiful years to the club.

You sound very negative lately or it is just me ? :( is there something wrong other than Fred interest getting loose ?

I actually had a surprise today because Fred did go to see my friend story and he never does that ??? So super surprising when Jack has been absent all day. It is usually the opposite. I have seen zero post for Fred birthday tho...strange.

[jimmyaquino]

Comic News Insider Episode 1397 - Julia Wertz Returns!

Comic News Insider: Episode 1397 is now available for free download! Click on the link or follow on Spotify/subscribe on iTunes!

Jimmy and Producer Joe welcome back (after a loooooong time) the amazingly talented and hilarious Julia Wertz. Last time she was on was Episode 312 back in January 2011. It was also Producer Joe's last show that he co-hosted full time so she holds a special place in the CNI annals. They talk about her new book IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE: A COMPLETELY AVERAGE RECOVERY STORY. Along with the book talk, they also chat about drinking, illegal NYC apartments, musicals (especially Les Miserables), Christmas, urban exploring, being a new mom, The New Yorker, returning to NYC for a visit, mom jokes, stick figure comics and so much more. Such a delightful and fun catch-up. Also, get a hold of us!

Thanks for listening!

[scripttorture]

I have a character who was a slave but was rescued and freed after about 2 years in slavery and eventually goes on to rescue other people in slavery. While in slavery, he was punished often with denial of food as well as being whipped and beaten when he refused to work. He also had his tongue partially cut out as a punishment. I already have a good idea about the psychological effects he is going to have, but I’m struggling with the physical effects and how long it would take to recover

Part of the answer here depends on this character’s age because while adults can generally make a good recovery from periods of starvation the effects on children (especially young children) are a lot more long lasting.

 The best places to start for the effects of starvation on adults are probably the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and the World Health Organisation (WHO, general link here, 1999 pamphlet on malnutrition in all ages here).

 Recovery is generally pretty quick unless someone’s at the point where they’re near death.

 Refeeding syndrome can be an issue in some cases (especially famine or forced labour camps) but it doesn’t have to be one here. If the character is eating normally (as opposed to being fed by IV for instance) then refeeding syndrome is less likely. My understanding is that this is because the body suppresses appetite during starvation so that it only takes in what it can manage (appetite recovers quickly as the patient regains weight.)

 There’s a detailed NHS guide to refeeding in adult here. It should give you an idea of how at risk your character is and how much food he’ll be able to handle in his first few days of recovery.

 A physical recovery period of around 1-3 months depending on the degree of starvation is reasonable. In this case by ‘recovery’ I mean being able to do normal physical activity, a return to previous healthy weight, or higher weight, return to normal appetite and nutrient levels.

 Recovery can be delayed by additional illness: it’s easier for starving people to contract diseases or infections and it takes longer for them to fight them off.

 There’s also a difference depending on whether you’re talking about a character who is consistently under fed and forced to work versus a character who is usually provided with enough food but sometimes denied food completely/on very reduced rations for periods of a few days. Consistent starvation and malnutrition is much more usual in slavery and… much more likely to be fatal.

 A character that has short periods where food is denied them (no more then two days) and is then allowed to eat as much as they want is probably not going to need hospital supervision/treatment for starvation. If that doesn’t sound like your character then the procedure is usually just to let the person eat as much as they want of whatever they want. The difficulty for people at this sort of stage is more about organising giving out food then it is about keeping doctors on hand to monitor them.

 Now I know less about this but I think there is some evidence that this sort of pattern of intermittent starvation (ie periods where the character is starved, then allowed to eat and this is repeated) can cause some pretty serious health effects. It can also make disordered eating behaviour more likely.

 On a cosmetic level it’s also linked to weight gain.

 Which ever option you’re picturing the following effects are all likely:

loss of muscle mass

lack of coordination

weaker bones

higher chance of hypothermia or heat exhaustion

fainting

poor circulation

higher chances of disease and infections

longer recovery time and more difficult recovery from disease and infections

 A survivor can get to a point where they’re no longer at immediate risk before they’re back to full health. It takes time to recover bone and muscle mass. It takes time for the internal organs to get back to normal. It takes time for enough fat to build up so a person’s body can regulate heat properly.

 There’s also a difference between someone being at peak physical fitness and getting back to average. My understanding is that if someone’s survived significant periods of starvation they’re… unlikely to reach peak physical fitness. If this character was an athlete or a super hero or otherwise had a physically demanding profession, they’re likely to notice a difference even when they’re ‘better’.

 They could improve with time and practice but they may never get back to their prior ability level.

 There’s evidence of epigenetic effects; the children of people who recover from starvation are likely to be shorter then the children of people who have never starved.

 The Minnesota Starvation experiment theorised that after a successful recovery there were few long term effects of starvation. There’s some evidence now that this was an optimistic conclusion but it’s difficult to get a clear picture because of the ethics around studying starvation.

 For young children starvation results in an adult who is:

physically weaker

less intelligent

more prone to illness

less able to fight off illness

has a shorter life expectancy

is physically smaller

 Starvation of children represents a blunting of potential: they will never reach their full strength or intelligence even if they may be stronger/smarter then some individuals. And there is really nothing that can be done to treat that. They needed food over a crucial period and did not receive it. The damage is done and can not currently be treated or healed.

 Beatings over a long period of time and forced labour both have a tendency to cause chronic pain in the joints. Shoulders and knees seem particularly common.

 There are a lot of possible causes for this sort of chronic pain. Ligament and muscle damage s possible. Beatings with objects can cause bone fragments to uh break away and lodge in soft tissues. Soft tissues around joints can be damaged.

 And there are also psychological causes or combinations of both physical damage and psychological causes.

 For instance this is something I saw in an account from a survivor of child abuse. The survivor had been punished using standing stress positions and he found as an adult that he got shooting pains in the backs of his legs while stressed at work. With the help of his doctors he found that when he was stressed he leaned forward on to his toes, mimicking part of the stress position he’d been subjected to as a child. This put more strain on his legs and caused the pain.

 These kinds of responses can be very difficult to stop.

 What I’m trying to illustrate here is that disabling pain is really common in survivors and you don’t necessarily need to know a specific cause for it.

 Chronic pain can cause long term problems to do with mobility and performing everyday activities. Most often it means that survivors need to rest more often, they may have less stamina and they might need to do things in ‘odd’/unusual ways in order to comfortably perform the activity.

 For instance someone with chronic pain in their shoulders might struggle to hang wet clothes on a line that’s above their heads. So they might get in the habit of lowering the clothes line, attaching the clothes and then raising it by pulling on the cord at waist height. They might have trouble moving their shoulder to put on jackets, so they could use their body weight to ‘flip’ the arm joint to the correct position without involving the muscles of the shoulder.

 Someone with knee pain would probably be more particular about the height of chairs in their house. They may stop keeping things in low drawers or shelves.

 Consider where your character might have pain, what activities might make it worse and life style adaptions you can work in to your story.

 These can actually be a great world building/character detail. Especially because healthy people have a tendency to assume these adaptions are eccentricities rather then necessity, prompting conversation between characters.

 There is one part of this scenario that worries me: mutilating the tongue.

 Cutting out tongues is one of those things that comes up a lot in fiction and is generally… less survivable then people assume. Tongues are not just for verbal communication: they’re a pretty essential part of how we swallow food and water, not to mention detecting whether said food/water is edible and they contain a lot of blood vessels. There’s a reason things like tongue splitting and tongue piercing don’t tend to show up as traditional body modification practices.

 The process of partially removing a tongue is life threatening in and of itself. Victims can drown in their own blood. Inflammation can block the airways causing suffocation. Infection can make breathing, eating or drinking impossible (increasing the chance of death from infection.)

 If the victim survives (some definitely did) they’d have trouble eating and drinking for the rest of their lives. This means malnutrition is likely, leading to shorter life expectancies and higher chances of disease (apart from the conditions malnutrition itself causes.)

 It also means recovery from starvation would be significantly longer. Which means a longer period when the character’s more at risk from infection and disease as well as the general uh ‘problems’ starvation causes.

 I’m not saying you’ve created an unsurvivable scenario. We know from history that some people have gone through stuff like this and survived.

 What I’m saying is the survival rate is low. Those survivors (and your character) got lucky.

 Keep that in mind when you write this scenario.

 In terms of long term recovery I honestly have no idea how a removed tongue is treated, I’m not a medic. I can guess at some lifestyle adaptions though.

