Resources - Blog Posts
EDUCATE YOURSELVES: chronic illness edition
this is important! chronically ill people get a lot of shit from healthy people and this could be avoided if everyone knew a little more about chronic illnesses in general so i’ve made a list of things healthy people (and newly chronically ill people) can read in order to know more about chronic illness and how it affects our lives!
some general information and must-reads:
the spoon theory (aka: why we call ourselves “spoonies”)
a sudden illness - laura hillenbrand
young and disabled by rachel anne
harmful tropes in literature
13 things people with chronic illnesses want you to know
a blog by people with chronic conditions
brief explanations of some chronic illnesses:
chronic fatigue syndrome (ME)
crohn’s disease
fibromyalgia + AMPS
ehlers-danlos syndrome - hypermobility type
ehlers-danlos syndrome - all types
CRPS/RSD (complex regional pain syndrome
IBD (inflammatory bowel disease)
POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome)
dysautonomia
rheumatoid arthritis
lupus
autoimmune diseases
hashimoto’s disease
addison’s disease
endometriosis
depression (most people with chronic illnesses develop depression)
anxiety
bipolar disorder
and i’m running out of spoons but there are many, many more so spoonies, feel free to reblog add some if you want!
things to keep in mind:
although it says in many descriptions that most people who are diagnosed are over a certain age, anyone at any age can develop a chronic illness, and many are teenagers or even children. don’t tell a chronically ill person that we are “too young to be this sick” because it’s an ignorant thing to say and it’s harmful to us.
many chronic illnesses are invisible illnesses, which means that you cannot tell that a person is sick just by looking at them. never say to a chronically ill person that we “don’t look sick” because it is harmful and annoying, even if you mean well.
some spoonies need to use wheelchairs, canes, or other forms of assistance/ accommodations, so please never express doubt that a person might need this assistance. it’s impolite and insensitive. just because someone looks perfectly fine doesn’t mean that they don’t have a chronic illness that requires the use of a wheelchair or other assistance.
many chronic illnesses aren’t terminal but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t a real problem. chronic illnesses are robbing us of their normal lives and we are living in pain because there is so much that doctors still don’t know about chronic illnesses. many spoonies have had doctors look us in the eyes and say “i don’t know how to help you” because there is so much research that needs to be done and there isn’t enough funding! so donate to organizations and hospitals who are raising money for research!
thank you for reading this! please reblog and spread awareness! thank you!
if you’re a mentally ill adult, especially if you’re psychotic or have bipolar, i highly recommend you look into getting a psychiatric advance directive. basically they’re a form you can fill out where you can specify what kind of treatment you want and don’t want in the case that you ever get legally declared incompetent. normally, getting declared incompetent means that psychiatrists take away your right to make decisions about your mental health care. for example, they can force you to take medications you don’t want or institutionalize you longterm without your consent. also the state appoints someone they choose to legally “consent” in your place.
what a psychiatric advance directive does is put limits on what the psychiatrists assigned to you can do. you can appoint your own person to be your legal representative, someone you trust who knows you and cares about you. you can also specify what hospitals you don’t want to be sent to or what doctors you don’t want to see or medications you don’t want to take or whether or not you consent to electroconvulsive treatment. you can also say what you do want, like i put down that they decided to institutionalize me, i wanted it to be at a specific psych ward i’d already been to and had a not terrible time at. and now, if i ever get declared incompetent, psychiatrists are legally not allowed to put me back on the meds that gave me a seizure.
nobody wants to be legally declared incompetent. it’s really scary to think about, but it does happen, especially to people with psychosis or bipolar disorder. it’s better to have legal safeguards in place ahead of time and not need them than to get declared incompetent and not have an advance directive
My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.
I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”
It’s the masterpost that no one actually asked for, but I really wanted to make. I’ve found a lot of resources, but they were never in one place. So instead of searching all over the place all the time, I decided to make this.
This also includes resources for schizoaffective disorder, which I’ve never seen a masterpost for! I didn’t include things like “Dealing with a bipolar loved one”, but I might make a separate post for friends/family.
