One of the most bizarrely cool people I’ve ever met was an oral surgeon who treated me after a ridiculous accident (that’s another story), Dr. Z.
Dr. Z. was, easily, the best and most competent doctor or dentist I’ve ever encountered – and after that accident, I encountered quite a number. He came stunningly highly recommended, had an excellent record, and the most calming bedside manner I’ve ever seen.
That last wasn’t the sweet gentle caretaking sort of manner, which some nurses have but you wouldn’t expect to see in a surgeon. No; when Dr. Z. told me that one of my broken molars was too badly damaged to save, and I (being seventeen and still moderately in shock) broke down crying, he stared at me incredulously and said, in a tone of utter bemusement, “But – I am very good.”
I stopped crying on the spot. In the last twenty-four hours or so of one doctor after another, no one had said anything that reassuring to me. He clearly just knew his own competence so well that the idea of someone being scared anyway was literally incomprehensible to him. What more could I possibly ask for?
(He was right. The procedure was very extended, because the tooth that needed to be removed was in bits, but there was zero pain at any point. And, as he promised, my teeth were so close together that they shifted to fill the gap to where there genuinely is none anymore, it’s just a little easier to floss on that side.)
But Dr. Z.’s insane competence wasn’t just limited to oral surgery.
When I met Dr. Z., he, like most doctors I’ve had, asked me if I was in college, and where, and what I was studying. When I say “math,” most doctors respond with “oh, wow, good for you” or possibly “what do you want to do with that after college?”
Dr. Z. wanted to know what kind of math.
I gave him the thirty-second layman’s summary that I give people who are foolish enough to ask that. He responded with “oh, you mean–” and the correct technical terms. I confirmed that was indeed what I meant (and keep in mind, this was upper-division college math, you don’t take this unless you’re a math major). He asked cogent follow-up questions, and there ensued ten or so minutes of what I’d call “small talk” except for how it was an intensely technical mathematical discussion.
He didn’t, as far as I can tell, have any kind of formal math background. He just … knew stuff.
I was a competitive fencer at this point in time, so when he asked if I had any questions about the surgery that would be necessary, I asked him if I’d be okay to fence while I had my jaw wired shut, or if it would interfere with breathing.
“Fencing?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “like swordfighting,” because this is another conversation I got to have a lot. (People assume they’ve misheard you, or occasionally they think you mean building fences.)
“Which weapon?”
“Uh. Foil.”
“No, it won’t be safe,” and he went off into an explanation of why.
Turns out, he was also a serious fencer – and, when I mentioned my fencing coach, an old friend of his. (I asked my fencing coach later, and, oh yes, Dr. Z., a good friend of mine, excellent fencer.) (My coach was French. Dr. Z. was Israeli. I never saw Dr. Z. around the club or anything. I have no idea how they knew each other.)
So this was weird enough that later, when I was home, I looked Dr. Z. up on Yelp. His reviews were stellar, of course, but that wasn’t the weird thing.
The weird thing was that the reviews were full of people – professionals in lots of different fields – saying the same thing: I went to Dr. Z. for oral surgery, and he asked me about what I did, and it turned out he knew all about my field and had a competent and educated discussion with me about the obscure technical details of such-and-such.
All sorts of different fields, saying this. Lawyers. Businessmen. Musicians.
As far as I can tell, it’s not that I just happened to be pursuing the two fields he had a serious amateur interest in – he just seemed to be extremely good at literally everything.
I have no explanation for this. Possibly he sold his soul to the devil.
In a footnote to a May 10, 2005, memorandum from the Office of Legal Council, the Bush attorney general’s office argued that restricting the caloric intake of terrorist suspects to 1000 calories a day was medically safe because people in the United States were dieting along those lines voluntarily.
“While detainees subject to dietary manipulation are obviously situated differently from individuals who voluntarily engage in commercial weight-loss programs, we note that widely available commercial weight-loss programs in the United States employ diets of 1000 kcal/day for sustain periods of weeks or longer without requiring medical supervision,” read the footnote. “While we do not equate commercial weight loss programs and this interrogation technique, the fact that these calorie levels are used in the weight-loss programs, in our view, is instructive in evaluating the medical safety of the interrogation technique.”
