WWNRD? Or, What Would Nurse Ratched Do? Ft. Nurse Ratched

Nurse Ratched was a sadistic, evil bitch at the time and would be that and a dangerously out of touch political dinosaur now.  Please do not do what she would do.  If anything, ask yourself WWNRD and then do the opposite.

Speaking with my mother recently made me sympathize with young smartasses and activists who are just waiting for the elder generation — the out of touch Baby Boomers and the Baby Boomers’ parents and kids by this point — to give up the ghost and die.  A “dinosaur” or political dinosaur is someone whose philosophy and worldview are obsolete and rooted in problematic values and circumstances of the distant past.  For example, as a young activist in my teens and 20s I remember thinking and saying that the world would be a better place once those who grew up with unregulated environmental pollution and legal institutionalized racism, sexism etc. died off because their environmental unconcern, racism and sexism were so entrenched that they either didn’t realize, agree or care that what they were doing and being was wrong.

Welp.  After being sick my entire fucking life with an undiagnosed autoimmune disease, and going on 8 years with a diagnosed one, I am having these same thoughts now about the older generation of Western medical practitioners and others who were born, grew up and/or progenated in a low-population, relatively unpolluted pre-nuclear world where lifelong serious, untreatable, incurable and progressive disease existed only in very small numbers and therefore where older people seem to believe and act as if chronic illness did not and does not exist at all.

To be clear, chronic illness obviously did exist in our recent and distant past, for example, natural uranium deposits are known to cause acute and chronic radiation sickness to those who spend time around it.  And humans have likely always been struck down with genetic and congenital maladies that might not have outright killed them.  But old/er people seem to have lived their entire lives without chronic illness, including autoimmune and immune-mediated disease, front and center in their consciousness or as a part of their lived experience and this does make sense: before, say, the 1940s and 50s the worst industrial (man-made ionizing nuclear) pollutants had yet to be widely dispersed and contemporary Western medicine did not, because it could not, routinely pluck seriously ill and/or nonviable neonates, infants and others from the brink of merciful, natural deaths.  Today, seriously ill children and others are rather forced to live for years, decades and lifetimes with serious illnesses that do not outright kill them, because Western medicine will not allow it, but which Western medicine has yet to figure out how to treat, relieve, or cure.

Having researched chronic illness, primarily autoimmune and immune-mediated disease for going on 8 years now, it seems to me that, in stark contrast to the life experience and worldview of older people, young people today generally are very aware that incurable and progressive chronic illness exists.  Over and over I see that young people today, at least young Western people, well understand and accept the reality of chronic illness much more freely than older people, and the implications of that are extremely dark.  From what I can discern, this difference in worldview likely exists because young people are increasingly becoming seriously chronically ill themselves.  Young people understand and accept the material reality of chronic illness because experiencing it personally as individuals and in their peer group they have no choice but to accept it.

And over and over I see that older people are generally ignorant about issues of chronic illness and that they have not experienced it either individually or in their peer group.  Frighteningly, instead of recognizing their blessed ignorance and trying to remedy it, older people think that their personal opinion based on outdated and second- and third-hand pseudo-knowledge about chronic illness matters or affects the outcome.  It doesn’t, but unfortunately many medical professionals, healthcare policymakers, paid and unpaid caretakers and the like embrace an outdated worldview that no longer applies in our post-nuclear, Western world, and thus do not or cannot fully believe the self-reports of, or even contemporary peer-reviewed medical research addressing, the experiences and needs of seriously chronically ill.

The “I Told You I Was Sick” Tombstone Gag. That Shit Just Never Gets Old. A Halloween Hypochondria Post.

Will someone please explain to me how a person’s literal death is evidence that they weren’t actually sick at the time they died or ever?  The “I Told You I Was Sick” tombstone may (or may not idk) have been around as long as tombstones themselves have been around and it is even cataloged in a collection of “curious epitaphs” as the epitaph of an ancient hypochondriac.

