someonekillpewdiepie:

samoora-alamoora:

seethroughhue:

wait for it…

Good article with a bad headline

Good article with a headline intentionally misrepresenting the point maliciously.

(via quadriparesis)

dementia-by-day:

I’ve debated writing a post like this for some time: a post that really hits the nail on the head with how I feel about the term “lying” in dementia care. So, here goes. I am fully aware that not all professionals in dementia care agree with me, and I know that this is going to annoy some of them. But, that’s okay. This needs to be talked about.

When I first started working in dementia care, I learned about Teepa Snow’s philosophy of “Redirection and Distraction,” which was part of her Positive Approach to Care technique. I also learned about Naomi’s Feil’s “Validation” technique, and began implementing what I’d learned with my residents.

One day, very early in my career, a resident of mine was asking about her husband. “Where is my husband? He was supposed to pick me up an hour ago!” she cried. Using what I’d learned, I sat down with her and began to engage. “Sounds like you miss your husband,” I offered. She looked me dead in the eye, squinted, and bit her lip. “Yeah. And I want to know where he is. Why does no one actually say anything around here?” she demanded. This shocked me. But, I did what I’d learned: I validated her feelings and asked her how she felt. I realized, though, that I hadn’t actually answered her question. I’d just redirected her. 

Another time, I spent two hours trying to get a very irritated resident off of a bus. The bus had taken Eileen, one of my favorite residents, to the doctor’s office. This had not been a particularly enjoyable ride, and by the time she got back to our assisted living community, she was not in a good mood. We tried everything, but could not get this woman off the bus. I tried to redirect her. I tried to distract her. I tried to chat with her about where she’d been and even tried to explain that the bus was not going to be able to take her to her house, which is where she wanted it to go. Finally, I asked the bus driver to drive us around for a little bit. He ended up taking us to the back of the building about ten minutes later, and I told her that we “had to get off here, so that we could transfer to another bus later to eventually take her home.” Finally, hearing this, Eileen got off the bus. We went inside. My staff was thrilled that she was safely inside the building, but I was completely exhausted. I was also confused: had I done this whole thing the wrong way? 

I was so confused by this—this feeling that I’d “lied” to get her to leave the bus with me—that I actually emailed Teepa Snow, who I’d met at a conference. As busy as a woman as she is, Teepa got back to me pretty quickly. “It sounds like you did the right thing. You did what you needed to do,” she replied.

That was great to hear, but it left me thinking…if that, then what? If it was okay for me to do that, but it’s technically a lie, how is that in-line with the dementia care theories I’d learned? 

This was when I started developing my Embracing Their Reality theory. Teaching families and care staff to “never lie!” to people with dementia is too confusing. (See an article by Feil here.) Dementia care is a gray area, and telling people to “always do this, but not this, but sometimes this” just doesn’t work. Caregivers need real, TANGIBLE stuff they can use and apply.

If we were really sticking to the don’t-lie-thing, we would never introduce baby dolls and stuffed animals, right? I mean, that would be lying. That would be telling them that these were real, when we see them as not-real.

If you know me, you know that I’m all about the TANGIBLE. I want you to be able to use my stuff, apply it, and feel good about it. I want you to succeed in your positive dementia care. 

When you embrace someone’s reality, you understand that their reality has shifted, and you must shift with it. Here’s my favorite (and very true) example:

I had a resident whose son had died a few years earlier. This was obviously devastating. In good news, she’d forgotten he died. (Hey, this is a good thing that she forgot!) One day, she came to my office. “Hey hon,” she said. “Do you know where my son is? He hasn’t called in a while.” I paused and considered this. “Where do you think he could be?” I asked. “Well…I guess he must be busy with work,” she replied. “That makes sense, he’s probably at work,” I nodded. “Can I call him?” she asked me. “Sure,” I said, and picked up my work phone. I dialed my own cell phone number and let it go to voicemail. As soon as it did, I handed her the phone. “Here, you can leave him a message,” I smiled. She left her son a voicemail on my phone. “Thanks, hon, I feel a lot better,” she nodded. It never came up again.

So here’s what I teach:

• Throw out the word “lying.” Getting hung up on this word will only stress you out.
  
• We are living in THEIR reality. Just because it’s not true for US, doesn’t mean it’s not true for them. Who are we to say what is true?
  
• When someone asks you a direct question, find out what they believe the answer is, and then do that.
  
• You don’t need to get creative and “make something up out of the blue,” but you do need to be able to “yes, and” your loved one with dementia. Agree and then add on.
  

I am not, in ANY way, dissing what the very smart people in dementia care who came before me have said. In fact, I’m respecting it because I’m building on it. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today without the dementia care experts before me. But I think there’s more to dementia care than just validation/redirection/distraction/substitution/etc. I think we can all learn to embrace someone else’s reality.

(via meme-dyke)

cazort:

pithya:

Unpopular opinion, maybe, but the narrative of “Here’s what you can do as an individual to fight climate change” isn’t useless.

It has its place, and that’s mainly in the mental health realm. I’m a super anxious person. I get depressed easily. Articles talking about little steps I can take to reduce my carbon footprint give me tangible ways I can contribute to the solution, and help give me a sense of control over the whole mess, however illusionary it may be.

The framing of the narrative is the problem, not the narrative itself; guilt-tripping people never works. Pointing out “if you’re feeling scared, here’s some steps you can take to be part of the process” is way, WAY better. And the more steps you include, the more myriad ways you can take some ownership of the process and go “I am NOT powerless you motherfuck,” the better. Not everyone can take all of the listed steps and that’s COMPLETELY understandable. You gotta take care of you, first. But the more we list, the more accessible ways we come up with to give climate change the finger in our everyday lives, and to refuse to let the fear win.

