Hey students, here’s a pro tip: do not write an email to your prof while you’re seriously sick.
Signed, a person who somehow came up with “dear hello, I am sick and not sure if I’ll be alive to come tomorrow and I’m sorry, best slutantions, [name]”.
Remember these dates. #StudentLoans
#CancelStudentDebt
At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully. Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.
The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter "written" by the doll saying "please don't cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures."
Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka's life.
During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable.
Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned. “It doesn't look like my doll at all," said the girl.
Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: "my travels have changed me." the little girl hugged the new doll and brought her happy home.
A year later Kafka died. Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written:
"Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way."
Depression is actually pretty darn pathetic. Depression has very little power against you IF it can’t find a worthy opponent to oppose you. You give it a challenge so the only way it can really influence you and deal some damage is if depression gets you to fight yourself. Don’t be your enemy, be your friend. Be on your team. It’s not you against your broken body, it’s you and your body against a manipulative monster disease. Learn how to love yourself and you will want to fight depression even harder when you realize that you are actually a cool person and you actually want to live. There is power in truth and living in it. Self-hate is based on lies, and you lived in those lies by beating yourself up with them. Now try the truth of self-love and start being nicer to yourself. No, it's not easy to get out of self-hate, but make the choice to try and understand yourself and take it a step at a time and then you will be surprised that you actually like some of the parts of yourself that you didn't think you did. As a Christian, I say God bless and may you receive more than you think you will. Depression may be an enemy you will have to continually face, but its shadow is bigger than itself and your shadow doesn't even begin to reveal the greatness of you.
I’ve seen a post about first time wheelchair users guide. Since I’ve been using a walking stick for a while now, I thought I’d make one specifically for these types of aids. These will be in no particular order– they’re just things you probably don’t know about using a walking stick.
- if you’ve hurt you left leg/ect., hold the stick in your right hand (if possible) and if you’ve hurt your right leg/ect., hold the stick in your left hand. Trust me, your shoulders and back will thank you
- the pad of your hand will hurt– it just will. You’ll get used to it and your hand will develop more protection there eventually. To start out, look into a pair of fingerless gloves.
- a fold up/collapsable stick is good for beginners because you can take them on public transport/cars without too much hassle (they also fit nicely into desks and under chairs).
- When you’re using your stick, you only have one free hand. This may seem obvious, but it really impacts your every day life. Practice for a while around the house, so you get the feeling down.
-there are a lot of different types of walking sticks: fold up, one leg, two legs, three legs, etc.
(these are only a few of the many designs)
-if possible, go to a shop that specifies in walking sticks. ask to try a few out, they will also help make sure that you’re using on that’s the right height for you.
- a height adjustable walking stick is a miracle, especially if you want to wear high heels to an event.
- you don’t need a prescription to get a stick in most regions (but in some cases they may help get a discount)
- getting a stick that is the right height for you if very important (even with an adjustable one). Too short, and you’ll hurt your shoulder. Too tall, and you can’t put weight on it properly. The correct height is when the highest part of the handle reaches your wrist when the stick is standing straight up, as shown in this image.
- if you’re young (under the age of 60) people will stare, often they wont mean to– it is annoying but you’ll get used to it.
- again, if you’re young, people will ask why you’re using the stick, all. the. time. Even strangers will sometimes ask. You can use a really simple answer like “medical condition” and if they pry further, you can say “That’s all I’m comfortable saying”. If they don’t know you, or don’t know you well, they really have no business asking.
-Children will ask, a lot. Please be gentle with them, especially if they’re really little. I know it’s annoying but you can give children reallllllllly simple answers like “I just need it to help me walk” and most of the time they’ll be perfectly content with that and won’t ask more.
- don’t be afraid to use more advanced mobility aids if needed on bad days, or when readily available (eg. at a supermarket, when they have motorized wheelchairs for customers)
- You don’t have to use your stick every day for you to have a disability or for you to own a stick. Even if you need it once a week, once a month, you can still own one. You’re not less worthy or a mobility aid than those who need one everyday.
-Use backpacks, the ones with 2 well-padded straps that go over your shoulders evenly. Use them as much as you can. Bags that you hold in one hand or have one strap make you unbalanced or take up your only free hand.
- If you want to, decorate your stick, go all out.
Even if you don’t need/use a walking stick, please reblog this to let those who do, know this information.
Allow yourself to struggle and to make mistakes and don't hate yourself over missed opportunities.
There are too many new opportunities that await and mistakes are lessons that can give us an advantage in the future.
We see the damage done from the past but healing can await us in the future. Healing can be a pain in itself, it's surely difficult, but remind yourself that you are more than the pain you feel and the obstacles that you face.
Jesus bless you all! :D
ya……… these two have gotten me through everything & continues to do so
okay look. i get a few asks every now and again about age gaps in relationships and i know that there are exceptions to every rule but.
i know three girls my age, twenty four, who are stuck in relationships that they shouldn’t be in because an older guy groomed them when they were young teens.
one was thirteen when a seventeen year old boy started flirting with her. she was flattered. she started lying to her parents and sneaking around with him. she fell in love with him. he says he loves her back, and maybe he thinks he does, but he doesn’t act like it. he quit his job without telling her when she was pregnant with their second child, almost singlehandedly raising their first, because he just felt like it. no regard for the family. and she laughed about it when she told me, like it was the funniest thing, like he hadn’t endangered all of them on a whim. because he’s done so much little shit over the years that she’s accustomed to it. he always gets his way and she cleans up his mess because she loves him.
another girl works a full time job and then comes home to cook and clean because her unemployed boyfriend refuses to. she was fourteen and he was eighteen when they started dating and she is still convinced he’s going to change. he quit smoking when she threatened to leave but literally weeks later, as soon as he’d cowed her back into submission, he took it up again, and then tried to paint her as a villain for ‘trying to take away his joy’.
all three girls become completely different people when their partners are around. quieter, smaller.
when it’s just us they laugh as they tell me about the men losing their tempers over something small, like knocking over chairs is a rational response to her asking if she can go away with her friends for a weekend.
they’ve been with these men since they were so young they cannot imagine their lives without them. their entire identities are forged around these uneven relationships.
and that’s the key - they’re uneven. i don’t doubt that two fifteen year olds can get together and stay together happily, because they both had the opportunity to grow up within the relationship, at the same pace. if it’s a fifteen year old and a nineteen year old, though, one has already done so much more growing than the other. they’re at completely different stages of development, they’re psychologically unable to have an equal balance of power in the relationship.
basically, please don’t be flattered by older people showing an interest in you. instead, consider why they don’t want to date someone their own age, who is far more likely to stand up to them when they get controlling. all relationships should have equal shares, but age gaps between early and late teens, or teens and adults, don’t allow that. please don’t take a chance on you being the exception to the rule.
If you're mentally ill, chronically ill or otherwise disabled, do yourself a favor and consciously work to dismantle the "if you're too sick to go to work you're also too sick to be on the computer" mindset which got drilled into most of us during childhood. You don't have to deny yourself joy. You don't have to directly or indirectly punish yourself for not being able to do certain things. It doesn't help anyone. All it does is make you even more miserable than you have to be. So make sure you don't punish yourself for being sick. Make sure you don't subconsciously sabotage yourself with the idea that you have to be punished for not being abled. Make sure you embrace the joy you can find instead of denying yourself out of unnecessary guilt.
Don’t have the same expectations for the first draft as you will have for the final one.
I hope you guys like…eventually live the life you want to live and I hope nothing haunts you for too long and I hope you’re all kind to yourselves