Aromantic Romantic

Water is way more hydrating than soda, but soda is more hydrating than nothing. A balanced meal is way more nutritious than ice cream, but ice cream is more nutritious than nothing.

Something is better than nothing. Some hydration is better than no hydration. Some nutrients are better than no nutrients. Some produce is better than no produce.

Genderfloren

Type: Gender

Definition: Genderfloren is a label used by those who's gender is fluid but never encompasses binary woman or man, but can include masculine and feminine genders. Those who are Genderfloren may experience any number of masculine, feminine, neutral, genderless, and unaligned genders. It is a part of the Genderfluid umbrella. It is also a part of the Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Transgender umbrellas though not everyone who uses this label considers themself to be any or all of these as well.

Flag(s):

This is the Genderfloren flag made by 🖤 Kiiiiira-chan! 🖤 in July 2020. The colors are based from the feminine and masculine stripes of the Genderfaunet and Genderfaer flags.

to the people who need to have pouch food/baby food in their diet, to the people with any sort of feeding tube, to the people who need supplement drinks, who need thickened liquids, who simply cannot consume anything by mouth for one reason or another, or anything else that i didn't think of in time to list it here

Eight people donated to my family

Remember the legal murkniness of paid fanfic so probably keep on down-low

(check links to make sure they accept any of the verification lists or vetters for campaign you want to support , and you should make sure they accept the big verification lists or aren't just for a specific family)

Please donate 🙏🏽

articles about young women with M.E. whose last words were “why won’t they help me eat”. friend after friend who casually tells me about the time they lost half their body weight from months of vomiting/diarrhea and there was no nutritional intervention despite it being caused by a diagnosed medical condition. doctors don’t care, they don’t think we’re real, they think our legitimate fear of malnourishment is petty hysteria, so they fail to take us seriously when we say “I think this might kill me”.

the hot tactic of the decade is accusing young patients with digestive issues of anorexia and denying nutritional support for that reason, as if to teach a lesson, as if anorexia is a punishable offence that one will surely snap out of once given a healthy dose of tough love. the psychiatrization of patients with physical conditions is a well-used tactic to discredit and to nullify the patient’s insistence that they require physical treatment, but this is where the logic caves in! because even if their starvation was 100% caused by psychological reasons, in what world is that an adequate reason to refuse a feeding tube to a person who is starving to death and begging to be fed?

it all comes down to refusing to see these women as real. calling their symptoms ‘illogical’ (especially in cases like gastroparesis/SMAS/ME where the condition is stigmatised but actually highly logically consistent from patient to patient) is an attempt to mystify and deconfirm the patient’s experience which would otherwise be anchored in reality; calling their symptoms psychiatric is an attempt to relegate their physical experience to the wispy world of the conceptual, where all blame can be placed on the patient’s willpower. failing to feed the human being is the final attempt to undo the patient’s existence altogether.

paranoia

control freakism

sense of self-worth so low that it loops back around into being totally dismissive of everyone else

a warm-hearted kind center beneath 200 protective walls of bitterness that doesn't actually make the bitterness better in any way at all even a little bit

bisexuality

crushing feelings of responsibility

zero understanding of own bodily autonomy that bleeds out and affects how they treat others

a lil petty vindictive sadism they maybe don't wanna look at too hard or acknowledge

full self-awareness of all their most negative traits without working to fix those traits at all

internalized misogyny

a mysterious undefinable hunger that cannot / should not / must not ever be sated

"I often talk about reality checking and going along with it when helping someone deal with delusions, but I felt as if I didn’t really make it clear to what I meant when I said it.

Recently I saw a post similar to “how to sneakily give your delusional friend a reality check when they told you not to” and honestly, that’ll just make us lose trust for you. Because we can tell when you do that."

First box: Have they asked you to give them reality checks when they have a delusion. Green "yes" leads to a green box reading: Reality Check. Pink "no" leads to a pink box reading: Let it be / Go Along With It. Black "no, but im still worried" leads to a box reading: Have you asked if you can give them reality checks and they said?

Green "yes" leads to a green box reading: Reality Check. Pink "no" leads to a pink box reading: Let it be / Go Along With It. Black "they said no but im still worried" leads to box reading: Have you asked if there is anything else you can do instead.

Green "yes" leads to green box reading: Do that instead. Pink "no" leads to a pink box reading: Let it be / Go Along With It.

