that's a very real issue with chronic conditions--many of us have lived with chronic pain/discomfort for so long that

it becomes our normal, to the point we're unaware that healthy people don't live like this

it becomes invisible-- we learn to live with an anticipate our pain/discomfort, and to minimize our reactions

we learn to underreact--and then wonder if that means our experiences aren't real. we're trained to stop expressing our negative experiences externally, bc of repeatedly having our complaints minimized and dismissed. because we no longer react the way we're taught is 'normal' to react to pain, we internalize that we're not really in pain: after all, if it's not bothering anyone else, then (ironically) surely we're just overreacting? (No, we're not. I call this the Neurotypical Standards Paradox)

sensory processing and other chronic issues are real, serious, and dangerously underrecognized. you deserve to be happy and feel good on a daily basis, and to have tools and resources to manage distress.

(also discomfort is a category of pain, just low level enough that we're more or less about to function through it. that doesn't mean it's not pain.)

Here's a "level of pain 1-10" with descriptions that I saved off of tumblr a long time ago, not sure where it's from but it's so helpful.

So in lil Nas x’s masterpiece Montero (call me by your name)

When he drops down to hell- there’s words inscribed in the floor. Looks like

Damnant quod non intelligunt

Which is absolutely incredible love all of it

without people being creepy / treating them like a fetish

without people acting like being gnc is “”adult”” or “”private”” or somehow dirty

without people expecting them to alter the rest of their appearance to “fit” (not everyone who wants to wear a dress also wants to wax their whole body or apply a full face of makeup)

dude.

Meet Elizabeth Anne, a very special black footed ferret. Black footed ferrets are critically endangered; all currently living black footed ferrets are descended from the last seven animals that were taken into a captive breeding program to save the species.

Well, all but one. Elizabeth Anne is a clone of a ferret named Willa whose genetic material was cryogenically preserved in 1988. She is the only living black footed ferret to not be descended from the original seven founder animals, and that makes her a beam of hope for the genetic diversity of the species.

Last year, the same company responsible for Elizabeth Anne’s birth cloned a critically endangered Przewalski’s horse, which you can read more about here.

statistically your generation is having less underage sex & drinking less & doing fewer drugs & generally making better choices than your parents’ generation

the shit you see on tv is just a bunch of middle-aged tv producers (who should know better) sexualizing you & projecting onto your age group.