Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

escavel:

sopphistries:

tittyrants:

fire-lord-frowny:

It really, REALLY bothers me when I hear people frame climate change and other environmental crises as something that everyday, average-ass people are responsible for, and not corporations and entire governments. 

Like literally, how can a regular-ass person ~opt out~ of all damaging behaviors while still being able to function in society? 

You literally can’t. 

The future of our planet is not down to whether or not someone recycles their water bottle. 

It’s down to whether or not governments and corporations decide to quit sucking up all our resources and poisoning the earth with reckless abandon. 

I mean obviously people should still live as cleanly and as sustainably as they can manage where they are and with what they have, but like. THAT isn’t the major issue. 

govts and corporations have deliberately put the onus on yr individual choices so the system can continue being as destructive/profitable

God bless this post this pisses me off so much

Also this hyper-individualist shift of responsibility is largely an American thing and consumerism is framed as a solution- e.g., buy more shit that’s sustainable! That’ll fix the problem (buy a new, green water bottle! buy a new, green car! buy a new, green whatever-the-fuck that’ll just ultimately produce more waste)!

I took a course in sustainable engineering.

The professor mentioned that even if every private individual in the world were to conserve resources and the environment the ol’ Jimmy Carter way- by turning down the thermostat, recycling your glass and plastics and metals, cut down on luxuries, take shorter showers, etc., it would only get us 10% of the way to where we need to be in order to avoid global catastrophic climate change.

The vast majority of freshwater use is from industry and agriculture. http://www.worldometers.info/water/ 

The vast majority of CO2 emissions is from industrial and electrical generation sites and associated vehicles. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html

Private individuals hardly make a dent, even in ideal conditions.

nuclearvampire:

gelasticat:

this is like entirely irrelevant to art but i’ve seen a lot of people give this advice without a proper explanation and it’s really easy to dismiss anything without one so like?? an explanation on the Eat Something If You’re Feeling Especially Depressed thing also featuring Why Is Mental Illness So Fucking Exhausting

k so i know it really doesn’t feel like it especially when these moods hit you but your brain does a Lot to keep a lot of shitty things at bay, especially if you’re mentally ill. (this stuff applies to people who aren’t as well obviously, it’s just more of an issue if you are.)

it’s working at keeping stuff away p much constantly, and that’s on top of everything else brains do daily (which is a metric fuckton, our brains control absolutely everything that happens with our bodies and the cognitive processes even in something as simple as perception are absolutely batshit) and it takes a lot of energy that neurotypical people would have spare for other stuff, so you’re obviously going to get tired faster with all that going on all day, right?

your brain getting run down trying to keep the bad shit at bay means it exhausts itself and isn’t able to keep the bad shit at bay, which is why when you’re hungry it can literally feel like the world is ending and why all the little things that didnt bother you that much just nyoom the fuck up and suckerpunch you in the throat out of nowhere

you don’t feel that bad just because you’re hungry (in case you needed to hear that bc know i end up feeling like a melodramatic little bitch) it’s because your brain doesn’t have the energy to fight back against stuff anymore, and that’s why it’s important to eat when things feel especially bad

*seconds this earnestly*

If eating seems really hard, literally eat anything that might appeal past the depression funk. Eat a candy bar. Eat poptarts. Eat a popsicle. Drink a glass of juice. Like, in those moments, don’t make “healthy” or dieting a focus, you’re getting emergency fuel to your brain so you can eat something else in a couple minutes.  I have poptarts and little candy bars in my room for exactly this reason. Sometimes that little bite sized butterfinger is enough to motivate me to eat, and then whoops, wow, food sounds awesome now.

inkskinned:

I hope I never get tired of the night sky, of thunderstorms, of watching cream make galaxies in my coffee. This world is ugly. I hope I never grow to be someone who can no longer see the small beautiful things.

sockmonkeyrenegade:

groucho-marxism:

Stravinsky’s rite of spring is about a girl who dances herself to death to appease the Russian god of spring.

When it premiered the crowd got so amped up they opened up a mosh pit in the theater and the night would be forever known as the “riot of spring”

There’s a piece in the bassoon repertoire called “Dead Elvis” and when you buy the music you have to contractually agree to only perform the piece in a full Elvis costume.

sherrocked:

todayis-nevertoolate:

little-uno:

thatstoomainstream:

It’s weird how in animals seeing ribs/collar&hip bones is considered sick or even abusive, but in people that’s considered beautiful.

This may have just changed my life.

This is the best thing I’ve ever read.