Basic information:
About Bipolar Disorder (DBSA)
Bipolar Disorder (NIMH), Bipolar Disorder (Mayo Clinic)
Overview of Bipolar Disorder (pdf)
Bipolar I (WebMD)
Bipolar II (WebMD)
Cyclothymia (Mayo Clinic), Cyclothymia (WebMD)
What is rapid cycling? (DBSA)
Schizoaffective Disorder (NAMI), Schizoaffective Disorder (Mayo Clinic)
Diagnosing bipolar disorder NOS (verywell)
The secret life of manic depression (pdf)
BPD vs BD (post by homojabi)
Mania and hypomania:
Mania symptoms (psych central)
What is mania and hypomania? (WebMD)
What is a manic episode? (healthy place)
Coping with mania (healthline)
Dealing with this manic episode (living manic depressive)
Behavioral strategies for preventing mania (pdf)
Cognitive strategies for preventing mania (pdf)
How to prevent a hypomanic episode (pdf)
Hypersexuality information post (OP deleted, so it’s on bipolarnet)
Depressive episodes:
Depression in bipolar disorder (black dog institute)
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about bipolar depression (bphope)
Cognitive strategies for preventing and managing depression (pdf)
Behavioral strategies for preventing and managing depression (pdf)
Depression laundry tips (depressionresource)
Mixed episodes:
Mixed episode symptoms (psych central)
How to treat mixed mood episodes (bipolar burble)
Bipolar episodes with mixed features (WebMD)
Schizoaffective disorder:
Living with schizoaffective disorder (psych central)
Living with schizoaffective disorder (brain blogger)
What is schizoaffective disorder?, self care, + treatments and support (mind.org)
Psychosis:
Talking to friends about psychosis ( @therapidcyclist )
Surviving halloween with psychosis ( @mentalhealthwarrior )
How to deal with paranoia when you’re alone ( post by skailu )
How to handle hallucinations (post by schizotiger)
Treatment and medication info:
crazymeds (mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics)
Bipolar medication guide (help guide)
Bipolar disorder - What medication is available? (mind.org)
Bipolar disorder - treatment (nhs)
What to do if your parents refuse to let you have access to mental healthcare (posted by abusedkidproblems)
Self care / executive dysfunction:
Dysfunctional’s guide to functioning ( therapidcyclist )
Grounding kits ( @depressionresource )
What to do when showering is too hard (depressionresource)
lowspoonsgourmet and no-more-ramen
articles on college and bipolar disorder (ibpf)
Fact sheet on recognizing and preventing future episodes
Bipolar self care post (unfortunately OP’s theme is nearly impossible to read, so it’s on bipolarnet)
Apps:
Bipol-app, Booster Buddy, Daily Feats, Daylio, Emoods, iMood journal, Mango Health MediSafe, MoodPanda, Pacifica
note: I’ve tried to make sure all of these apps are free!
This ended up being really long already, but feel free to add to this. If your post was featured here and you want me to remove it, let me know! Please let me know if any links are broken.
dam…….. that website “you feel like shit” (it’s like a questionnaire / troubleshooting guide for when you feel like shit) really works………………….. im not even all the way thru it and i even half-assed a lot of the suggestions and i already feel loads better
whats the ice cream bar approach ?
So, @bipolarings has a post talking about this a little already, but I'm always happy to be given an excuse to blather about brains :D
The ice cream bar/sundae bar metaphor was originally created to describe the autism spectrum, but it works really well for other things too, including bipolar disorder. I'mma adapt it a lil bit here, in fact, to make it work even better. Yay me.
The principle is this: instead of trying to divide up bipolar disorder into I/II/NOS/etc, or classify it as 'severe' or 'mild', picture it as a sundae bar.
Now, every day, you make yourself a sundae. You can take as many toppings as you 'want' and as much of each topping as you 'want'.
There are some toppings that go well together, so, for instance, if you take a lot of euphoria there's a good chance you'll also get some hypersexuality, some delusions of grandiosity, some creative drive, some ambition, some psychomotor agitation. And that would be called a 'manic episode'. You could get somewhat less of each, maybe leave off the delusions of grandiosity, and people might call it a 'hypomanic episode'. Even less and people might call it 'euthymia'.
But the thing is, you don't have to get it that way, and you can take any amount of each! So you might get low mood but a lot of psychomotor agitation, irritability, and disregard of consequences. Or you could get a huge amount of emotional numbness but combine it with the stuff other people like to put with euphoria. Or you could get just a bit of low mood but spice it up with hallucinations and delusions (other). Or you could get a lot of delusions of grandiosity but only a tiny amount of euphoria.
And what you get one day doesn't determine what you get the next. You could spend years getting nothing but the 'hypomania combo' and the 'depression family-size' and then one day decide to dump the entire bowl of euphoria in your cup and top it with so many delusions it starts to spill over the sides. Or maybe you've only ever gotten small, carefully curated sundaes with a healthy amount of two or three toppings but today you just tell the server 'fuck me up' and get some of absolutely everything.
