The Gregories Cometh

let's get ✨vulnerable✨

would be fun if for once characters in a scifi story landed on a planet and it was like desert or whatever and theyre like ooh... a desert world.... and the people who live there are like what? no? this is just a desert. planets are very big. they have multiple biomes

I cannot emphasize enough how much of a life hack it is to exclusively be friends with, date and marry people who are not constantly mean assholes to you.

This may seem like basic common sense, but one interesting (and kind of terrifying) thing I recently read was that some individuals who grew up in an emotionally abusive environment find that their anxiety level actually decreases in the presence of those who are mean or overly critical of them because it's familiar. Their nervous systems are hard wired to react to that kind of treatment as "normal" in the sense that it knows what to do with it--what defense mechanisms to employ when, etc.

Meanwhile, kinder, more peaceful, and healthier relationships are quite a dramatic adjustment, and ironically feel less predictable because of all the threats that are absent and never materialize. It feels suspicious or too good to be true, which in turn ratchets up hypervigilance and hyper-arousal. Instead of knowing what BS is coming because it always does, there's the nebulous sense that the other shoe is just waiting to drop. Safety and respect can feel the most unsafe for a while, because as far as the traumatized nervous system is concerned, those things don't exist, or if they do in any form, there must be a million unseen strings attached.

This is part of what traps a lot of people in abusive relationships, consistently draws them to want to please assholes, or keeps them moving from one unhealthy environment to the next--a highly toxic comfort of familiarity where being on the receiving end of cruelty feels like "home".

This does a good job of explaining WHY this phenomenon occurs. The brain prefers an open threat that can be anticipated and predicted, as opposed to what appears to be a concealed threat that could strike at any time unexpected.

Also important to note.

This state of affairs is not permanent. Nobody is doomed to a life of abuse because their brain is too traumatised for anything else.

Healing changes the brain too.

my little brother got a girlfriend recently and the two of them have been making their discord icons matching anime couples, so my other brother, his twin, keeps changing his icon to a third wheel character to annoy them

hey bro why does your speech bubble become heart shaped when we talk ? bro why did the tail on your speech bubble curl around and make a little heart shape

mind if I come over and behave somewhat like a scared animal before I adjust

i think we should be talking about the semi-recent advancements in cystic fibrosis treatment like all the time every day. there hasn’t been a drug like this since AZT medications for HIV infection it is truly fucking miraculous and very important

basically: cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease which makes the mucous a person generates extra sticky. it used to kill people in infancy, then with advancements in medical tech it killed people in young childhood, and until very recently cystic fibrosis patients could expect to live until about thirty years old with consistent painful lung infections and complications.

in 2019 the FDA approved a drug called trikafta (which is really three drugs in one) for cystic fibrosis treatment. what it essentially does is patch up the malfunctioning proteins that cause the extra sticky mucus. trikafta is effective on about 90% of cystic fibrosis patients.

people who had spent their entire lives in and out of hospitals, on and off of ventilators, suffering from pneumonia and sometimes treated through painful procedures like intubation took this drug, got out of bed, coughed up an entire lifetimes worth of mucus out of their lungs over the course of a few hours, breathed clearly for perhaps the first time in their lives, and now go on to live well into their seventies.

like isn’t that insane. isn’t that amazing. doesn’t that give you hope for the future of medical advancements and treatment. fuck. i think about it all the time……

a second bumblebee has hit the flowers

"post without tags?" OH IM FUCKING SORRY #BEES #9/11

I wish I was a female tiger because then if I was talking to someone and I was getting off topic I could say “but I tigress,” and then kill and eat them because I am a tiger

*literally choking with want* nah man it's fine DW about it

Ugh… headache. Head splitting migraine, even.

Good news everyone I found the cause of headaches, it’s because of the angry blobs residing in your brain

Hes so me