This is the post which helped me beat anorexia.

deaf-clint:

literally half the reason i tag stuff on here is so i can go back and browse my own blog. i am my blog’s #1 fan

resplendeo:

let’s play another tag meme thing! put each word into your tags and see what pops up:

pretty
head
why
when
where
shit
you
stop
how
for
they
super

littlestlary:

I’m all for makeup and people doing makeup however they choose and makeup as an art form, but i’m also really concerned for the young girls in middle school and stuff with the new found pressure of makeup culture that wasn’t there five years ago. If you’re 12 or 13 and you’re reading this please please know you don’t have to contour to be beautiful, you don’t have to have amazing gradient eyebrows to be beautiful, you don’t have to be an Instagram model to be beautiful.

Makeup can be fun but you don’t have to look like all the rich girls on instagram with tons of money for mac and urban decay to be pretty or feel good about yourself. Just being you, and exploring your interests and learning new things as a young person is what makes you beautiful!! Never forget it!

locktobre:

locktobre:

President Romney

it’s been three years and I would now like to announce the sequel no one saw coming, President Trump

shartan9-27:

omorka:

darkparallel:

youcantcancelquidditch:

the assassination of franz ferdinand was actually the most hilariously botched assassination attempt of all time though like i can’t even explain to you how badly it went i mean there were six guys and the first one chickened out and the second one forgot to factor in the delay on a hand grenade so it exploded like three cars past the archduke’s so the guy took a cyanide pill and threw himself into a river, but the cyanide was expired and the river was six inches deep so the police just pulled him out and took him off to jail and then everyone else basically gave up and headed home, and then the driver of the archduke took a wrong turn and the car stalled next to the last of the six guys, and he was just like “what a crazy random happenstance” and started world war one

You forgot to mention that the last guy only happened to kill Franz because he had just come out of the sandwich shop where the car stopped

It is obvious to even the most casual observer that this particular event has been meddled with by at least two groups of time travelers trying to change history.  Please, if you invent a time machine, leave the assassination of Ferdinand alone; the space-time continuum there is already showing obvious cracks from the strain.

I’m dying.

uriequeen:

If I don’t do challenges you tag me in its not because I don’t love you, because I do, it’s because I’m a lazy fuck

academicfeminist:

kristen-the-rageful:

ableist-vegans:

Why?

Let’s say you make some vegan chocolate chip cookies. (I looked a recipe up for the sake of this post). These cookies are made with almond milk.

You have a friend that you’ve known for a few months now, and you think it would be nice to surprise them.

So, you offer them one of the cookies. You don’t tell them they’re vegan. As far as your friend is aware, they’re made with cow milk and chicken eggs.

Your friend takes one bite, and a few minutes later you’re using their epi-pen on them and calling 911.

See, what just happened is that your hypothetical friend here has a nut allergy that you didn’t know about, and the almond milk in the cookies was enough to put them in the hospital.

You could have avoided this whole situation by informing your friend that they’re vegan, thus prompting the question “It’s not made with almond milk, is it?”

This doesn’t just apply to cookies. While I’ve never found one, if you happen to know of a vegan fake meat that’s not made with soy and looks and smells exactly like the meat version, don’t serve it to someone and not tell them until after they eat it.

“But I, a vegan, would never do that!”

Great, then this post isn’t about you. This post is about the people who post shit like “when you give your friend vegan food without telling them and they like it *insert gif here*”, and it’s also about the thousands of people who reblog it.

- Avery

And some people have dusgestive issues or health issues that conflict with some vegan ingredients too

I can’t have soy products. At all. It makes eating anything a real pain in the ass, but it’s also one of the top reasons I’m not vegetarian or vegan - a LOT of substitution is done with soy-based products and those will put me in the hospital real quick.

owlmylove:

sapphicshepard:

sapphicshepard:

sapphicshepard:

sapphicshepard:

i’ve definitely told you about this before but my dad and my uncle have this whole star wars vs star trek rivalry where they’ll get each other passive aggressive gifts (my dad is a star wars fan, and will always get my uncle star wars merch. my uncle claims star trek is so much better and star wars is lame. he will always get my father star trek merch. this has been going on since my parents got married.) 

this is going to be a good year for arguing 

my uncle just arrived. my mom shouted “kids, uncle rich is here!” my dad bellowed “MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU” down the stairs. my uncle shouted back “YOU CANT SEE IT BUT IM GIVING YOUR DOG THE VULCAN SALUTE” i love christmas here

dinner was alright until over dessert my dad brought up “so, richie, you see the new star wars movie” until it devolved into a wine fueled shouting match. highlights include “WELL AT LEAST WE DIDNT HAVE JAR JAR GODDAMNED BINKS” “AT LEAST WE DIDNT BLOW UP–” “YES YOU DID. FIRST MOVIE. YOU BLEW UP A PLANET” “shit”

this years argument, like every year before it, ended with “nice to see you.” and them slapping each other on the back which i think is a guy way of hugging goodbye.

this is the best thing i’ve ever seen

vrabia:

Have I ever told you guys the true story of the Revolution Christmas Tree?

