#i hate that everywhere is shutting down covid protections

[catboyfurina]

i have symptoms that could be prednisone or could be mild covid BUT my family members have tested positive BUT i have tested negative two days in a row BUT the tests are not conclusive if at home BUT it could just be prednisone so we are still doing convoluted isolation measures in a small house smashes head into wall

#beeep #i am going to have to delay appointments even more wahoo #theoretically i should be alright despite my chronic illness posting that may concern some of my friends #due to the medicine that is for my chronic illness is also sometimes used to treat covid #howeveeeerrr the appointments. that is the big issue #i hate that everywhere is shutting down covid protections #why does getting groceries have to be a danger to my doctor appointments like wat the fuck bro...

[shirophantomvox]

How Illumi, Hisoka, and Chrollo would react to their S/O in the hospital

Hi, anon! You are welcome to join my Discord Server if you are a fan of Hxh, Voltron, or both! I promise this is a safe environment! This is an interesting topic for sure! To the other anon(s), I am working on your request! This will contain both fluff and angst. I forgot to include Leorio in this, so I’ll include him in the next HxH post. You’ll have to forgive me, I have 2 more requests in my inbox and I am not feeling the best. I just got my second Covid shot and it is hurting like hell. Nevertheless, I encourage you all to get your shot if you can. I will be on this site one and off and I should be on it for real next week. I have run out of ideas to write and I began to think I was annoying people with my HxH content (no one said this I just assumed). This post has 1974 words. After these requests are finished, I plan on doing a character analysis for Leorio.

Anyway, let’s get into the post!

We’ll start with Hisoka this time.

Hisoka

In all honesty, this man has heard of a hospital (since he sends a lot of people to it after fights) but has never been in one.

The signs, floors, staircase numbers, and elevators all confuse him. He has only been in one once when he was a kid and has never been again.

He isn’t a social butterfly in this setting because this is a professional establishment and not a college party. Asking for directions takes quite a toll on him because of his established pride. You know guys act when they want to find a destination on their own and will go miles out of the way instead of just asking for direction.

He doesn’t talk to anyone; all he wants to do is find you and make sure you are alright.

He is the tallest person in the freight elevator. So tall that everyone at turns to look at him at once for at least 10 seconds and turn back around surprised.

“How tall is he,” one of the nurses ask.

“Tall enough to be my house!”

This annoys him. He takes out the Joker card and lays it against his thigh but realizes he cannot make any hasty decisions. His bloodlust was activated merely out of irritation and not by threat. You were on his mind and destroying these worthless humans wasn’t an option for today.

He approached the guest desk and waited for about 2 minutes before he was acknowledged.

“May I help you,” a smug receptionist asked. Wow, these people do not know who they’re talking to.

“I’m here to see y/n.”

“Y/n is in room 345. Go down the hall and to the right all the way down.”

This man nearly ran with a quickness! His jester shoes somehow made the floor shake as he ran.

You were awake, eating the horrible food the hospital provided and watching TV. It seemed like you were doing ok, but you had just been in a car accident. Your arms and right leg were still sore. It was so bad that you’d be fine with Hisoka carrying you everywhere.

When you two are alone in serious public places, he doesn’t play games or tricks. He is often portrayed as a ruthless man, but in settings like this, he places the jokes and games aside for later. When he enters your room, he is silent for 30 seconds. Much too long. He was shocked; he walked around your hospital bed, pulled up a chair, and stared at your cast. It had many names written on it.

“Yes, I am ok.”

“I apologize for not being there for you,” he began to say.

“Shh… it’s ok. This is life. It hurts like hell, but I’m a trooper!”

Admiring your cast and its multiple fonts of handwriting and messages, he grabbed a sharpie marker, wrote his name, with a heart and spade next to it. Surprisingly, his cursive was very neat and legible.

“I didn’t know you knew how to write in cursive! Why don’t you write me letters?”

“I see you every day and it hurts my hand.”

The doctor wouldn’t be in for another 1 ½ hours, so Hisoka used your thigh as a pillow as he took a nap. He had been up for countless nights thinking about you. He was screwing up so bad, Chrollo let him leave early.

“As soon as your better, we will fight again. I won’t go easy on you. You won’t be in the hospital but you get the jest.”

Illumi

Illumi isn’t the type of man to overreact in these types of situations. When you both agreed to date each other, you knew you all were tough cookies. You were aware of the dangers of dating an assassin and he knew about the dangers of dating a bounty hunter. People hated you both and you targeted.

One night you both were caught in a vulnerable state. While you both enjoyed chocolate milkshakes at a laid-back 1950’s styled diner, two men were previously thrown out for fighting. While your back was turned one of those men shot your arm, causing you to carelessly throw your body to the ground due to impact.

While everyone else was screaming, Illumi jumped to the ground and tied his hair tie around your arm to temporarily stop the bleeding.

“Illu, why does it feel cold in here,” you managed to breathe out.

His heart dropped to his stomach for the first time in history.

“Don’t say things like that!”

Illumi is already horrible at displaying emotions, but all he could do is frown in fear. Once the EMS came barling in, he demanded that he ride with you.

Illumi hadn’t experienced anything like this since Killua had been injured when he fell from a tree.

You and he were separated when you were rushed into surgery leaving him alone in the waiting room.

When Illumi is stressed and cannot properly display how he feels, he tends to act in “odd” ways.

He begins to furiously turn pages in magazines or bother the receptions every 2 minutes about the status of your surgery. When the woman finally says that you’re still alive, he tones it down a little.

Illumi is open to conforming advice from strangers; he has been receiving it secretly from strangers. Since Silva was busy abusing him, he often found comfort from “the streets”.

He has a bad habit of pacing back and forth and fidgeting in his seat while horrific images fill his mind. All he has seen is pain and even though he was used to it, he didn’t want you to go through it as well.

While sitting in his seat (finally!) and head in his lap, doubled over indescribable sorrow, a little girl walks up to him with her hands folded and a doll under her arms. Illumi feels her presence and looks up. The girl’s curly hair covered her endearing eyes and her smile is wide.

“They’ll be alright. I just know they will,” turning around returning to her mother, the girl said with confidence.

On cue, Illumi placed his hand over his heart, smiling just a little.

He walked quickly to your room once you were out of surgery.

His speed walk mimics one of a soldier; his left arm in since with his right leg. His shoes echoed throughout the hall.

As soon as he enters the room, he shuts the door harder than usual and gives you a tight embrace. This surprises you! You’re lucky if he lays his head on your shoulder!

Illumi had been working out lately. He wanted to beat you in the “squish the melon” contest. He is very competitive and even if he lost, that doesn’t hurt his ego. Not in the slightest. Since it was just the both of you alone, he bends down to hug you tight, so tight that your face is squished against his.

This behavior is only surprising because he usually doesn’t coddle you even when you get hurt, but this time he realized that you could have died from the gunshot wound.

After that he kissed your forehead and almost simultaneously the doctor barreled in just missing the sweet moment between you and your beau.

Chrollo

When Chrollo is holding meetings with the Phantom Troupe, he always appears to be neutral. That is very important. A leader has to show strength even through the worst/hurtful times of their lives.

Chrollo had gotten a call from Nobunaga that you had gotten hurt on a mission and had actually gotten captured by the enemy. Phinks was able to get you back but you suffered horrible injuries.

This is protocol; they do this for any of the members. The troupe was oblivious to the fact that you and Chrollo were dating. They thought you were here to replace Uvo.

In situations like this, he is calm on the outside but screaming on the inside. Common sense will tell you if you are startled by the news you’ve just received and you begin to drive, you could cause more harm on the way to your destination.

Chrollo is very silent; he doesn’t call to check on your status or anything; he would rather see it for himself.

You were a trooper! After all, you are dating a dangerous robber.

Chrollo already knew what room you were in so he just went.

“I knew I should have kept y/n by my side. Y/n insisted on doing my dirty work that they almost died! How foolish could I have been?” He constantly cursed himself for letting his guard down with you.

He always gave you room to think and complete your own tasks but he can’t help his protective nature; one he has for the troupe but times 10.

His childhood friends had been shot by law enforcers, his home was horrific, and the last thing he needed was for you to be gone. You were keeping him afloat in society.

