The Blogging Platypus

Today we are going to talk a little bit about boundaries.  Sometimes boundaries can have a negative connotation in our minds.  Many of us are raised, especially as women (not all women, but this includes people who identify as female) in society, we're often the ones who are told to be like accommodating to other people.  To put their needs first. While, yes, this is helpful, it may not always be healthy though.  When you keep saying no to what you want to do and are not able to pursue what you want, that's a problem.  I'm not saying if you want to go pursue a wild scheme or things like that, but when you're saying yes to something that you don't want to do, it can kind of put you in a weird position where you kind of start to lose track of who you are or what you want. Boundaries are a challenge.  I learned about it in school for my Master's program and I still have a hard time with boundaries because I don't want to be looked at as the bad person, t...

TW/CW: Sexual assault, drug abuse, suicide Hmmm, where to start? There’s a song that says that the beginning is a very good place to start, so that’s what I’ll do. I was born and grew up. The end. Lol. I am still growing. I came into this world in this current form during the Summer of 1977 in the San Francisco Bay Area. So, that makes me...carry the 8...42! I thought that my early 40s would be different, but, alas, the Universe had other plans. Image via Pexels By the time I was 16, I had graduated from high school, was enrolled in community college (which would be the first of three degrees I would go on to earn), held a job as the Assistant Printer for the school district, had been through drug and alcohol rehab, and experienced my first sexual assault. What can I say, I like to get in as many experiences as possible. I obtained my AA Degree and my Emergency Medical Technician certification by the time I was 18. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for a living at that ...

Image via Pexels I finally got around to printing and cutting out the 60+ affirmations that I compiled earlier this year. Sure, some may consider affirmations to be hokey, along with witchcraft, but that’s not my view. As I have been on my journey of rebirth, new things are appealing and call out to me. While I am fortunate to have lived so many different lives, the one that is currently in my path is not one that I would have expected or chosen for myself. However, there are times and circumstances that are out of your control. I had my life lined up and was working towards my well-established goal. I did all of the coursework, attended my residencies, changed my degree, then graduated with my MS degree in clinical psychology with a specialization in applied research. Research was what made my brain light up and become flooded with all of those feel good chemicals. I was working towards my goal of becoming a principal investigator (PI) and lead my own research studies in an atte...

My experience in pursuing my disability approval has been one that has made me sink to one of the lowest moments in my life. After getting my first denial for disability, it gutted me. But, this second time, it crushed me, while at the same time, made me want to fight for all of the other people who have experienced the same or similar treatment by the powers that be. When the government says you aren’t disabled, but you have all of the doctor's notes, lab results, and hell, even a genetic test that revealed a mutation in my collagen that is associated with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, it becomes such a mindfuck. It is as if the government says you don’t have a right to be alive, since, in their view, I am just a lazy sack of crap who just chooses not to work. When, in reality, my body is slowly falling apart, my shoulders and hips pop out of place if I move sometimes, my core temperature drops often, with my hands being 60-70 degrees (about 20 degrees cooler than they should b...

Sometimes, life seems like one thing after another. I realize that that is precisely what life is: one second, one hour, one day, one year, one decade...after another, but when the events that are hurled at you seem insurmountable, what else is there to do but say fuck it? Well, this year has felt like I am getting the karma intended for someone who stole my identity, only to conduct nefarious deeds. Over the past two years, I know that good and happy events have happened in our lives, but the challenges we have faced have been, well, quite challenging. We moved into a place that used to be a meth lab that wasn’t remediated correctly (or at all) and was already inhabited by invisible forces,  I was denied SSDI for my disabilities,  I have been unable to work on a regular basis,  Repeated visits to doctors out of state,  A few visits to the emergency room,  One of our cars had a mystery issue that ultimately resolved (after the new battery didn’t do m...

Cannabis has been a part of my life for the last couple of years. I started out with my medical card when we lived in New Mexico. I still remember the first strain I bought. Let me tell you, after not having used cannabis in a decade or two, starting out with Gorilla Glue may have not been the best idea, but it gave me a good couch lock. For those outside the chronic illness community, couch lock may sound like a boring vegetative state, without the artificial life support. However, for me, and I would guess many others, the couch lock effect is exactly what I need at times. In some of the research I have been doing to figure out what exactly is going on with my body, I stumbled across something that made total sense. In addition to Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and hypermobility, there’s something called autonomic dysfunction, or dysautonomia. The autonomic nervous system regulates so many of our automatic responses that keep us alive. From breathing and blood pressure, to digestion a...

Coffee has been a part of my life for, gosh, nearly half of my life. However, over the years, I have cut back on caffeine, only consuming it before noon for the most part. Coffee and caffeine can sometimes lead to anxiety, irritability, and sleeplessness in some, but others may report no undesirable side effects. Just another example of how different one person can be from the next on a molecular level. Undesirable side effects are nothing new for us in the chronic illness community. The medications some of us have to take can be accompanied by some uncomfortable side effects that may require an additional medication or two. It seems like a laundry list of potential symptoms that could occur, with some of them worse than the initial symptoms for which you are taking the medication. It becomes a vicious cycle. Due to what seems like playing a medication shell game, I have started to look for non-traditional approaches to health. It started first with cannabis a few years ago when we...

There was a time, not too long ago (days, hours even) where I would never consider wearing these shorts, let alone take a picture and post it online! But, sometimes you just have to say FUCK IT and wear a piece of clothing that strikes fear in your heart. Granted, it’s not like I am going anywhere other than the backyard, but it still helps me to get used to appreciating my body, rather than loathing it. Having a chronic illness means that you get to develop a new relationship with your body. It is easy to feel as if you are not dependable when it comes to doing what you used to, before “getting sick.” However, the blame should not rest upon you, but rather your body is on it’s own schedule and we’re just along for the ride. My hips pop in and out a few times a day, but on the bad days, where they pop out a lot, the next few days are full of so much pain. I have to literally relearn how to move, twist, bend, and where my limit in regards to range of motion SHOULD be, rather than...