This one absolutely 100% happened (unlike the drunk zombie geese story which likely only 35% happened, but maybe I’ll tell you about it one day). It happened to my family when I was 4 y/o. 

So imagine Evil Commie Land in the late ‘80s: severe food shortages, no heating (seriously, people slept with their stoves on for heat and sometimes the gas was cut off and came back randomly during the night and carbon monoxide poisoning was a thing). Also large, beautiful, historical chunks of our capital city were being bulldozed into oblivion because our megalomaniac shithead supreme leader wanted to build the biggest fucking thing there was. Anyway, it sucked. 

On top of that we were also technically not supposed to celebrate Christmas, because religion is the opiate of the masses etc. etc. But we did anyway, every year and with great enthusiasm, running as we did on the sweet fuel of go ahead and tell a motherfucker they’re not allowed to do something.

So. Christmas. The way we did Christmas back in the day was to make it as secular and proletarian as possible: officially no church services, no religious carols, no Jesus thingy, no calling Santa Claus Santa Claus (we called him Old Man Frost idk)

The only thing we did exactly the same as regular Christmas, in the privacy of our homes, was the Christmas tree. This is how you got a Christmas tree:

• you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were
• these were not like, official, state-sanctioned commercial workers, but people with the capacity to somehow provide you with 1 pc. coniferous for Proletarian Christmas celebrating purposes
• I have no fucking idea who they were or how they got them
• anyway, you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were and you talked to one of them and you told them what kind of Christmas tree you wanted (options were: fir/spruce, medium-ish/small)
• you paid them in advance and agreed on a date where you’d come by and pick your Proletarian Christmas tree
• you picked up your Proletarian Christmas tree, brought it home to the family and decorated it with stuff you inherited from your great-grandmother or your mom made out of candy wrappers like 15 years before
• you celebrated Christmas. Proletarianly. 

So along comes 1989. Shit boils over and by December 21st, we have a violent revolution right on the streets of our capital city. 

Now, I was 4 and my brother was 6 months old and our parents decided that we absolutely cannot go without a regular Christmas in our house, especially now that the world is about to go to shit. We didn’t have anything, presents or nice food or. Anything? Basically. The one thing we had was dad had arranged to get our Christmas tree on the day. So he tells my mom that he’s going to pick it up, and instead of knocking him cold and chaining him to the radiator, like the sensible woman she usually is, my mom goes ok just put on an extra sweater you don’t want to catch a cold haha right?

Let me break this down for you in case there’s any misunderstanding as to what we’re talking about. Outside:

• violent riots
• army
• snipers
• tanks
• plainclothes secret police randomly shooting people dead in the street
• I seriously cannot stress the snipers enough

So off goes my dad to pick up our Christmas tree. And he’s gone for five hours, on a trip that normally takes like 30 minutes at a casual stroll. And the more time passes, the deeper my mother sinks into an all-out nervous breakdown. She’s barely keeping it together, my grandmother is trying to comfort her, while my brother is sleeping quietly, which is a good thing, because at some point there’s a weird rumbling outside our building. 

‘What’s that?’ say I, 4 years old and desperate for some straight, no-bullshit answers

‘Nothing,’ says my mom. ‘Nothing’ is the second stupidest thing to say to an observant, intelligent kid who’s been locked up for a week and kept in the dark about shit that’s very obviously happening just outside.

‘No, really, what is that?’ say I, seriously determined to get a straight, no-bullshit answer. 

Years later, after piecing bits of memories together, I realized there are only so many ways to skirt around ‘It’s a tank, dear’, which is the single stupidest thing to say to a child who’s been locked up for a week if you expect them not to run outside because they want to see, damn it. 

So when my dad finally comes home five hours later, with the goddamn tree, she’s either too exhausted to say much, or doesn’t want to have that conversation in front of her kid, who is seriously right on the brink of smashing something out of frustration. 

It wasn’t until I was in highschool that he told me he’d actually been shot at several times, because sneaking around street corners carrying a large tree is not at all suspicious when everyone is so strung up. Any sniper who might have been around absolutely did not think he was probably a revolutionary agent smuggling weapons or w/e instead of a dad trying to make a nice Christmas for his family BECAUSE WHAT THE ACTUAL EVERLOVING FUCK

So this is the story of the Revolution Christmas Tree, aka the story of how my dad almost got shot lugging around an overpriced bit of spruce in the middle of violent street fighting so his kids could have Christmas. 

There are some levels of parenting you just can’t beat. 

lupinatic:

alliecat-person:

madeofpatterns:

slashmarks:

madeofpatterns:

doomhamster:

captain-ameribunny:

doomhamster:

feathersmoons:

lolmythesis:

English, Notre Dame

The Author-Who-Lived: J.K. Rowling’s Refusal to Accept the Death of the Author in the Internet Age

Man I fucking hate this attitude. I especially hate that Rowling gets this shit thrown at her. God FORBID she continue to engage with her own fucking work.