When he opened the door, Phinks was sitting in a chair, one leg over the other, laughing at a TikTok video.

Nobunaga on the other hand was watching the world news and seemed invested that he didn’t hear Chrollo enter the room. Once they both saw, they stood to their feet.

“Y/n is ok boss. They suffered a few cuts and burns, but they're breathing.”

Chrollo’s straight face remained as he stared at you.

Chrollo’s silence is something the troupe has internalized as a sign of anger, rage, or both. When he didn’t speak and just stared, everyone knew that their next mission was going to be a brutal one.

Chrollo is a man that isn’t afraid to express how he feels. He could cry right now if he wanted to and no one would dare laugh at him or insult him. After all, Nobunaga cried when he realized Uvo was dead.

Nobunaga and Phinks excused themselves as they saw him place his hand over his mouth.

Once the door closed, He pulled up the chair, grabbed your hand, and gently squeezed it. His warmth woke you up instantly and you turned your head. You winced in pain causing Chrollo to jump from his seat, moving to your right side so you wouldn’t turn your head too much.

“I’m glad you're alive, darling. What were you doing putting yourself in danger? Feitan could have handled the beast!”

He isn’t trying to doubt your ability to fight, he’s just concerned for your safety. Even so, why would he insist that you join the spiders?

A tear dropped from his face as he silently kissed your hand three times. You smiled warmly and placed your right left hand on top of his.

“I am fine, boss. You need not worry. I’m a trooper, remember?”

He placed your hand against his dry cheek and continued to kiss it. You were his lifeline and he wanted to spend every moment with you.

#hisoka morow #hunterxhunter #hunter x 2011 #hunter x hunter #illumi zoldyck #hxh 1999 #hisoka #chrollo lucilfer #chrollo #hxh illumi #illumi #hisoka morrow x reader #hunter x hunter x reader #hunter x hunter x you #hunter x hunter x y/n #illumi x reader #illumi x y/n #illumi x you #chrollo x y/n #chrollo x oc #chrollo x reader #chrollo x you #hxh headcanons #hxh imagines #hxh chrollo #hxh x reader #hxh 2011 #gon hxh #hxh fanart #y/n

[go-redgirl]

Exclusive — Jesse Jensen: ‘If You Fire Nancy Pelosi,’ U.S. Is ‘Back to a Better Way of Life’

Jesse Jensen, a former Army Ranger, is currently looking to unseat radical Democrat Rep. Kim Schrier (WA) in the midterms, told SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday this weekend that he will flip Washington’s Eighth Congressional District to Republican in the upcoming midterms and fight Schrier and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Jensen previously ran against Schrier, coming within a few percentage points of winning the district last year. Earlier this month, he announced his candidacy to run again against Schrier, hoping to unseat her and take back the majority in the House to fight Pelosi.

Host Matthew Boyle, Breitbart News’s Washington Political Editor, asked Jensen about his service and how the former Army Ranger completed the training with a fracture which unfortunately led to a broken leg. Jensen jokingly mentioned that he was a strong ranger and not a smart ranger. However, he said joining special forces put him on the trajectory to be deployed to Afghanistan four times, where he received two bronze stars for his service.

Jensen said that alone shows the major differences between Schrier and himself. He said, during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, Schrier “refused to go to D.C. during Covid, she invoked her proxy vote, she gave her proxy votes to Nancy Pelosi and didn’t vote in person for the payroll protection program.” He said if you wanted to equate that to himself, that would be like “going in front of my troops and saying, ‘Hey guys, I want you to go out inside America’s wars, I’m gonna stay here, and I’ll give my proxy votes to the platoon sergeant.'” Jensen said he was always the first person out of the helicopter and the one running towards the fight, not away from it.

Boyle asked Jensen to talk more about his life growing up and becoming the first in his family to graduate from college, being able to afford college due to his grandfather co-signing on his student loans, and later joining the military. Boyle asked why he decided to enlist in the army later in life after college and after joining the work force instead of before.

“I was actually working on Capitol Hill, and I was driving a U.S. senator to Walter Reed, and we met a young man who had stepped on an IED and sadly lost both his legs and was catastrophically burned,” Jensen explained. The wounded soldier “looked the Senator and myself in the eye said, ‘Gentleman, the only thing I wanna do is go back to Iraq and be with my guys.’” Jensen called that a gut punch and a wakeup call, explaining that three months later he was in South Carolina for basic training.

Jensen said growing up, he was on the edge of working-class poverty. “I grew up on the working of the edge of working-class poverty. The way that my dad got through the day was from venison, from deer meat, that was donated by his congregation. And this is the American dream. You can pull yourself up, and you’ve got the Democrats that are raising inflation, raising your taxes. My opponent reports a Washington state income tax, and you bet she’s gonna increase your taxes in Washington, DC.”

He said running is like a call to service, and he hears that call again. He said, “This is actually my second time running. The last time we came within seven thousand votes of winning the entire thing, and the reason for that was we talked about service and leadership. We talked about getting stuff done, and I was out-raised five to one out-spent ten to one. It’s gonna be different this time.”

Boyle mentioned that the district he’s running in is where the defund of the police movement started as it is the home to the CHAZ/CHOP zone, and Schrier, his opponent, is a radical, lawless leftist.

“Not only has she defunded the police,” he explained. “She actually cut millions of dollars from the COPS grant last year, both, so she literally voted at the federal level to defund the police, but then, she voted for $1.9 million more for increased security for herself at the Capitol. It’s insane.” Jensen dubbed it his opponent’s “rules for thee, not for me” mentality. Jensen again mentioned that during the Chinese coronavirus, she voted by proxy but wants everyone else to do their jobs.

When talking about the CHAZ/CHOP zone, Jensen said he toured the area and talked to people inside. “I talked to a guy who was armed, wearing this crazy Halloween costume, and he was claiming to be a security force” to protect the people inside. When asked if they were willing to shoot and kill police who try and enter, Jensen said the guy would not comment. However, Jensen said that the left hates the border wall, checking IDs, and guns, but when he went inside this zone, they checked IDs, had a border wall, and all held guns.

He said it is incredible that his opponent is trying to make everywhere less safe by defunding the police. Jensen mentioned that Schrier went on a ride-along with the local police to “try and increase her image” and asked them, “What’s all this with the qualified immunity and use of force.” Jensen said the she had no idea removing qualified immunity “would require police officers to essentially get malpractice insurance” and would cause huge exits from the force, which are already happening.

Boyle asked what the difference will be for Washington’s Eighth Congressional District and the country if the Republicans take the House and Pelosi is out of the speakership.

“Well, your taxes won’t go up, for one. Inflation will go down and Critical Race Theory won’t be taught in your classrooms. The list goes on and on, we’ll have the economy be better, we’ll have a more secure border, and law and order will be essentially established,” Jensen said. He also mentioned that his local grocery store has its deli shut down because the store is unable to find anyone to work. He said that even a local trucking company has “200 applications for dock workers, four people actually showed up.”

Jensen told Boyle that it is “Amazing people are gaming in the system, they’re applying for these jobs so that they can keep the generous unemployment that’s paying them more than minimum wage to stay home so that they don’t have to work. These are the kind of policies that hurt small businesses. These are the kinds of policies that hurt workers. These are the kinds of policies that make us less safe, and it’s all thanks to the Democrats. If you fire Nancy Pelosi… we’re back to a better way of life.”

Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Eastern.

