.المشي مع صديق في الظلام أفضل من الم

This means:

If you draw a hard line between "drug" and "medicine" based on current legality where you live (or any other criteria) you've gone wrong somewhere,

If you think legality and/or prescription status tells you all you need about a substance's capacity to do massive harm to someone's body, mind or well-being you've gone wrong somewhere,

If you think legality and/or prescription status tells you all you need about a substance's capacity to contribute meaningfully to someone's healing, function or happiness you've gone wrong somewhere,

This is what I drew after this situation 👇

Source

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

He stopped covering the No Kings protests because conservatives were calling him 'woke' just for posting that a thing happened (neutral.) When he interviewed conservatives about them and showed 'both sides' the conservatives still called bias. Again, for reporting that a thing happened (neutral.)

He does not report on pride because thats not what his readers want to see. He still goes. He takes photos. He does not report.

If I am busking while repping the queer advocacy group, he puts his camera down. Because im very rainbows.

He caters very closely to this neutral-conservative image, but for what even? The conservatives are still hounding him about his liberal bias for not covering their pet conspiracy theory of the moment.

ER doctor: you mean if I just send you for a leg ultrasound right now and it's clear you'll leave?

Me, picking up my book: yeah, I'm just gonna read until we get it done

Fastest ER visit ever (it was not in fact a clot but I sure would have felt dumb if it had been)

Or, "hey so this test result came back weird and so I think we have to rule out a benign pituitary tumor."

The more specific I get with what I need the faster they order tests. For the RA diagnosis it was, "hey this is probably some weird post viral arthralgia but could we do an arthritis panel since I've got 27 affected joints?"

If the doctor says something dismissive or they don't know, I ask for them to refer me to someone with more expertise in this area.

I had to go through three different practices to find a spinal surgeon who did not tell me that operating on me would be too dangerous because I'm fat. But the third one was like, "Oh, I'm not worried about you coding, there's just a risk that it won't work. But it has a hundred percent failure rate if we don't try."

I did not code. The surgery worked. Was it perfect? No. Did it drastically improve my quality of life? It gave me my fucking life back. I can sit. I can be out in the world and not in blinding pain.

It is so important to not take dismissals and such as the final answer. I got so much bullshit for so many years. It nearly killed me twice, people blowing off clots as muscle pain or "depression".

Track your symptoms. Make a list. Talk about how it affects your quality of life. Ask for physical therapy, ask for second opinions. If you have an idea of what might be wrong, ask them to help you rule it out. Also ask for patient assistance, nonprofit hospitals have it. You might have to go through their labs and their doctors but it can cover an awful lot.

Take a friend with you, or a family member. My pcp asks if I want a chaperone (I don't) but literally having an extra person with you can help.

oh wow the glass-tower office buildings we constructed when we thought air conditioning and central heating would never have downsides...have downsides?

and we're still building them?

while the Victorian house museum where I work, with thick walls and small windows and big wooden shutters stays ~10 degrees above (winter) or below (summer) the outside temperature for days on end with no help at all?

uh. okay then

AUTISM RESPONSE: Rubber ducks and other rubber bath toys can accumulate mold on the inside because of small holes underneath where moisture becomes trapped. The mold often goes unnoticed because it's not visible from the outside.