Hi I don’t have the mental bandwidth or emotional energy at the moment to post about current issues the way I want to but I just wanted to say
If you’re anything like me your mind may be putting your whole body into MAJOR survival mode…fight/flight/freeze/fawn mode, etc.
And if so, these are moments when DEEP BREATHING truly helps. That’s not some woo woo thing it’s just a deeply known scientific fact about how brains work. (Your body’s inherent wisdom knows if you’re able to take a deep breath, you’re not ACTUALLY in literal survival mode.) There’s so much we can’t control. But we can control this.
Take a really slow, deep breath…love you guys.
This is distress tolerance 101 yall
For Temperature in PARTICULAR - if you fill a bowl with ice water and submerge your face as long as you can stand? It will reset your fear response along with thoughts. Patients who have panic disorders, addiction issues, and self-harm use that one in particular and it works MAGIC. Hell *I* use temperature - the ice bowl face dunk - for ME when shit is gets unbearable and it works a treat.
If you’re having a hard time, distress tolerance is the buzz phrase to look up.
Take care of yourself out there guys
Here’s some gifs to help focus on your breathing exercises:
fucking hate it when the stuff everybody says “actually works” does actually work.
hate exercising and realizing i’ve let go of a lot of anxiety and anger because i’ve overturned my fight-or-flight response.
hate eating right and eating enough and eating 3 times a day and realizing i’m less anxious and i have more energy
hate journaling in my stupid notebook with my stupid bic ballpoint and realizing that i’ve actually started healing about something once i’m able to externalize it
hate forgiving myself hate complimenting myself more often hate treating myself with kindness hate taking a gratitude inventory hate having patience hate talking to myself gently
hate turning my little face up to the sun and taking deep breaths and looking at nature and grounding myself and realizing that i feel less burdened and more hopeful, more actually-here, that i am able to see the good sides of myself more clearly, that i am able to see not only how far i have to grow - but also how much growth i have already done & how much of my life i truly fill with light and laughter and love
horrible horrible horrible. hate it but i’m gonna do it tho
No, but seriously. If whenever you get up from wherever you start to feel faint, get palpitations, get numb, get nauseous, get light-headed and/or literally feel your blood drop to your feet, check the symptoms of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.
Also add more salt to your diet lol. With or without the POTS unless you have hypertension in which case I’d be more cautious.
Actually, it’s not just that you can reblog this. I want people to reblog this.
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.
She used to need at least 5 minutes to recover from kneeling down and now she kneels down and stands up like it’s nothing. Even her joint pain from EDS and brain fog have improved tremendously and she has much more energy.
It’s not normal to always get dizzy when you kneel down and then get up, or when you get up from bed or a chair.
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 temporarilyill.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?
If your body is making life difficult for you, there’s probably something going on with it, and if it persists and nothing makes it go away, it may be a chronic illness.
POTS can develop in previous healthy people after a Covid infection. If you have had Covid recently or know someone who has, please keep this in mind.
ya boy had Covid and my Doctor thinks I may have POTS as part of my Post-Covid Syndrome. He has me drinking pedialyte to help with it because of the sodium content and I gotta say, it’s expensive but at least it fucking works.
No wait, it’s really not normal to feel lightheaded and see everything in a blur for a minute when you stand from being laid down ????
Nope, it’s very much NOT supposed to happen.
The whole ‘salt is bad’ stigma is from the campaign during the boomer generation when there was too much salt in people’s diets and caused blood pressure issues etc. So now the entire population has gone to the other extreme with ‘low sodium’ and ‘no added salt!!’ as if its a health benefit and THATS JUST SIMPLY NOT TRUE.
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.
Stop being afraid of salt, its a VITAL MINERAL TO OUR BODIES, WD NEED IT TO FUNCTION AND REGULATE OURSELVES.
I’m going to give you the best piece of Adult Life Is Hard advice I’ve ever learned:
Talk to people when things go to shit.
I don’t just mean get it off your chest, although that’s good. I mean: Something’s wrong with your paycheck/you lost your job/you had unexpected emergency car repairs and now you’re broke so your credit card payment is late. Like, not just 15 days late. We’re talking, shit got crazy and now you’re 90 days late with compounded interest and late fees and the Minimum Payment Due is, like, $390, and you’ve got about $3.90 in your bank account. Call the credit card company.
I know it’s scary. I know you feel like you’re going to get in trouble, like you’re gong to get yelled at or scolded for not having your life together. But the credit card company isn’t your parents; they’re just interested in getting money from you. And you can’t squeeze blood from a stone or money from someone who doesn’t have any. So what you do is you call them. You explain you’re experiencing temporary financial hardships, and you’re currently unable to bring your account up to date, but you don’t want to just let it get worse. Can you maybe talk to someone about a payment plan so you can work something out? Nine times out of ten you’ll be able to negotiate something so that at least it’s not just taking a constant, giant shit on your credit score.
- Can’t pay your power bill? Call the power company.
- Can’t pay your full rent? Talk to your landlord.
- Had to go to the hospital without insurance and have giant medical bills looming in your place? Call the hospital and ask if they have someone who helps people with financial hardships. Many do.
- Got super sick and missed half a semester of class because flu/pneumonia/auto-immune problems/depressive episode? Talk to your professor. If that doesn’t help, talk to your advisor.
You may not be able to fix everything, but you’ll likely be able to make improvements. At the very least, it’s possible that they have a list of people you can contact to help you with things. (Also, don’t be afraid to google things like, “I can’t pay my power bill [state you live in]” because you’d be surprised at what turns up on Google!) But the thing is, people in these positions gain nothing if you fail. There’s no emotional satisfaction for them if your attempts at having your life together completely bite the dust. In fact, they stand to benefit if things work out for you! And chances are, they’ll be completely happy to take $20 a month from you over getting $0 a month from you, your account will be considered current because you’ve talked to them and made an agreement, you won’t get reported to a collections agency, and your credit score won’t completely tank.
Here’s some helpful tips to keep in mind:
1. Be polite. Don’t demand things; request them. Let me tell you about how customer service people hold your life in their hands and how many extra miles they’ll go for someone who is nice to them.
2. Stick to the facts, and keep them minimal unless asked for them. Chances are they’re not really interested in the details. “We had several family emergencies in a row, and now I’m having trouble making the payments” is better than “Well, two months ago my husband wrecked his bike, and then he had a reaction to the muscle relaxer they gave him, and then our dog swallowed a shoestring and we had to take him to the emergency clinic, and just last week MY car broke down, and now my account’s in the negatives and I don’t know how I’m gonna get it back out.” The person you’re talking to is aware shit happens to everyone; they don’t need the details to prove you’re somehow “worthy” of being helped. They may ask you for details at a certain point if they have to fill out any kind of request form, but let them do that.
3. Ask questions. “Is there anything we can do about X?” “Would it be possible to move my payment date to Y day instead so it’s not coming out of the same paycheck as my rent?” The answer may be “no.” That’s not a failure on your part. But a good customer service person may have an alternate solution.
Anyway! I hope that helps! Don’t just assume the answer is “no” before you’ve even begun. There is more help out there than you ever imagined.
Hey guys, this is an old post, but it’s still relevant, and I thought I’d re-up it for living in COVID times when a lot of people are losing income. Don’t be afraid to toss that in when you call to ask for help! “I’ve experienced a loss of income due to COVID-19″ is gonna be all you need to say for most places, because wow let me tell you how much this is the case. A lot of places are setting up COVID-19 specific relief policies, so this may be even easier than normal.
Good luck, stay safe, stay inside if you can, and wash your hands. <3