Without all the metaphor:
While certain sets of symptoms commonly appear together, and are then labeled 'mania', 'hypomania', 'depression', or 'euthymia', symptoms don't have to appear in those particular combinations. (Also the DSM isn't necessarily even right about what combinations are common.)
You could also have different proportions of symptoms than someone else does. (And that doesn't necessarily make your disorder or theirs automatically more 'severe'.)
Even if you do only get common combinations of symptoms, that says nothing about how 'severe' it is. If you get an enormous amount of emotional numbness, lack of motivation, executive dysfunction, suicidality, paranoid delusions, and disregard of consequences, continuously for 98% of your adult life; and someone else gets one (1) single 3 day long episode with a medium-sized serving of delusions of grandiosity, hallucinations, and disregard of consequences; they'll probably be diagnosed with Bipolar I and you with Bipolar II, but your life is probably being affected a lot more.
What symptoms you get can also change, which can include changing from what a psychiatrist might call 'Bipolar I' to 'Bipolar II', or 'BP-II' to 'BP-NOS', or whatever. You haven't magically gotten a new disorder. You just got a different sundae today. You're still eating at the same sundae bar.
The Bipolar II Disorder Workbook | Managing Recurring Depression, Hypomania & Anxiety (Full Text)
Chapter 1: What is Bipolar II Disorder? [⇄]
Chapter 2: Understanding the Treatments for Bipolar II Disorder and a Guide to Using This Book [⇄]
Chapter 3: Applying Acceptance to Bipolar II Disorder [⇄]
Chapter 4: Recognizing the Symptoms of Bipolar II Depression [⇄]
Chapter 5: Modifying Your Thinking and Behavior to Cope with Depression [⇄]
Chapter 6: More Strategies for Modifying Your Thoughts and Behavior [⇄]
Chapter 7: Hypomania-What Is It? [⇄]
Chapter 8: Taking Action to Manage Your Hypomania [⇄]
Chapter 9: Anxiety-What Is It? [⇄]
Chapter 10: Taking Action to Manage Your Anxiety [⇄]
Chapter 11: Involving Your Family and Friends [⇄]
Chapter 12: Putting It All Together to Create a Personalized Wellness Plan [⇄]
<Not an original composition>
I spent a lot of time focusing on environment study late in lockdown: this tutorial from Evanant pushed me to choose/make procreate brushes on the go to mimic photoshop custom shapes which was a cracking exercise. Though I can't rightly call the work my own, I felt like I learned a lot from this!
Links!!
Rentry
Carrd
Pronouns.page
Spacehey
Resource entry
words for when your characters ______
Agree
accede, acceptance, accord, acknowledgment, acquiescence, align, avowal, bear, cohere, compromise, consent, contract, draft, enlist, give in/give up, go along/go along with, grant, negotiate, unanimous, yield
Deny
abjure, abuse, affront, attack, backstab, bad-mouth, belie, blacken, blemish, confront, curse, darn, defamation, defile, demur, denigrate, detract, dig, disclaim, discountenance, disgrace, disown, disparagement, downplay, explode, flout, fulminate, gainsay, gird, invective, jeer, lament, lecture, malign, minimize, mouth, needle, oppose, protest, put down, put-down, rebuff, refute, remonstrate, renunciation, run down, satirize, scold, show up, sit-in, slander, smear, snap, snub, squeal, sully, swearing, taunt, tirade, turn, underestimate, vituperation, write off, yammer
Explain
account for, admit, apprise, cite, clarify, come clean, concede, confirm, corroborate, defense, demonstrate, dilate, elucidate, enlighten, evidence, expand, explicate, gloss, illustrate, itemize, let on, palliate, plea, prove, recite, simplify, speak out/speak up, spell out, translator, warrant
Fabricate
aspersion, belie, disprove, profane
Inform
acknowledge, address, advertise, allow, allusion, apprise, bare, betrayal, blab, breathe, briefing, broadcast, chronicle, clue, come out with, confession, convey, debunk, define, detail, dictate, divulge, expose, feature, furnish, give, gossip, hint, intimate, issue, lecture, newscaster, orate, out of the closet, pass, post, proclaim, promulgate, publication, publish, release, reveal, show up, speak, spill, squeal, talk, tip, uncover, unveil, weatherperson, whisper
Instruct
bar, educate, prescribe
Persuade
advance, argument, bend, budge, carry, coerce, convince, discourage, draw, drum up, elicit, entice, forward, goad, hammer away/hammer into, induce, influence, invite, lobby, motivate, negotiation, pitch, prevail upon/prevail on, prompt, reason, spur, sway, urge, win/win over
Promise
assurance, avow, commitment, ensure, go back/go back on, oath, portend, vouch, warrant, word
Suggest
advice, advocate, ask, come up with, connote, drum into, exhort, fish for, get at, guide, imply, insinuate, moralize, move, nomination, pontificate, preach, propose, recommend, urge
Praise
accent, acclamation, accredit, adulation, apotheosis, applause, benediction, bless, champion, citation, commend, compliment, congratulations, credit, dedicate, deify, elevate, endorse, eulogize, exalt, extol, flatter, flattery, glorify, homage, laud, lionize, obsequy, plaudits, puff, salute, thanks, tribute, worship
Warn
admonish, alert, caution, caveat, defy, enjoin, exhortation, foreboding, foretell, page, remind, warning
NOTE
The above are concepts classified according to subject and usage. It not only helps writers and thinkers to organize their ideas but leads them from those very ideas to the words that can best express them.
