Latest Posts by 50stressballs - Page 3

It’s so weird having my physical health tank when my mental health is the best it’s ever been.

Like whenever someone asks me how I am I’m just like “well my bones hurt, and my muscles hurt, and I can work maybe 3 hours a day before I collapse from chronic fatigue. But like the world keeps on turning, so I’m vibing dude B) ”

guys my dopamine in my brain dropped to like 0

Also I just googled the couch potato to 5k program I trained with when I was a kid and they don’t recommend the program for kids under 11 because it’s considered “too intense.” And I just found a picture from when I finished my first race in 2012 when I was 9 years old which is…. younger than 11.

So yeah maybe also don’t put your children on adult exercise regimens that are not designed for their tiny bodies lmao what the fuck

So fun fact when I was a kid my mom decided I wasn’t active enough. So she bought me absurdly expensive running shoes I did not ask for, dragged me out in the below freezing east coast weather, and started me on this “couch potato to 5k” challenge.

Every day after school, we ran. First it was 5 minutes a day, then 7, then 10… you get the gist. I think after 2 months we were running about an hour every day. By the time I quit running when I was 10, my mom and I had run 3 5ks together over the span of a little over a year.

A little after stopped running, I noticed some pain in my right knee. It got a little bit worse, and a little bit worse, and a little bit worse… and then five years later, when it had gotten to the point where I couldn’t pay attention in geography class because I was in constant pain from having to sit all day, I finally went to the doctor.

They told me the cartilage under my kneecap was worn down from overuse. It’s called chondromalacia patellae—also known as “runners knee.”

The thing is: When we were in races, and I was overwhelmed, I told my mom I wanted to stop. I told her I was in pain and I needed to slow down. I told her I didn’t like running.

And you know what she said to me?

“Suck it up.”

And I’m not saying “don’t tell your kids to exercise.” Your kids SHOULD exercise—not because of any bullshit weight reason or anything, but because they’re kids, and it’s good for them. Good for their bones, or whatever.

And I’m not saying “don’t exercise WITH your kids” either, because again, they should be exercising a little. And if you being there helps them stay motivated, that’s great.

What I am saying is: Listen to your kids. Trust that they know their own limits better than you do. Even if you think that they’re being over dramatic, or whiny, or whatever—don’t take the chance.

I’m 20 years old now. My knee still hurts. I have a whole suite of other, unrelated chronic conditions that would be improved if I exercised more. And I try to, I really do. But it’s kind of hard to do squats when just one makes your knee feel like it’s on fire for the rest of the week.

Listen. To. Your. Kids.

For the record I do really enjoy yoga, but when my ADHD’s real ramped up the idea of pulling up a yoga video and spending ten minutes stretching and being alone with my thoughts is just not on the table. Like I need something I can do completely independently so I can pop on a really dumb podcast and stop thinking about being in pain for five seconds. And yoga is great but I don’t have the concentration to guide myself through it without instructions.

Really wish all the “low impact” exercise routines I find weren’t hyper focused on like squats and lunges and shit. Like bro, my knees DO NOT WORK. They simply do not function properly. If I do 15 squats today I’m not going to be able to walk properly for literal days.

…….but like I’m so tired and I NEED to work out to help with my fatigue, and I don’t have the attention span for yoga right now. So I do the five bajillion squats anyway.

And I’m stupid so I forget that that’s a bad idea, so when I’m in an incredible amount of pain just walking up and down the stairs for the rest of the week, I’ll be like

So fun fact when I was a kid my mom decided I wasn’t active enough. So she bought me absurdly expensive running shoes I did not ask for, dragged me out in the below freezing east coast weather, and started me on this “couch potato to 5k” challenge.

Every day after school, we ran. First it was 5 minutes a day, then 7, then 10… you get the gist. I think after 2 months we were running about an hour every day. By the time I quit running when I was 10, my mom and I had run 3 5ks together over the span of a little over a year.

