Finding Amanda

One night, I was working my last hour of my shift covering the Customer Service desk, which meant when I wasn't busy, I was supposed to help clean up around the cash registers, including taking back items people changed their minds about at the checkout. Earlier, I had witnessed a kid carrying thos cute plushy toy. It was a brown and white hedgehog. The kid, at the checkout, saw a remote control car and he told his dad he qanted it. The dad told him, "The plushy or the car- you can't have both" (by the way, I respect boundaries with kids and parents sticking to their guns about it), and the kid picked the car.

So, I'm cleaning up, have less than an hour left of my shift, and I see the little plushy hedgehog. Somehow, he never got put back nor had anyone else seen him and decided to buy him. He was just sitting there, slumped to the side, unattended.

It's Christmas and I'm a sentimental old sap at heart. My brain starts replaying the scene from RUDOLPH where he's on the Island of Misfot Toys, and is told a toy is never truly happy until it is loved. I picked him up and quickly took him back to the bin with the plushies but... It was empty. He was literally the last plushy toy and my boss was about to wheel the bin out. We weren't getting any more toys till November, so that meant any toys left at this point needed to sell or they'd be sent to the dump.

I brought the little hedgehog to the front, figuring someone would see him with the candy, candles, & Christmas brick-a-brack, and fall in love with him. When I finished my shift, I went to ask my manager a question and as I passed the Christmas candle display - there he sat, the sad little slumped over hedgehog plushy. No one had bought him, or even moved him.

My manager, Phillip, saw me and the hedgehog. He asked how the hedgehog got there. I told him how I'd put him there when the bin got sent back, and he was the only plushy left. Philip had kids, I figured he'd probably get sentimental and buy it for his kids. Nope. He shrugged and said he'd send it back to be disposed of.

That night, I came home with a plushy hedgehog in my passenger seat. My mom saw him and just thought he was the cutest little hedgehog and asked what I wanted to do with him. I told her the story, then added I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with him.

My mom is a child psychiatrist, specializing in children with PTSD and brain damage that results in learning problems/issues with processing their emotions. She asked if she could have the plushy hedgehog (even offered to pay me for him, she didn't expect me to just give him over), so kids could hug him when they were upset in session.

Murphy, the plushy hedgehog that still slumps a little to the left when seated, has been hugged by hundreds of kids. Little girls have held him tight while explaining about bullies, little boys have held him tight while crying over their panic attacks, younger siblings have held him to whisper secrets while elder siblings and parents talk about self-soothing techniques, teenagers have hugged Murphy while talking about the worst day of their lives. Murphy has also been hugged by kids excitedly chatting about a new friend at school, a teen girl excited to be called by her name instead of her dead-name, little kids proudly saying they've mastered their ABCs, and even staff members who just need to come chat over a case they are having trouble with.

Every now and then, my mom brings Murphy home for a weekend. He gets washed (she calls it a Spa Weekend, to her coworkers, all of them laughing), dried, and sits outside with my mom in the sunshine to get aired out, then on Monday, they are back to work. Some kids even just ask to hold Murphy while they talk, no matter their mood or what they want to talk about. They just want to hug Murphy.

Important if your in an abusive situation you can turn off this alarm

CULT OF TRADITION. The old ways are best. The New is not worthwhile.

REJECT MODERNISM The development of Western philosophy post-Enlightenment is seen as a descent into depravity. See also : Reject post-modernism, which is seen as an even greater descent into irrationality.

ACTION FOR ACTION'S SAKE. Action is to be taken without reflection or introspection - that's for weaklings and degenerates. Often seen in a derision of "intellectual elites".

DISAGREEMENT IS TREASON. Analytical criticism cannot be allowed. A pantomime of discourse may be allowed, but only within the accepted framework and only if reaching the foregone conclusion.

FEAR OF DIFFERENCE. Outsiders are your enemy. Those who are different are evil and want to corrupt you and destroy all you hold dear.

APPEAL TO A FRUSTRATED MIDDLE CLASS Capitalising on genuine frustrations by pointing them toward convenient scapegoats. Real concerns used a recruiting tools.

OBSESSION WITH A PLOT. There is a conspiracy run by THEM. You are besieged by THEM. THEY are behind all your ills. THEY are working in the shadows to enslave and destroy you.

THE ENEMY IS BOTH STRONG AND WEAK. When rhetorically convenient, THEY are all-powerful. When rhetorically convenient, THEY are feeble, stupid, weak. The rhetorical focus shifts regardless of self-contradiction, because all that matters is positioning the enemy where the speaker's goal requires them to be at any given moment.

PACIFISM IS THE ENEMY. LIFE IS ETERNAL WAR. There must always be an enemy to fight. When that enemy is defeated, another must be found. When they cannot be found, they must be created, even from within. There is always the promise of a Final Solution bringing Ultimate Triumph, but it can never be achieved.

CONTEMPT FOR THE WEAK. Elitism disguised as populism. Everyone of US is superior to THEM, cockroaches and drains on society that they are. But people are sheep who require strong leaders, who are by their nature superior to others.