[displacedcreativity]

When I was little, I used to love Barney, like most kids in the early 90′s. At one point, I even had a stuffed Barney that was very close to the design of the toy in the show. I knew mine would never come to life, but the extra detail made it feel so magical and for a variety of reasons, it was very sentimental and I loved it dearly. I often played alone so obviously toys and stuffed animals played a big part in my imaginary adventures and this stuffed Barney was no exception.  And then while at preschool. In between arriving and naptime. Someone stole it. And I never saw it again. I was devastated, to say the least.  My grandmother got me a new one, but it wasn’t the same. Literally and figuratively. The new one was wearing a shirt for some odd reason, and it’s mouth was sewn shut and overall it looked very odd. There was no charm, no magic. By second grade, I loathed Barney. Between losing the stuffed toy and having one of the lessons I had learned from the show backfire in a painful way, I wanted nothing more to do with it.  I carried that hate for years, and eventually it turned into a neutral feeling to hardly ever thinking about it. Obviously, I knew all the words to the mean version of the ending song from the show...the “I hate you, you hate me, let’s team up and kill Barney.”  I think that’s still a thing that people start singing when they hit a certain age.  I sang it so much I actually forgot the words to the actual song. Regardless, Barney! Not something I’ve really put much thought into lately. And lately, I’ve been burned out - prior to Covid, though Covid definitely didn’t help. And while burned out I was crushed in all the worst ways possible and if I were the Doctor I would’ve died and struggled to regenerate.  Whatever spark or light I had been holding onto prior to recent events is snuffed out, gone, and it would take an impossible miracle to get it back or at least a similar spark back. Like. That person is *gone* I might as well change my name and face at this point.  Needless to say, my dreams have been various flavors of awful, and while that’s not unusual they’ve definitely ramped up in the awfulness more recently.  Last night was no exception, but the ending took a bit of a turn. I was at a school, like a mix of schools I’ve been to or seen and weird stuff was going on and I’m not sure how old everyone was? Like we were all kids, teenagers and adults all at the same time cause you know. dream logic. But then for a moment, Barney was there. Which is a first, I think. I genuinely don’t remember any dreams with Barney in it before. But. He was there! But then he wasn’t. Turns out the only people who could see him were people who still believed in the power of the Imagination. (Very Hook).  And of course, I stood there in disbelief that I couldn’t see him because  I write and draw characters all the time and imagine things, I love imagining stories and dreaming and this was even MY dream why could I NOT see him? I was kind of insulted and spent the rest of the dream trying to prove to myself and everyone that there was nothing wrong with my imagination.  Except that there was, or, is. As I was saying, that sparks been pretty much gone. The skill to create hasn’t vanished, and when I have the energy I can still make the art and write. But that spark that makes me enjoy what I made or gets the creative juices flowing. That’s gone. It’s all ash, there’s no re-igniting that flame. When I realized that in the dream I was instantly upset because it meant that I’ve failed my inner child, if I even still had one, and myself and everyone there because it meant that I couldn’t see Barney even though I knew he was there. I even went on a rant about how growing up doesn’t equate losing your imagination, losing that spark, and adults aren’t crazy for wanting to play with their imagination as a way to have fun and relax.  But everyone nodded and agreed with me, I hadn’t made any sort of realization I didn’t already know or at least, deeply understand. Like, I was right but it wasn’t what my subconscious was trying to process and deal with. And someone, I don’t know who, asked me if I loved my imagination. As it’s something that has actually plagued me many, many times and well I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve pretty much got 0 self love.  I think I said yes, or that I wanted it back, I’m not entirely sure. But it was this general acceptance that one of my strengths has always been the ability to see the magic in the mundane and to share that magic with others by creating something, be it art or a story or whatever I think is the best medium for the magic. I often squish this down in an attempt to fit in or to not look weird, but.  It doesn’t stop at stories, because I was also thinking how in general I see the potential in things, in people, in stories.  And yeah, that magic can often backfire, and it can hurt, and it can make you feel completely, totally alone when no one else see’s what you do. But that’s what I needed to say. That I can see the magic in the mundane and the potential in every person. Even though I’m burnt out and the spark is gone and I have no real creative juices and no real self love and honestly every year I survive is honestly a surprise and I still can’t promise I’ll make it to 34 for a variety of reasons, (my physical health is rubbish and yadda yadda tomorrow is never guaranteed) but. That’s part of who I am. I see the magic. I see the potential for good, and the potential for bad. And there will be people who will never see what I do, and there will be people who will! And there will be people who don’t see it, but they will believe me - some may see what I do eventually, and there will be those that will never see it even if it’s slapping them in the face and they will take that out on me in negative, awful ways and it will hurt every time. But that’s okay. And it’s okay to be hurt, and it’s okay to lose that spark because the spark is just an energy source. When the batteries die for good you don’t recharge them you throw them out and get new ones! Hell, even dead batteries that are kept in for too long can still explode acid everywhere and eat away at the insides.  So yeah, my batteries are dead, and have exploded acid everywhere, and it will take a long time to pry them out, clean up and repair the damage and get fresh batteries. And it’s always possible that I’ll never make it that far.  But when I realized this, in the dream. Magic from the mundane and the batteries...Barney popped up again. Though more of a strange dream version of Barney this time, and actually to be completely honest I couldn’t see the face because it was taller than me so all I could really see was a colorful torso but REGARDLESS.  I hugged the dream dino and for the first time in YEARS. I remembered the actual lyrics to the ending song from the show. “I love you, you love me. We’re a happy family. With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me too!” What a thing to forget.  And I realized, that that’s generally my response to when something I love ends up hurting me in someway shape or form. Ever since I was a small child that’s how I learned to react to a lot of my trauma. The logic of...”It can’t hurt me if I hate it.”  Like I’ve known for a while that I’ll avoid something if there’s too much negativity attached to it, and obviously there are lines that will always need to be drawn but. Love won’t always make  you feel good, and that’s okay. But replacing love with hate isn’t always what you should do, and hate with always make you feel like crap.  Anyways, I’m kind of losing my train of thought but ultimately. I woke up feeling... lighter, in a way. There’s still a lot of bad and I’m stull hurting and broken, etc etc etc but I woke up with no hatred for Barney or sour neutrality and generally my feelings for the show (I’m assuming it’s still on) is that I think it’s a great show that encourages kids to be imaginative and to be loving.  And my inability to remember the original lyrics of the song has been replaced with me genuinely struggling to remember the mean lyrics, and I don’t even feel bothered to look them up, because why? Why waste energy I don’t have hating something for unintentionally hurting me, especially when it was something I loved so much and helped me get through other dark, traumatic events that I was exposed to at a very young age? I mean, I’m not about to go out and start buying a whole bunch of Barney merchandise and start watching show, but I can allow myself to enjoy my memories of it from when I was a kid and also forgive myself for hating something just because I was a kid in pain who wanted to protect themselves when no one else would.  This sort of thing is more complicated when it comes to people, but, baring exceptions, it’s okay to love the good memories. It’s okay to still love a place, or a thing, or a food you enjoyed alongside a toxic ex, and it’s okay if you can’t do that.  It’s okay to never want them in your life ever again, and it’s okay to hope that things can heal and mend and the two of you can reconnect in a healthy manner and the second time around is positive and healthy.  It’s okay to grieve a death for as long as you need to, and it’s okay to move on and find love again.

But whenever possible, chose love. Because love will let you know when to change your batteries, hate will make you keep those dead batteries till they explode acid everywhere and corrode you from the inside out because you hate being alone, afraid, or whatever negative thing is eating away at you but I can garuntee it’s not love that’s making you keep the dead batteries, it’s the deep desire to avoid something negative you hate or are afraid of and that’s perfectly understandable and a reasonable response and everyone works at their own paces.  And if you think it will help, write a sticky note that says “change the batteries” or whatever and stick it somewhere you can look whenever you need a reminder. Start with small things! Or don’t! It’s completely up to you! Just whenever you can, remember to chose love, and look for the magic in the mundane and the potential in people. Love can take you everywhere, hate will get you nowhere. 

[francieandrowanblog]

Sadjoy

by francie

I remember my depression starting nearly to the exact moment. One moment things were fine, and I was who I was before, and then, like the world was turning upside down, I did not know how to reach contentment. That was like two and a half years ago, and since then it has been a near constant battle. I struggled coming to terms with even saying I was depressed, because I figured other people’s depression was so much worse than mine, I shouldn’t talk.

When my dad was diagnosed with cancer an overwhelming darkness entered my life and changed me forever. Since then I’ve become clinically depressed, my anxiety is worse than it has ever been, and I’m now pretty sure that I have ADHD. So thinking back to this moment, when the darkness first entered my mind, is something so sorrowful it is almost hard to hold in my chest.