It was, in part, created to turn an idea into a specific word. By linking together the main entries that share similar concepts, the index makes possible creative semantic connections between words in our language, stimulating thought and broadening vocabulary.
Source ⚜ Writing Basics & Refreshers ⚜ On Vocabulary
sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four
This google docs template (created by rukidut) allows you to create wikipedia-inspired biographies for your characters. you need to be logged in to edit it, but all you need to do is go to file > make a copy and you'll have your own version to do whatever you like with.
I've given it some minimal testing and found that the formatting doesn't transfer over to microsoft word, but that it can be saved as PDF with minimal issues.
Click here to try it out.
DIFFERENT UNRELATED GROUPS OF RESOURCE PIRATES FROM TOTALLY UNRELATED PLANETS GALAXIES AND TIMELINES OR UNIVERSES
DIFFERENT UNRELATED GROUPS OF SQUARE MILITARY RANK INSIGNIA MILITARIES FROM TOTALLY UNRELATED PLANETS GALAXIES AND TIMELINES OR UNIVERSES
DIFFERENT UNRELATED GROUPS OF TIME TRAVELING CRIMINALS FROM TOTALLY UNRELATED PLANETS GALAXIES AND TIMELINES OR UNIVERSES
MINERAL RESOURCES AND METAL RESOURCES ABOVEGROUND OUTSIDE THE HOUSE
STARFLEET STARSHIPS
STORMTROOPERS ARE OUR GREATEST RESOURCE
Terrador Icons
i. #45 icons of Terrador from TLoS: Dawn of the Dragon ii. 100x100 size iii. Cropped and resized by Atka iv. Please LIKE / REBLOG if using!
DL
MILITARY POLICE RESOURCES INFORMATION LIFE EXTENSION DEFENSES TECHNOLOGY ADVERTISING
RESOURCE GRUBBING ALIEN OR EXTRATERRESTRIAL MILITARIES OFTEN FROM OUTSIDE THIS CLUSTER OF GALAXIES MANIPULATING CRIMINALS HOPING TO TRACE THINGS
LLAMA LLM MICROSOFT BING COPILOT GOOGLE GEMINI GOOGLE SEARCH MICROSOFT BING COPILOT YAHOO SEARCH YANDEX SEARCH BAIDU SEARCH DONALD FAGGOT TRUMP
LexisNexis
PSD PACK #1 — period dramas
in this folder, there's ten psds created for the shows: reign and the tudors but they should work across any period drama with dark or yellow/green lighting <3 just remember to always adjust the curves (and channel mixer if necessary) to suit the lighting of the scene
a lot of these are pretty basic colourings, and some are pretty similar but these are the ones that i use the most often!
hot artists don't gatekeep
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
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FREE 3D PICS SITES 👇 For ✅Instagram Growth Feel free to DM📫 @growbyakkas @growbyakkas @growbyakkas ⏰ Please Turn on post notification 💰Save the post for later. For daily IG growth tips and tricks Follow : 💎@growbyakkas ======🏷🏷🏷====== . . . . . . . . #growbyakkas #socialmediagrowth #socialmediagrowthhacks #instagramgrowthtips #instagramgrowthstrategy #instagramgrowthsecrets #socialmediamanager #contentcreators #socialmediamarketing #graphicsdesign #Graphicsdesigner #socialmediamarketing #socialmediagrowth #socialmediagrowthhacks #instagramcoach #socialmediagrowthtips #carousels #contentcreator #contentcreators #contentcreationtips #socialmediamanager #virtualassistant #virtualassistantservices #instagrammarketing #instagrammarketingtips #instagrammarketingstrategy #Resources (at Miami, Florida) https://www.instagram.com/p/CTe8mDalWGU/?utm_medium=tumblr