hey you, blogger. do you find yourself in incredible pain daily? even weekly? despite being in your 30s, or younger? despite doing everything that's ""supposed"" to help?
On top of being in incredible pain, can you or could you at any point in your life:
bend yourself into funny positions like putting your foot behind your head
can bend down without fanfare and put your palms COMPLETELY FLAT on the floor
do your elbows bend a bit backwards? how about your knees?
you can bend your pinkies backwards 90 degrees
you find your joints are incredibly weak and garbage; wrists often in pain despite doing stretches; shoulders/neck always hurting no matter how good your posture is; can’t get down on your hands and knees because doing so is Ow Ow Oof Ouch
you have gastrointestinal issues that you cannot link to food in any way (yes, for real,)
headaches/migraines – especially unexplained, but even if you do have an explanation (for real)
never had enough room in your mouth for your teeth
vision prescription gets better and then gets worse again and you find yourself very confused about how??? why????
have really bad allergies including “I can’t use x soap it gives me a rash for some reason” or other similar “coming into contact with certain things makes me break out” (it’s called MCAS, it’s often comorbid)
stand up and your heartrate spikes and/or you get dizzy (that’s called POTS, also comorbid)
Then, hi, you might possibly have something called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, or EDS; specifically the hypermobile subtype (hEDS), which doesn’t yet have a known genetic marker and goes wildly underdiagnosed in patients, partly because the things they test for hypermobility are pretty limited, partly because doctors don’t know what it is, partly because doctors would rather diagnose you with a different condition (if arthritis or fibromyalgia diagnoses/treatment didn’t help, well...!) because if it sounds like a horse it’s PROBABLY a horse (but it could be a zebra)
Of course having any one of these does not an hEDS diagnosis make, but if you have multiple on my above list? Multiple of the list I am including below the cut? It’s worth looking into. You can continue on reading to see my brief overview, or you can head to www.ehlers-danlos.com to do your own research; they’re a great resource!
"I have a lot of these but not all of them" that's still worth looking into! I've only got five on the above list, and i definitely still have hEDS! Even three is worth considering!
more symptoms and info below the cut, if you want to hear it from a fellow blogger who was diagnosed at 25 and found the diagnosis Extremely Eye Opening as to why i was always in pain and Various Other Issues
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General hEDS info: EDS itself is a genetic disorder that affects your connective tissue, which in general makes your joints weak and your ligaments weaker. hEDS is the most common subtype, in which you have a lot of EDS traits AND hypermobility BUT none of the genetic markers for the 12 other EDS subtypes.
“Wait, but this thing I can do is normal, my whole family can do it!” or “my mother’s side of the family is all like this!” hEDS is genetic. It’s possible to have it if your parents don’t, but VERY unlikely. So unlikely, in fact, that having immediate family history of hEDS is one of the 3 main diagnostic criteria for it. (You can still get diagnosed if you hit the other 2, but they only ask for 2/3.)
“Surely it can’t be so hard to diagnose that doctors don’t notice it!” my sister did not find out until she was in her 30s, because one of her friends has hEDS, and when my sister was bemoaning how useless doctors were, her friend was like “....hey those sound like MY symptoms, have you considered you might have hEDS?” (Which, due to it being genetic, is how my mom and I found out we also probably had it.) Also, much like ADHD, doctors are wary of diagnosing people with it, afraid they’re just trying to get the “good” meds.
“What good does a diagnosis/research even do me?” 1) an explanation for why you’re in pain all the time 2) knowledge so you can avoid doing things that would hurt you (you have to be SOOO careful with most forms of exercise!) 3) it’s a disorder that warrants higher pain meds than what you can get OTC, so if you are seriously in a lot of pain all the time, and would like to not be...
I’m gonna put a more in-depth list of symptoms below. If you have any five of them, I highly suggest you poke around www.ehlers-danlos.com and do your own research, because even if you aren’t in a position to get a clinical diagnosis right now, even suspecting you MIGHT Have it is useful, either for an explanation for all the things that seem wrong with your body that couldn’t otherwise be explained, or to know that... hey, you should really be careful with what kinds of physical exercise you’re doing, because your risk of injury for some sports is WAY higher than it is for people who don’t have hEDS. More on that below, as well.