 Because it makes eating more difficult I think it’s likely a survivors would have smaller meals and more frequent meals rather then large portions that might be cold/unpleasant by the time they’ve finished eating. They’d probably learn to cut their food into smaller pieces and might avoid tougher foods that require more chewing. Their sense of the taste and texture of food would be impaired which might effect their enjoyment of food which could in turn effect their motivation to eat and their recovery.

 Overall I think the take away message here is that while most of the physical long term effects of slavery are not immediately life threatening they have a massive effect on long term quality of life.

 A lot of survivors of modern slavery come out of similar time frames to this disabled by a combination of chronic pain, joint problems and untreated injury or disease.

 One of the recurring themes in Kara’s interviews with slaves is that slavery physically ages people. The combination of extreme distress, physical abuse, overwork, sleep deprivation and malnutrition makes survivors appear much older then they are.

 But the reasons why, the injuries and marks of abuse are often not immediately obvious.

 I hope that helps :)

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#writing advice #tw torture #tw slavery #tw starvation #tw scars #scarring torture #cutting out tongues #starvation #forced labour #writing recovery #writing survivors #writing slavery #writing victims #time frames #effects of starvation #chronic pain

[leowenila]

Escaping the Danger Zone (Part Three)

Hello! Thank you so much for the again for reading the previous part; this part is a good mix of angst, fluff, and potential love moments- with an important flashback included. Here is the third part of “Escaping the Danger Zone,” please enjoy!

Heated rain fell out of the thick greyish skies causing the dry desert sands to quickly become damp and created puddles of mud in various locations around the camp. Once in a while a disadvantage of being a soldier during the active war meant that returning home for the holidays was not a guarantee, but Colonel Dan Mooney and Commanding Officer Rodger Bennett; made celebrating a priority within their platoon. Soldier by soldier, they enjoyed their first homemade meal in years and enjoyed one another’s company as civilians and friends. Moments after the delicious dinner, Major Owen Hunt and Major Amelia Shepherd exited building and walked together.

“Did you hear Dan mention how we can make one phone call back home? Aren’t you going to call Beth before she probably falls asleep?” The brunette questioned the other trauma surgeon, he shook his head in reply before speaking his answer. If Owen was being completely honest with himself and others; Beth was the last person he wanted to spend the night with on the phone, instead the trauma surgeon wanted to spend his night with his best friends and sister. They were the people he considered; his people.

“Only if you call Derek, and at least one of your sisters.” Owen teased Amelia, completely aware of the younger Shepherd’s situation with her difficult family upbringing and making light of the full story as to what happened. Amelia glanced back at the man with a playful evil stare.

“That is totally unfair! Beth might lack ambition and cries every time she sees a spider in your apartment or is totally out of your league, but she is sweet. Owen; you’ve met my sisters, they are actual wolves.” Owen laughed at Amelia’s speech as he walked into a personal barrack located nearby and sat on the metal framed cot. The brunette continued to stand outside in the doorway which quickly caused her knotted hair to become wet.

“So that settles it, neither of us are calling our families this year.”

Amelia agreed with the man’s statement as she casually watched him remove his camouflage jacket which then revealed his tan undershirt soldiers wore under their fatigues on a daily basis. Owen glanced up to find his friend watching on as he undressed, he delicately smiled at her. Soon after his fatigue top was removed Owen invited Amelia inside, they matched one another’s tired eyes. Owen then took Amelia’s smaller hands into his large ones.

“I love you; Amelia.” Owen sweetly told the woman in front of him, before their lips connected and created a beautiful yet steady rhythm. The brunette pulled her neck away slightly to lovingly look into his eyes which caused both Owen and Amelia to smile. Years were leading up to that moment and neither one of them regretted every second of it. Before they continued; he reached over to pull down the cream colored curtains as the brunette closed the door to create privacy.

Thick fog traveled through the metropolitan area of Seattle while the sun attempted to make its appearance as Owen drove his large truck to reach his destination of the hospital his friend had been recovering at. Once arriving two officers again escorted him to her room and allowed him to enter. With coffee in his hand, he was greeted by the same nurse from the night previous and saw Amelia as she struggled to walk where she was expected. To the average person, the distance was not far but considering the circumstances made it nearly impossible for the brunette who had been pushing herself.

“No, it hurts!” The brunette attempted to say loudly at her nurse but her broken voice made it more heartbreaking to hear her say. Whitney encouraged Amelia once more as they continued to walk to the chair.

“Amelia, Owen is here to visit. Once you make it to the chair you two can talk.” The blonde haired nurse saw Owen from afar and found it to be the perfect opportunity to motivate her patient.

“He didn’t visit while I was missing; what makes him decide to visit me now?”

Normally anyone hearing comments said about the trauma surgeon they would be offended, but knowing Amelia as well as he did and sensed whenever she was angry or upset, the man chose not to allow her comment to upset him. Instead he was more upset for the brunette and how much pain she was in. The man sat in the opposite chair and patiently waited as she could walk, he watched her.

“Take your time, Mia.” Owen silently said to Amelia, once hearing his small words of encouragement she glanced up with heavy tears in her sky blue eyes. He knew that she was hurting and although he had never seen her in pain quite like this; a small part of him knew exactly how to help his best friend. Owen got up from the chair and carefully took Amelia’s hands into his as Whitney stood behind her.

“I’m sorry.” Her broken voice said to the man, he shook his head and told her it was alright. Each step was painful but the brunette made progress. Once eventually making it to the chair her nurse excitedly cheered as Amelia heavily breathed in and out. She was exhausted from what used to be a simple walk before adjusting into the chair, Amelia stared out the window and avoided eye contact from Owen due to the constant stream of tears quickly falling out of her eyes onto her cheek.

“Owen; I didn’t mean what I said.”

Owen attentively watched Amelia before he spoke to her as he sat back down.

“I know Amelia, it’s okay. You’re in pain, I get it.” The male trauma surgeon said to his friend, understanding perfectly how the post traumatic stress and painful memories remained constantly present within her. Months after returning from Iraq he felt the same way.

“It just hurts so badly.” Amelia said as she gritted her teeth together and shook her head. She then looked at him.

“I want to go home.”

Days and weeks passed as slowly the brunette began to show the beginning stages of a successful recovery; her walking became steadier and bruises in various locations had disappeared, but the constant post traumatic stress disorder symptoms continued to stay with her. Throughout the recovery process Owen was with Amelia every step of the way with the occasional visit from Derek, but nothing in her world felt the same anymore.

One day as the brunette rested, an unfamiliar male nurse knocked on the wooden door and was matched with no response from the patient but instead the visitor. The nurse noticed that Amelia was sleeping and waited a few moments before quietly touching her shoulder to wake her, as if on an instant Amelia woke up and pulled away, before quickly becoming panicked.

“Get off of me!” Amelia forcefully said out loud to the man who was morphing into one of the several men over the six years as she was imprisoned. Sweat collected on her forehead and her breathing became labored before Owen tore himself from the magazine he read and ran over to Amelia’s bedside.

“Amelia, hey. Look at me.” Owen told Amelia from the side of her. The brunette continued to stay in the daze she was in until she heard the door shut. Her breathing slowed as she calmed down and looked at Owen. The male trauma surgeon carefully hugged Amelia.

“You’re okay, you’re okay.” He whispered in her ear, and felt the brunette nod her head into his shoulder. Part of him knew that eventually his friend’s nightmares but the other part of him worried that they would last a lifetime.

It wasn’t too long until Amelia and Owen heard another knock at the door, causing her to grow concerned once more only to be matched with one of her favorite nurses.

“Hey, I am sorry about that Amelia. Are you okay?” Whitney questioned the distraught brunette as she wiped the tears from her eyes and broke the embrace from Owen. She nodded her head.

“Yeah, just another panic attack or something, I guess.” The familiar nurse nodded as she glanced back and forth between Amelia and Owen, and smiled.

“How would you feel if I told you that, you can go home today.”

Hours after Amelia was discharged from the hospital, Owen parked his truck into the parking garage of his apartment complex and guided the female trauma surgeon into the home. He placed his keys on the kitchen island and carefully removed Amelia’s jacket off of her small back, once he did, she shivered. The man than discarded his jacket and put the suitcase on the kitchen table before watching Amelia. He sensed her anxiousness so he turned on a floor lamp.

“You okay?” Owen questioned her calmly.

“I feel pretty tired after the drive, is it okay if I take a nap on your couch?” Amelia asked Owen, feeling afraid of being in an unfamiliar territory but knew she was safe by being in the comfort of her best friend’s apartment. She saw him nodded his head.