The epitaph.  Of a hypochondriac.  Hmm.  While I process that very concept a moment, I Google “hypochondria” and find that the word doesn’t mean exactly what I thought it meant.  Or rather, the origin of the word itself was nothing like I had assumed.  Apparently, the very concept of unverified/unverifiable illness causing patients extreme physical and mental distress originated from complaints involving the abdomen.  Why doesn’t that surprise me at all.  From Wiki:

Among the regions of the abdomen, the hypochondrium is the uppermost part.  The word derives from the Greek term ὑποχόνδριος hypokhondrios, meaning “of the soft parts between the ribs and navel” from ὑπό hypo (“under”) and χόνδρος khondros, or cartilage (of the sternum).

Hypochondria in Late Latin meant “the abdomen”. 

The term hypochondriasis for a state of disease without real cause reflected the ancient belief that the viscera of the hypochondria were the seat of melancholy and sources of the vapor that caused morbid feelings.  Until the early 18th century, the term referred to a “physical disease caused by imbalances in the region that was below your rib cage”.  Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) blamed it “for everything from ‘too much spittle’ to ‘rumbling in the guts’.

Bolds mine.  Apparently, people have been presenting to doctors for a long, long time complaining of upper abdominal pain, too much spittle chronic nausea and/or drooling, and rumbling in the guts the dreaded intestinal gurgling that often foretells an impending Crohn’s flare and they had morbid feelings about that.  You don’t say.

I should mention here that capsule endoscopy, which is currently the only way to get diagnostic imaging of the lining of the small bowel, is a very new technology that’s extremely expensive and often not covered by insurance.  Before modern imaging technology, including capsule endoscopy technology, diseases of the upper part of the abdomen in particular were virtually undiagnosable.  Due to its inaccessible location, in practice, even today, for many if not most people getting a reliable diagnostic image of the hypochondrium (!) or the upper part of the abdomen and gastrointestinal tract is impossible.

Holy Shit Y’all. Morgellon’s Disease (Aka “Delusional Parasitosis”) is Actually Real. #gaslighting #fuckdoctors #killallmen

Whilst performing my daily catch-up with my favorite conspiratard sites, today I found this: recent peer-reviewed medical research indicating that so-called Morgellon’s disease is actually a real, physical ailment and not all in patients’ — usually female patients’ — heads.  I have had a slightly more than casual interest in Morgellon’s disease for at least a decade if not two, and I am seeing the year 2002 thrown around as the approximate date that reports of this confounding, untreatable and disabling medical condition first appeared in the United States.  People — usually female people — started presenting to their doctors for diagnosis and treatment of a condition comprised of skin lesions, often with strange “fibers” protruding from them or embedded in the unbroken skin or in the scabs, as well as maddening feelings of itching, crawling, burning etc. under or on their skin as if “bugs” were crawling there.  There were almost certainly additional complaints considering what Morgellon’s actually turned out to be — a tickbourne infection that is often comorbid with Lyme disease — but let’s leave it there for now.

Morgellon’s patients routinely brought in a collection of scabs and fibers to show their doctors, intending to be good patients and their own “advocates” to help the doctors do their job, which is the current advice given to particularly women in order to insure that they get the best medical treatment possible (and so that the women themselves as actors or co-actors on their own “care team” can take part or all of the blame when they are not effectively treated).  Whereupon the doctors proceeded to mock the women and their attempts to document and provide physical evidence of what was happening to them by referring to such evidence as “matchbox sign” because women allegedly brought the fibers and scabs with them in empty matchboxes.  Of course, matchbox sign was a euphemism for evidence of fraud and mental, not physical, disease.

Here is an example of “matchbox sign” where the woman brought her evidence in a folded piece of paper, and not an empty matchbox, but whatever right?  The point of inventing and naming matchbox sign was so that doctors could warn other doctors that the person sitting in front of them covered in lesions and in terrible, ongoing and relentless pain, cradling a sad bundle of phony evidence was crazy.  The point was obviously not to tell the truth or describe anything accurately or even neutrally, or in a way that was likely to get these women meaningful treatment or relief.