In the past year, the darkness has become something I know quite well. I know I’ll be back there. And in these times it’s hard to remember the good things that have happened in the past two and a half years. For the world, for my own life, for the people that I love, really bad things have happened, and this despair is sometimes all I know. But in these past years, beautiful things have happened, too. Having and losing great love. Finding my home in nature. Falling in love with my friends over and over again. Seeing what can happen when people come together. All the mountains I’ve climbed, all the people I’ve laughed with, all the lakes I’ve swam in. While my sadness is deep, my joys are abound, when I am able to appreciate them.

I know I’m young. Most of the time I feel like a child who is missing her mother’s calming voice. My dad died last year. In his memory I tried to bring up the people around me, be there solely for my family and push aside my grief. But inside me, in the caverns I built to hold this sorrow, I was being eaten. In pushing down my sadness I pushed myself closer to the ground. And I don’t know how to get up out of this.

I find joy in a few basic things: music, my friends, writing, weed, you know. But there are any number of things I could find my sadness in. Today it’s 7 days til the election, and I’m shaking in my boots. I have so many thoughts. Today I phone banked in my county in rural Maine, and the cognitive dissonance was everywhere, even within myself. I look around me, I look at what’s happening and it’s hard for me to even find a place to begin. I wanted to do a local effort, close to home, so I could talk about the down-ballot races that are so important. Of course, I had to talk about Biden as well. In a time before Covid-19, before super Tuesday, we thought Bernie might do it. It’s a whole different world now. I hate the idea of voting for a president (shit, I’m gonna do it, though). Everyone out there saying Biden would be a bad president but can you say that with a straight face? Biden will be a good president, he’ll do exactly what the role of the president was always supposed to do: protect the empire.

I’m so frustrated with nation-states I could cease to exist. I want to give up my corporeal existence. Can everyone shut the fuck up about the “american experiment”? It was a stupid idea. It was a bad experiment. The only justice is giving all the land back, dissolving this terrible country and starting anew.

I’m so tired. This apartment makes me tired, I want to go home. I’m living in New York right now with one of my best friends, for school. So I just sit here, in this apartment, in my science classes, trying to make sense of literally any of it. Do the good times outweigh the bad? I can’t see how they could. But the thing about my way of living right now is that it’s not about having more good times than bad. It’s about living. It’s about having some good times. It’s about having some good moments in the day. Sometimes there are none and that’s what isn’t fucking fair. Depression is a terrible, terrible bedmate.

Emotions don’t exist in a vacuum. We still have to be parts of society, or so I’ve heard. And while my brain may convince me all day long that I have no real friends, my family is done with me, I’ll never get the good back, here is the only truth I hold when it comes to mental health: The good times will come back. The bad times will come back. The good times will come back. The bad times will come back.

The good times will come back.

[panokroko]

We have been played…

Indeed, we were lied to, both about the Wuhan coronavirus mortality rates, transmission, and seriousness, and also about the resultant unjustified house arrests of all Americans and the need for mass lockdowns.

And here’s the proof that our leaders used a scary health emergency to subvert our democracy and remove the constitutional protections for Liberty that have been guaranteed since the founding of this country.

They indeed removed the Constitution wholesale from our Republic, and they keep on doing so, and you know it too — because while millions of Americans remain subjected to unprecedented restrictions on their personal lives, their daily lives, their family’s lives due to the Wuhan coronavirus lockdowns that continue in most places we are living under it, you definitely know that the rioters and the looters are somehow magically unaffected by it… And yet as a result of this “Massive Lie,” tens of millions of people are now out of work and perhaps permanently unemployed.

A huge number of them have no prospects of working again. Many thousands of small businesses are closed and will never reopen. More Americans have become dependent on drugs and alcohol, seeing their marriages dissolve, and become clinically depressed and driven to suicide…

Some of you have delayed your weddings, your baptisms, your ceremonies, bar mitzvahs and allotter mysteries of faith, .

Americans were banned by the government from visiting their dying parents, and then also barred from burying their loved ones in proper funerals and thus are now and forever unable to say goodbye and find closure for their loss…

Let that skink in for a moment, because Free American people were not allowed to say goodbye to their dying parents. No goodbye Mom..

No goodbye Dad.

No goodbye to our dying elders.

Still some Americans died and many more will die of cancer because they couldn’t get cancer screenings, while some unknown number have taken their own lives in despair.

Meanwhile in Seattle and elsewhere many other people have flooded the streets to protest, to mass gather and even to riot, because bottled up rage and frustration take many forms, as it does in Seattle where the rioters have taken over the city.

Talk about our leaders being tone deaf, because in the midst of all this Chaos and Anarchy, the Seattle City leaders call for more closures and more social distancing and keeping non-essential businesses shuttered.

But do they ever think and consider the cost inherent in shutting down the business?

Because indeed the cost of shutting down the business of the United States that is enterprise, and also denying our citizens the desperately needed contact with one another, is extraordinary. And although it might be hard to calculate in an accounting precise form — that cost has been staggering.

Yet, the people responsible for doing all of this — now say they would do it again, and that they have no regrets about it.

They say: “We faced a global calamity. COVID-19 was the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu. That flu killed 50 million people … We had no choice. We did the right thing.”

That’s what they’re telling us.

But is it true?

The answer to that question is and emphatic No.

And it matters greatly, not just because the truth always matters, but because we rubbished the Constitution for the length of this lockdown, while we wasted upwards of twelve trillion dollars from our economy, and destroyed any credibility that our leaders ever had…

And because this was the biggest decision our leaders have made in our lifetimes, they were able to make it so morosely wrong, that we must question their sanity — let alone their rule.

Yet, they lord it over us because we let them.

Indeed, their power comes from us, but we behave as if we do not know that … and we allow them to take all that power and use it against us.

Because today, as a matter of public health, we can say conclusively say that the mass incarceration of all citizens under House arrest and the general American lockdowns were absolutely not necessary.

So now the truth seeking begins anew, and the main question becomes: “Are the politicians, our bureaucrats and our unelected public officials at all levels of government — worthy of that power bestowed upon them by fearful, panicked and simply scared out of their minds people?

Yes — of course, they are.

But that is not a conversation the politicians or the mass media want to have right now.

And as things stand — they don’t have to have that conversation.

Mainly, because all of us are distracted and mesmerized by the rioting the popular insurgency and the looting rebellion — going on everywhere outside our doors…

If you follow the news it would seem that some career politicians have just created a separate country in Seattle, by abandoning the police department there, and also any pretense of governing, and thus presenting the Capitol Hill area of Seattle as a gift wrapped box of candy, to the military wing of the Democratic party — the ANTIFA faction — hoping that this example will be mimicked elsewhere across the country and thus spread anarchy throughout the nation, showing the world that the United States is ungovernable and causing the US government to collapse…

That is the conspiracy plan of Governor Jay Inslee, King County executive Dow Constantine, and Mayor Jenny Durkan, who all together had a conclave and agreed to allow the seeds of terror be unleashed upon the citizens of Seattle, to scare them straight to the polls to vote Democrat all over again.

Do you get that?

Its a big provocative move, but we are intelligent enough to see the conspiracy of the Mayor of Seattle along with the Governor and the Police chief, to abandon the Capitol Hill East Police Precinct building to the hands of the ANTIFA militants, in order to sow discord and hate all across America and then show to the World that America is ungovernable.

But what the people will soon realize is that only Seattle, King County and Washington state are ungovernable, and not the rest of the country… and all these errant people in leadership will at least lose their jobs, but they will not suffer much else — unlike the people of Seattle who have already suffered enough…

So if you think it’s worth to assess whether or not they are in fact still lying to us about the Wuhan coronavirus and their response to it — you can judge by yourself about whether they are lying to us about the fact that they intentionally abandoned Seattle to the ANTIFA militant Democrats, or not.

And the short answer to this question is: “Yes, they were lying then and are most definitely lying to us now.”

Because as a matter of public health, we can conclusively state that the lockdowns were not necessary.

In fact, we can prove that.

And here’s the most powerful evidence: States that never locked down at all — states where people were allowed to live like Americans and not cower indoors alone — in the end turned out no worse, and in many cases far better, than all the states that established mandatory quarantines.