“Of course; you can! I will make us something to eat.” He told her with a smile as she made her way over to sit. Once the male trauma surgeon saw the woman close her eyes, he walked back into the kitchen area and gingerly remove a pot from the cabinet to begin cooking.

Thank you so much for reading the third part!

#seasidescorsone #amelia shepherd #owen hunt #omelia fanfiction #escaping the danger zone

[musingsofazumbamind]

Rededication and Resolutions

I once lost 42 pounds in 9 months. I added Zumba Fitness, fruits and vegetables, and a lot of water to a distraught and comically empty bucket of feelings. I made myself into the “me I wanted to be” in a relatively short period of time in both mentally and physically rewarding ways. This is why I’ve never had a problem with folks wanting to live in the New Year with a “new you”; I think it’s an entirely valid and safe way to go forward on a new journey and some of us can change in small ways to see more of what we want to see. Who says the “new you” has to be an extreme or unsafe version of you?

Of that weight, over time, I have gained back 15 pounds. Since this is over the course of years and with the addition of old foods and sodas and treats into my life, it isn’t a surprise to me. Add aging (which, on paper I do actually do) and changing muscle composition and it makes sense. I am a bit more into the deep end of a “10 years into my fitness life and my kids are tweens and it’s harder to sleep through the night” kind of story. This does not mean that evolution is impossible, it’s just harder to find the catalyst for change or the energy to follow through on the thought that change is entirely possible.

Right now, my new goal to start the year is to move for myself at least 3 days a week. I already teach my fitness classes 4 days a week, so some days double up, some days are recovery. My end goal is by December I would love to complete one, unassisted and super strong, chin up on a bar at the gym. This means that I am also, in effect, working the muscles on the regular (and for a year) that will make that goal happen. This also means I am in the gym more, sleeping a bit less, drinking way more water and stretching in ways I have not stretched in a long time. This is true for stretching the “muscles” on the inside, too, since my heart is heavy with gaining this weight, my soul is searching for what kind of Fitness Instructor I want to represent and my brain is challenged by reactivating my gym identity. 

I believe in New Year’s Resolutions as an act of defiance against the notion that we are, at any given moment, “good enough.” I believe “good enough” is a slippery slope to accepting things that are not necessarily good for us in an effort to find peace with ourselves and the world. If I ate what I ate every day of December for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t live as long as I want or have the quality of life I would want to embrace as I age. If I stayed as sedentary as I was over the winter holidays for the rest of my life, I would not have the energy or stamina to complete the tasks of my daily life for very long, let alone have the mental capacity and strength for wanting to wake up every day. 

The current culture of accepting ourselves, exactly as we are, also allows for a lot of alcohol, sugared foods, a lack of sleep and sometimes a lack of empathy and almost shuns people who enjoy self care or gym time or eating average amounts of food. It’s also especially hard to be someone who refrains from alcohol, because it is so central to celebrating or recovery from the difficult parts of our day. I also see at times the acceptance of “who we are” as equivalent to sitting completely still, routinely, as a way to function. Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy a 10 minute face mask, but when that 10 minutes is done I take care of my hair or stretch or sweep my kitchen or write a letter to a friend. That 10 minutes doesn’t mean I sit for the rest of my night or my week and it doesn’t represent the next 10 years of my life.

When I see that lack of balance in action versus inaction, treats versus fiber, especially when I see it in myself, I fear for what happens next and who it affects. Hell hath no fury like an Amelia on massive amounts of brownies, not because brownies are “bad for you,” but because brownies cause head aches and head aches cause disagreements! There is absolutely a time to have that brownie and times to not! I believe loving ourselves, knowing ourselves, can be parallel to and different from feeding the demons that feed us. We just need to get to know our demons. I know one brownie in my body easily becomes four, and it’s the four that become evidence of the imbalance I’m feeling.

The New Year is a time for finding balance, finding focus, for all of us, in the here and now. It is not only about where we’ve been or celebrating the year to come, but it is, right in this very moment an opportunity. If this is a second for a bit of rest, I do it on purpose. If this is a second for a run, I lunge first and then run. And if this is a moment for self reflection, I actively decide to give my demons about 5 seconds of the floor to say their peace and then I move immediately onto the evidence of functioning within my day. This is why I made a goal of a chin up by the end of the year... It’s one thing I can’t do today, that my demons suggest that never having done is simply fine, and is a skill that can be acquired with tenacity and a plan I am entirely capable of! The here and now is only a starting place for what we want, if we want it, and I say today is a great day to see that vision with clarity and love. 

#selfcare #newyear #newyearresolution #chinup #yougotthis

[thesafepesticide]

What happens if you eat a cockroach? What happens if you eat a cockroach? It can seem wasteful to throw food away if you find a roach in a large container. This can leave you wondering if it's terrible to eat food that a cockroach has crawled on. If you're healthy and the roach left no discernable traces, surely it'll be fine. However, this may not be the case. Never eat food that cockroaches have touched. Roaches carry a host of bacteria and diseases because they eat and walk through decaying matter. When they crawl on your food, they can transfer allergens, illnesses, mold spores, decay, and poison. This can make you ill, especially if you're in a vulnerable risk group. Symptoms include food poisoning, the flu, or diseases, like hepatitis. With that said, people with strong immune systems can fight off the effects with no symptoms at all. That doesn’t negate the danger, however. If you find a roach in your food, don’t take the risk of eating it. Just dispose of it safely.

What Happens If A Roach Crawled On Your Food?

Following contact with your food, a roach may not affect it. Roaches are not inherently toxic or able to produce harmful substances from their bodies. However, they do consume rotting or unsanitary foods, which may include:

Decomposing animal or insect bodies

Poop

Mold

Dead skin cells

Rotting food in your kitchen

In the process of walking through and consuming these materials, roaches become coated in the substances. They can carry around:

Bacteria

Fungus

Viruses

Allergens

Spores

If a roach wanders through your dinner plate or weeds its way into your plastic Tupperware, then it may have smeared these substances all over your food. When you eat the contaminated food when it’s finished, you’re then ingesting the trace bits of poop, decay, or mold yourself.

Can I Eat Food Touched By a Cockroach?

Unless the roach pooped in the food, you likely wouldn’t notice that they’d been there. If you did happen to watch the roach scurry off your food, you might be conflicted. Why waste food? If you inspect the plate for signs of contamination and find none, will you be okay? Unfortunately, you won't be able to tell how much bacteria is left behind by a roach. Likewise, you can't tell what types of bacteria or harmful substances are present. Unless you submit the food for inspection by a microbiologist, you're out of luck. When you eat the food, you may never learn exactly what you've just put in your body. For the average, healthy person with a strong immune system, you may be fine. Your body might be capable of fending off the bacteria, mold, or allergens that have just been introduced to your system. You may not experience any negative effects and continue your life as normal. However, that's only one possible outcome. You can't be sure how your body will react until it's too late. This outcome is only possible if:

The roach, by some miracle, is very clean.

Your body can fend off the viral or bacterial infection.

The types of contingents that infected your food are benign or more easily processed by your body.

If these factors – all three, or individually – are not present, you can get sick.

What Diseases Do Roaches Carry?

In a study published in the International Journal of Scientific Research, roaches were observed to carry various bacteria, parasites, and fungi strains. The researchers even discovered that cockroaches transmitted exotic viruses, like hepatitis. The most common fallout you’ll experience from consuming a dirty cockroach (or food it’s touched) is an intestinal disease. These can include:

Cholera

Dysentery

Typhoid fever

Those are the rarer and more extreme cases. For most people, you’ll notice a roach has contaminated you once you experience symptoms of:

Food poisoning

Flu, or flu-like symptoms

Diarrhea and vomiting

It's worth noting that cockroaches are not actively harmful but passively harmful. In the scientific world, they are referred to as 'passive' or 'mechanical vectors.' This means that, on their own, cockroaches do not contribute to illness and disease. Many cultures worldwide eat roaches as part of their diet. However, the roaches crawling in sinks and pantries are a different story. You can easily get sick from exposure to what these bugs carry.

Can You Die From Eating A Cockroach?

In heavily infested homes, a roach can get into your food without you noticing. However, eating a roach is no more dangerous than eating food that a roach has been on. It's not good news, but you don't need to panic. It does not mean certain and immediate death for three reasons:

Rarely are intestinal diseases immediately fatal. You should have time to seek medical treatment.

Cockroaches rarely carry untreatable illnesses. The substances that roaches walkthrough are not the type to contain untreatable diseases.

Cockroaches are small and can only carry so much bacteria. While every bit counts, it's unlikely to give you a fatal dose of anything.