I don’t get why this is even a thing? I mean, why WOULDN’T one be interested in the author’s intentions and the ideas they had that didn’t make it into the finished work and so forth, regardless of whether one actually thinks they managed to express them well?

People seem to think they’re entitled to take over someone else’s work.  News flash: JK Rowling created the Harry Potter series, not you.  If you don’t want to hear what she has to say about it, stop looking at her twitter account then. 

Yes. This. Now I’m all in favor of AUs and headcanons and whatnot, and in Rowling’s particular case I can certainly see reason to criticize the way she’s revealed some things, but talking about it like she should just “accept” that once she’s published something nothing she has to say about it matters? Ridiculous.

Everyone *else* gets to have headcanons, why shouldn’t she?

Like - it annoys me when people jump on Harry Potter meta or interpretations because of something JKR said on twitter or in one interview, because there is no way to keep track of everything she’s said and she changes her mind sometimes, and ultimately my meta is about the books, not what the author was thinking. I understand being annoyed if a lot of people have jumped on you for it, too. 

But that isn’t her fault, and she has the right to talk about her own books.

Agreed.

All of this.

Rowling is under no obligation to accept Death of the Author. Nor are we as readers necessarily–if you want to, that’s great, but it isn’t the only way to be a reader.

On that note, it isn’t just a matter of ‘if everyone else can have headcanons, why can’t the author?’ it’s a matter of the author’s headcanons being canon, even if that josses someone else’s headcanon. She gets to decide this stuff, because she made the world we’re playing in. She was the one who sat down and did the hard work. Just because she was gracious enough to share it with us, some people seem to feel entitled to grab it and shout “No, you’re wrong! This is OURS now! MINE! All mine!”. Believe in your headcanons as much as you want, but don’t expect anyone who isn’t you to accord any importance to them, and don’t be surprised when people get amused at the entitlement inherent in the notion that your opinion is somehow every bit as legitimate as the opinion of the woman who did all the hard work.

I was very attached to the idea of a Ravenclaw Teddy Lupin. Guess what? He’s a Hufflepuff according to the woman who created him and his parents, and I’ve no right to insist otherwise.

freaoscanlin:

poptarts-for-breakfast:

the princess diaries was anne hathaway’s first movie and like can you imagine being in her place and just casually being told oh btw julie andrews is your co-star no pressure welcome to hollywood

So I saw Meg Cabot speak when she came to St. Louis and I did not do anything like fall flat on my face or embarrass myself horribly (a miracle, considering that the writer I wanted to grow up to be was Meg Cabot). But more importantly, she talked about The Princess Diaries, and I learned several things:

• the movie was being made before the book was published, which she said was very weird for her
• Whitney Houston’s production company was the one that made it, so apparently both Meg Cabot and Anne Hathaway really could regard Whitney Houston as their fairy godmother
• the reason Mia’s father is dead in the movie (he’s alive in the books) is because the original draft of the movie didn’t have that many lines for Mia’s Grandmère. When the production company approached Meg Cabot about this, they said “Julie Andrews wants the part, but she’d like more lines so we think we would have to kill Mia’s father and–” “YES KILL HIM KILL HIM DEAD.”
  
• Which I feel is the only proper reaction to that.
• Also according to Meg Cabot, Anne Hathaway is a sweetheart.
  

zombb-8:

januariat:

guys someone talk to me about poe dameron - best pilot in the resistance, top dog, guns-blazing male protagonist - and how he was so kind. how he took an ex storm trooper at face value and with unconditional, immediate trust and even a fierce kind of joy- yeah, you go buddy! fight the darkness. i’m here to help you. i’m here to work with you. i’m not here to take control- we won’t get out of this unless we work together. 

how he didn’t treat him with suspicion or macho posturing despite the fact that he’s a top tier pilot and has probably been at war with people like FN 2187 for years. how the first thing he does once they’re out of immediate danger is give him a name, treating him like a person worthy of respect and not like another faceless white mask. how he is patient with a panicking Finn even under the incredible stress of a life or death situation, ensuring he knows what to do and being endlessly positive and encouraging instead of berating him when he falls short.

how he gets out of his jet at the end of the big firefight and sees BB8 and his whole face just lights up. how he unselfconsciously runs to BB8 like a kid, automatically lowering himself to BB8′s level. 

how he doesn’t need to be the spotlight, the center of attention. when they gather around the hologram to strategize, star pilot and battle veteran poe dameron shuts up and listens. 

how he never has a Trek-reboot Jim Kirk-style playboy sequence, no endless string of girls. not even a hint, and you know they could have stuck it in there if they wanted to. how we never see him treat another being, human or otherwise, with anything less than respect, optimism and good nature. i’m just. i mean. do you realize how significant this is?

you guys, if poe dameron is the future of male protagonists in big action movies, sign me the fuck up. 