Just Because You “Refuse to Believe” Something Doesn’t Mean It’s Not True. Ft. Greta Thunberg.

I guess this is the speech that gave Donald Trump an excuse to mock 16 year old climate activist Greta Thunberg, calling her “a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.”  In it, she says she refuses to believe the “adults” who rape and pillage the environment living planet are evil.  She doesn’t say why she refuses to believe it.  She offers no evidence that it’s actually not true and that the worst of the worst industrial polluters rapists and pillagers of the living planet including water, soil, air and biomass (read: food, pets and ourselves) are actually good, or even neutral actors.  No, she just refuses to believe that the literal monsters responsible for global industrial pollution and its effects are something other than evil because (unstated) reasons, or because no reasons at all.

But I have news for Greta and for anyone and everyone self-inflicting and/or spewing thought-terminating cliches and “refusing to believe” thus and so: just because you refuse to believe something doesn’t mean it’s not true, and your or anyone’s refusal to believe doesn’t make anything that’s actually true, untrue.

Mkay?  People think and say that Greta Thunberg is brutally honest but “refusing to believe” is not honest.  Greta herself thinks the reason she is able to be brutally honest with herself and others is because autism, but Greta’s self image isn’t entirely realistic is it?  She is just a child afterall.  In fact, I’m not even entirely sure than any autistic person would naturally “refuse to believe” anything, and instead would either tend to believe or disbelieve depending on the evidence.  If they didn’t have enough evidence to make an evidence-based judgement they would look into it further until they knew for sure, especially if the subject matter was an autistic “special interest” like climate change seems to be Greta’s autistic special interest.  But Greta isn’t interested in looking further into it in this case to find out for sure whether industrial polluters, corporate overlords and lapdog politicians are evil or neutral or good.  Why not?

Antiauthoritarianism: Illustration via Juxtaposition.

If the above vid is not the perfect illustration of concept I don’t know what is.  This is the most recent YouTube upload by Royalty Soaps, what used to be a one-woman soapmaking business that has grown over several years into something else.  The backstory here seems to be that at some point, the eldest yet still teenaged daughter in some freakishly large Quiverfull-type family consisting of a mother, a father and a dozen(ish) Irish twins* started making soap and with the help and support of that family has become very successful and has now delegated some of her substantial duties to others.

As described in this vid, this woman’s business recently experienced an unexpected and frightening setback and she relied heavily on her family to correct the situation and save the day, which they did in spades.  They also had the time, energy, material resources and desire to throw her an Insta-worthy backyard 25th birthday party in the midst of this family project.  The party was beautiful and the familial love and care given and received there, as documented in this vid…well watch it for yourself and see what you think.  For me, the experience of watching this was somewhat complicated.  I enjoyed it, was moved by it but it made me deeply uncomfortable and thinky…and hungry for salad, cake and sun tea.

What was so deeply disturbing to me about this footage was the backdrop against which it was shot and I’m not referring to her (albeit somewhat disturbing) home state of Texas, or a photo prop.  The backdrop here, as it is most everywhere, is the social context of capitalism and patriarchy and what that means is that, in order for this situation and this footage to exist, this woman has had to comply, comply, comply in order to reap what must be conditional rewards of love; affection; physical presence and caretaking; emotional care and concern; and finally, material things that, under the current system, really only money can buy.  Doesn’t it?  In her case, she has had to buy into the religious, political and social traditions of her family including the patriarchal authority of her parents, the heterosexual and mommy mandates and more in order to have what she has.  Of course, the traditions of her family mirror the traditions of her culture more or less exactly.

Luckily for her there does not seem to be any obvious conflict between her own values, conscience etc. and that of her family (or culture) but what if there was?  What would happen to her if she woke up one day with, say, environmental concerns implicating overpopulation and natalism, or economic concerns implicating capitalism and the money system and the ethics of making and selling soap (or doing anything) for profit?  What if, God forbid, this Quiverfull (or whatever) daughter woke up one day with feminist concerns which implicate all of that plus the destablization of the patriarchal authority of her father/parents, her husband, her church and the State?