It’s not impossible to die from eating a roach or food a roach has touched. The most important element is timing. If you do contract an illness and refuse to seek treatment, the condition can worsen. You are more likely to die from complications caused by the sickness rather than the sickness itself. You may also be in more danger if:

Immunocompromised

Elderly

A child

Allergic to cockroaches

A preexisting condition that makes you vulnerable to illnesses

Have asthma

Allergens, Asthma, And Children

According to Allergy, if a child is sensitive to cockroach allergens, they’re more likely to develop asthma than other children. On their own, cockroaches can induce breathing difficulty, especially if you already have asthma. This is not only due to the bacteria on cockroaches but the exoskeletons themselves. This is only worsened for adults with existing allergies. Without asthma, a cockroach allergy may also cause a strong negative reaction. This could include:

Difficulty breathing

Shortness of breath

Coughing

Your skin breaking out in hives

Swelling

Poison Bait And Bug Sprays

Commercial bug poison is known as lethal to humans. A roach may be covered in poison for two reasons:

From baited traps, either in your home or a neighbor’s home (if the roach has traveled)

Pest control methods, such as bug bombs or bug spray

If you ingest this poison second-hand through a roach, you may be in danger. The poison could rub off on your food as the insect traipses through it. If you consume the entire roach by accident, the dose may be even higher. Be sure to look for symptoms, as signs of poisoning include:

Dizziness

Lack of concentration

Confusion

Abdominal pain

What happens if you eat a cockroach?

It's not the cockroach that is fatal, but the bacteria and how you combat it. Even in the worst cases, it should not result in immediate death. Most bacteria will take some time to manifest. You will have time to address it. If you believe that you ate contaminated food, keep an eye on any abdominal pain and additional symptoms. Should you feel any debilitating pain, it's always wise to call a medical professional. It doesn't matter if you believe your pain is due to eating contaminated food. If you are in a risk group, it's recommended to contact your doctor immediately. You may need treatment to get ahead of any upcoming illness. For a healthy person, the reaction will generally be diarrhea, vomiting, and then full recovery. If symptoms persist for more than two days, you should seek medical attention. This is also true if you:

Develop more severe symptoms

Become dehydrated

Your vomit or diarrhea are unusually colored or contain blood.

Nasty strains of bacteria can make you ill. You may be out for a couple of days or, at worst, require hospitalization. No matter your state of being, if you're concerned, then seek medical attention anyway.

Accidentally Drank Water With Cockroach

You may wonder if water is more easily contaminated than food. After all, food is only infected in places where the roach has walked. Water, however, should spread around the contingents. Contaminated water is just as dangerous as contaminated food. Your body should be just as able – or unable – to fend off the contaminants. With water a cockroach has touched, you are unlikely to die. There is a chance that you will develop diarrhea and vomiting. Unless you are in a risk group, you may not develop any symptoms at all.

What Happens If You Eat Cockroach Poop?

Cockroach poop is a common sign that you have an infestation in your hands. Unfortunately, for bad infestations, cockroach poop may actually get into your food. It doesn’t help that cockroach poop can easily blend into some meals. Cockroach poop appears as small, brown, or black specs. Depending on the species, it can come in different sizes. Some are in the shape of large coffee grains or finely ground pepper. Larger species, like the American cockroach, often leave waste that's shaped like a cylinder. Just like the cockroach itself, roach poop can be filled with different viruses and bacteria. However, it's no more deadly than accidentally eating a roach or its contaminated food. Just like the previous examples, keep an eye out for symptoms. You should seek your doctor's advice if you're concerned.

When Can You Safely Eat A Cockroach?

In many world cultures, cockroaches are a vital source of protein, along with other insects. Likewise, roaches have been used in traditional medicine, even in modern-day China. If you are still grossed out by eating roaches, consider the fact that you may have already eaten a few yourself. The FDA allows insect fragments, including cockroaches, inside commercial products like coffee and chocolate. Specifically, the FDA allows 60 or more insect fragments per 100 grams of chocolate. In coffee, the FDA allows 10% or more insect fragments. Note that this isn't simply a matter of oversight or negligence. In factories where conditions are desirable to roaches, it is hard to keep them completely roach- or insect-free. There is always the chance of roaches getting into production, no matter how hard anyone tries to remove them. Likewise, products like coffee and chocolate come from natural sources. Where there is nature, there are roaches. It will be hard to remove insects from harvests. This would mean manually inspecting every coffee and chocolate bean. The only viable way for these products to be completely roach-free is to make them out of synthetic materials. However, that is more harmful to your body than eating a few insect fragments. In fact, there are no known reports of someone falling sick from eating insect fragments in commercial products. That's because the insects that come with these products often arrive directly from farms. These places are kept bacteria- and virus-free.

What To Do If You Find A Cockroach In Your Food

If you suspect roaches have been in your food, throw out any food in the container. Dispose of any other food that the roach may have landed on. Eating this food accidentally may not make you sick right away. However, eating it on purpose – significantly more than once – does increase your chances of growing ill. If you find a roach in your food, you should also look for signs of an infestation. This includes:

The presence of droppings.

Regularly seeing roaches, especially during the day.

Bite marks in your food containers or plastic baggies.

How To Keep Cockroaches Away From Food

An infestation can be hard to deal with. More often than not, it takes a long time to disappear. However, there are ways to keep roaches out of your food.

Avoid Thin Plastic Containers

Cockroaches can bite through plastic bags or thin plastic containers. If you notice any signs of tampering with the storage items for your food, throw them away. The food should be disposed of, and new containers with thicker plastic should be used.

Keep Your Food Airtight

Cockroaches can sneak through the smallest of gaps. Be sure to store food in airtight containers, so they can't gain access. This will also prevent tempting food smells from wafting to any nearby roaches. That makes it more difficult for the insects to seek out your food or contaminate it.

Don’t Leave Out Food

After dinner, it's easy to leave extra food on plates in the kitchen. You may intend on coming back to them. Aside from that, you may leave an uncovered pot or pan on the stove so guests can enjoy second helpings. Unfortunately, all of this leaves food as an open invitation to roaches. Be sure to cover any pans or pots if they're left on the counters. Likewise, you should immediately throw out leftover food or store it away.

Clean Up Spills And Crumbs

Of course, keeping your food inside containers isn't going to work if the area around it still has remnants. For this reason, it's wise to clean up spills and crumbs as soon as they occur. Also, get in the habit of sanitizing your kitchen and dining areas at least before going to bed. Doing so will remove food odors. This lessens the chances of attracting roaches into your food.

Inspect Your Fridge

While it may seem horrific, roaches can and do make homes inside your fridge. That is why it's smart to inspect your fridge for roaches regularly. Keep the inside of your fridge clean. Be sure to wipe away spills and remove any expired food. This makes it more difficult for roaches to access the food. While you should never intentionally eat food that's been contaminated by cockroaches, you don't need to worry too much. Instead, limit how much access this pest has to your food. If they've hiked through a plate of food or snuck into a food container, throw it away. Keep sharing What happens if you eat a cockroach? with your friends and family members. Read More: https://thesafepesticide.com/what-happens-if-you-eat-a-cockroach/?feed_id=132&_unique_id=6113739992012

[academiablogs]

To Write a Good Story Tell The Truth; Then Lie

What makes a really good story? Obviously, there are a million subjective answers, according to taste, interest, and subject matter. But beyond all of that, is there an actual, quantifiable definition of good storytelling? Could someone write a story that, even if you didn’t like the characters, the subject, the theme, you would be hard pressed not to admit that the story itself—its construction, presentation, ideas—was undeniably ‘good’?

The first (of many) definitions of “story” in the Oxford English Dictionary is “An oral or written narrative account of events that occurred or are believed to have occurred in the past; a narrative account accepted as true by virtue of great age or long tradition.” As a professor I believe in the power of close reading, and that every word in a sentence serves a distinct purpose. So reading this sentence closely, it’s no mistake that at the very root of the word story is “events that occurred or are believed to have occurred.” While this definition is no longer common, it was once true, just as the novel itself was once novel, or a “brand new” innovation.

So I think the first true qualification for a good story is that it has to seem real. Whether you’re writing about methane farms on Titan or dragon hunting on Iceland, we have to believe that somewhere, at some point in time, this is a “written narrative account of events that occurred or are believed to have occurred.” Even though fantastic, we need to have that crucial suspension of disbelief where, for a few minutes, hours, or days, we believe in the events of the story. We worry about the characters. We imagine ourselves going on just such an adventure. It’s that real to us through the words and construction of the story.