Like the state you probably live in, and the state that requires that you wear that mask that you are still wearing, and breathing through the reduced and highly polluted air, filled with microfibers that are inhaled and go on to choke your lungs with each breath you take…

Indeed, the states that locked down at first but were quick to reopen have not seen explosions of coronavirus cases. And all of this is the opposite of what they said would happen with great confidence.

The media predicted mass death at places like Lake of the Ozarks and Ocean City, Md. — places where the middle class dares to vacation.

But those deaths never happened.

In the end, the Wuhan coronavirus turned out to be a dangerous disease, but a manageable disease, like so many others.

Far more dangerous were the lockdowns themselves.

For example, in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, panicked and incompetent governors forced nursing homes to accept infected coronavirus patients, and as a result, many thousands died, and they died needlessly.

This is all a remarkable story, but it’s going almost entirely uncovered. The media would rather tell you why you need to hate your neighbor for the color of his skin. The media definitely don’t want to revisit what they were saying just a few weeks ago, when they were acting as press agents for power-drunk Democratic politicians.

We were all played.

Corrupt politicians scared us into giving up control over the most basic questions in our lives. At the same time, they gave more power to their obedient followers, like Antifa, while keeping the rest of us trapped at home and censored online.

Back then, news anchors were ordering you to stop asking questions and obey, like Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor said: “All right, so while most Americans are staying inside — or should be, right, if they’re not out protesting like fools — they’re not happy about being told to stay home. Staying home saves lives. And the rest of us should be staying at home for our mothers and the people that we love, and to keep us farther apart, will ultimately bring us closer together in this cause.”

Our collective conscientious actions — staying home. Oh, if you love your mother, you will do what I say. It turns out cable news anchors don’t make very subtle propagandists.

And then Memorial Day arrived in May, and some states started to reopen. Millions of grateful Americans headed outdoors for the first time in months, and the media attacked them for doing that. They called them killers.

Going sunbathing in the beach is now a crime…

I like that kind of crime just fine…

Swimming with your kids, they told us, was tantamount to mass murder.

Claire McCaskill, MSNBC political analyst: Frankly, a lot of the people in those crowds — they thought they were, you know, standing up for what the president believes in and that is not to care about the public safety part of this.

Robyn Curnow, CNN host: “Look at this. I mean, this is kind of crazy, considering we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. I mean, as one person quipped, you know, that’s curving the curve. That’s not flattening it.”

Don Lemon, CNN anchor: “Massive crowd of people crammed together, as if it were just an ordinary holiday weekend despite the risks of a virus that has killed more than 98,000 people. Boy that montage was the opposite of a MENSA meeting. Has that much dumbness been captured on tape ever?”

The above statement was from Don Lemon of CNN speaking on May 25th.

That was just over two weeks ago.

“Ninety eight thousand people are dead. How dare you leave your house? You don’t work in the media. You’re not essential.”

But it didn’t take long for that message to change completely. In fact, it took precisely five days.

Here’s the same brain dead news anchor you just saw less than a week later. He is no longer angry, about Americans going outside, as long as they are rioting, burning and looting and not doing something sinful — like swimming with their children in the lake, the CNN anchor is delighted by it.

Don Lemon, CNN: “And let’s not forget, if anyone is judging this — I’m not judging this, I’m just wondering what is going on. Because we were supposed to figure out this experiment a long time ago. Our country was started because — this is how: the Boston Tea Party. Rioting. So don’t — do not get it twisted and think that, oh, this is something that has never happened before. And then this is so terrible, and where are we in these savages and all of that. This is how this country was started.”

Yes, don’t judge… This is how this country was started — by looting CVS and setting fire to Wendy’s.

Of course, if you took American History, you would have known that…

Apparently, Governor of New York state Andrew Cuomo’s brother, must have been in the same history class because he had the exact same reaction. Or they just happened mohave received the same talking points to read on the air … and here is Chris Cuomo: “America’s major cities are filled with people demanding this country be more fair, more just. And please, show me where it says that protests are supposed to be polite and peaceful. Because I can show you that outraged citizens are the ones who have made America what she is and led to any major milestones. They are here to yell, criticize, blame, and shame. Citizens have no duty to check their outrage.”

Wow.

So, one minute those Americans breaking away from their “House Arrest” lockdown orders — were mass murderers for going outside, and now the new order by the media is that we must go out and riot or else. we are Un-Americans…

Because apparently, the “change” has come and now we are awake, and thus the ones who are out mass rioting, burning, looting, and spewing hate against America, all of a sudden are some kind of Founding Fathers of the Republic, and you still sitting at home wearing a mask over your mug — well, you are a moron and you know it.

Right?

Because the looters and the ANTIFA terrorists burning up Seattle and other cities — must be patriots.

Surely, they are like the founding fathers of this nation.

Or at least they’re today’s American heroes…

Awesome.

Now, if any of this or even if the whole of this thing seems like a pretty abrupt departure from the lockdown orders that you have received so far — please fret not.

Because public rioting is medially recommended because it is not a health risk, as long as it helps the Democratic Party’s prospects in the November election.

Rioting will not spread the coronavirus, but you getting out of your house will…

Sounds implausible, but we can be certain of that, because last week, hundreds of self-described public health officials signed a letter saying so.

They announced that the Black Lives Matter riots are a vital contribution to public health.

In effect, they’re an essential medical procedure.

But that doesn’t mean you get to go outside.

You don’t.

Thanks to coronavirus, you do not have the right to resume your life, and if you complain about that — then you are labelled as a “white nationalist.”

That is their professional conclusion.

Does a single American believe any of that?

No, of course not.

It is too stupid even for CNN to repeat, so they mostly ignored it.

That’s an ominous sign if you think about it. It means these people are done trying to convince you, even to fool you.

They’re not making arguments, they’re issuing decrees.

They think they can.

They no longer believe they need your consent to make big decisions to run the country. Once the authority stops trying to change your mind, even by deceit, it means they’ve decided to use force — and they have.

During the lockdowns, people whose loved ones died were not allowed to have funerals for them.

Think about that.

It’s hard to think of anything crueler, but it happened to a lot of people. They claimed it was necessary.

Yet we all know that it was absolutely a LIE and it was not necessary at all…

And we know that now, because George Floyd whose death came to be seen as politically useful to the Democratic Party, and was given three funerals and not a word about any health risk from those gatherings was uttered.

Naturally Black Lives Matter and George Floyd RIP,  has been a catalyst for questioning authority and that isn my mind is far more important than the agenda of the Democrat ANTIFA insurrectionists, as they have used Seattle, the biggest city and the economic engine of Washington state, to stage an armed rebellion against the whole nation.

And it is an organized Democrat military wing ANTIFA insurrection fosters by those charged with governing this all too Democratic Washington State, the Democrat run City of Seattle and the King County where the Executive is my old friend Dow Constantine a West Seattle native and soy boy par excellence (ex bar tender), who decreed that giving up control of the City to the armed thugs and terrorists of ANTIFA is akin to a block party with music and all…

Pray tell, is this how your block party looks like?

Seattle where all nonessential businesses are allowed just 15 percent capacity to operate, in Capitol Hill under the ANTIFA regime — no such restrictions are evident any longer…

As for the rest of the city of Seattle, the King County and the State — you can pretty well judge for yourself what that business limiting restriction has already done to any small family run business.

Indeed, the effect of that restriction has been economic disaster and shutdown, because most small businesses run on very tight margins, and they can’t survive for long under this lockdown and in fact, many have already failed, with all of Seattle becoming a basket case of shuttered shop windows.

So, what is an enterprising small business owner to do?

This is my recommendation of what they should do, if they want to keep their business afloat, and if they want to do as they please with their business, with their lives, and with the lives of their children as well as the lives of all others they come into contact with…

They should join ANTIFA.

Because, obviously, in Seattle Washington, the members of ANTIFA can do whatever ANTIFA wants them to do. And who is ANTIFA but the militarized wing of the Democratic party wanting to bring back Hillary or Hitler or whatever insanity they deem necessary in order to destroy this country.

In Seattle Washington this much is obvious, because they have taken over an entire six-block section of uptown Seattle, where they now hold a constant orgy of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, with guns and riot gear that they stole form the armory of the abandoned Police department, and apparently that is all just fine with the King County Executive Dow Constantine, with Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, and with the failed Governor Jay Inslee, who alongside state and local health authorities — are not only approving the fact that in this ongoing young people’s party with guns and drugs, where there is absolutely no social distancing since even open air copulation is rampant and encouraged — no medical precautions are required.