By all means, go after the corporations. They’re the big fuckers here and I am totally on board with that. But if you’re feeling helpless and hopeless? Maybe take a look at one of those “how can I help” articles and pick a few little things to implement.

It’s all about taking care of your mental health!

Also, if you’re creative, you can make a big impact.

Here are some things I’ve done:

• I periodically drop by home depot and other box stores, and if I see a big sale on LED lights I buy a ton of them. I have installed LED’s at dozens of people’s homes, probably saving collectively thousands of dollars. I also approached my apartment complex and replaced incandescent bulbs both in their office and their laundry room with LED’s…the laundry room lights are on nearly 24/7 and it’s a big space, and this has probably saved them around $300 annually for something that cost me around $20. And now the apartment complex really appreciates this so they’ve been very accomodating when I ask for things like doing non-essential improvements or upgrades in my apartment.
  
• There is a wild area behind my apartment complex and it’s part owned by the complex and part owned by the city. A large area of it was completely overgrown with invasive plants. I pulled a lot of them out and added a lot of seeds of locally native plants, and the plant growth now is MUCH more lush…there is much more biomass and also much more biodiversity. Some trees have sprung up that are now 9 feet tall and growing raipdly during the growing season. This stuff is all gonna sequester a lot of carbon. I also have planted previously barren areas of mulch flower beds densely with native flowers. These also sequester carbon and also contribute to biodiversity. The habitat created by all this work will also help insects and other species that are having their ranges altered by climate change, to adapt, by giving them more habitat.
• I chose to live in a place where I don’t need to use my car very much. I went from driving my car around 10,000 miles a year to driving it under 5,000 miles a year. This has saved me a ton of money (not just gas, but also maintenance, tolls, parking, and much lower insurance) and also improved my quality of life.
• I make periodic posts and videos about the things I’m doing, and I talk to friends. I also talk to businesses and mention energy-efficient things in reviews of businesses I write on Yelp. For example, if I notice a restaurant uses LED lighting I note that in the review and say I appreciate it, or the same for supermarkets like ALDI that make greater use of enclosed refridgerator cases.
• I and my brother continually pressed my parents until they did an energy audit of their home. We got them to buy a new furnace, add some insulation, fix some areas where air was leaking out, and get heat-insulating shades on some rooms with drafty windows, and we also tweaked the baseboard system. The house is now much more pleasant and even in temperature, and we’ve saved them thousands of dollars in heating costs that were associated with unnecessary fossil fuel use.

You may have different things you can do, but the point is, you can do big, substantial things. It’s not just personal choices, you can offer to help other people. You can research things, get good at doing certain things, and then share that knowledge with others.

You can save people money, hundreds or thousands of dollars. And people will appreciate that, like my apartment complex really likes me as a tenant and I see it in how they treat me, they’ve let me do A LOT of things that I asked like having a garden and planting things in vacant flower beds and upgrading things in my unit. And my parents really appreciate the work my brother and I did in the house and the things we convinced them to do cause they’re saving a ton of money already and the house is more comfy.

You might think up completely different things from these that I haven’t even thought of!

(via anonbea)

lukac0la:

Anxiety tip

When you need to do something, do it the moment you realize you have to, if possible.

Example:

I walked into my math class, saw my teacher and realized I had to ask her a question. Normally I would get so anxious about the idea of even talking to her that I would not be able to speak. So, instead of dwelling on that, I went straight to her before I even sat down and and got my answer.

This allowed me to completely skip over my anxiety about speaking. Yes, I sounded kinda choppy and I stuttered but I still did it right away. Also, disputed the fact that I stutter and my words can come out kinda choppy and awkward, people still tell me I am confident.

People don’t really focus on how you sound when you say something, they focus on what you do say and the fact that you were able to say it to begin with.

The same logic can be applied to actions too.

(via actuallycptsd)

prokopetz:

Older male characters in mentorship roles will inevitably be interpreted by the fandom as surrogate fathers to their charges, even though “weird uncle who is somehow very wise and a complete fucking dumbass at the exact same time” is a more appropriate characterisation nine times out of ten.

(via floralmarsupial)

otters-against-ddlg:

otters-against-ddlg:

Who wants to see a FAT otter. A real ROUND boy. A HUGE man. A CHUNKY guy.

(via lesbianladyknight)

(via batterycity2019)

silversarcasm:

all the alexa/google home shit feels like a dystopian nightmare and everytime someone mentions having one in their home i have a sudden urge to break into thier house and destroy it

(via dearlesbian)

guccihairshirt:

we need feral women more than ever. I swear to god

(via dearlesbian)

mockiato:

artisanalqueer:

workingitinportland:

IS BEING HYDRATED REALLY WORTH ALL THIS PEEING?

Hi friend! Fun fact! The human body can only absorb one liter of water per hour, and not all at once! Likely the reason you’re peeing so much is because you’re taking in too much water at a time, so your body just flushes it through your system as opposed to absorbing it. A good rule is ¼ liter every 15 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely times that I want to (and will) glug a whole liter like it’s nothing, but steady hydration throughout the day is key! -Your friendly local wilderness first responder who rehydrates people for their job :)

Dang okay 📝

(via meme-dyke)

cowboysuggest:

got bones left over? DONT throw them away simply make a little… broth. with them. boil them at a low heat for a long time to get all of the nutrients out (into your broth)… this will also remove the grease from them and make it easier for them to decompose in the dirt

(via thumbelesbian)