A few lines down, the OED provides another definition: “A short account of an amusing, interesting, or telling incident, whether real or fictitious; an anecdote.” This leads to my second definition of a truly ‘good’ story—it should be exciting enough, or pithy enough, to want to recount to someone orally. If you’ve ever seen a great movie with a trick ending, one that really floors you, you immediately want to run out and tell everyone about it. Stories were originally oral (see the first definition), meant to be told and re-told by a variety of tellers. Even though most stories are written once and fixed in time, they should still have that crucial element of on-the-spot narration. Every story, even the most epic fantasy yarn, should have a kernel of the “anecdotal” about it. It should make you want to tell it yourself—and possibly, improve it with the retelling (at least, in your own imagination).

Towards the bottom of a laundry list of definitions, the OED offers a final, pithy definition: “7a. A lie.” And here is the third qualification for any successful story. It needs to be an exaggeration. Stories don’t have to be fantastic, per se, and can be about a simple man or woman on a single, ordinary day of their lives. However, it should be more fantastic or illogical or extraordinary than anything they normally experience. We should see the ordinary through a new perspective, even if they only go to work, go to the drive-thru, and eat in front of the TV. If that’s all that happens, that’s not a “lie”—that’s just the same, ordinary “truth.” A story takes something that might have happened, or could happen, and makes it improbable. And therefore, fascinating. Worth hearing and worth re-telling.

A great example of all three definitions is a rather obscure (for American readers, anyway) short story by the Japanese writer, Akutagawa, called “Horse Legs.” The story is about a completely ordinary fellow who does an honest day’s work, is married to a woman he respects if not quite loves, and seems to have a completely average, enjoyable life. And then he dies. But here’s where the “lie” kicks in. He wakes up before two functionaries who are started to realize that he is the wrong person: that is, his name is Hanzaburo, and the man who was slated to die was an American named “Henry Barrett.”

A typical office snafu, just in heaven this time. So the functionaries need to send him back to Earth ASAP, and bring back Henry in his place. The problem: Henry cannot be found, and Nanzaburo’s legs are rotting away. The only solution is to borrow the legs of a newly-deceased horse and transplant them before he returns to his life on earth. Shortly thereafter, Hanzaburo wakes up in his coffin, during the funeral, with horse-legs and has to explain his miraculous recovery and go about leading an ‘ordinary’ life.

It’s a darkly comic story, but one you want to hear and re-tell to others, if only to hear them go, “what kind of story is that??” However, Akutagawa writes the story in such a dry, matter-of-fact manner (at least in the translation) that you almost doubt whether the story is fiction (and he assures you several times it is not, even using newspaper accounts to verify his facts). But we’re not fools—we know this is a “lie,” since he takes the joke to absurd lengths, even having Hanzaburo start kicking people across the room and finding himself unable to walk forward when a horseman cries “back! back!” to his horse.

While some readers might find this story baffling, or even distasteful, it has all the ingredients of a truly ‘good’ story. Akutagawa knew that stories captured the absurdity of trying to tell the truth about the world (impossible—there are too many versions) while also trying to entertain his audience (which prefers ‘lies’). So he gave us both in equal measure, and knew that, in re-telling them to others, we would exaggerate and distort and make the story even more real, and even more false. A good story can afford to be bent and twisted in this manner, which is probably why we’ve been telling and re-telling The Odyssey, everything by Shakespeare, and the Bible for so long.

This ability to adapt to our own expectations of true and false is also how stories survive the translation from one language to another, which should render it utterly meaningless. But if you can read a strange Japanese story in English and find it strange for all the same reasons, it’s probably a very good story. Read “Horse Legs” and see if you agree—you can find it in the Penguin Classics’ edition of Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories.

#amwriting #writer's life #writeblr #books #bookish

[cnvbeautyhairgrowth]

How Much Is Too Much Hair Loss? Here's When to See a Trichologist

It's completely normal to lose about 100 strands of hair every day, but let's be real: nobody's going around counting every single hair that escapes their head. To adequately determine if you're losing too much hair, it's important to look for more calculable and visible signs of hair loss. From there, you can determine whether it's time to see a trichologist or dermatologist for proper intervention.

With expert insight, here's how to know how much is too much hair loss, what specific signs to look for, and when to call in a pro.

How Common Is Hair Loss in Women? Before diving in, know that hair loss in women is pretty common. In fact, approximately 40 to 50 percent of women will experience hair loss at some point in their life.

"Because there are so many different causes for hair loss—hormonal changes, diet, medication, illness, stress, genetics, and more—it is very common in women," notes Gretchen Friese, a board-certified trichologist for BosleyMD.

Interestingly, she says there's been an uptick in female hair loss since the beginning of the pandemic—a type of temporary hair loss called telogen effluvium.

Long story short, spikes in stress hormones stop the growth (anagen) phase of the hair cycle, resulting in too much hair loss. The same thing happens in women who go through pregnancy. Fortunately, telogen effluvium is temporary, and recovery typically begins within three to six months.

Signs You're Losing Too Much Hair On average, people lose roughly 20 percent of their hair—sometimes even more—before they even notice it's thinning. Below we've outlined some of the obvious visible signs of excess hair loss, as well as some more subtle observances you can make to catch hair loss before it gets this far.

Related Items Thinner Ponytail “If you can wrap your hair tie around your ponytail more times than in the past, that is a sign your hair is getting thinner,” says Dr. Friese. You might also be able to tell it’s smaller simply by the way it feels in your hands.

Widening Part Whether you’re on team center or team side part, keep an eye on the width of your part. When you see more scalp than what’s typical for you, that is a sign of hair loss. It’s good practice to take routine pictures of your part so you can compare over time. Set an alarm on your phone as a reminder.

Receding Hairline Women are less likely to experience a receding hairline compared to men. Instead, they’re more prone to overall thinning. However, a receding hairline isn’t impossible, and it can also occur due to something called “traction alopecia.” This is a type of hair loss caused by wearing tight ponytails, buns, braids, or even extensions.

Less Volume/Reduced Thickness If you notice less volume than usual—and it’s not simply an off hair day—this could be a sign of excessive hair loss. Only you know what your usual hair thickness and volume is, so look for small visible changes.

Fuller Hairbrush and More Hair in the Drain Our hair cycle goes through two phases: growth (anagen) and rest (telogen). “The majority of our hair follicles are usually in the anagen phase. However, when there is imbalance, such as stress, there can be a shift to the telogen phase,” explains Sunitha Posina, MD, a board-certified internist in New York City.

If you notice that you’re collecting more hair in your brush or in the shower drain, and this becomes an ongoing issue, there’s a strong possibility you’re losing too much hair. In cases of excess hair loss, you may also notice more hair around the house, on your clothes, or in your car compared to usual.

When to See an Expert About Your Hair Loss If you've noticed the above symptoms and are concerned about your hair loss, your best course of action is to schedule an appointment with a physician—ideally a trichologist, dermatologist, or doctor who specializes in hair loss—right away.

"I recommend always checking in with a medical professional first, just so you can rule out any internal issues—such as illness or vitamin deficiencies—before trying over-the-counter products," says Dr. Friese.

Addressing the exact cause of your hair loss will get you on the path to recovery more quickly. In cases where hair loss caused by illness or vitamin deficiencies, addressing those underlying health concerns will improve your general well-being while also reversing your hair loss. In cases of genetic-related hair loss, acting quickly is very important to restimulating the hair follicle to prevent permanent loss. Finally, even in cases of temporary hair loss, such as telogen effluvium, your doctor can help create a customized approach to help you get back to your usual head of hair. Hair Growth Laser , Hair Regrowth Laser

[lotusawareshare]

The Medication Roulette Debacle

As a person who has experienced the ins and outs of the mental illness systems, I can confidently say that the issue of mental illness and how medication applies is one that is rooted in deep systemic dysfunction. This is not so farfetched when you consider the main motivation of those running the mental health industry. It is important to analyze the intent of anything (be it person, industry, etc.) when trying to determine The Why of the way things are. As will become apparent if not already, I am a huge advocate for understanding the why in order to begin implementing desired changes.

In the case of the mental illness industry (yes, it is an industry), we first need to examine the intent of what they’re trying to accomplish - which in the case of most industries, is to generate profit. Why is this problematic for those of us trying to improve our mental health? Let’s look at the different cogs of the mental illness industry machine and how they fit together.