A little after stopped running, I noticed some pain in my right knee. It got a little bit worse, and a little bit worse, and a little bit worse… and then five years later, when it had gotten to the point where I couldn’t pay attention in geography class because I was in constant pain from having to sit all day, I finally went to the doctor.

They told me the cartilage under my kneecap was worn down from overuse. It’s called chondromalacia patellae—also known as “runners knee.”

The thing is: When we were in races, and I was overwhelmed, I told my mom I wanted to stop. I told her I was in pain and I needed to slow down. I told her I didn’t like running.

And you know what she said to me?

“Suck it up.”

And I’m not saying “don’t tell your kids to exercise.” Your kids SHOULD exercise—not because of any bullshit weight reason or anything, but because they’re kids, and it’s good for them. Good for their bones, or whatever.

And I’m not saying “don’t exercise WITH your kids” either, because again, they should be exercising a little. And if you being there helps them stay motivated, that’s great.

What I am saying is: Listen to your kids. Trust that they know their own limits better than you do. Even if you think that they’re being over dramatic, or whiny, or whatever—don’t take the chance.

I’m 20 years old now. My knee still hurts. I have a whole suite of other, unrelated chronic conditions that would be improved if I exercised more. And I try to, I really do. But it’s kind of hard to do squats when just one makes your knee feel like it’s on fire for the rest of the week.

Listen. To. Your. Kids.

Really wish all the “low impact” exercise routines I find weren’t hyper focused on like squats and lunges and shit. Like bro, my knees DO NOT WORK. They simply do not function properly. If I do 15 squats today I’m not going to be able to walk properly for literal days.

…….but like I’m so tired and I NEED to work out to help with my fatigue, and I don’t have the attention span for yoga right now. So I do the five bajillion squats anyway.

And I’m stupid so I forget that that’s a bad idea, so when I’m in an incredible amount of pain just walking up and down the stairs for the rest of the week, I’ll be like

Doctors be like “before we refill your medication you need to make an appointment” and then I show up to the appointment and it’s just

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes, literally all the time.”

“Cool here’s your drugs, see you in three months.”

I’ve been exercising to help my fatigue, unfortunately I keep pushing myself too hard and worsening my joint pain…. which then makes my fatigue worse.

BUT it’s okay because if I need more energy, I can just exercise! Again! And if I injure myself again and my fatigue gets even worse, it’s okay, because if I need help with my fatigue, I can just EXERCISE!!! And then if my joints get worse because of that and I get more fatigue, it’s okay, because I can just EXERCISE MORE, AND—

Elon musk has done a lot of shitty things but the one thing that pisses me off the most is he’s the first thing a lot of people think of when you mention Tesla now.

Like the real Nikola Tesla was SO cool. Nikola Tesla was a genius, and a weirdo, and he nursed injured pigeons back to life. But now when you say “Tesla” most people just think of stupid Elon and his shitty exploding cars. And it pisses me off.

Having a disagreement with my roomate

New video out today! If you’re looking for some motivation this week, one open up the Thera-Pets deck with me! All 64 cards were illustrated and written by Kate Allan, author of “You Can Do All Things:”

New video out today! If you’re looking for some motivation this week, one open up the Thera-Pets deck with me! All 64 cards were illustrated and written by Kate Allan, author of “You Can Do All Things:”

Donna’s such a hater, love her

Connecting with others who are also chronically ill is so nice.

walmart that you

Yuppers :)

(This post must be so confusing without context LMAO)

Any other chronically ill folks have advice on dealing with hot flashes? My autoimmune disease is kicking my ass rn

Wanted to paint this dog

Okay I don’t know anything about birthstones but as someone with a December birthday it was so hilariously anticlimactic to scroll through all of these like “oh what cool reasoning, I wonder what mine will be” and then just see “Sure, zircon, whatever🤷” LMAO

Here is a potentially silly question: how do you feel about birthstones? Do you think they fit the months (by season or astrological sign)? Do you have other stones you'd rather see as birthstones?

Okay, so, birthstones make absolutely no sense.

