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How I Cope With Chronic Pain And Disability

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Someone with a herniated disc recently asked me how I cope with my spine problems and the many problems and chronic pain I suffer as a byproduct of my spine issues. I laid out my basic formula for coping and then I realized that I should probably post this in other places too, as well as expand on it with more details and examples. My background with chronic pain Basically, I suffer from a variety of spine problems that are mostly congenital but are also exacerbated by age, lifestyle (sitting in front of computers for much of my adult life) and injury. I also suffer from at least one autoimmune disease that may have attacked areas around my spine and possibly the nerve roots that project out from my spine. All the way down my spine, from my neck down to my tailbone, there are problems ranging in severity. I have nerve damage, as nearly as the doctors can tell, from about T4 down to L3 (where the spinal cord ends, branching-off into the last few nerve roots). In lay terms, this...
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On Faith, Fear and Selfishness

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One of my many minerals illuminated with 242nm light. Why use it here? I was lazy. One of my greatest criticisms of Christianity, and of many other religions, is the threat of eternal damnation. I'll explain in detail my thoughts on this a little later on in this post, but I first want to preface this blog post with some important background information about me. I am an atheist and I have been such since about age 17 (23 years ago). My parents rediscovered their faith when I was 5 years old and at that point my father began reading the bible to my sister and me. Even though my parents and my spiritual leaders did not strongly emphasize eternal damnation much, the passages in the bible that alluded to or outrightly detailed such had instilled an underlying fear in me. That fear was, "step wrong and burn in hell for eternity." It didn't really need to be talked about much amongst peers and family to become instilled in me. I was told that god's word is law a...
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Why I Don't Care About Gender Pronouns

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I Am Transgender And I Don't Care About Gender Pronouns I'm a transwoman  and I don't actually care if people use masculine pronouns when referring to me. Why? To put it simply: I refuse to have my happiness depend upon the opinions and/or actions of others. To be frank, it's not something I had even thought about until the recent media hype about it. The concept had never occurred to me until people started making a big deal about it in the last couple years. It's a non-issue for me. Why should I care if someone refers to me in the masculine (or as "it," like some people do more maliciously)? My overall philosophy is that my happiness is not dependent upon the actions of others and, as such, this "misgendering" simply was never a concern of mine. Happiness In Simplicity Most aspects of life are out of our control, but one thing that is definitely within our scope of control is choosing what to invest our mental resources in. When I...
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Irresponsible Reporting On The Incel Community

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Graphic free for public reuse with modification Irresponsible Reporting On The Incel Community (By All Forms Of News Media) I'm no expert on the subject and have no connection with the Incel community, but apparently I am more proficient with Google than the media outlets who are reporting on the Incel community. I didn't even know about the term "Incel" until earlier this year. Thirty minutes of Googling, however, quickly showed me that the media -- both your typical corporate conglomerate outlets and the small independent networks -- are grossly mischaracterizing an already at-risk community. This reminds me a bit of how the media commonly mischaracterizes my own transgender community. I am not even going to include a bunch of citation links -- normally I try to include highly relevant citations -- because all the top results are heavily biased and one-sided. Just do a quick search yourself. What is "Incel?" In the most general descrip...
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Being Informed In The Modern News Climate

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Can you find all the light blue ones? It's kind of like finding the truth in the news these days. You can do it, but it's not easy. Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt of Pink Sherbet Photograph y Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement or disparagement of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Howard Dean or any politician, political party or ideology, but I will use these individuals and their backgrounds -- with facts given -- as examples in this article. If you're a supporter of any of the named politicians, please try to not get offended, be patient and read through the entire article and try to understand the point that I am making. This is an article about: avoiding emotional reactions, being a critical thinker, using multiple sources of information and sniffing out deception. If you find yourself getting angry or defensive while reading this, then you're already missing the point of the article. Take a step back, calm your nerves, clear your mind and re-read objectivel...
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