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Symptoms list time:
*THIS IS ALMOST DEFINITELY A MARKER OF hEDS*
hypermobile joints
unstable/weak joints
joints that dislocate frequently
CHRONIC PAIN
stretchy and fragile skin (classic EDS marker, but can show up in hEDS): do you bruise easily? Do cuts take forever to heal?
your parent(s) are also like this (it's a genetic disorder!! Chances are you got it from one of them!!! Love to hear “oh my hips do that too!!! Didn’t realize it wasn’t normal” thanks mom.)
"my parents don't have hEDS tho" are you sure. like. my mom didn't know until my sister found out she did. this thing is *wildly underdiagnosed*. Mom’s in her 50s and had doctors diagnose her with arthritis and fibromyalgia, the treatments for which didn’t help her because it wasn’t what was actually wrong
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*OTHER THINGS THAT OFTEN COME FREE WITH YOUR hEDS*
chronic fatigue
gastrointestinal issues (if you thought you had IBS, but hit any of the hEDS things, you should consider, well, an hEDS diagnosis; gastroparesis is a common comorbidity)
dysautonomia; i don't have this but it causes things like POTS or "heartrate spikes when i stand" or "i get dizzy when i stand and lose vision briefly"
headaches (and/or migraines!)
MCAS, aka really bad allergies. your nose gets offended at the slightest bit of pollen. the weirdest materials give you a rash. you can only use one soap because all the other ones make you break out. etc.
...ADHD. I’m not shitting you. It is so frequently comorbid that in the UK when you test positive for either ADHD or hEDS they will immediately test you for the other. Connective tissue exists in your brain, as well, so I guess if your connective tissue just doesn’t function properly...
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HEY CAN YOU PUT THIS IN NON-CLINICAL TERMS FOR ME
sure! did you, at any point in your life:
- able to bend into funny positions like put foot behind head; especially as a kid (hi! that's me!) but of particular note if you can still do those things now
- stretches like butterfly or crossing your arm over your chest just... don’t feel like stretches? (my sister)
- could you bend and without effort place your palms flat on the floor? can you still now? apparently most people struggle - without regular stretching - to touch their toes, let alone put their palms *completely flat* to the floor. that's hypermobility baby!
- elbows bend a little bit backwards? knees?
- can you bend your pinkies back 90 degrees?
- consider yourself double-jointed?
- shoulders/neck always hurt? and like your muscles are SOOOO tight in your neck all the time? hey guess what: the thing EDS does is make your body produce less collagen, which makes your ligaments weak as fuck, and so your muscles are constantly spasming to hold your head up. this is why you're in pain. this is why working the knots out never helps and they always come back. no, this isn't because you’re on your computer too much. your body was just built differently (poorly)
- stretching never seems to help? stretches make you hurt more??? or even: most forms of exercise cause you pain? yeah, most exercise/stretches are meant for Able Bodied People, not people with an underlying undiagnosed hypermobility disorder. You have to adapt them to your needs, and also stretches will never be the be-all-end-all solution to back pain like those funny little infographics on the internet will try and tell you. Maybe it is for able-bodied people, if you have a genetic condition that causes chronic pain, well,
- “but my shoulders are soooo tight tho” POINTING ABOVE AGAIN. they are doing that because the muscles have to overcompensate for your weak ligaments. Stretching does not fix this; you may loosen your muscles, but they will simply tighten again later. The real fix is doing exercises to improve your shoulder muscle stability – I’ll talk about some exercises below.
- have you ever thought to yourself "what the hell, i'm too young to be in this much pain all the time??" you're right! it might be hEDS.
- struggle with opening jars? weak upper body strength? randomly lose your grip on things you’re holding with your hands? “are you serious” I’m serious
- can't crawl on your hands and knees because that hurts your wrists and your knees?
