anyone else remember being a child and seeing the very neat handwriting of other little girls and somehow knowing that you were a different genre of person than they were
literally no…i remember seeing bad handwriting & thinking “oh these other kids must be orphans or something”
fascinating to hear from the other genre, thanks for your contribution
i mean this in the nicest way possible you guys but you NEED to take better care of yourselves online. getting severely anxious about mass quantities of horrible things you cant change every single day is normal considering the internet’s ability to educate on worldwide issues, it shows that you have empathy and that you truly do care. but relentless knowledge of constant suffering on this scale is NOT something humans are psychologically equipped to handle. it’s okay to shut off. it’s okay to just take a break and enjoy yourself for a while in your own localized space
i agree, and i also think an important element of that is removing the culture of shame surrounding people not extensively posting about every world tragedy on every possible platform. i’ve seen random bloggers get condemned for not posting about every single current issue- the presupposition seems to be that if they’re not posting about things on every platform, they’re not posting about things on any platform- with the implication that not reblogging warcrime footage or similar things indicates that people don’t care. i’ve also seen a ton of guilt tripping captions on various posts about current issues- ‘if you don’t reblog this you don’t care/are a bad person/etc’, for instance. obviously that’s not to say people shouldn’t be educated and do what they can, but i think an important step in removing individual shame about taking a break from doomscrolling is to remove cultural shame about doing so.
a hummingbird knight! i wanted to do a stained glass+silver kind of theme, and while i find teals and greens difficult i think it turned out nicely here
A lot of Northerners were very kind during the freeze in Texas this winter with tips on how to stay warm for people who had lost heat. This is an attempt to repay that favor for people in the Pacific Northwest and other northerly locations who are facing dangerous heatwaves without built-in A/C. My qualifications to give this advice are that I was a summer camp attendee and counselor with no A/C for many summers in humid-ass central Texas with highs over 100F basically every day. Hopefully some of it will be of use to somebody who isnāt used to the heat.
1) PUT ICE WATER IN YOUR BODY. Ice water is your best friend and the #1 way to drop your body temp. Drink more than you think you need (like, at least a half-gallon a day and closer to a gallon or more if you have to be outside doing manual work all day) to cool your insides down and stay hydrated. Have some bananas, trail mix, or a sports drink to help replace the electrolytes youāre sweating out and keep you from getting cramps, but try to have most of your fluid intake be water. I used to take a giant water bottle, fill it part way with water, and freeze it on its side so the ice would slowly melt over the course of the day and my water would stay cold longer.
2) PUT ICE WATER ON YOUR BODY. Cold water, ice, or a damp rag on your head and neck, the backs of your knees, the insides of your elbows, and under your armpits will help you cool down the best, because your blood runs close to the surface in those places. Cold packs designed for injuries or lunchboxes, bags of frozen vegetables, etc. can substitute for ice water as well. Even room-temp water will pull heat away from your body better than body-temp sweat will, especially if itās humid, so if you donāt have enough ice, the sink, bathtub, or hose will do fine. Dipping your feet into cool water helps a ton as well if you have to sit and work and donāt want your clothes to be wet.
3) WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GET SO MUCH ICE?Ā
To make sure you have enough ice to last you the weekend, especially through a potential power failure, I recommend getting a cooler (even one of the cheap styrofoam ones is fine in a pinch) and ~10lbs of ice from the big coolers at most gas stations, drug stores, or grocery stores. Try to do this now, before anybody loses power, and store as much in your freezer as you have space for to keep it from melting. You can use it for drinking or to keep your food cold in a power failure. You can use it for a party later if you donāt end up needing it during the heat wave, but you will probably be very happy you had it.
4) AIR FLOW. Being inside a room with the windows closed is the worst possible place to be if you donāt have A/C, because glass windows create a greenhouse effect and the hot air canāt escape. If at all possible, find a shaded place outside where you can catch any possible breeze. If not, open all your windows and, if itās safe, doors so you can get a cross-breeze. Hopefully you have window screens to keep pets and kids in and bugs out. If not, youāre gonna have to do your own risk assessment. Fans of all sizes and descriptions are your friend; ceiling fans should be set to spin counterclockwise in summer. Even if you have A/C, finding or making a handheld fan will be worthwhile for when you have to venture outside. If you arenāt in a situation where you need to conserve ice, blowing air over a cooler full of ice will give you a makeshift A/C.Ā
5) SHADE. You will probably immediately notice that direct sunlight is a miserable place to be when itās super hot. Find or make a shaded location, and donāt be afraid to move around to avoid the sun as the day goes on. Stay on the shady side of the sidewalk whenever you walk someplace. Try to shade your windows as best you can without obstructing airflow using blinds, curtains, shutters, etc. especially if theyāre directly in the path of the sun.