Who Runs The Game

When we consider who “the Boss” is in any given scenario of this wonderful biased-market-competition-impersonating-as-capitalist country we have, it is usually the person/people with the most resources and subsequently, power. In the case of mental health, we’ve got our market powerhouses - the Pharmaceutical Companies and the Healthcare Industry - here we will be focusing on the mental health end of healthcare, so this means inpatient/outpatient facilities and the people who run them.

For the next attraction we have your average ride on the mental health systems tour of horrors carousel. (For those who are not so interested in participating in my whimsical backdrop-painted story telling, feel free to skip to the next paragraph for the cut-to-the chase points.) It consists of spending 72 hours in a hospital psych ward. During these 72 hours, patients are isolated from family/loved ones so they’re alone and easier to harvest. Once the rounding psychiatrist has had a two to seven minute interview with the patient, it is then determined whether they will be released with the plan of follow-up at an outpatient program or psychiatrist or transferred to an inpatient facility for further harvesting. Those who do not have health insurance are more likely to be released home after the 72 hour period than those who do. (You connect the dots with that one, it’s not rocket science). Stays at your average inpatient clinic range from four days to two weeks, depending on how much shit your insurance is willing to cover. During your stay at this lovely negative-four star blood-sucking facility, you will meet a plethora of doctors and social workers, all the while, being heavily medicated to distract you from the organs they’re funneling into their pockets. As soon as they’ve got every last drop of money - I mean, blood, milked from you, you’re passed on to an outpatient facility for a longer, extended program (read: further harvesting) or what ever psychiatrist has got connections with the facility. The purpose here is to get as much as you can from every patient (read: victim) as quickly as possible. Oh, and you’ll be billed for this later.

The primary goal of the Pharma companies and inpatient/outpatient mental health facilities is, again, to turn a profit. As a business how do you ensure that occurs?

The number one way to guarantee the continuous influx of money is demand - there have to be consumers that want the product - in this case, medication and healthcare services. The mental illness market is a bit dicey to navigate because individuals who live with these mental health challenges are often vulnerable and struggling. Most of us don’t have in-depth, applicable knowledge of mental health simply because it is not something we are taught. The help we need is then outsourced to people in power who we believe can and want to help us “get better” - this would be our Psychiatrists. (Therapy is a part of the system as well but it does not directly influence the medication aspects, we will get to that at another time.) We give our trust to doctors in power to hold our well-being and healing as a priority. Now I am not saying by any means that all doctors are corrupt, profit-driven, money-mongers, but we do have to acknowledge that this field is their career-path and their livelihood.

The problem occurs when the motivation of these pseudo-psychiatrists is rooted in money rather than the well-being and recovery of patients.

Why Big Pharma & Pseudo-psychiatrists Control The Medication Market

Let’s examine this issue logically. If a company wants to make money, it is imperative to have a large consumer base and to make sure those consumers keep coming back for your services/products. Understanding this rationale shows us why the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries never address the underlying problems of mental illness. Medications are not a cure to any mental health issue - don’t get me wrong, it can help to treat the symptoms, but medication is not the quick-fix cure that it is strategically advertised and marketed to be. It is simply a bandaid. The key is to keep the patients coming back for more.

Before we go any further, let me first state that I am not a mental health professional and that my views are based on my experiences and personal research - what worked for me may not necessary work for another person. That being said, take from this any aspects that may be relative to you and leave the rest.

At one point in my journey with mental health, I was on a cocktail of eight different medications. This was after trying countless different brands, various types of medications - SSRIs, SNRIs, benzodiazepines, antipsychotics, SARIs, mood stabilizers. After three hospitalizations, completing numerous outpatient programs, 15 rounds of electroconvulsive therapy, and several years of playing medication roulette, I was struck with the realization that none of these things were actually helping the state of my mental wellbeing.

Every time I would attempt to discuss this with my psychiatrist, the answer was to switch up the meds. The medication was no longer helping, nor was it an effective bandaid for wounds that had been festering for years. I decided I wanted to get off my medication cocktail, and I was determined not be cajoled into another round of trying new medications. As with any new subject matter, my approach was to research the shit out of it. I did my research on how to safely taper off the various medications I was taking, and went to my biweekly scheduled appointment to present my plan and findings.

At this point I had already made up my mind that the medications’ adverse effects far outweighed its limited (and that’s being generous) benefits. What I wanted from my psychiatrist was her healthcare provider stamp of approval and her expertise and supervision of my decision. I had done my research, had a sound plan in place - all I needed now was the support to help me achieve my goal. My psychiatrist made it very clear that she did not agree with my decision (as is her right as a medical health professional). She even went so far as refusing to help me, stating that if I no longer wanted to be on medication, I would have to see another doctor.

That was the last appointment I had with a psychiatrist.

This interaction with my psychiatrist (and numerous others) is an exemplary portrait of how the mental illness industry seeks to keep consumers within their grasp. The thought process behind her refusal to advise me was likely - if this patient wants to stop taking medication, I will lose this patient (read: profit) anyway, may as well nip the problem in the bud, because then there is also plausible deniability if the patient gets off the medication and ends up hospitalized again or worse yet, dead. While I understand the covering-your-own-ass logic behind that action, refusing help to patients who want to get off their medications safely and responsibly is its own special kind of malpractice in my book.

Psychiatry’s Love Affair With Happy Pills Gone Wrong

In this country, we rely heavily on pharmaceuticals to treat various health conditions. There are many benefits to life-saving medications - I am not disputing that.

BUT, where it applies to mental health, medications more often than not, only mask the symptoms of the deeper issues in play.

Medications can be useful, IF used in conjunction with a combination of other therapies. The problem occurs when medication is used as a one-size-fits-all blanket solution to be “happy". Until we get to the point of medication therapy that is tailored to each individual’s biochemistry, it is incredibly inane to think that the medications we have now are suitable treatment for mental health conditions, especially because the nature of these conditions is highly variable from person to person.

The Problem With Diagnoses-Centered Treatment

Take an individual diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder for example, we’ll call her Jane. Jane has a history of childhood trauma and abuse, suffers panic attacks on a daily basis, and has a career she finds detestable and monotonous. Jane sees several healthcare professionals and is advised to try an antidepressant. Another individual, we’ll call him Dave, receives the same diagnoses and is put on the same antidepressant. Dave has a history of rheumatoid arthritis that negatively impacts his quality of life, a toxic marriage, and Dave’s mother has recently passed away.

Different events, especially those that cause stress and are closely tied to emotional response, will alter a person’s brain chemistry. No two people have the same brain chemistry, including identical twins. All the experiences we have continuously shape and change our brain development and all the complex biochemistry going on in there. When we look at the individual nature of each person’s experience and biology, it is impossible not to recognize the expectation that medications are going to work the same across the board as absolutely ludicrous and ineffective. We can go further and say that it is incredibly dangerous and possibly detrimental to prescribe medications like candy when we don’t know how they will effect each person.

In the case of Dave and Jane, it is sound logic to assume their issues are vastly different even though they have received the same diagnoses and medication. The medication may help Jane, but affect Dave in a negative manner. Jane may benefit greatly from medication used in conjunction with ongoing cognitive behavioral therapy. Dave however may find that therapy short-term to deal with the grieving process and a healthier lifestyle to help with his autoimmune disorder may be more effective.

The take-away from our imaginary case-study is that treatment that is tailored to the individual must be prioritized, rather than expecting a universal happy pill (or class of medications) to sufficiently heal a person’s mental state.

The Medication Trap

What does medication do? It alters the brain chemistry and the way our brains process these chemicals we have floating around.

The idea of taking medication can trick us into thinking “this will fix me/my problems/how I am feeling”. We then don’t take any further action to address the root cause of the problem because we are relying on medication to do the heavy lifting - when the medication is simply a tool to manage the symptoms, NOT a solution addressing the cause. That last bit, my friend, would be your responsibility to yourself.

We as a society too often outsource the responsibility for our well-being, physical and emotional, to other people and things. Of course there will be the need to consult professionals who specialize in certain fields, but it is important not to trust blindly and to be informed. If it is an area that you have limited knowledge in, then GET INFORMED. With the ease of obtaining information just one click, one finger-tap away, there are no more excuses people!

Mental health professionals can be crucial allies to have along the journey, but your discernment in what is right for you is crucial.