I mean, look at this mess. We’re doing beryl and corundum twice! I get that they get Special Different Names for their Special Different Colors, but it's just lazy. And why are we giving some months cheap, common gemstones like garnet and amethyst while the poor June birthdays have to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for FREAKING ALEXANDRITE? That’s incredibly unfair! We should be picking birthstones that are all roughly the same price. And why do some months get multiple gemstones? I’ll tell you why: because nobody can agree on an official list and every attempt to standardize this thing has just added MORE birthstones to every month.

So obviously the answer is to standardize it again, by throwing out everything and starting over. Here are our goals:

Fair pricing. You should be paying roughly the same amount regardless of what month you were born in. We’re getting rid of those ridiculous outliers like diamond and alexandrite.

More customization potential! Nobody should be stuck with a stone they hate. We’re picking gemstones that come in multiple colors or varieties, so that everyone can choose a variant they like.

Wearability. Some birthstones are too fragile to be worn as jewelry. We need to replace them with stronger stuff.

No more duplicate gemstones. Every month gets a stone or family of stones with a unique chemical composition.

Now without further ado, I present to you:

The New And Improved List Of Birthstones With No Problems Or Flaws That Everyone Will Definitely Agree On And We Can Start Using Right Now Immediately

JANUARY: GARNET

I've got no problem with garnet. It's a fine, classic birthstone, so January can keep it. But I would like to see a little more garnet diversity. January birthdays shouldn’t be confined to just red. The garnet family of minerals contains a rainbow of different colors, like orange hessonite, green uvarovite, pink rhodolite, yellow grandite, and many more. They’re all garnet, so we should be wearing them all!

FEBRUARY: QUARTZ

The original birthstone of February was amethyst, which is… kinda boring. Super cheap and common and you only get one color? No, we can do better. February gets ALL the quartzes now. Keep wearing amethyst if you want, but also feel free to branch out into clear quartz, citrine, rose quartz, smoky quartz, rutilated quartz, tiger eye… actually, take all the agates too. If it’s quartz, it’s yours!

MARCH: SPODUMENE

March was originally aquamarine, but I’ll be giving all the beryls to May, so we need a different stone here. Let’s stick with that theme of pale pastels and go with spodumene. For an April birthday, bedeck yourself in green hiddenite, pink kunzite, or yellow triphane. Despite its subtle colors, your birthstone has some amazing fluorescence, with really cool pinks and oranges under a UV light.

APRIL: FELDSPAR

Diamond is too pricy for this list, so we’re replacing it with something less expensive and way more interesting. April will now be represented by the feldspar family. We’re talking labradorite, moonstone, amazonite, aventurine, and sunstone. While you don’t have much variety in color, your stones are full of shimmery schiller which glitters and shifts as it catches the light.

MAY: BERYL

May’s original birthstone was emerald, which is great and can stay, but we’re also adding its siblings! May is now represented by all beryls: Emerald, Aquamarine, Morganite, Bixbite, Heliodor, Goshenite, and whatever other varieties I’m forgetting to list. A bright and saturated rainbow of colors is represented here, so everyone born in May is sure to find something they like.

JUNE: ORGANIC GEMSTONES AND FOSSILS

It’s time to address the alexandrite in the room, and obviously we’re getting rid of alexandrite. A stone worth $15,000 to $70,000 a carat does not belong on the same list as friggin amethyst. Instead we’ll look at the other traditional June birthstone, pearl. The problem with pearl is that it’s a clear outlier in this list. An organic gemstone, by some definitions not even a mineral. Should we replace it? NO. We are OWNING it. All organic gemstones now belong to June. Pearl is joined here by jet, amber, coral, ivory, ammolite, petrified wood… in fact, June can have every fossil ever.

JULY: SPINEL

July was originally represented by ruby, which is a fine stone and won’t be kicked off the birthstone list - we’re just shuffling it down to September. Replacing ruby for July is spinel. (See, it’s funny because historically spinel has often been mistakenly identified as ruby! That's a little gemology humor for you.) Available in any hue you could possibly desire, spinel offers some nice color options to a month that previously only featured red. Of course if you want to keep wearing red, red spinel mimics ruby so well that you’ll barely notice the difference.