I WAS ALREADY IN LOVE WITH HIM I DIDN’T NEED THIS POST TO REMIND ME 

jellyfishdirigible:

wombatking:

deadcatwithaflamethrower:

teaberryblue:

onemuseleft:

I want to write an action movie about some older retired government agent who’s married and settled down. He’s started to let his guard down. And that’s when the past comes back to haunt him.

They come for him while he’s home alone and he’s resisting their interrogation techniques, refusing to betray whatever or whoever they’re after. Except then his teenage daughter comes home early.

And the baddies send one of their henchmen out there to deal with her. And RetiredActionDad is all “Don’t you touch her! I’ll kill you! Rar!” But the baddies just laugh.

Except they realize, after a little while has passed, that the one guy never came back from dealing with the daughter.

And then go outside and find the missing baddie floating face down in the pool.

The rest of the movie is the teenage girl calling in favors and running around following the baddies to save her RetiredActionDad.

So Taken, but in reverse.

It should be called The Liability.  

I would watch the hell out of this.

And then in the sequel, the daughter has joined the FBI, following in her dad’s footsteps. But the brother of the villain from the first one wants revenge. So he kidnaps her mother. She and her dad head abroad to find mom in the villain’s secret lair…while mom has already escaped has been busy hiding in the air vents and stabbing goons with knitting needles. Turns out she was a Russian spy who defected and married her government handler forty years ago, and can handle herself. 

somehow it got better

So…who’s gonna help make this movie happen?

lostcap:

Well if Donald Trump is elected president maybe the universe will decide our need is finally the greatest and Arthur Pendragon will rise again

tbh I would consider this to be a completely acceptable response for the universe to have.

c-bassmeow:

sodomymcscurvylegs:

c-bassmeow:

It’s funny how Hillary Clinton will nae nae on stage, reference Beyoncé, try to court Latinos by saying she’s an Abuela, reference Star Wars, and literally change her accent depending on her audience, doing anything to appeal to everyone yet an old, unfashionable, unkempt, Jewish, socialist is winning with millennials by a 2-1 (and growing) margin just by being true to himself. Hmmm

The problem with Hillary and the people running her campaign is that they are running on the same mindset as everyone of that generation: they truly believe that millennials and younger voters “only care about memes” and are uninterested in politics or making the world better. What they don’t understand is that this younger generation isn’t uninterested in politics or the political process, but that they see American politics for what they are: a game of broken promises, where you can barely differentiate between liberals and conservatives as this point. The Democrats and Republicans running for office are all more invested in the interests of the rich and powerful than they are of the people. This generation isn’t untierested in politics, it’s just tired of playing a game that is clearly rigged. The reason Bernie is wrecking every other Democratic candidate with young voters is because he’s actually speaking about issues that this generation cares about, mirroring their fears and anger, and providing plans for possible solutions to problems like income inequality, the rising cost of higher education, the racism embedded in our social systems, the rising cost of living with no rise in wages anywhere on sight, etc.

You can whip and nae nae all you fucking want and wish the Force to be with me, but what I really wanna know is why students are leaving universities with $30K+ of debt to a shit job market to be underpaid for their skills, or why our police departments are being given access to military grade weaponry, or why black people can’t drive without being harassed by police officers, up to a point where they will sometimes end up dead. Hillary can eat me.

kill em 

khxff:

i feel bad my interests are all over the place like idk what content u followed me for originally but it probably wasnt this

annlarimer:

disparition:

where I grew up in California not only is “dude” generally non-gender-specific, half of the time it doesn’t even refer to a person at all.

I said it to a faucet today. 

I’m from fucking Minnesota and I’m pretty sure I called the microwave dude yesterday.

wentworthsbitch:

onetobeamup:

spicyshimmy:

fights in the s’chn t’gai household must be wild. like “father, i find your behavior illogical” “my son spock, it is your behavior that is illogical” two weeks pass without them speaking to each other at all after those intense accusations were flung

I am fucking BAWLING

exotic-neurotic:

doctor: what’s your diagnosis

me: are you looking for an alphabetical list, The Greatest Hits, a pie chart, least square fit…

I can’t say with authority what the right order for this list would be because I’m not a doctor, but I would suggest starting with the diagnosis (or diagnoses) which have the most impact on your day-to-day existence and working your way down, Greatest Hits style–so, for example, if you have endometriosis that causes you severe pain, that would come above well-managed bipolar disorder, even if the bipolar is an every-day thing and the endometriosis proceeds in a monthly cycle.  Of course, if you’re seeing a doctor for a particular complaint–suppose you’re experiencing chest and throat pain with a cough–I’d suggest starting with whichever diagnosis (or diagnoses) has the most immediate implications for that complaint.  So for the chest/throat pain and cough, you’d start by listing, say, asthma, allergies, or an immunodeficient disorder, if one of those was applicable, and then work your way down your list from most to least pertinent.