Illness Industry Over Culture of Health

The mental illness industry is a system that was supposedly designed to help people heal and yet, it has become so heavily corrupted with dysfunction and greed. Close friends who I hold near and dear to my heart who have gone through similar experiences are also baffled and outraged at the incongruence of the broadcasted intent, to heal, and the actual motivation, to capitalize and profit. There is nothing wrong with individuals in the field trying to be successful and make a living. However, we must acknowledge that there is something direly wrong with the system in place when a person/industry places their monetary success over the wellbeing of millions, and proceeds to masquerade as supporters of mental health, while capitalizing on our “illness” behind the scenes.

#mental health #mental health awareness #mental health support #awareshare #positive mental attitude #positive mental health #spreading awareness #mentally ill #lotusawareshare #mental illness #writers on tumblr #writers community #writing blog #mental disorder #depression #anxiety #bipolar #psychology

[wellmeaningshutin]

Short Story #91: Late Bloomer.

Written: 4/9/2017                                                                            Music Week Song Listened to Before Writing: LCD Soundsystem - Us V Them

When Deborah was young, her mother, a former soap opera actress who spent most of her time drinking wine in the den and stewing in anger over being killed off and out of work, wold tell Deborah that she was “too ugly to be worth anyone’s time” or that she was “too ugly to even play an unattractive person on television, and the only way [she] could get an acting job would be to take part in an art house horror movie”. Deborah never wanted to act, mainly since she hated her mother and wanted to be as different as possible, but her mother was constantly suspicious of her, paranoid that her little girl would become a bigger star than she had been if she tried, a blow to her ego that she would be unable to handle. The girl never knew that this was the reason her mother was so cruel to her, but if she knew it probably wouldn’t make things better, the words would still cut deep. Although, its possible she wouldn’t have believed that she was so unbearably unattractive, its possible that she would have pursued an acting career, just to spite her mother, but instead her self esteem was as low as could be, and she mostly tried to hide away during the years of adolescence, spending school breaks locked up in bathroom stalls, making sure to sit in the back of every class, always suspicious of boys who would show an interest in her, spending most of her free time at home, under her blankets, wishing that she was dead.

She wasn’t unattractive, but she wasn’t attractive either, it was as if she was just as middle of the road as somebody could look, completely inoffensive, safe. Some guys would think of her as “somebody you would only try to hook up with when you were drunk, but who you also wouldn’t regret in the morning”. These neutral looks, that were difficult to form an actual opinion on, was a reason why it was so easy for her to believe her mother, since she wasn’t pretty enough to call bullshit. Her looks were also a reason that her neighbor, from several houses down, a young man named Arty, was secretly in love with her. Now, Arty was definitely attractive enough to be considered out of Deborah’s league, and he was very likable and social, but he had a performance issue with attractive girls, who seemed to throw themselves at him, because they put too much pressure on him. Arty had to wait until puberty struck to become attractive, but he was never able to grow out of his unattractive mindset, making attractive girls almost threatening to him, he couldn’t understand that they were attracted to him as much as he was attracted to them, so he felt a need to have to do better than normal, and would always stress himself out to the point where he was flaccid and crying about how it was too much for him. Deborah, on the other hand, seemed to be no such challenge for him, and seemed likely to be pressure free.

Maternal insults clouded the girl’s judgment, so even as she stared at the neighbor boy through her second story bedroom window, willing to do anything to be with him, she never realized that he had felt the same way about her. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he tried to talk to her, or make excuses for them to hang out, one on one, she would never fully listen, and would instead hear her own mother’s words. During their senior year, he literally told her, “Hey, some girls have been strongly hinting that they want me to ask them to prom, but I wanted to see if you would like to go with me instead. I know I’ve been pestering you a lot about going on dates, but I just wanted to make sure that I asked one last time, the old college try as my old man calls it. If you say no, I guess I’ll take the hint and leave you alone.”

Instead, she heard, “Look, I feel bad that you had to be born looking like the doctor accidentally stepped on your face when you slid out of your mother, so I wanted to ask you to prom as charity. Don’t expect anything real to come out of this, because you’ll mostly be my date in title alone. And, right when we arrive at the dance, I’m going to abandon you to hangout with my real friends, since I’m really just using you so that I can feel good about myself. You don’t think you can compare to the girls I get, right? I hope you wouldn’t be so insane to actually think that you would have a chance with me, because I swear that would be something I would have nightmares about if I ever thought of you, but I only remembered that you existed, right now, because I just happened to bump into you. I don’t even know your fucking name. If somebody asked me, ‘Hey, do you know blah blah blah?’ I would ask who the hell they’re talking about, and then I’d say that they were probably some worthless, fucked up looking person, because that name made me throw up in my mouth alone. When I heard that name, I- hey, don’t fucking look me in the eyes, that’s only going to make me fucking angry. Now where I before you made me want to put your face in a lawn mower, just so it would be easier to look at. Oh yeah, when I would hear the name, I bet I would smell something awful, like an egg salad sandwich that was left in a hot, metal shed for an entire Summer. Now get out of my way before I do us all a favor and push you into traffic.” A lot of that interpretation came hours, even days, after they talked, mostly existing in her imagination, because it seemed like she must have been crazy to think that he might actually had been interested in her, and she had to try to set the record straight.

Years later, when she and the guy were both in college, Deborah had, in a fit of intense depression, decided to drink half a bottle of gin and drive her car into a tree, in an attempt to kill herself. It seemed to her that so many people at her school were happy, were exploring their social lives, finding themselves, and she just felt like she was ruining everyone’s fun, she felt as if she was a dysfunctional human, broken inside and out, and that it would be better for her to die already, just so nobody would have to deal with her bullshit. However, the crash hadn’t killed her, she was too drunk to realize when the impact happened, was just limp enough to survive the impact, even if the shattered gin bottle (that was in her hand) and a protruding tree branch had mangled her face beyond recognition. When she was first told about this she was worried that it was going to cause her to become more deformed than ever, requiring her to actually have to hide her face whenever she would dare to go outside, but when the plastic surgeons had done their part, and the bandages came off, she was shocked to learn that she looked outrageously beautiful.

For the first couple days she wondered if she had died during one of the procedures, wondered if this was heaven instead of real life, but then she figured that if heaven was real, then there would have to be a god, and no god would be cruel enough to give her the face that she had known for a majority of her life.

When Deborah was finally out of the hospital, where she spent her recovery time staring in a mirror and making faces at herself, she decided that the first thing she would have to do would be to rub her new looks in on her mother, who didn’t bother to visit the girl since the suicide attempt. When she arrived at her childhood home, she found her mother drunk, unable to even get up from the living room couch, watching old episodes of the show she used to be on, watching the younger version of herself that had been unfairly exiled (the reason the gave her, which was the real reason, was that she was a terrible person to be around, and it seemed like she was going out of her way to put down and anger the entire cast, crew, producers, and even some of the fans, making her impossible to work with, but she just believed that one of her female co-stars was sleeping with a producer, and just wanted to get the mother out of the way, so that she could steal her spot on the show). After noticing the girl who was standing over her, the mother only asked, “Who the hell are you?”

“Its me, your daughter.”

“Bullshit.”

“Remember that accident I got in, the one that you never cared about. Remember when I was in the hospital for months and you never once visited me? Well, I have a new face, I’m still your daughter.”

Deborah knew exactly what she had wanted her mother to say, which would have been something along the lines of, “Wow, you are so beautiful now. I am so glad to have such a stunning daughter, and now I will give you all of the love that I was unable to give before. Today will be the first day of a real mother daughter relationship, and I’m deeply sorry that I never visited you in the hospital, I just was worried that I would have to see your fucked up face once again. Can you forgive me for the way I treated you? Even though it was only natural for me to have been rough on you, because of your unfortunate appearance, I would understand if you could not forgive me for it.”

This is what her mother actually said, “You look twice as worse as before. Now move to the side, you’re blocking the television.”

Finally, Deborah had realized that her mother was just a hateful person, and that the woman would call her hideous, no matter what. Then she had to make sure, and went into her old room to look at some old photographs, the few that she actually kept, believing that she didn’t deserve to be photographed, and, for the first time, she hadn’t seen an ugly girl, she only saw an average girl. When something broke inside of her, and her temper began to swell, she couldn’t tell what had upset her, and it was either the fact that her mother had been abusive, had lied to her for her entire life, putting in so much effort to make her life miserable, or the fact that she was stupid enough to believe any of the lies (her opinion), stupid enough to be willing to believe that she was much, much worse than she actually was. In the heat of the moment, the source of the rage wasn’t the most important issue, the rage itself was, and she could only think about how she wanted to make the woman suffer, so she kicked her door open, and flew down the stairs to do something permanent and awful.