- tangentially: did your parents say you crawled funny as a kid? army crawl? started walking way earlier than expected? yeah.
- you can't squat or kneel because ow oof ow your ankles ow ow your knees? yeah.
- is getting up from the floor hard sometimes?? despite being 30 or younger???? yeah.
- despite everything, and not trying to be, you're still kind of really flexible???
- like, you could do the splits as a kid without having to train yourself to do it?? you can still do the splits now without any effort at all?
- do you seem to get injured really easily? joints especially, or, again, bruised really easily.
- are you in pain right now? think about it. shoulders? back? legs? did you see the part where one of the diagnostic criteria for hEDS is chronic pain? yeah.
i could probably keep going.
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~here's some specific connective tissue disorder things; i've included only the extremely "normal" ones that haven’t already been listed above and/or are easy to check yourself. you can find a full list at https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/what-is-eds/hypermobile-ehlers-danlos-syndrome-heds/ under "how is hEDS diagnosed?"~
listed above: stretchy/fragile skin. By stretchy btw I mean: can you pinch your skin anywhere and pull and get even half an inch away from your body? Neck/back of hand is a good place to try. If you can’t pinch your skin at all w/o hitting Meat then you don’t have this (I don’t, even tho my sister does!) but it’s worth looking out for and alone is like THE thing EDS (all types) is characterized by, so if your skin stretches, that’s of particular notice (but your skin not stretching does not disqualify you from having EDS)
stretch marks (they hate to use this if you're afab, but,)
"Bilateral piezogenic papules of the heel" uh when you're standing are your heels kinda. lumpy. like they got balls in 'em. that's what this is. (this is one of the things i have)
dental crowding (lol!!!!)
can you close your thumb+pinky around both your wrists? (steinberg sign)
when you make fists, thumbs underneath fingers, do your thumbs stick out past your fingers? (walker sign)
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“Hey, I’m not really hypermobile - is it still possible to have hEDS??”
in theory! I’m only mildly hypermobile myself, outside of the “foot behind head” trick from when i was ten and the “can even now at 25 bend down and put palms flat on floor with no effort” i have… basically no other signs of hypermobility. Though, I guess “things that should be stretches like butterfly or touching your toes are super easy and not stretches for me” also counts as being hypermobile, huh. It’s just really mild.
And, you know, maybe you just have a different EDS subtype. EDS as a whole is not super well understood, so the chances you got a doctor who didn’t know what it was / didn’t want to order a genetic test about it is still, like, high enough it’s worth looking into, I think.
Basically every issue my body has can be drawn back to hEDS, and that kind of knowledge is insane but also really liberating. There is a cause for this. I’m not just in pain for no reason – or worse – because I’m “bad” at taking care of myself. I have a genetic disorder that makes it so my joints don’t work right and also I’m in pain all the time. It’s not necessarily happy, but at least it’s an explanation, instead of sitting there and shrugging and going “I dunno” about it.
So, sincerely, if even five of the things I’ve listed above sound familiar to you, I think you should look into it. Maybe you’ll research and go “oh, that doesn’t sound like me at all, actually”, but on the chance you, like me, start researching and find yourself going “THAT’S WHAT’S BEEN CAUSING THAT THIS WHOLE TIME????” I think it’s worth looking into. That validation is sincerely quite freeing.
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“Ok, you've convinced me. Now what do I do?”
first of all research some more!
https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/what-is-eds/ <-- EDS overview and EDS subtypes! Maybe you have one that isn’t hEDS
https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/what-is-eds/hypermobile-ehlers-danlos-syndrome-heds/ <-- hEDS specific page
https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/assessing-joint-hypermobility/#1667831445611-fb40d58e-84a4 <-- the checklist opens on something called the Beighton scale, which is explained in more detail here. **IF YOU DO NOT SCORE HIGH ON THE BEIGHTON SCALE BUT STILL HAVE MOST OTHER HEDS ISSUES, PRESS FOR DIAGNOSIS NONETHELESS. ENTIRELY POSSIBLY YOU ARE HYPERMOBILE IN AREAS THAT AREN’T TRACKED BY THE BEIGHTON SCALE. IT’S IMPERFECT AND PROBABLY NEEDS TO BE REPLACED BUT THEY HAVEN’T GOTTEN AROUND TO IT YET.**
https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/2017-eds-classification-non-experts/ <-- EDS things in layman’s terms, including comorbidities, like what I was talking about wrt gastrointestinal issues, orthopedic issues, chronic fatigue issues, etc, etc, etc. if you have issues with allergies look at the Mast Cell Disorder one. if you have that “heartrate spikes or I get dizzy when I stand” issue look at the Cardiovascular Autonomic Dysfunction one.