…now that I’ve written all that, I’m realizing that this was probably a rhetoical question, so feel free to ignore me.

thisisthinprivilege:

venusdebotticelli:

vaspider:

twofishie:

thepioden:

amararin-princess-ashalina:

teensyteatime:

attackofthedork:

androgynslime:

yourspecialneuron:

clevercorgi:

notobadthings:

thisisthinprivilege:

youveupsettits:

bigdeelight:

nudiemuse:

rainfelt:

thisisthinprivilege:

Hey, ever heard of somebody who just dropped dead of a heart attack suddenly, nobody thought they had anything wrong with them? Everybody thought they were perfectly healthy?

Know why they were never diagnosed with heart problems, never had a chance to get preventative treatments?

Fatphobia.

Medical anti-fat bias means that many thin people never get tested for cholesterol or other things that are indicative of heart disease, because many doctors think there’s no need to test them. Meanwhile, fatties with no history of any problems with these things get tested every single time. Often when they go in to see a doctor for something totally unrelated, doctors want a cholesterol check.

Because a correlation between fat and heart disease exists, some — too many — doctors assume that only fat people are likely to have it.

Fatphobia in medicine isn’t only killing fat people. It’s killing thin people, too.

-MG

Literally experienced this, thin privilege backfiring on me. My small fat roommate and I were the same age. We both went in for a physical at around the same time. She got a whole shitload of bloodwork that gave her cholesterol level, blood sugar, and told her about many vitamin deficiencies. I asked for the same, and was told my insurance wouldn’t cover it. I had better insurance than her.

I had to beg to get my b12 level tested, because my family has a history of depression and I’d heard there was a relationship, and my doctor kind of fudged a reason to check that and one other thing. Later, I got a bill, because my insurance refused to cover it.

Turned out my b12 was DANGEROUSLY low. I was well into the “psychiatric side effects” range. (I’d just gotten used to hiding in the bathroom and sobbing multiple times a week at work. I… don’t do that anymore.)

What other vitamins am I deficient in? I have no idea. I’m taking C and D and kind of hoping for the best.

Because fatphobia and healthism say that because I’m thin and relatively young, I can’t possibly be unhealthy.

Weight first treatment kills everyone

This is why I shy away from the doctor. Every single ailment I have is because I’m fat according to them. It hurts my feelings a lot. Maybe I’m just sick because I’m sick?

My doctor actually recently (two weeks ago) had the gall to try to diagnose me for sleep apnea and allergies (caused by the sleep apnea) because I made an appointment for a check up because I was sick, congested, and had a sore throat.

He gave me a prescription for fucking Zyrtec and told me I should get a sleep study done because my weight was likely the cause.

I went and got a second opinion from a local walk in clinic and turns out I had a fucking upper respiratory infection (caused by a virus) and it was on its way to becoming pneumonia. It had NOTHING to do with my weight.

I’m lucky I didn’t actually end up in the fucking hospital over it.

Yeah, you should let your doctor know that the one study that claimed to prove that fat physiologically caused sleep apnea turned out to have been falsified. The researcher admitted to it, retracted the study, and accepted censure. We’ve posted about it a couple of times now. The researcher’s name is Robert Fogel, and if you look around, you can find the official retraction. Maybe take that in to your doctor.

On the other hand, poor sleep does seem to cause weight gain, which suggests that for any correlation between fat and sleep apnea, the causation runs the other way.

-MG

The amount of fatshaming in medicine is ridiculous. I noticed during the very first year of my medical studies that doctors will try to pin everything on people being fat, including the flu or too thin hair. They will even say stuff like “but they weren’t even overweight????” when a person dies of heart failure as THE FIRST THING they can think of. They never say “but they didn’t even smoke” or “they didn’t even have high cholesterol”. They say “wait they weren’t fat why were they ill”

It gets even worse in Psychiatry. “Well if you lost weight maybe that would help the depression”, “I don’t understand why he’s still so unsure of himself. He lost about 40 pounds, he looks great.”

 I have literally heard someone say to a rape victim “He chose you because he knew from your body type that you weren’t likely to outrun him.” 

For decades, my mother-in-law had been a bit rounder than most women - mostly genetic, as many women in her family have been that way historically, and been perfectly healthy - but was experiencing a strange, seemingly randomly-occurring symptom of blood in her urine from time to time.

Doctor after doctor would look for the cause, but most fell back on some variation of her being overweight. Meanwhile, she continued steadily gaining weight, year after year, even though she ate less and less.

