having an old memory resurface or a trigger come up out of the blue sometimes doesn’t mean you’re not moving forward and moving on. it’s just a part of the process, and it likely won’t ever fully go away because it’s a part of you and your past. but you are still growing and healing.
“Stars should not be seen alone. That’s why there are so many. Two people should stand together and look at them. One person alone will surely miss the good ones.”
“It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire.”
A reporter recently asked me about what harm I may have caused as a pain management physician who prescribes opioids. As I reflected on my last 10 years in this field, my response was that the harms I may have caused were because I underprescribed these drugs, not overprescribed them.
I thought of a 25-year-old patient, I’ll call him John, whose sciatic nerve was crushed in a motor vehicle accident, causing excruciating pain in his leg. We knew this would be a life-long injury, and that he would likely have to live with chronic pain. We tried everything I could think of — nerve medications, mindfulness techniques, desensitization, rehabilitation techniques, cognitive therapy, nerve blocks, and spinal cord stimulation — except opioids. John continued to suffer immensely from the debilitating pain, and eventually died by suicide.
Did he die because I undertreated his pain due to my own fear of prescribing chronic, potentially high-dose opioids in a young patient? I cannot know, but I worry and fear that this may be true.
In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published prescribing guidelines for opioids. Though intended to encourage best practices in opioid prescribing, these guidelines fueled providers’ fears of opioids and led to many clinicians abandoning patients who relied on opioids for pain relief. Although even pain specialists like me share fears and doubts about what role these medications play in managing chronic pain, so-called legacy patients are not the same as those who have never taken opioids before, as a colleague and I explained in The New England Journal of Medicine. (Read more at link)
It is okay to admit how disability affects your life, to say “no” to pushing yourself too hard, to ignore people who accuse of “not trying hard enough” because they can’t possibly understand how much you have to try to just exist when you are sick.
Tumblr gifmakers are better than $1mil worth of marketing. I’ll see endless ads for a show and be like meh but I’ll see one good gifset and suddenly I’m on s2 ep10 finding blorbo from my gifs
Friendly reminder that “doing your best” does not mean pushing yourself to the limits of endurance, but only doing the best you can without hurting yourself.
Further, even friendlier reminder that it’s completely fine if that means you don’t do as much as someone else.
They’re not you, and your contribution is just as valid as theirs.
Oh wow. This is huge. I didn’t think of it like this. I’ve always seen “doing my best” as pushing myself past my limits and hurting myself to try and meet other people’s (and my own) expectations. But I never thought of it like this. I never considered my best meaning working as much as my body allows at that time. I should really just be taking 1-2 classes a semester but I feel like I’m not doing “my best” unless I’m taking 5. And I suffer physically and mentally because of it.
Additionally, your best can vary from day to day. Super important. Basically, there’s no point to beating yourself up.
Congratulate the progress people around you make. Let them know you are proud they are trying their best. Sometimes just a quick message is enough to make someone’s day.
[two screenshots from Star Trek: the first shows a young teen saying “I can’t do anything right.”, the second shows the android Data saying “You are making an unwarranted extrapolation.”]
This is a shoutout post for everyone who wants to move out or live more independently but can’t. For those of us who can’t handle all the ‘normal’ housekeeping tasks like cooking and cleaning. For those of us who can’t take on ‘normal’ paid employment. For those of us who need that extra help or those people but wish we didn’t. You’re not alone in this.
I want to nail this to the collective psyche like Martin Luther
People apologize for taking a day or two to respond to non urgent messages and every time I’m like, why? This is creating a high stress environment for everyone without reason.
I don’t want to worry that I’m some kind of asshole for not immediately responding to texts either. Who does? Whats the point?