Do not be a jerk to your neighbors if their shade solutions are ugly.
If you can get a shade for your car windshield, I highly recommend it, as the steering wheel, dashboard, seatbelts, and even seats can quickly become too hot to touch in a sealed car and will hold that heat for a long time.
6) CLOTHING. Light-colored, loose clothing that is as close to 100% cotton or linen as you can find is your friend. It doesnāt necessarily have to be short as long as itās breathable. You will sweat through anything you wear, so I personally prefer only wearing machine-washable stuff. Sun hats, sunscreen, sunglasses, aloe gel for sunburns, mosquito repellent, anti-chafing supplies, etc are all worth looking into if you arenāt used to spending time in the heat.
7) TIMING. Try to stay out of the sun and avoid doing anything strenuous in the middle of the day when the heat is the worst. If you have a choice, plan to be more active early in the morning and late at night when the temperature is more bearable, and take a break in the middle of the afternoon.
Hereās a graphic from the CDC about how to recognize heat-related illnesses and what to do about them. I will add to this that if itās hot and you stop sweating, you are getting to a dangerous level of dehydration and need to drink something BEFORE you start having more serious problems.
This is also good advice for people who work outdoors. My poor husband is a mechanic and Florida is miserable for him.
This may be obvious to some, but just in case: Fans donāt blow cool air! They only blow the air that is available around them! So if itās hot enough, a fan can actually make things worse if used without something to cool the air blowing from it, like ice.
Portable air conditioners are also a thing! I have a cheap $20 one that I bought because our a/c kept going out last summer, and it was a life saver!
Another woman utterly failed by our societyās devaluation of womenās reproductive health.
We canāt wait around for male doctors to decide what we need to know.
This is why we need to take control and educate ourselves about our own bodies.
and hereās some comments i saw under the post. why is this a pattern?? why is this a recurring theme?? why is this information not common knowledge? what the fuck are doctors doing??
This is news to me so letās share it so people will know!
Gross tmi: but i passed a pretty big clot after having my daughter. It was about the size of a baseball. It actually hurt worse because while 15 hours of labor opened my cervix, i passed the clot in 30 minutes. I knew it was a possibility because of my midwife and reading, but everyone Ive told after this (mostly other pregnant women) were shocked that this could happen.
In our culture, itās much more common to do deep research about what family cars we want to buy than we do about childbirth when we āre pregnant.
Tmi: I passed a huge clot after birth in the bathroom of my hospital room and called the nurse sobbing because I didnāt know it was normal. She treated me like an idiot, but NO ONE told me it was a possibility. And the pain associated with healing for the first couple of weeks after birth was worse than the labor imo. Again, I had no idea. They didnāt tell me a thing besides āsitz bath regularly and change your pads.ā Before discharging me from the hospital.
I was most definitely told about this in school. Fucking hell, 4-6 weeks of bleeding? My periods were/are bad enough, why the hell donāt we get told this?
I didnāt know it could last so long, wtf? Is the bleeding inevitable after birth?Ā
Bleeding is inevitable after birth - your uterine wall is shedding a fuck ton of lining. It can last from three to six weeks (possible longer) and it tapers off.
More TMI - I passed a MASSIVE clot after my fourth birth. At this point I already knew this could happen - itās normal. What I DIDNāT know, was that I had caused it.
My post birth contractions were so bad after the birth that it felt like full transition labor. And they donāt give you anything for the pain. So I used a hot water bottle, without the nurses knowing, and it caused me to bleed even more. I lost so much blood that by the first time they sat me up to go to the bathroom, I fainted. It took three more tries until I could sit up.
Anyway, thatās not the point. The point is, the next morning I passed a clot the SIZE OF ANOTHER PLACENTA I KID YOU NOT, and I know what is and is not normal. So I called for the nurse and through the door told her I had passed a huge clot, and her response was -Ā āItās not big. I know what big is.ā She hadnāt even looked. So I rolled my eyes and said,Ā āYeah, no. Itās big, Iām telling you.ā
So, sounding extremely put upon, she asked me to open the door. I did, and after a long pause she goes,Ā āOkay, yeah, thatās a little big.ā
YOU DONāT SAY.