(ngl, sorry if its gross, but learning that hEDS often comes packaged with gastrointestinal issues was what really sealed the whole deal for me being convinced, despite “your sister has it and your mom almost definitely has it” being EXTREMELY damning evidence, because. I have had issues with diarrhea my whole goddamn life. I can’t tie it to food. It just curses me daily.)
second of all: talk to your doctor! or, find a doctor in your area that specializes in EDS. book an appointment, see what they can offer you. they can probably hook you up with physical therapy options (to safely strengthen your muscles to compensate for your weak connective tissue) or some pain management options! If you find the physical therapist is making you do things that make you hurt more and they repeatedly do not listen to you and your body, fire them and find a new physical therapist.
https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/healthcare-professionals-directory/ <-- list of doctors.
Third of all: find a support group if you’d like? There’s FB groups and Reddit groups and probably even more. Links to some of them here: https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/support/
YMMV because hEDS sometimes gets shit on by people with the other EDS subtypes, but at the very least, if a fellow Zebra is bitching about a doctor, you’ll know who to avoid.
Fourth: Just… if you think you might have it, I want you to take a step back and reconsider the way you feel about yourself and maybe about the exercise you are/aren’t doing. I had a lot of compounded guilt about how I “wasn’t taking good enough care of myself” ; when you’re in pain all the time you sometimes start blaming yourself, especially if you, like me, find that exercise is difficult and painful and that stretching doesn’t ACTUALLY help, you quit doing it. But you don’t always quit thinking “well apparently if I did those stretches to prevent back pain that people always talk about, then I wouldn’t have any back pain!!!!!!” and that kind of mindset... sucks.
It's also not true. Like, not in general, but also especially not if you have hEDS. My back is in pain because my body was built different (poorly), NOT because I “wasn’t doing the right thing”.
So here’s my get out of jail free card, for you. You aren’t in pain because you aren’t doing anything to “fix” it. You’re just in pain. Sure, you can do some (specialized) (hEDS friendly ones) exercises to help combat it, or you could go take some painkillers, but... your pain is not a punishment for your decision not to exercise. Your pain just kinda... is.
Every generalized exercise advice you see online you need to take with a grain of salt anyway, because it was not written for people with a hypermobility disorder. If doing it doesn’t help, then you don’t need to push through the pain because “it’s the thing that’s supposed to fix everything!!!!” No no. There is no correct answer. There is no one-size fits all. If it doesn’t help, or if it hurts, then you shouldn’t do it.
I say this from a place of love. I spent several months trying to fix my wrist pain with stretches, and you know what never went away? My wrist pain. In fact, I’m mildly convinced the stretches made the pain worse. I kept pushing through it for ages, though, because I kept getting told it was supposed to help, and that it was IMPORTANT as someone who spends all day on the computer to TAKE CARE OF MY WRISTS via THESE STRETCHES WE HAVE HELPFULLY COMPILED ONTO AN INFOGRAPHIC FOR YOU!!!!! ...but that’s not how it works. The rules are a little different when you have a hypermobility disorder. You have to really look into exercises that are safe for you to do, instead of just assuming the ones that everyone passes around are going to help.
“Man, so even those shoulder stretches you see around might not help?” nope! They might not!
“What do I do then?” strengthening exercises... I’ll put resources / explain one easy one (for shoulders) below.