At the beginning of Thanksgiving week 2010, she went in for a checkup with her new primary care physician. They went over various things - like how tired and drained my mother-in-law felt, for a start - and as they were about to leave, the doctor had them drop off a blood sample, because she had a hunch and wanted to check something (creatinine levels, in case anyone is curious).

When they got home from the visit, the phone was ringing. It was the doctor.

“Good news! I know what your problem is. Bad news, your kidneys are failing. Go to the hospital now.”

Her kidneys had dropped below 10% function, the minimum for healthy living. It turned out, after extensive testing and a lucky incident, that she’d been having small, minor kidney infections for decades, which had been slowly chipping away at her kidney function - hence the ‘random’ blood in her urine.

Doctors had mostly just told her to lose weight and get more fit - when it reality, she was retaining water because her kidneys were slowly failing. She was otherwise completely asymptomatic for kidney failure.

The first week of dialysis, they extracted fifty pounds of water from her. It was agony to go through, but she felt amazingly better after that (wonder of wonders, a working faux-kidney, and she felt better? gasp).

But the fat-shaming didn’t stop there. Later, once we’d determined I could give her a kidney, her assigned transplant doctor’s first statement upon entering the room (she’d been previously instructed to lose weight to a certain point, to make the surgery safer, which she’d actually been doing just fine, if a tad slowly) was, “Your problem is portion control.”

At that point in time, she was eating no more than 800-1000 calories per day, and feeling full from that, but he didn’t believe that she was being truthful, and for the duration of the time she had to interact with him, he continually insisted she was eating too much. (She still eats less than everyone else in the house, and she’s the only one ‘classically’ overweight, though much less so than before the transplant).

By the time of the transplant, she was down to only 3% kidney function, despite dialysis six nights a week. Had this not been caught when it was, we probably would have lost her by then.

Thankfully, since giving her one of my kidneys, she’s been able to maintain a healthy weight and be more active, though she will always remain ‘rounder’ because of her genetics.

For years, doctors assumed all her problems were because she was overweight when, in fact, her being as overweight as she had been was a symptom of an underlying problem.

Unfriendly remind that ~25% of thin people have “obese” problems which leads to awful things, like has been said. If you’re thin, please be careful about believing doctors who just say, “you’re not overweight, so you’re fine!” b/c fatphobia is shit.

This is so obnoxious. I am very small built so not only does everyone think I’m very healthy, but they think I am skinny and constantly comment on how little I must eat. As a small child I was a bean pole and light as a feathery. Then I suddenly gained weight with puberty. I am 5'3" and when I was fifteen I weighed 160 LBs. I was miserable and uncomfortable because I am small boned and lethargic regardless of my weight so I couldn’t handle the extra weight. Literally doctors told me that my weight was healthy. My bmi must have been twice what it is now at 135 LBs. I had chronic knee pain. But because I was “so tiny!” and “not fat just have a cute little double chin!” Because I wasn’t “fat” in other people’s perceptions I was ignored when I complained that my weight bothered me. I eventually lost the weight through vigorous exercise, 90 minutes a day on a bike. (and in hindsight was really over working myself) I still don’t know if that is the cause because due to neglect, poverty and financial abuse I still haven’t received any consistent medical care, my hair became and remains dramatically thinner than during childhood and early adolescence and I have a number of health issues that I don’t recall having before I lost the weight. End rant.

I lost my ovary because of my weight. When I was in college, I was walking to class with my friend, (and carrying about 60+ pounds worth of art supplies), and I felt a hard and painful *pop* in my lower abdomen. I dropped to the ground and was rushed to the campus urgent care, where they told me it was probably a hernia and needed to see my doctor. Now, I’m not exactly skinny. I’m 4'11 and over 160 pounds. Besides fibromyalgia, physically I’m relatively healthy. I went to my physician, a little beanpole of a woman, who, to my every complaint replied “it’s constipation. You need to lose weight and you’ll be more regular.” Well, for two years I kept getting the same response. The same pain, in the same place. Finally one day at work it got so bad that I collapsed on the floor crying in the middle of a breakfast rush. I had to actually get angry and raise my voice before my doctor would send me for scans, and she said “maybe it’s appendicitis.” After getting an MRI, it was discovered that I had a tumor in my ovary that had been there since I was born but started growing when I reached adulthood. In the past two years it had been growing and destroying my ovary. If it had been dealt with when it first presented, They would have been able to save my ovary and since the tumor wouldn’t have been so huge, the surgery wouldn’t have been so invasive and my recovery would have been much shorter and much less painful. But since I was overweight, my doctor just assumed that it could be solved with exercise and a better diet. (Which I had already been working on.) TL:DR because I’m fat, my doctor ignored my unrelated health problems so now I’m less likely to have children.