Image #2: Pink box with text reading: What Letting it Be / Going Along With It Is Not: (red "X" bullet points)

adding new information to the delusion / trying to send your friend deeper into the delusion

"that must be scary to believe something that isn't real"

"keep that to yourself, the more you talk about it the more you'll encourage yourself"

dismissing your friend's delusions, saying "everyone thinks like that once in awhile."

trying to distract your friend from their delusion or act as if it's a game

What Letting it Be / Going Along With It Is: (blue checkmark bullet points)

allowing your friend to vent or express themselves ( sometimes just talking about their delusions out loud can help them question it )

"I'm so sorry that you're going through that"

encouraging your friend to express their delusions through poetry, song, art, or other non-harmful things they enjoy

"If that becomes too over whelming for you, you can call me and ask for comfort or a distraction"

allowing your delusional friend to feel safe around you, allowing them to healthily express themselves

Image #3: Green box with text reading: What Reality Checking Is Not: (red "X" bullet points)

"Snap out of it, it's just a delusion."

"That's impossible."

"Think about it for a second, then you'll snap out of it"

forcing your friend into the hospital

calling the police on your friend

trying to fix or stop the delusion

What Reality Checking Is: (blue "checkmark" bullet points)

"Could you describe the evidence you have for your belief?"

"How firm are you with this belief? Would you be okay with other suggestions on what could be happening?"

"You're going to be okay, what you're fearing won't hurt you."

"Can we take a step back? Is what you're going through effecting those around you?"

"Has what you believe happened to anyone else? What is the likeliness of this being real?"

Helping your friend question the delusion or become aware of how the delusion is affecting them.

if your conditions make it hard for you to follow through with plans, you deserve friendship anyways.

if you use equipment like mobility aids, aac, ventilators and oxygen, feeding tubes, insulin pumps, etc, you deserve friendship anyways.

if your conditions make you have to cancel last minute a lot, you deserve friendship anyways. if your conditions make you have to leave early a lot, you deserve friendship anyways.

if you're housebound/bedbound, you deserve friendship anyways.

if you need caregiver support to hang out with friends, you deserve friendship anyways AND you deserve the caregiver support you need to enjoy time with them.

if you have a service dog, you deserve friendship anyways.

if your conditions cause "scary" medical episodes like seizures, fainting, meltdowns and shutdowns, etc, you deserve friendship anyways.

The beginning of February was selected because of its proximity to Valentine’s Day, because we love our feeding tubes. This is my first year as a tubie and I’m looking forward to learning more about feeding tubes and the conditions that necessitate them! I do love my tube, it saved my life!

I am an adult with a feeding tube, and a lot of the awareness and attention surrounding these medical devices is child focused. A lot of children depend on tube feeding to thrive, but there are plenty of disabled adults that depend on tube feeding as well! In 2017 there were approximately 438,000 people with feeding tubes in the US, and 60% of them are adults.

I have gastroparesis, which directly translates to paralysis of the stomach. My stomach doesn’t grind food the way it’s supposed to, and my pylorus sphincter at the bottom of my stomach doesn’t open well to pass food and liquids through. While gastroparesis has a range of impact and severity, I have a very severe case, and I am no longer able to eat or drink by mouth for nutrition. I am 100% tube fed. I went into starvation ketoacidosis prior to my placement.

Tube feeding, or enteral nutrition, has several different forms. There are nasal tubes and there are surgical tubes. Nasal tubes can go into your stomach (NG), duodenum (ND), or your jejunum (NJ) and are typically for short-term use. They can be used for acute illness and malnutrition, or to trial tolerance of enteral feeding. Surgical tubes go into your stomach (gastrostomy/G) jejunum (jejunostomy/J) or both (gastrojejunostomy/GJ) and they’re for chronic conditions and/or long-term use. I have a GJ tube and it looks like this:

I have a GJ tube so that I can bypass my paralyzed stomach and feed directly into my intestine. I can also drain stomach contents from the gastric port, which allows me to drink liquids and drain them out before they make me sick. Different people will have different tubes depending on their diagnosis and prognosis! Some people have one form of tube, and others have separate G and J tubes.

There are over 400 conditions that can require tube feeding. Some of those include

Gastroparesis

Intestinal dysmotility

Cancer

Intestinal failure

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis)

Cerebral Palsy

Congenital/chromosomal conditions

Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Several trisomy conditions

Prematurity

Other conditions not mentioned in the link above include

Hyperemesis gravadarium, severe nausea/vomiting during pregnancy to the point of significant weight loss and electrolyte imbalance

Acute trauma requiring bowel rest

Eating disorders