Hell, they don’t even need to use condoms, because they are essential porkers, and at any rate all these ANTIFA shemales are either metrosexual, asexual, alternative, or only shoot blanks anyway…

And as anyone knows the ANTIFA are the biggest racists there is, but the Media will not tell you that, because they want to keep you in the plantation for ever and ever.

And that is why they indoctrinate your children into the virtues of subtle racism to keep them in line with the principles of the Southern Democrat party… and maintain them inside the plantation where everything is provided to you as long as you surrender your Liberty and Free Will.

  Another reason to join the haters ANTIFA and their ilk, is to be able to dance in the streets at will, especially, if the bacchanalian Roman Orgy is in your blood…

Or if you think that you are a really Cool Cat…

So lets all join ANTIFA and see how long this party will last…

And then lets wait and see how long before the ANTIFA gestapo starts seting up the guillotines and hoping heads off in Seattle.

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

Are you getting the picture?

Is it adding up to a message?

Yes, the message is we were played.

We were all played.

Corrupt politicians scared us into giving up control over the most basic questions in our lives.

At the same time, they gave more power to their obedient followers, like Antifa, while keeping the rest of us trapped at home and censored online.

In other words, they used a public health emergency to subvert democracy and install themselves as monarchs. How were they able to do this?

The sad truth is, they did it because we let them do it.

We believed them, therefore, we obeyed them.

If there’s anything good to come out of this disaster, it’s that none of us will ever make that mistake again.

And just to take away the message of how ANTIFA trains its members to cause terror and harm all across America — here is that video for your home training needs if you truly decide to join ANTIFA in Seattle or elsewhere now that your city’s Police fails to protect you.

We’ve been played… We have been played... Indeed, we were lied to, both about the Wuhan coronavirus mortality rates, transmission, and seriousness, and also about the resultant unjustified house arrests of all Americans and the need for mass lockdowns.

#Dr Churchill

[wanderbitesbybobbie]

REAL TALK: Inside a Bipolar Mind Amidst a Pandemic

Three nights ago, I sent an e-mail to my psychiatrist. The e-mail went this way…

Hi, Dra. Belle. How are you? I hope you’re doing well and good and most of all healthy. I’m doing OK, with all the Covid 19 things happening. I just had 1 breakdown so far which I would really like to discuss with you on our next consult if there’s any slot available. I was scheduled for April 6 appointment, but if there’s any slot left for May, I would gladly take it. I’m not that anxious at the moment as I’ve been trying to avoid stressful news. Over all, I’m OK, except that I find it really hard to sleep again. Probably because I’m just at home, and I don’t have that much activities compared to my usual routine. I do cardio exercises, I write a lot for my blog, but because there’s longer time to rest, I really find it hard to sleep at night. I keep waking up with the body twitches again, and because of lack of sleep I’m usually irritable. I badly need to take Clonotril again. However, I can’t seem to find your latest prescription of Clonazepam (Clonotril), I’m not sure if there was one issued last March. I tried to show Mercury Drug the Feb 3 prescription which has been unused, but they said it’s already expired. They said, they will accept E-Prescription, so I have to ask my doctor for it. May I please request another copy of the prescription for Clonazepam? I still have my Quetiapine prescription and I was able to use it, I just dunno where I placed the Clonazepam. I know you always hand me 2 prescriptions every time. 1 for Quetiapine and 1 for Clonazepam. I’m just not sure if I misplaced the other one, or if I forgot to get a prescription for it last time. If it’s possible, please send it here on my e-mail. I only have 1 left in my stash and I’m a bit panicking because I can’t find the latest prescription. I attached here the photo of the February prescription. Thank you so much. Hope to hear from you soonest. Keep safe and God Bless.

I stood in front of the counter at my local pharmacy. It took them around half an hour before they were able to dispense my medication. Though my psychiatrist have issued the latest prescription, the pharmacist had to call the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to verify how legit my papers were. Yes, it’s a usual practice. One of my medications is a controlled drug, and it is heavily regulated by PDEA. So I waited for the pharmacist until someone from PDEA answered their call. I kept calm. There was nothing I could do anyway.

SURVIVING THE QUARANTINE

It has been a month since the government decided to put the entire Luzon (northern part of the Philippines which includes Manila) on a community quarantine. All movements are limited. Mass transportation has been stopped. There are checkpoints everywhere. People from the private sector were asked to work from home. The government is badly trying to flatten the curve. Covid-19 has been winning for the last months. It has taken over the major economic centers of the world, USA, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, China, Japan, it did not spare anyone. It took the rich and the poor, the old and the young. As of this writing, there are 2,215,167 Cases in the world, 149,676 Deaths, and about 560,672 has recovered according to Worldometers Info. It does not look good, wherever angle you would look at it.

I honestly don’t know where I stand, but I have a lot of things in mind. It’s 2:15 AM. If you would notice, most of my articles are posted at wee hours like this. Why? BECAUSE I HATE SLEEPING. I have recently discovered this during the time of this pandemic. I hate it when the clock strikes at around 12 midnight, that means I have to put myself to sleep again. Sleep is essential I know, but for someone like me who has a massive trouble sleeping, it’s not a pleasurable process. It comes with my disorder. My brain is hyperactive (manic) at this time. I am not like a normal person, who simply lies down in bed, tuck themselves comfortably in, and instantly falls asleep. I have to take heavy medications to put my relentless active brain cells to shut down. I have to wait for hours until they take effect. If sleeping is a dilemma for me, the same goes with waking up. It takes the same amount of effort to put me to sleep to be able to get me up to function.

But conversely, I am somehow liking the quarantine. It gives me so much time to be away from my tiresome daily hustle. I don’t have to go out everyday for work. I don’t have to wake up early to get multiple things done in a day. I don’t have to force myself to deal with people. I wake up, prepare breakfast, watch Netflix, prepare food for lunch and dinner, take photos of the food I make, maybe write for my blog, watch more movies, send some replies to client inquiries, and then prepare to sleep again. It has been my routine. Sometimes, I do the laundry, clean the house parts by parts, insert some cardio exercises every other day, give my dog a bath, run through our supplies and make a list of what needs to be restocked. It’s on repeat, sometimes I even lose track of what day it is. Some days I go on a grocery run to buy stocks for 2 weeks. The long queues had never been my problem as I have a disability ID allowing me to go on the priority lane. Then again, I have always thought about the people around me. Some, computing their budgets while they read-through their grocery lists. Some, fidgeting on their phones, maybe posting rants about the unbelievable lines they had to go through just to get inside the supermarket. I never experienced any of it, and for the first time, I say thanks to my disability. My PWD ID itself is a powerful immunity. I am thankful that I wouldn’t have to wait in line, as it would definitely increase my exposure to the virus. I am at high-risk, I am asthmatic, with so many deficiencies (according to my last lab results) and I’m taking medications for my brain. There is little chance for me to survive it, so I am taking extra precautions. But because of Covid, I became thankful for a lot of things. Things that never mattered before the pandemic. I am thankful that supermarkets are always restocked with supplies. People wouldn’t have to worry about scarcity. After all, that’s what the President promised. “We have enough food and supplies.” I am thankful I could drive my car. I wouldn’t have to carry heavy supplies from Point A to Point B with the absence of public transport. I am thankful for God’s grace and that we have enough. I am thankful that I can share and I wouldn’t have to cry for help and rely on the government. This pandemic has made me grateful for so many things more than ever.

Somehow, I am surviving the quarantine. I managed to endure with only 1 anxiety breakdown. I cried my constant worries away all my what-ifs. I was angry, I was worried, I was stressed. But at that time, my anxiety was less of a concern. There was a bigger predicament lingering throughout the globe and that was to stay at home to avoid the virus. I know I have to cope by myself, mainly because a trip to my psychiatrist would potentially expose me to the virus. My medications kept me stable and I am functioning well (so far, so good). When boredom strikes, I turn to writing and cooking. I have known my disorder for more than a year now, and it is clearly triggered by stress. A pandemic like this is an obvious trigger. I know I have to carefully eliminate things that would cause me to react.