Weaponizing Autism? Greta Thunberg And Her Autism Are Being Used. Note the Absence of Gaslighting. Also, Nuclear.

The above vid is an illustration for those “climate change activists” who believe that hydroelectric and/or nuclear power, in other words, dam/ning the world’s rivers and waterways is going to save us.  It’s not.

Greta Thunberg is an international “climate change activist” that probably everyone has heard about by now.  She is also autistic and shares characteristics with other autistics, namely, she is serious and sullen; nonverbal by default unless she has something important to say; starkly observant, brutally honest.  Although still a child she does not suffer fools gladly or at all, and instead is mercilessly critical of the “adults” who have poisoned, penetrated and otherwise wrecked the “climate” (read: planet) we all rely on for survival.  Even worse, especially to an autistic like Greta where autistics characteristically respond with an intense Trypophobic-like revulsion to deceit and lies, the Baby Boomer generation (and the generations immediately preceding and following) lied about what they did and continue to do to our shared world, they covered it up, they continue the lies and cover-ups even as they smile (or cry, or don’t react at all) and lie more and cover up more, right to our collective face.

Greta isn’t falling for it which isn’t odd in and of itself.  What’s really odd is that anyone is listening to her, and taking her seriously, a female in end-stage patriarchy, an uncoiffed, disabled nonconsumer and nonworker in end-stage capitalism, a child.

A cynical (or seasoned adult) observer might note that Greta’s story and presence in the cultural conversation has put everyone in their feels and in their imagined political, social and interpersonal power which is right where the “adults” want us to be.  In fact I can only conclude that this bizarre spectacle isn’t bizarre at all, but is what. it. looks. like. when end-stage capitalism and patriarchy uses a female autistic to serve its own ends.  How can we tell?  Because even as she criticizes and shames them, hitting them in their egos and accumulations and rituals (right where it would seem to hurt the most) the “adults” aren’t gaslighting her, they aren’t telling her not to believe her lying eyes, they are encouraging rather than shutting her down, she hasn’t been medicated or institutionalized or driven to suicide or killed.  Yet.

(Let’s see how well Greta fares after some time has passed, after a season, a misspent youth or a lifetime of activism seeing clearly how things really operate and what the consequences are and how little things actually change.  Or how particularly capitalism and patriarchy don’t tend to change over time except to reliably get worse.)

Instead of punishing her, the adults and other children who inhabit this failing global politic/planet are hailing Greta Thunberg as an autistic savant, a climate change warrior, an infant Wonder Woman but in my estimation she is just a misguided Cassandra.

Welcome Mumsnutters!

The Mumsnet community has found this blog and are intelligently discussing the extensive content largely insulting and degrading me, personally, over my previous antinatalist posts — 2 entire posts out of nearly 100 comprising this project which is about surviving (and not surviving) as a chronically ill female in end-stage capitalism and patriarchy.  I suppose the Mums’ days aren’t full up enough what with the extreme demands of catering to their fuck trophies and future soldiers, rapists and victims, otherwise known as children under the same global system, and asking each other whether they are “being unreasonable” for wanting to be regarded as human beings by their male owners.

The Mums at Mumset also believe that talking to the men at Mumset — the Duds, I guess? — about feminism is a good use of their time.  The Mum who started this discussion also apparently thinks it’s just duckie to ask impregnators (and the impregnated) what they think about antinatalism, as if the strong bias towards natalism on Mumsnet and in a global capitalist patriarchy in general isn’t obvious.  Yes the Mums and Duds on Mumsnet seem to think that natalists and pro-natalists are the endangered cognitive minority in need of protection from the handful of antinatalists that exist on the internet and who do not appear to exist anywhere in real life because they and the antinatalist perspective are routinely and systematically silenced.