EVERYONE IS TAUGHT TO BE THE HERO. A CULT OF DEATH. Where in myth the hero is exceptional, in fascism everyone must be the hero. They crave heroic death, the reward for heroic life. In seeking it, they send others to die. (See also: Militarism).

MACHISMO. Disdain for women and femininity. Intolerance of non-standard sexuality and gender expression.

SELECTIVE POPULISM. The People are viewed as a monolith with a single will, as interpreted (in reality, determined) by the leaders. Democratic institutions are viewed as illegitimate because they run counter to the narrative of the existence of a single Voice Of The People.

"we have to oppress some people to make things right but don't worry, we're not talking about you"

They're not talking about you YET.

They attract poor white people not by saying they will tax everyone more to support social benefits for everyone, but by saying that there will be social benefits for the favoured group because the out group is blamed for everything and will be exploited to support those benefits.

My poor mom went by years without knowing why the fuck she was having all these debilitating symptoms.

All it took was me making her add some more salt to her diet and have an isotonic drink daily and she IMMEDIATELY (as in, less than an hour) stopped feeling faint whenever she got up from kneeling down and her hair is slowly falling off less and less.

It’s not normal for any of that to make you light-headed or nauseous, or get blurry vision, headaches or palpitations.

It’s not normal for your body to suck at regulating its temperature and for your heart rate to go insane if you’re just mildly stressed.

It’s not normal to want to be active and “productive” but be unable to get your body to do anything so you just lay there, or if you manage to get anything done, you’ll need a whole week to recover.

It’s not normal to be tremendously tired all the time no matter how much you rest and sleep, even if people think you’re just “lazy”.

I’m pointing all these things out as abnormal because chronically ill people tend to not realize that our symptoms are symptoms.

Our individual bodies are the only bodies we’ve experienced and since most of us don’t look any different from others and aren’t taken seriously when we complain of any ailment, we assume our symptoms happen to everyone. They do not.

People with no physical conditions (at least not impairing ones such as being a bit short-sighted) do not have their bodies make life difficult for them, unless they’re temporarily ill. But we are ill ALL the time.

Take yourself seriously. Doctors and healthy people already don’t, so if you don’t take yourself seriously, who will?

With this fear of salt, people all over are developing POTS- salt deficiency disorder for the laymen. Some other symptoms include partial or total blackouts and what i refer to as heat sickness. Salt regulates your hydration and body temperature. If you DON’T SWEAT you have POTS. If summer months are almost impossible for you to enjoy because of the heat and sun, you probably have POTS and need more salt. If salty foods like puckles, fries, and chips taste absurdly good and/or addictive and/or SALTLESS, YOU NEED MORE SALT. Your tastebuds are literally telling you that you arent getting enough salt for your body. How do you know enough is enough? When your tastebuds go ‘ew thats TOO much salt’. Thats your sign you finally have enough in you for now. Yes, you can literally eat a teaspoon of salt and it STILL NOT BE TOO SALTY if you are very salt deficient.

Just a reminder that accepting autistic people includes not making fun of people:

-with “weird,” intense interests.

-who are “too quiet” or “too loud.”

-who own stuffed animals or other comfort items that are seen as "childish."

-who move their bodies more than is deemed “acceptable” or in ways that aren’t “acceptable.”

-who prefer to be alone.

-who make “weird” sounds or repeat words.

-who get really excited about details that other people may not pay attention to.

-who prefer other means of communication besides verbal. (ie, “why can’t you just make a phone call? It’s not hard.”)

-who may need a detailed plan before doing something.

-who may not be able to articulate themselves well through verbal conversation.

-who may need more time to process what is said to them.

-who love repetitive tasks.

-who are “socially awkward.”

-who struggle with small talk/pleasantries.

-who can’t/struggle to make eye contact.

-who don’t have or want many friends.

-who get upset when small things don’t go as expected.

-who have daily rituals they must stick to everyday.

-who wear headphones in public or sunglasses indoors.

-who are uncoordinated and less aware of their body movements.

-who always seem to be in “their own little world.”

-who have the “wrong” reaction to a social situation.

-who take a nontraditional path in life.

-who overshare.

-who seem "rude" because they can't quite grasp the social rules (or maybe just don't care about them).

-who are picky eaters.

-who wear "weird" clothes (or, yuh know, shave their head for sensory reasons which is apparently weird to some people. 👀)

-who can't work a traditional job.

-who have “childish” interests.

-who get overwhelmed by situations that others don't even notice.

-who show too much or too little external emotion.

I just feel like people will say “oh, I would never make fun of an autistic person” and then I see autistic traits being made fun of or villainized constantly. Just, yuh know, be nice. Things that society deems as weird or unacceptable are often traits of neurodivergent humans. Just because someone isn't the "norm," doesn't mean that their way of being is wrong. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Anywho, here's a photo of one of our squirrels contemplating his life choices lol. Have a nice day and be nice to other humans lol.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW HARD IT IS TO ?????

duty to reblog such a

natural treasure

Why just want? You’re literally in charge of how you feel about yourself. And you start being proud of yourself by stop “wanting” it and start saying that you are.

Why would you not be proud of yourself? You of all people know what hell you went through. What obstacles you overcame. What struggles you passed.

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