REACTING TO SOCIAL DISTANCING AND ISOLATION

But there’s always a downside to every situation like this. As I walk inside the supermarket, I watched how people behaved like dormant zombies slowly pushing their carts. Except, they don’t have any human triggers that would make them agitated. With the quarantine going on, only one person per household is allowed to go out. They become the “tributes” as they brave the great outdoors to restock their supplies. Social distancing has been implemented. No one is talking to each other as they keep a safe distance from one another. Everyone wore their “gears” of protection. Wearing a face mask is the new norm.

10 minutes of this for someone with a major anxiety disorder can easily trigger a meltdown. Isolation stimulates sadness and depression and reduces the feeling of optimism. That is a fact. How do I know? Because I have experienced this first-hand. I always thank the people who take their time to read what’s on my Disability ID. “Mental and Psycho-social”, meaning I can go from zero to maximum breakdown at any given time. Bipolar Disorder (depressed or manic) can sometimes be activated without any clear external factors. Therefore, I cannot be left alone for a long time.

GREATER DANGERS ASIDE FROM THE VIRUS

I am lucky because somehow, I can still control my thoughts and my moods. Fortunately, I have not gone hysterical in public (yet and I hope not). My history of breakdowns have been in the corners of my house or within the walls of my room. Crying on the train or in the bus in Sydney does not count. I wasn’t hysterical. I have been applying everything from my therapies, from breathing exercises on how to calm down and talking to the people around me. I air out every feeling and emotion whether it’s happiness, sadness, excitement, fear, or whatever that comes in between. I still have a full-stock of my medications. Also, reading and writing has been my outlet. My extremely active mind has been converting somewhat manic thoughts to productivity, hence my multiple blog entries. I have a lot of things to say, so much in my mind, but I was taught in therapy that not everything needs a reaction.

Having a look around, there is no lucid conclusion with what lies ahead. Everything is not as stable as it seemed to be. No one was prepared. Everybody, including the most powerful are being challenged. It has become inevitable. But you know what greatly affects the world that seems to be unforeseen? People like me, diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, are facing additional challenges. According to Psychology Today, only 2.5 % of the population share these challenges: MOOD ELEVATION AND FULL BLOWN MENTAL BREAKDOWNS. 2.5 % of the world is Bipolar, and God knows what kind of cognitive and behavioral efforts for stress management we undertake amidst a crisis like this. Let’s take everything into consideration, not only Bipolar Disorder, but the list of other Mental Disorders can go on and on.

What is equally concerning is the amount of people suffering from anxiety even without having a proper diagnosis. The pandemic has brought this upon us. More people have become anxious. For some reason, I find myself very lucky. I was already geared with coping mechanisms before this happened. What happens to those who cannot manage?

Looking into the vast expanse of uncertainty and seclusion leaves people to mull over things that could possibly transpire in the future, at the mercy of their confused train of thoughts. The world feels further away, with everyone having their own sets of worries. Fears become louder. It has become a very unhealthy environment.

General access to uninterrupted screen time increases the pressure on the mental health even more. Social media, the news, anything that frequently suggest or conveys to your conscious or unconscious mind that you might be in danger are considered “threats” to your sanity and causes more fear. Leaving our vulnerable minds bare to a steady stream of these keep us all in an anxious mode. The accumulation of stress-triggers to our brain can develop more pessimistic thought patterns, and unnecessary emotions towards our current circumstances.

I am reaching out to all my fellow Mental Health Advocates, and to everyone who can possibly read this post. These are indeed out of the ordinary times for us. As we come to the point that we impose measures to protect our physical health, how about we do the same for our mental health? Try to listen to ourselves in a deeper context. Remember, we don’t have to go through this alone. Seek help if you must. You might be required to keep a safe distance from people, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to disconnect.

KEEP CALM, KEEP SAFE AND MOST OF ALL HEALTHY, NOT JUST PHYSICAL, BUT MENTAL TOO. YOU ARE ALL IN MY MIND AND PRAYERS.

With Love From Quarantine,

    REAL TALK: Inside a Bipolar Mind Amidst a Pandemic was originally published on WanderBitesByBobbie

[slapmeagain-blog]

COVID-19 Life

March 21 - Saturday

Escape from NY....

Last night I tried to sleep without taking any Advil PM.  No go.  I did take two regular Advil but was still awake at 3 a.m.  Oh, yeah. I didn’t even realize it until I was in bed scrolling the news at midnight that Illinois and NY have joined California and declared ‘shelter at home’ states for all residents, meaning we are all supposed to stay at home except for runs for food, medicine, walking the dog and exercise - in public spaces - but to maintain 6 foot distance from others.  That’s 20% of all Americans according to The Times.  Looking out my front door this morning when I went to get the paper (one glove on my left hand to pick it out of the bushes then washing hands glove on, then glove off), there were still so many people out walking, but very few cars on the road.

Just noticed the Saturday farmer’s market down at the corner at the entrance to the park is in full swing. That place is always so crowded.  I hope they’re wearing masks and gloves, whatever good that might be. There’s really  no way to control crowding in that space.  I’m surprised they haven’t shut them down. Sorry for the vendors.

We’re getting the house back in Kingston by month end, and will wait 3 days to let surface virus die, then clean and move in on April 1.  I guess we can’t even have housekeepers anymore.  Please keep paying your housekeepers!!!  

Of course if government announce further restrictions, say on driving or leaving your areas of residence (like they have in Italy), we will head up immediately to Kingston.  It’s impossible to plan without also making plans B, C and D as well.  Will we bring mom with us, even if she says, ‘no’?  She’s 91 and I want to get her out of the city as soon as possible.  I caught her at the beauty shop last week!  And I know she still wants to go to the market.  Grrr.... I don’t know if H is still allowed to work or not.  I don’t think so but who will enforce the rules?  If she does decide to actually work from home, she can get serious about taking care of herself, F and mom.  In Italy, in Marco’s home town, his mom got questioned by police while she walking to the pharmacy, to make sure she was a legitimate resident of the town.  Even with such stringent controls, look at the number of cases there.  Friends in Bergamo aren’t allowed to even leave their homes, period.  

As promised, it’s a chilly but sunny day today.  45 degrees.  Spring is in the air for sure.  Forsythia in bloom everywhere, trees turning red with leaf buds. I walked down to 7th Avenue to pick up an order from Shawn’s liquor.  Wine and liquor sales, Shawn tells me, are considered an essential essential business so they won’t be closing tomorrow with the ‘non-essential’ businesses.  But it it curb-side pick up only.  So I guess I won’t have to worry about a vodka shortage after all.  But just for good measure I bought two more half-gallons of Tito’s.  

I walked across the street to see if Key Food had posted signs with ‘senior’ shopping hours so those of us considered at higher risk don’t have to shop with everyone else.  Just as I got to the corner, a woman about my age stumbled and fell to the sidewalk in front of me.  I was first to reach her.  Trying play down her mortification, I crouched next to her and said, “For a minute I thought you were me,” and smiled. “You OK?” she smiled then started to reach to get up. “Just sit for a second and when you think you are ok, I’ll help you up.”   “I think I’ll do that.” she said and relaxed into a sitting position.  And while she sat taking stock I told her that I do the same thing regularly, because I forget to pick up my feet. It’s so embarrassing!  After a few seconds, she slowly got up and seemed to be OK. She thanked me and the other lady who stopped to help, and we were all away.  Other passersby politely ignored us.  A few seconds later, we stood side by side, reading the posted sign on the door of the supermarket, “Senior Hours: 6;30-7:30 a.m. M-F.” She asked if I was going in, too.  I said that I was just confirming what the senior hours were that I’d heard about.  She hadn’t known.  “Oh, that’s great.”  She went in, and I turned and walked up Carroll Street toward the park and home with my gallon of Tito’s. 