AUGUST: PERIDOT

Nope, we’re not changing this one. Peridot is the ideal gemstone and you ungrateful August whiners can die mad about it. HOW ABOUT YOU LEARN TO APPRECIATE PERFECTION

SEPTEMBER: CORUNDUM

Sapphire is a wonderful, classic stone and it deserves its spot on this list. But the corundum family has been separated for far too long, and we’re finally going to reunite them. Joining sapphire in September is its sister ruby. Between the pinks and reds of ruby and the many, many colors of sapphire, these two stones give September a nice variety of colors.

OCTOBER: TOURMALINE

Look, as gorgeous as opal is and as much as I love it, it is both way too pricy for our list and also TERRIBLE in jewelry. This stone is just too brittle to wear around from day to day and can be ruined just by getting it wet, which makes wearing your birthstone a huge hassle. We’ll kick opal out and hang on to October’s other traditional birthstone, tourmaline. Pink tourmaline may be classic, but this stone comes in plenty of other colors. Whether it’s brown dravite, watermelon elbaite, or the rare and beautiful blue indicolite, you can wear them all!

NOVEMBER: TOPAZ

November can keep topaz, but we’re not confining it to the color yellow. This stone comes in a huge variety of colors, and now they can ALL represent November. No further notes; it’s a nice, classic stone.

DECEMBER: ZIRCON

I dunno, I’ve had to come up with 12 of these, I’m burnt out. Sure, zircon, whatever.

“BUT WAIT,” you say. “Now instead of having a single color assigned to each month, almost every month is represented by almost every color, making it impossible to tell anyone’s birthstones apart and removing what made them special and recognizable as symbols!”

Well CLEARLY you didn’t read the title of this list.

Yo I tried a new anti-inflammatory for my joint pain and it works AWESOME

unfortunately it is also making me EXTREMELY DEPRESSED so I am going to have to stop taking it immediately

yaaaaaaay :)

I’m lupus until proven guilty

…Like innocent until proven guilty?

Is that anything?

I’m not TECHNICALLY diagnosed with lupus yet, because I have to see the rheumatologist for more tests. But my ANA is crazy, I definitely have some kind of autoimmune disorder, and I tested negative for RA and Sjögren's syndrome, so like. It’s PROBABLY lupus.

And I’m tired of saying I have “something” or “some weird autoimmune thing” or whatever. I just wanna put a name on it, and right now, that name is lupus.

I’m not TECHNICALLY diagnosed with lupus yet, because I have to see the rheumatologist for more tests. But my ANA is crazy, I definitely have some kind of autoimmune disorder, and I tested negative for RA and Sjögren's syndrome, so like. It’s PROBABLY lupus.

And I’m tired of saying I have “something” or “some weird autoimmune thing” or whatever. I just wanna put a name on it, and right now, that name is lupus.

The duality of “I should get up and move around, it’ll help with my pain” vs. “I can’t move at all, I’m in too much pain”

Like yeah, if you struggle with chronic pain you should try exercise, because it probably will help. But in order for exercise to even be an option, you have to be in an at least semi-manageable amount of pain to begin with.

Finally a three sentence horror story I can relate to

Guess who had a flare-up but is feeling a bit better now.

THIS GUY

Got the results for my blood test back

Listen I know the only way to figure out what’s making me sick is to wait for my lab tests to come back and see what the doctor says.

And I know that panic googling autoimmune diseases that I MIGHT have is 1. Not productive and 2. Not healthy.

…………………but I read this article about LUPUS last night, and I—

More messy colored pencil shenanigans✨

Too tired to think too anxious to shut up so I’m just gonna make microwave sounds until I collapse from exhaustion

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Hi I’m hyperfixated on Project Sekai, have a lil Kohane, as a treat

Also her with her glasses still because I love this game but did we REALLY need to do the whole “she takes off her glasses and she’s so confident and pretty” like can we just let a girl be nearsighted please

The FINAL MOUSE……

(For now)

(As far as you know)