Another another friendly reminder that the Minnesota Starvation Experiment subjected adult men who were VOLUNTEERS to 1,560 calorie diets and the psychological effects were so profound that one volunteer cut three of his own fingers off and could not remember why.
These men were volunteers who knew exactly what they would be going through and when it would end, and who believed they were doing it for a good and moral reason (the research was used to help rehabilitate victims of starvation and famine at the end of WWII).
And these are the things we are expected to engage in FOREVER to stay at a “healthy” weight.
Reading about the Minnesota Starvation experiment was my wake-up call. It was what kicked me out of my eating disorder. The guy missing three fingers, whatever his name was, he was the last straw for me.
Scared me so fucking bad I stopped restricting my food that day, and never went back to it.
Just bringin’ this back around like I sometimes do.
Wow. This really hit me hard.
EAT
Fun fact– calorie restriction exacerbates symptoms of pretty much *every* mental illness.
Anorexia has ~16% mortality rate, slightly higher than acted upon suicidal ideation. It’s more lethal than actively trying to kill oneself and this is why.
Can I just say, from the bottom of my heart, in regards to Dewayne Johnson winning his lawsuit against Monsanto and being awarded $289 million in damages and also lost 11 BILLION in stock value following the jury’s decision and also opened up legal precedent against Monsanto for other people to go after them for damages thanks to exposure to their shit;
FUCKING GOOD, and also my deepest sympathy to Mr. Johnson, who has terminal cancer thanks to their products, but FUCKING GOOD, FUCK YOU MONSANTO, SUCK A THOUSAND HORSE DICKS IN HELL
Consider this my open request to society: destroy them. If you have the money and the misfortune of being able to take these fuckers to court, then destroy them.
They’ve got other similar lawsuits still ongoing against them right now that total $5.5 BILLION in damages sought.
This lawsuit can now be cited by all the others, and I promise it will be.
And gods, but I hope that it ruins them.
For those of you who don’t recognize the name “Monsanto” they produce Roundup, which is a herbicide (weed killer) known for killing weeds but not crops.
Roundup, incidentally, is specifically the chemical that Mr. Johnson was exposed to that contributed to his terminal cancer.
There are about 5,000 more current lawsuits being filed against Monsanto for the same thing. Monsanto claims Roundup is safe, and points to lots of studies done on it…the majority of which, coincidentally, have been conducted by/funded by Monsanto.
One of the main points in the trial was recently unearthed evidence that shows that Monsanto has been actively suppressing studies that show that Roundup is dangerous for decades now.
The men who hid this evidence are, in no small way, complicit in the deaths of these innocent people and should be removed root and branch.
There’s an irony to that. And one we should pursue until they feel the burden of these deaths on their souls and on their daily lives.
Some more info; there’s also evidence that points to Monsanto paying off EPA agents to suppress studies and evidence that show that Roundup is a potent health risk.
Monsanto is, as it has for decades, claiming that glysophate…the active ingredient in Roundup…is safe. Which, as disclosed at this trial, is a lie, and they’ve been suppressing the evidence for years.
BUT, in addition, testing has shown that Roundup contains VERY DANGEROUS levels of heavy metals such as arsenic, chromium, cobalt, and lead, in addition to highly toxic petroleum residues, which Monsanto does not disclose on the labels. They were hidden under ‘other additives’ on the label.
Some of the things arsenic, other heavy metals, and petroleum distillate exposure can cause?
Cancer. Such as that which is killing Mr. Johnson and others.
The studies conducted by Monsanto to claim Roundup was safe were only conducted on glysophate. They actively suppressed studies that found that glysophate could be a health risk, and did not disclose any information about the other dangerous additives…which have been known to be dangerous for decades.
You can hear parts of the autoimmune disease community shrieking in rageful vindication.
Between this and the study coming out of Finland linking exposure to certain pesticides and herbicides as being linked to early onset MS (among other things) I’m about to flip the God damn table.