Also if you are someone with a job that requires sitting at the computer all day, and you’re worried about how that affects your health... Even if you just get up once every two hours and walk around / look at something else (even your bathroom!!!) for a little bit, that’s fine, that’s plenty, that’s more than enough. You don’t have to stretch your shoulders every 30 minutes. You shouldn’t stretch your shoulders every 30 minutes if that’s hurting you.
RESOURCES TIME
1) https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/resource/strengthen-your-hypermobile-core-a-home-exercise-approach-for-eds-hsd-and-hypermobility-jeannie-di-bon/ <-- webinar that covers at-home exercises you can do
2) and a whole playlist of at-home exercises (in reasonable sized video chunks) by one of the experts, here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp-oNOmoFdAMFZB7XfpUZyvg_xzE3S3Ue – DISCLAIMER I HAVE NOT WATCHED OR USED THESE, SO WHILE I CAN SAY I DOUBT SHE WOULD BE FEATURED WERE SHE NOT A REAL EXPERT, PLEASE JUST. Err on the side of caution. If even one of these hurts you, try not to do it until you can talk with your personal physical therapist, which, yes, I realize requires Acquiring one first..... worth poking around tho, this person has a ton of tips on how to be careful with your joints while doing chores and day-to-day tasks as well, it seems. Actual advice that might actually help you instead of “oh make sure to stretch every 30 minutes!!!!” (might not help) or “have you tried jogging? Its free and easy!!!!!” (sport that is more likely to injure you thanks to the weak joints thing)
3) You can also search “exercise” on ehlers-danlos.com and come up with a ton of other pages/videos/etc of EDS friendly exercises produced by the experts that run this site.
4) That One Easy One I Can Explain In A tumblr Post: Bridging
Meant for core stability, but also works towards strengthening your shoulder muscles as well. Bridges!!! You can probably look up guides, or the lady I linked above has a video that includes her doing bridges about 4 minutes in. here's the video (link).
The version I do involves going up for five seconds, then down for five seconds, repeating for a minute (time yourself). Each day add on ten seconds (so second day you do a minute ten, third day minute twenty, etc) until you are eventually able to do it for three minutes. You do not need to go past three minutes. You are recommended not to. You are recommended to work up to 3 minutes and then continue doing it for 3 minutes every day.
(It doesn’t have to be every day nor does it necessarily have to be 3 minutes every time; if I’m tired or in a hurry I’ll just do two minutes. If I’m really tired I’ll just skip it and do it the next day. No big deal!)
That’s all I got. Thanks for listening to me rant. Hope it was enlightening at all!
meant to reblob this when aer linked it to me, hello
for my mom and i my diagnosis of hEDS was a huge “...oh” for us regarding a shitload of health stuff through the years, for both of us. the gastro stuff for her in particular, for her, and the tiredness and chronic pain for me.
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this and also the only difference between fanfic writers and writers who sell their own original works as careers is that fanfics aren’t monetized. that’s all.
being a “professional” writer doesn’t mean your works are inherently better than fanfics. I’ve read so many fics that are more professionally written than some published books.
whether or not a piece of writing is monetized has nothing to do with its quality.
Dropping the first papercraft of the year, and the first full papercraft I've personally done in 4 years (if you exclude commissions and standees). I was grateful to catch one of the limited theatrical screenings of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein (2025) at the end of last year and I think we can all agree this scene was the stand-out moment in the film. But there were also several themes that hit me with such a powerful resonation, I felt like my soul was sucked into the film and split between the mind of Victor and the heart of the Creature.
Firstly, how could I have not captured this scene in papercraft? Assembling the Creature from scraps of paper, moments before he's meant to become scraps himself. It allowed me to step into Victor's shoes, and relive the obsessive pursuit he describes in the film, only to suddenly meet his goal and aimlessly fumble with what he's created, chaining it in the dungeon, out of sight and mind. I find myself, after tireless nights of dedicated crafting, throwing my completed papercrafts into my closet, documented, abandoned, eager to start the next one.
My Cake Tier Patreon members can download a digital papercraft kit of this when I drop the files later tonight!