The point Iām trying to get across is that this shit is so common - women not knowing this stuff is so expected, and it keeps getting reinforced. People donāt expect you to know anything, donāt teach you anything, and then make you feel like youāre totally ignorant and a burden for your lack of knowledge when THEY WONāT SHARE.
Fucking learn EVERYTHING you can when it comes to childbirth, girls. It is the single most empowering thing you can do for yourself. And if you missed something, thatās okay. But the more knowledge you arm yourself with, the more in control of your situation youāll be.
A few post partum tips:
DONāT use a hot water bottle - lol.
ONLY pads - NO tampons. Tampons can cause severe infection, not to mention, you probably donāt want to be shoving anything up there any time soon.
If youāve had stitches, sitz baths DO help relieve the pain. Another great pain reliever? Dampen some pads and freeze them. Let one thaw slightly and use it on top of another pad. This will help with the pain as well as reduce swelling. Change the pad out as soon as itās thawed completely. This REALLY helps on the first couple days after giving birth.
If you pass a clot, donāt sweat it. Even the one I passed, which was fucking massive, just required that we keep an eye out to make sure it didnāt happen again. If it does, talk to your doctor.
Take a pain killer half an hour before nursing. Because YES - your uterus is contracting after you give birth, to get back to its original size, and nursing causes much stronger contractions. Taking nursing-safe painkillers wonāt prevent the pain, but it will reduce it.Ā
Buy disposable underwear for the first few days after birth. They will get VERY dirty. Or use your ratty old pairs that youāre ready to get rid of. Double up on pads - line them all the way up your ass-crack. I am so serious. And wear dark pants.
Pee in the shower. You do NOT want to wipe down there right after birth because ow. Peeing in the shower lets you just rinse afterwards. Especially if youāve had stitches, peeing in the shower, with the shower-head rinsing AS you go, keeps stinging to a minimum. And fuck everyone else - keep on peeing in the shower until you feel ready to move back to toilet paper. Middle of the night and need to pee? Get your pants off - get in the shower and just go.
This is just a few things, but PLEASE feel free to send me an ask if you have any questions about ANYTHING childbirth/pregnancy/nursing related. I have four incredible kids. Iāve done it all - c-section, vacuume birth, episiotimy, stitches, with an epidural, without an epidural. Iām here.
ā¦.I know I keep reblogging this but people keep adding super important information.
I feel like no one tells women this stuff because if a woman was even a little on the fence about having a baby before this would kinda make them run for the damn hills.
ā¦..you are correct, typing.
300% EXTRA SURE IāM NOT HAVING BABIES.Ā
peri bottles, witch hazel or anti-pain anticeptic spray are your friends. Also passing large clots after birth is a WARNING SIGN. Bigger than a half dollar is a sign that you have not passed your entire placenta (this is most common in hospital vaginal births where the mother is not allowed to naturally birth the placenta and instead has it ripped out by the doctor) if there is any placenta left in your uterus you can get extremely ill. This happened to both myself and my mother in law
WOW I didnāt know any of this and Iām terrified of what more Iām unaware of about my own body :( Honestly when will we fucking abolish this taboo about the female bodyā¦
I had pretty great sex ed in school (lots of contraceptive information, and totally acknowledged that teenagers might have sex) and all of this is news to me.
And, as a 28-year-old person with a uterus, Iām extremely appalled Iām just learning this.
Long, but very important information, even for those who donāt plan to have children, because you will almost certainly know someone who will, and you might be able to to help them. Or at least increase your level of empathy for them.
ā¦HOLY HELL. REBLOG TO SAVE A LIFE, SERIOUSLY.
people loooove to make out like pregnancy and childbirth are this beautiful thing that a womanās body is made to do, and leave out all this incredibly important and scary info.
the healthcare system fails women in so so many ways, especially around sexual and reproductive health, and it needs to stop.
More TMI but no one told me what pregnancy discharge was and it was horrible. Like itās a greater quantity of liquid coming out of you than on the heaviest day of your period. Sometimes I would stand up and a bunch would just run out of me. I was so scared and unprepared. Also, tampons are a VERY bad idea when your cervix is still dialated.
We are, as a culture, *amazingly* reluctant to talk about pregnancy and childbirth and recovery unless thereās a punchline involved.
Friendly reminder to wait at least one hour after you eat or drink to do anything that requires you to bend at the waist after giving birth because you can and will just puke by accident since your cardiac sphincter will probably never be the same