I think I need to call my dad (a farmer) and my mum ( plagued with endocrine and autoimmune issues)…
“You’d be surprised”, said Xaldien, who just lost four followers and received a lovely “men can’t be raped” anon shortly after reblogging this the first time.
Yowch, disgusting.
If I don’t reblog this, assume I’m dead.
Always reblog this
If you Dont reblog this if u see it then i cant call u my friend
IF ANYONE TELLS ME THAT MEN CAN’T BE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND RAPE, I AM SICKENED BY THEIR MERE PRESENCE ON MY BLOG.
If you disagree with me, unfollow my blog, block me and never look at my blog again.
If you want to debate about this or send anon’s about this, I will reply but your actions have consequences.
Out of 19000+ followers I have, only one of you actually reblogged about this issue, yet a lot of you have reblogged and liked a picture by playboy about catcalling and that how men should never do it.
Additionally, I have received abuse in my ask box (which I will be answering when I can) and threats. In particular death threats and rape threats.
I can see the real problem here already. Male domestic violence and rape is just invisible in our society because we don’t want to talk about this because it just damages the status quo of this fucking website.
I’m a male victim of child sexual abuse. We matter. Please, reblog this.
Please never forget male victims are real and it can happen to everyone/anyone
Make sure the romance is there on both sides people
Support our men! These victims experiences are real and valid!
Men need our protection too!
STOP THE SILENCE. REBLOG FOREVER.
For as long as this reappears on my dash, I’m going to reblog it
never make a suicide joke again. yes this includes “i wanna die” as a figure of speech. swear off of it. actually make an effort to change how you think about things.
find something to compliment someone for at least 4 times a day. notice the little things about the world that make you happy, and use that to make other people happy.
talk to people. initiate conversation as often as you possibly can. keep your mind busy and you wont have to worry anymore
picture the bad intrusive thoughts in youe head as an edgy 13 year old and tell them to go be emo somewhere else
if someone makes you feel bad most of the time, stop talking to them. making yourself hang out with people who drain you is self harm. stop it.
… 8|
That’s some pretty good advice. I don’t know what’s left of my humor after ‘guess I’ll just die’ jokes but it’s worth a shot.
Personally i went from “guess I’ll die” jokes to “IF I HAVE TO BE HERE FOR 5 MORE MINUTES I PROMISE YOU I WILL BUY JUST, AN ARRAY OF CLOTHES.” and other wild hyperbolic stuff. Just replace the death part with something ridiculous and off topic. Its very entertaining
This also works with calling myself things like stupid, worthless, trash, etc. Even if you do this jokingly to yourself, your brain still believes it, and keeps up the cycle. Seriously, I found that when I stopped saying these things about myself, even jokingly, it made a massive difference.
Here’s a tip I picked up from a friend that’s helped me a lot — replace self deprecating jokes with ironically self aggrandizing jokes
Like every time I trip and fall, instead of saying “l’m just a disaster human” I say “I’m the epitome of grace and beauty”
Or like, when I draw a picture I’m not 100% happy with, instead of saying “my art is trash” I say something like “you know I think it’s time we replaced the Mona Lisa”
When you do that you get to make a joke, but you’re ALSO getting practice building yourself up, y’know?
And eventually it becomes a reflex and you get so used to it that you can say nice stuff about yourself even when you AREN’T joking
I love and endorse this. I wanna tack on another way to deal with intrusive thoughts that i’ve found overall effective & helpful to reduce them altogether.
explain to yourself why that thing would be bad in terms a 7 year old would understand. a lot of the time intrusive thoughts are your brain trying to process why something is scary, but the brain takes a wrong turn and winds up just thinking about the thing instead. consistently explaining in simple terms why the thing it’s thinking about is bad helps the brain to resolve those thoughts.
tell yourself you’re not in any danger. the other half of the time, in my experience, i get intrusive thoughts bc of prolonged past traumatic experiences. my brain expects me to be in danger so it looks for danger where there is none & intrudes on me in insisting that something in my environment isn’t as it should be. when i realize that’s happening i tell myself there’s no danger here, and i’ve found that helps too.
Steel Phoenix Studios 