Read on further if interested in how this papercraft marks a personal health milestone for me. Otherwise, have a wonderful day!
Why this papercraft marks a personal health milestone for me.
March 2023 is when my health suddenly took a left turn (see Facedown Fate and Night-Glimmer posts). Out of nowhere, I began to have what I call 'low heart rate sessions', where my heart rate for any activity was running 10-15 points lower than normal. I felt like I was walking underwater, my chest felt heavy, I felt cold, and would have to breathe heavy to keep up with the activity I was doing (whether that be walking, or even sitting). Then after several hours, it would suddenly disappear. My HR would rise to normal levels, my breathing would ease, my temperature would rise. No explanation or trigger.
I went to the ER 7 times over the next two months, and with the onset of my second now-chronic symptom, what I refer to as a PVC, I checked into the hospital for evaluation. People who have PVCs describe them as heart flutters, but mine are heart 'kicks'. Like a miniaturized version of the wind being knocked out of you. It's a scary, uncomfortable heart rate hiccup, invoking a short cough, and there's a feeling of dread lasting moments after it happens.
Over the next two years, I went to gastrologists, pulmonary specialists, allergists, 3 different cardiologists, tested so many medications, had multiple CT scans, MRIs, Echos, holter monitors, stress tests, all coming back with 'you're healthy as a horse, it's just stress'. In the end, the only solution my cardiologists could offer were anti-depressants for the stress or beta-blockers for the PVCs (which, hah, lower the heart rate….hello???), which I declined both. I felt if it was stress causing these mystery symptoms, medications interfering with my productivity would just make me more stressed.
During the height of my symptoms I would experience a PVC every 20 minutes, invoked by sudden HR changes (even something like eating shaved ice, which triggers a hypothermic response through your tongue) or random stress events. Eventually, I cut out unnecessary stress in my life (like the news) and I saw my PVCs start to recede to a handful of times per day, months later.
Now, almost three years later, I'm only experiencing them a couple of times a week, if at all, after significant lifestyle changes and rigorous stress deterrents that I invoked at the start of 2025.
I sat through the Frankenstein film marveling at how bosom buddies I was with Victor's ambitions, only to realize I was experiencing my second self through the Creature. A being who was confused in his body, and clashing with his creator, desperate for answers on how to continue living as he is.
Him holding onto the dynamite stick was a taunted retribution toward Victor, but there's a moment of desperate hope in his eyes that this could be the way to unmake himself, perhaps into something Victor would realize he has to accept.
Last year I had to unmake myself to put everything back together with where I'm at now. With those tools in my pocket, I have a better outlook for 2026 and beyond. Rather than the closet, I've hung this frame in my hallway to remind me of this milestone, my Creature, everyday.
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there's this weird thing people fall into online a lot, where people assume that if the [perceived-to-be-inferior] version of [activity] is discouraged then people will, naturally, do [perceived-to-be-superior] version of [activity] instead. When really it's just as (or more) likely that if [perceived-to-be-inferior] version of [activity] is discouraged people just won't do it at all.
audiobook listeners are not necessarily people who would otherwise do a lot of traditional reading if audiobooks did not exist, many are people who simply would experience zero books. Booktok romance readers would not necessarily be reading the classics if booktok did not exist, many of them would simply not read. Fanfiction writers would not necessarily be novelists if fanfic wasn't an option, many would just be people who didn't write. You know?
the last point especially is true for me. i've tried writing original stuff before, but i'm way more into the worldbuilding aspects than the actual telling of stories for that. fanfiction, on the other hand, has all the info set up already, and i can play around in that sandbox however i want.