Earlier this morning, R called from Vermont to say how angry she is that some people are putting so many other people at risk by not self-isolating.  There seem to be fairly distinct camps, still, of those who believe we are over-reacting and those who believe we aren’t doing enough.  I’m still following M’s lead using Italy as a crystal ball for what the situation here will be in 2-3 weeks.  So far, it’s been pretty accurate in terms of growth in numbers of cases and in term of health and safety restrictions being enacted.  I do believe, however, that Italy was better prepared to assist those who are quarantined at home by delivering food etc.  Here, it’s not supervised, social services are providing little, if any support, and even a week after Trump promised that testing was ramping up, there are few signs that anything is getting at all better in terms of more testing, equipment for health care workers, or production of sanitary supplies.  He just continues to jaw-bone, lie, and blow smoke up our skirts like he always does. Quote of the day:  “We’re not shipping clerks.”  (Trump after being asked what was holding up the supply chain.) More than one friend said it feels like we live in a third world country, and the press have noted, that South Korea, who reported their first case on the same day the US did, is in far better shape than us because of early test-kit production and aggressive testing.  Two months in and we’re still not there.  WTF

After lunch, Marco and I decided to go for a walk in Prospect Park to get some exercise and fresh air.  The trees are really coming to life.  I wonder if they sense our anxiety in the air.  I recently read, “The Over Story” a novel about the life and evolution of trees and how they communicate with, and help each other, or are helped by other species such as massive fungus, protecting each other from disease and drought, predators, and more, winding all of that into the lives of the people that live among them.  It won the Pulitzer Prize. You should read it.

Parents urging kids to stay close (meaning to stay far from others), cringing while trying give them space to have fun at the same time.  I’d hate to be a parent of small kids now.  Just as I’d love to be young enough to not be aware of what if unfolding around me!  “Why can’t I go play in the sand box?” would be my biggest concern.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the numbers of people in the park.  It is a beautiful day, it’s spring, most everything else is closed, and people are looking for distractions.  I understand a little better how Prospect Park was more crowded 100 years ago when there were far fewer amusements for people on weekends.  We tried to look for paths and areas less crowded and ended up on a path through a wooded area behind ‘dog beach’, a little lagoon where dogs can swim, then to one of the roads that bisects the park West of the Nethermead, then wound our way back through the woods on the other side of the steam to the Long Meadow near the Picnic House and along the West drive to Garfield and home.  Nap time.

[jessicakehoe]

Texture Talk: Makeup Artist Tracy Peart on Embracing Her Natural Hair During Quarantine

The Covid lockdown and stay-at-home orders have no doubt effected our relationships with our go-to beauty routines. Here, Tracy Peart, a body positivity advocate and the resident makeup artist for CityTV’s Breakfast Television Toronto and Cityline, shares how months of quarantine life has shifted her hair routine from a long-standing love affair with protective braids to fully embracing her natural coils and hopscotching between hairstyles. Read on for her hair journey and what she’s learned along the way.

Pre-Covid hair journey:

“I always had somebody else doing my hair basically my whole life. Of course, I styled my hair and things like that, but I’ve never really dealt with my natural hair from beginning to end on my own. I started wearing braid extensions about 13 years ago. I relaxed my hair before that and I hated the process. I hated the burning and all of that, and just felt like my hair wasn’t healthy. Eventually, I decided to cut my hair very short, but it was still relaxed. My hair felt like too much work and I just didn’t want to go through the chemical straightening process anymore, so that’s when I started my braid journey. I wanted something that was going to protect my hair: braids are a lot less stress on natural hair and my hair felt much healthier.

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I’m wearing no pants…Lol!😉😆 #BusinessOnTop Photo📸: @LitBeautyAndPhoto _________________________________________________

A post shared by Tracy P. (@tracypmakeup) on Feb 21, 2019 at 4:56am PST

For me, everybody should find a style that works for their lifestyle. I didn’t start wearing braids because I didn’t like the way my natural hair looked. It came down to time for me. I’ve been waking up at 4:00 AM for work for, like, 15 years, and I don’t have time to give attention to my natural hair in the morning. Protective styles like braids are just so much easier and faster for me. Yes, braids take a lot of time when you’re putting them in and taking them out: my go-to braiding technique takes four hours to put in (I don’t just do straight single braids) and roughly two hours to take out, which I undo myself. But there are weeks in between where you don’t really have to do much. I would go see my hairstylist every six to eight weeks, and in between I wash and condition my hair and run product along the scalp to keep it moisturized. That was my routine. My hair was pretty much done in 10 minutes and I mostly let it air dry. Sometimes I would scrunch it and use a diffuser for curl definition or put it all up, but I didn’t find my hair was a lot of maintenance. It was very simple. Transferring to braids from relaxed hair just made sense for me.”

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Don’t let life take the smile off your face!😀 Photo 📸: @LitBeautyAndPhoto _________________________________________________

A post shared by Tracy P. (@tracypmakeup) on Jan 29, 2019 at 5:00am PST

Hair under quarantine:

“Honestly, I’m glad this all happened because I wasn’t very educated on my own hair before this. And I don’t pretend that this was my choice: This pandemic forced me to embrace my curls with salons being closed, and I didn’t want to go the route of going into hiding and not wanting to be seen. I know a lot of women who are hiding right now because they feel like their hair doesn’t look good. Many people are going through the same thing right now. And it doesn’t matter what race you are: There are so many women who are dependent upon salons, whether to get their hair done, their eyebrows waxed or nails done. We all have to learn everything by ourselves right now.

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Everywhere Beauty is being presented, someone who looks like me isn’t there. I’m omitted. Forgotten, either intentionally or unintentionally. Both are equally bad. Either way, that sends a message to you your whole life that you’re not pretty, you’re not worthy, you’re invisible. Society doesn’t like what I look like. I’m judged for what I look like. I’m punished for what I look like. And in some cases, people are killed for what I look like. However, I know better. They don’t know what I know. They don’t know I come from Kings and Queen. They don’t know my skin is kissed from the sun. They don’t know God made me perfect the way I am. • Therefore, I refuse to hate myself. I refuse to fall in line. I refuse to hate my blackness. So, despite the strife, I LOVE being black, I love my dark skin, I love my lips, I love my nose, I love my dark eyes, and I love my hair. I’m a BLACK QUEEN!👸🏿👑 #BlackBeauty #BlackGirlMagic #MelaninPoppin #LoveThyFro #EffYourBeautyStandards ___________________________________________________________

A post shared by Tracy P. (@tracypmakeup) on Jun 3, 2020 at 6:46am PDT

It’s been quite the hair journey with everything shut down. I’ve learned so much about my natural hair and so much about the styles I can do. I’ve been playing around with side parts, Afro puffs, Bantu knots, braids and twist outs to figure out which curl pattern I like the most. I also do wash-n-gos. I’ve been going on YouTube and watching all these video tutorials to learn, and even embrace the techniques that fail. It’s been fun, but, at the same time, the more I’m getting familiar with my hair, the more I’m realizing just how much time and love natural hair takes. Some hair techniques can take me two to three hours. And that’s the main reason why I didn’t wear it like this before. It wasn’t because of how it looked — I love my hair — a lot of it was time. I also was not aware of how much constant moisture free-flowing natural hair needs, with oils and products, to keep it looking soft and healthy. With protective styles like braids, you moisturize your hair, yes, but not in the same way as you would with hair worn in its natural state.”

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Fun Friday Fro!😁 #BlackBeauty #LoveThyFro #NaturalHairJourney _________________________________________________

A post shared by Tracy P. (@tracypmakeup) on Jun 19, 2020 at 6:43am PDT

Post-quarantine plans:

“I know that I will go back to braids — they’re just much easier for my lifestyle — but not right away. Before, my routine was to take my braids out that night and the next morning I was at the hairdresser. I didn’t expose my hair to anybody because I didn’t know what to do with it. But now, I’m glad I have relief moving forward: I feel like I can go a week or even a month in between my braids because I now know how to handle it. I won’t be so regimented. That’s what I love about what I’ve experienced within this quarantine journey. I’m more open to and have the freedom now to experiment with different hairstyles.”

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Check out this @Anthropologie jumpsuit!👌🏿 #Anthropologie #MyAnthropologie #APlusByAnthropologie _________________________________________________

A post shared by Tracy P. (@tracypmakeup) on Jun 11, 2019 at 5:01am PDT

Missed last week’s column? Click here.

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