Child of Loki

my pharmacists are managing my scripts but haven’t thought about this being part of my pain management and my family always forgets ask for it and I’m rarely going in to get meds myself so this is just something that falls through the cracks and the best way to deal with that would be to buy two boxes at any time, but I can’t do that

because people kill them selves with paracetamol sometimes

And the fucking moral panic about schedule 8 drugs can get in the bin. We are housebound and use various schedule 8 medications, and the nonsense we have to do to access them is phenomenal. You also can’t buy them online at all, so you’re stuck to the local pharmacies that charge 10x more, you have to see your doctor more because they can’t prescribe more than a month at a time - sometimes we have been able to get repeats, sometimes not.

and my gp practice just came out with a generic policy that they won’t prescribe schedule 8 without an in person visit. So it’s like, what, we’re supposed to just go without medication?! wtf. Our specific GP has said she’ll do it with one visit a year, but I’ve gotten to the point that when my year runs out I don’t know what I’m going to do. And we’ve found ONE practice in Canberra that offers home visits and is taking new patients (and of course they’re fatphobic 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️).

Let me explain:

Grotesque fascist grifter, Nigel Farage, is the leader of Reform, the racist far right party he created because UKIP got what it wanted (Brexit) and it sucked.

Having tried and failed to be an MP many times (but somehow getting more screentime than any Liberal Democrat or Green politician), he finally succeeded in the last election because people were so overwhelmingly pissed off with the Conservatives, and many right-wing people saw Reform as the new Conservative Party; partly because it's full of rejects from the Conservative Party.

Speculation: he doesn't really want to be an MP, he wants to be a fascist grifter. He's annoyed by suggestions he do things like Be In His Constituency and Serve His Constituents.

He's recently been caught having accepted a VERY large amount of money from some unsavory people that he insists was a totally legitimate 'donation' and not breaking any rules.

Only it did break the rules and it's very clear that it did and things are in motion to hold him to account.

To avoid this, he has resigned as an MP, saying this is a protest at his treatment by the 'establisment' (he is a rich fascist grifter, but he likes to cosplay as a Man of the People). This has triggered a by-election, in which he is standing, with the hope that the people of his constituency will either elect him in a resounding win, indicating they don't care that he's corrupt (having not heard everything the investigation is uncovering), or someone from Labour or the Conservatives will win and he can swan off to America, free to grift again because of what the 'establishment' did to him.

Only, all the major political parties have agreed not to stand, stating openly that this is an obvious stunt and they won't legitimise it. So if he doesn't win, he can't say it was because he was too much of a rebel and the Establishment went against him, he'll just be a loser, which doesn't play too well with the right-wingers he wants to grift. And if he does get back in the investigation will go forward without any kind of 'mandate' from his constituency buoying him up.

But. There is another option.

COUNT BINFACE IS RUNNING.

Count Binface is part of the grand British tradition of joke candidates who stand as a protest option. They usually don't get enough votes to get their deposit back (which is supposed to deter unserious people) but they don't care, because DEMOCRACY.

Of course, Count Binface has never won, but it is hilarious to see a completely serious pathetic fascist concede defeat while standing next to a man with a bin on his head to whom they are democratically equal.

But if nobody else is standing. And if enough people in Clacton-on-Sea are finally cheesed off enough with Farage not doing anything for them, there is just a chance that one of the funniest things to ever happen in politics will happen.

Imagine. Imagine for just a moment that the Grotesque Fascist not only loses, but loses to Count Binface.

Now, when a kid comes into class with neurodivergence (or suspected neurodivergence) or another type of disability, we fill in something called a SIP and an IEP (Strategic Inclusion Plan and Individual Education Plan). We can fill in these forms for undiagnosed kids (but often can only get funding for diagnosed kids) and they can be temporary documents or long term and reviewed regularly.

They make us think about a lot of things individually, although some things will be talked about more than once on the form, and every version of these forms I've ever done at any school or childcare I've worked at has one thing in common -

The forms all make you consider how the environment affects the child, not how the behaviour affects the environment.

So, for example, you get to the physical environment section of the form and there's a helpful little column called "barrier to inclusion", and you write something like "loud noises" and then the next column is "affect on child" which is usually something like "overstimulation response" and then the next column is "reduction strategies for barrier," And that looks a little something like "Quiet time with a trusted adult" or "Noise Cancelling Headphones."

And yeah the forms are about seeing behaviour as a symptom of a barrier, not a judgement call.

All this to say that I struggle with a lot in my life. Pretty sure there's undiagnosed ADHD there. Maybe a touch of autism if I'm being truly honest.

But I've started to look at the things I struggle with the same way I would do if I were filling in one of these forms for a kid.

And it's a little gross, but one of the things I struggle with a lot is remembering to brush my teeth in the morning and even when I do remember, hating it so much that I seriously consider not doing it.

And I asked myself "Okay, what's the barrier to this chore?" Which was at first, "it's hard to remember and get into a routine about." And yeah, it is, so I set a reminder on my phone, and that helped, but didn't fix the problem. So I looked again, wondered if there was a second barrier.

And there was! The second barrier was "I hate the way mint makes my mouth feel" which is also a legitimate thing, and was actually easily changed once I stepped outside the barrier of "toothpaste has to be mint." I bought flavoured toothpaste that didn't taste like mint.

And yeah. Haven't forgotten to brush my teeth twice a day in over six months.

All this to say, perhaps we all need to treat ourselves a little kinder. If you're struggling with a behaviour you're not a bad person. There's probably a barrier that's preventing you from achieving consistency with the behaviour.

So take some time to treat yourself like a kid who doesn't know any better, examine your environment and check to see if there's any barriers.