There’s an emotion only unlocked when you live in a house with multiple stories. I call it “the stair emotion” and it’s when you realize the object you need is on the other side of yet another trip up and down those goddamn stairs. It’s the closest I get to transcending the desire for material goods. Maybe I don’t need that notebook. Maybe I don’t need anything.
as a chronically ill person who is tired and has some degree of pain at all times, i feel this in my soul. stairs are so hard sometimes, and carrying shit up or down is also hard sometimes. i keep snacks and other essentials in my room and make sure my water bottle gets filled when i'm downstairs.
i love learning about animals ive literally never seen or heard of before. what amazing diversity of life on this planet earth. what the hell is a japanese serow
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ultimately, capitalism sucks. so many problems in the world would be solved immediately if money didn't exist and we simply did things for barter and trade because we have a skill someone else near us doesn't have. things like poaching, theft, human trafficking, shit like big oil covering up/ignoring the fact that they're accelerating climate change, anything exploitative or otherwise horrible and done because there's a profit in it would dwindle and possibly disappear entirely. if there was no profit, everyone would probably swap to renewable energy without complaint, because it's faster and cleaner and more sustainable. local businesses would be infinitely more accessible, without having to worry about the usual higher prices for quality goods free of chemicals and from animals that are loved and cared for, etc. streaming services and corporate mergers and disney's bullshit attempts to farm more money by making worse versions of beloved stories would all lessen or stop.
i think about this a lot, obviously, and i hope this isn't coming across as me hijacking the post for a different topic; to do so was not my intent at all. all the money woes in my own life, things that would make my disability easier to manage and my home more comfortable to exist in, all my interests and things i'd like to do, all of it would be very doable if only we could pay in muffins or knitted goods or jewelry or writing or other crafting. i can cook, and in exchange someone more able-bodied could fix the shit that needs fixing around here.
my glasses prescription keeps changing and my basic medicaid insurance doesn't cover the prism lenses, so we pay hundreds out of pocket. last year i had two root canals out of network, $1750 x2 for an hour of work each time, still lingering on our carecredit while i wait for the fair hearing office to get back to me because my old dental insurance was a fuck. i would really really really benefit from more regular visits to my chiropractor, like once a month at least, but basically nowhere in the usa covers chiropractic, so that's another $60/visit out of pocket when i absolutely can't stand it another minute. my kitchen is miserable to be in because the floor is destroyed and wet and the counters are warped from water and we can't do anything about it until we have a few hundred to spend on new countertops and having the leaky dishwasher fixed and a new floor installed (probably by us, because money). i want to have an aquarium in my life again but after making a spreadsheet of all i'd need, that's another few hundred we don't have right now, even though i could obtain things piecemeal over several months. my parents' life insurance keeps jacking the price because they didn't for MANY years and now they're playing catch-up at our expense; my mom does not need this additional stress in her life.
money is a blight on this earth and i hate it. maybe all of these thoughts and complaints are naïve of me, but i do know we'll never be free of it. humanity has had money for nearly its entire existence, as far as i know, because as long as there are good rules dictating where it comes from and where it goes and who has it, it works pretty well. it's just that when a few people get addicted to all those zeroes in their bank accounts, they make it worse for the rest of us in pursuit of more.
but yes. everyone, but especially disabled people, should have free access to medication, dental, vision care, mobility aids, supportive braces, and all the doctors and specialists needed to be comfortable and relatively pain-free and feeling alright. all of these tools exist that would drastically ease our existence on earth, and for the most part they're gatekept behind money that a lot of us don't have because we can't work and/or have money at the government's whim that's usually insufficient to be comfortable. i'm sorry for rambling or hijacking, i just woke up after not nearly enough sleep and i'm still quite bleary and groggy.
In like 1998 my very femme lesbian friend went to Pride in London and was all excited at the “teddy bears picnic” happening in one of the city parks. She took along a picnic hamper and her cuddly teddy bear. Needless to say, the large hairy gay men all thought she was adorable and she had a great time
It is not enough to get into a comfy sleeping position- one must go through several and spin like a rotisserie chicken to arrive at the position you started with.
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I know we make jokes about the proverbial asexual pervert who has written hundreds of thousands of words of smut on ao3, but also shoutout to the aces who aren’t perverts. to the aces who skip the sex scenes and wince at sex jokes and awkwardly leave the conversation when your friends start talking about sex. your boundaries aren’t childish and fuck anyone who says otherwise.