However, after the newly gorgeous girl had gone upstairs, her mother believed that she would have no chance to become a star again (she clung to denial in the same way she clung to her bottle), that her daughter was going to become such an impressive star, that no matter what the mother did, she would always be in her daughter’s shadow. Instead of being her own person, she would only be Deborah’s mother, thats all people would call her, not even using her first name. Things were starting to seem, for the woman, like it was all apart of some ghastly nightmare, this had been her greatest fear, her worst case scenario, and it had finally come true. So, no longer wanting to live in this fucked up world, not wanting to have to stand next to her stunning daughter, looking like a shriveled up crone in comparison, not wanting to have to see her daughter bask in the sunlight, she decided that it was time to take the hard-way-out (what her father, who shot himself in the head, would call suicide, believing that it took a lot of effort to actively take your own life, while the easy-way-out was just waiting for death to come on its own). So, when Deborah had reached the bottom of the stairs, and re-entered the living room, wanting to break something, she had found her mother on the floor, near the couch, with a knife in her hand, and an open throat that was drooling blood and staining the tan carpet.

Taking this as a final insult, Deborah decided to just kick her mother for a while, hoping that she would get some satisfaction out of it, but the woman was practically dead, causing it to be as satisfying as kicking a table or a fridge, instead of kicking the woman who had screwed with her head for so many years. That night, Deborah had cried from anger for the first time in her life.

A morning shower turned out to be all she needed to clear her head, and figure out what she had to do to get revenge on the woman. It was a two step plan, which included leaving the corpse to rot in the house for weeks, maybe even months, until somebody would find it based off of the smell, to make the horrible woman’s death seem pathetic in the extent that anyone who heard of it would think, “What an awful way to die, unloved, uncared for, nobody even missing your company, except for the bugs that eat you inside and out. I would never want to be as depressing as that, I never want to be like her.” The second part involved her finally seducing her old high school flame, Arty, and getting him to marry her, so that she could have a happy and fulfilling life, something the bitch never would have wanted her to have in the first place. Before she left to carry out the second part of the plan, she decided to wrap her mother’s body in blankets and some air fresheners she found around the house, just to buy some time before the body was found.

Finding Arty turned out to be surprisingly easy, he was visiting his parent’s home since it was Spring Break, mainly to hide away from all of the party scenes and attractive girls that would stress him out. When she knocked on the door to the house, Arty was also the first person to answer the door, but he didn’t recognize her. “I’m sorry, who are you?” he asked.

“We used to go to school together, I just lived a couple houses down. My name is Deborah.”

“Oh yeah,” surprised and disappointed, “I remember you. You sure have grown or whatever.” There had been plenty of occasions where he had thought of her when he was in college, but now that he saw the new her, all of his interest had dissipated, she was just another girl who he couldn’t handle, another girl who would put him at risk of high blood pressure and self hatred.

“So, I was wondering, are you, uh, single?” Suddenly, she realized that she had no idea how flirting was supposed to work, “Do you want to, like, I’m single too, if you get what I’m trying to say. And I was wondering if we, well if you’re single, if we could be single together somewhere else? Like, two single people, out eating dinner or, like watching a movie,” bringing her hands into the mix, but having no idea what to do with them, “and we could like combine our single energies, and eventually we could you know, like, make a date?” Arty was confused, but he was too sweaty and nervous to be able to respond to this beautiful train wreck. “Like, we put our, we could make a date, you know? You and me? We could…” Uncomfortable since he hadn’t interrupted her, which she desperately wanted, but also was unsure if this was a part of the dating process or not, “We could put our hands together, hold hands, and.. Do you like my face?” No response. “Do you like my new face? I like your face, I would like it if you liked my face, and we could, uh, we could put our good faces together and make a kiss? We could enjoy the comforts of rubbing our faces against each other-” Then, after being scared out of his mind, Arty worked up enough courage to slam the door in her face.

It was the first time she had attempted anything like that, and it was the first time she actually had to handle rejection. Sure, she dealt with it in her mind before, but she mainly never actually tried, just so she could avoid the real feeling, which she then realized felt way worse than she imagined it to feel. It was unbearable, especially since she couldn’t understand why, wasn’t she irresistible now?

Spending the rest of the day at her house, ignoring her dead mother, standing around in her bedroom, posing in her closet that had mirrors on its doors, she tried to find just a single flaw in her new appearance, but it seemed that if she put herself in the most unflattering position she could think of, she was still stunning. In fact, she had a hard time looking away from herself, it was as if she was beginning to become addicted to her own appearance, not wanting to look away to answer the door, to use the bathroom, to get something to eat or drink, just taking in the view of her beauty. The more she loved herself, the less she understood why her old crush had treated her in that cruel manner, why he treated her just like… And then she started to understand, as she stared into her own eyes, that no matter what he would have rejected her, that he was no better than her rotten, rotting mother. With that realization, her anger had come back, stronger than ever, but she was conflicted. Should she give him the treatment that she desperately wanted to give her mother, or did she still want to be with him, and find a way to convince him to love her, since she still loved him? It was a tough decision, and never once was she able to realize that she had actually rejected him often years ago, or that personality might have been playing a key role in the situation (it wasn’t), that he could have simply been gay, or generally just unable to be attracted to her (he wasn’t), or that, which was the most important of all, it didn’t matter how much confidence she had in herself, or how strongly she loved him, because in the end it was his call to chose who he wanted to date, and even though he was rude about it, he had given her his answer and she would have to respect it, move on, and find somebody who wants to be with her.

Deborah decided that she should probably both take out her anger on him, and then force him to love her, killing two birds with one stone.

One of the reasons she was disconnected from the way relationships work, other than her self-isolation and the low self worth caused by her mother, was the fact that she had made sure to stay away from anything romance related, whether it was romantic movies, books, shows, songs, or even anything that dealt with dating or relationships in general, since she believed that it would only make her feel terrible on the inside, because it would expose her to something she could never have, would allow her to know what she was missing out on.

For hours she watched his house from her bedroom window, clutching her mother’s tazer (used for self defense) in her right hand, waiting for any sign of Arty leaving the house. Around eight at night he finally went out of the garage door and threw away a trash bag, then decided to wait outside to smoke a cigarette, and before he had even smoked half of it down, the gate into the backyard swung open, a figure moved towards him, he felt a sharp pain, dropped to the ground, and wasn’t in control of his body, which decided that it wanted to shake and twitch, no matter how often he told it not to. At some point he pissed himself, which embarrassed him. Somebody was dragging him, but he couldn’t react until he was a couple houses away from his own, tried to get up, and his attacker, the now-gorgeous girl from down the street, told him, “If you try to run I’m going to zap your dick.” The electrical sounds emitting from the tazer convinced him that she wasn’t fucking around, so he let her march him into her house, which smelt overwhelmingly of air fresheners. “Keep going, turn left, here we are.”

He couldn’t believe it. Right in front of him was a table set up for two, with candles and rose petals all over it. ‘What the fuck’ is what he wanted to say, but he opted for the more polite, “What the hell?”

“Its a date, sit down. You’re going to love dinner, we’re going to have a good time, trust me.”

Arty knew the whole situation was insane, so he decided to make a run for it, fuck the tazer, but he wasn’t quick enough, and all over again he had felt pain and dropped to the ground. “Why do you have to be such an asshole? You know I’m gorgeous, right? You know that I’m irresistible, so what’s your problem? Why are you going out of your way to ruin this night? Can’t you see how much effort I’m going through to make this work, can’t you see how much I am clearly in love with you? Why are you trying to resist so much, why can’t you just look into my face, my beautiful face, and allow yourself to just allow my looks to do their job, just let them wash over you, drown you, just let it happen. Let it happen you son of a bitch.”

He tried to get to his feet, but she now held up a hammer, right next to his face, “I will bash your god damned brains in if I can’t have you.” Then she brought it down on his left shoulder, dislodging it and causing him to cry out. “Now, get in that fucking chair, and I’m going to make you something nice.” Deciding to stop resisting, he shakily made his way to the table, hoping that there wasn’t much to it. “I’m going to have to tie your legs together, but you can understand why I would want to do that.” When she began to tie his legs, he looked down at her and became afraid, not of the situation, but afraid of the fact that the longer he stared at her, the more he was comfortable with what was happening. Well, he felt that way until she said, “And after dinner, we are going to watch a movie together, because thats what people do on dates. And after that, you are going to take my virginity, and if you refuse to do any of that, I’m going to slit your throat for being a hateful piece of shit.”

He knew that he was a dead man.

#Free Write #Short Story #Writers on Tumblr #Romance #Beautiful