I was refused birth control by my doctor because of my weight. She essentially told me that she wouldn’t trust me to take the pills on a regular schedule unless I lost a significant amount of weight and proved to her that I had the discipline for it.

When I had my gallbladder problems which I lived with undiagnosed for 5 months, (mix of genetics and the Yasmin I was taking. The Yasmin just sped things along) I had an attack that left me weak and unable to breathe properly. So I was rushed to the hospital. Not only was I asked with serious lack of caring if I was in labour.. When I said no, she took her sweet time checking me in and then handed me that god awful heartburn shit that they give people. I nearly puked it up.

When I finally got to see the ER doctor she was more interested with taking a phone call from another hospital then treating me. When she finally did take a moment to “treat” me it was two slaps on the back declared I didn’t have a kidney infection, and that it was acid reflux and my back injury I got from a 40lbs box of chickens falling on me at an old job. With a thinly veiled comment to lose weight my problems would go away.

Saw my GP the next day and he could feel something poking through my ribs and set me up for an emergency ultrasound.

On the way home I had another attack and my mom just thought I was hungry, since I hadn’t eaten in days. Are two grapes puked them back up pretty much right then and there. She called the doctor office and they told her to take me in and that they were phoning to let the hospital know I was coming. When I finally saw the second doctor (7ish hours after I arrived at the ER) he did lab work and found I had a failing liver.

I had an ultra sound the next day and found out that I had gallstones, pancreatitis that was days away from going septic and because of that a failing liver.

Lucky me got surgery four days after everything was said and done, but that first doctor in the ER could have killed me. I’m glad I didn’t believe her that my problem was weight related.

Doctors blaming all my issues on my weight instead of checking and treating my (turns out) severe autoimmune hypothyroidism (which, wow, was contributing to my weight) meant that I had to have a complete thyroidectomy and follow-up radiation treatment because the damage and hypertrophy in my thyroid had turned into a massive blob of thyroid cancer that was compressing my trachea.

Now I may or may not have lymphoma and will have to be on daily medication and a kidney-pummeling amount of calcium for the rest of my life! Thanks, medical establishment.

Thanks to my old Dr, it was 5 years before I was diagnosed with my autoimmune disease! Everything was because I was fat! Broke a toe stubbing it on a wooden stair, it’s because of my fat.
The constant chronic pain/inflammation all due to my weight
My depression, anxiety and compulsive behaviors are all due to my fat as well
Migraines? Fat
Insomnia? Fatty fat
Anxiety? FAT
Every cold or bout of pneumonia FAT
Gynecological pain? WAY TOO FAT

Thankfully I have a new Dr and he *listens* to me.
I have Fibromyalgia.
I have Akylosing Spondylitis
I have a rheumatologist
I have a pain management specialist
I have a gynecologist
I have a urologist
A fantastic Dr who listens to me, right away.

Me: Both my legs hurt. I can’t walk normally.

Doctor: Ok but you have diabetes because fat

Me: I don’t have diabetes. I don’t even have pre-diabetes. Look, here’s my bloodwork. My a1c is so normal it could ski the Bell Curve.

Doctor: Ok but diabetes. 

Me: No.

Doctor: Ok but you should lose weight because your big fat ass is causing mechanical issues in your legs. 

Me: … that seems fake, but okay. I’ll do what you say.

Me: Hey doc, I can’t lose weight because I CANNOT WALK OR EXERCISE AT ALL. It’s been 2 years. I can’t go to the bathroom on my own anymore.

Doc: How about I do another MRI on your ankles?

@adhocavenger: Fuck this asshole. Let’s go to another doctor.

Doctor Kate: … this is nerve pain. Maybe you have a compressed disc pressing on your spine. Let’s MRI your spine.

Me: Ok. 

Doctor Kate: … uhhhhhh, you have a tumor the size of a large grape inside your spine; it’s compressing your spinal cord and that’s why your everything hurts. Good thing we caught it before it destroyed your spine and left you paralyzed entirely.

Me: … so it isn’t because I’m fat?

Doctor Kate: … fat doesn’t make tumors inside your spine. That doctor is stupid and I will call him and tell his office to never call you again, because he is a jerk. But not being able to move probably caused you to not be able to lose weight like he demanded.

Me: Oh. Okay. 

So… yeah.

fat hatred kills, fat people aren’t a protected class under any legislation in my state, which means MDs could legally say, ‘I don’t treat fat people’, with no legal consequence, but they don’t, they fake-treat fat people, take fees from us to deliver the same deep medical insights, we can get for free by reading the cover of Cosmo Magazine, and that bullshit delays/prevents fat people, from getting actual medical treatment, it’s a swindle, and it kills people, but hey, the docs get paid, and they’re only hurting fat people, nbd. (via welkinalauda)

There’s a small but growing number of doctors who do refuse to see fat people.