Don't Worry Be Happy Is Gaslighting

Have you ever been mad as hell and someone (a man) told you to "Calm down"? Did it make you calm or did it having you spitting with rage? What about when you're trying to have a serious talk with someone (your boyfriend) and they tell you to not look so serious?
"Smile more!"
Do you want to smile or do you want to chop off their heads with an axe?

Today I had to call the COVID-19 hotline to find out if my son's symptoms meant the virus had found us. See I found him in the kitchen, shirt off, saying his skin was too sensitive to be touched. And well, Rita Wilson (Tom Hank's wife) said that was her first symptom. So I didn't panic but I had to find out if I should. The first person I spoke to clearly wasn't a health professional and they tried to take me backwards by telling me how to dial for symptoms but then they course corrected and transferred me to a doctor so kudos for that. The doctor said that in isolation, hypersensitivity isn't a symptom but we should probably visit a doctor nevertheless for something non-COVID-related.
Of course, I'm reluctant to do that. Hell, I need to see a dentist but I just don't see how I can right now. Risk versus benefit analysis tells me to stay home. I can still chew food after all.

When you have genuine worries and problems and someone tells you to just 'be happy', they're kind of erasing your agency to feel. They're telling you your feelings aren't valid.
"Just get over it."
"Suck it up."
"Play through the pain."
All monumentally horrible advice.
I'd like to offer a counter.
"Wallow in it."
"Feel your feelings."
"When you're walking through the valley of the shadow of death, keep going."
Because the truth is that the only to get over is through. You gotta go through whatever you're going through. You gotta suffer.
But at the end of the day, make it mean something. Don't let the suffering be for nothing. Learn something new about yourself. Discover that you're stronger than you thought. Don't make the same mistakes twice.
Let it count for something.

We've seen that even COVID-19 has a silver lining. Nature is healing itself. Capitalism has been exposed for the abusive sham that it is, as has Ellen Degeneres. Work environments have proved to be more versatile than previously thought. We can feed our hungry if we really want. Yes, even so-called 'Third-World' countries. Oh, and America is a Third World country complete with dictator.
Everything is getting exposed.
So once we have a vaccine (which no, Africans will not be your guinea pigs) and this thing is somewhat under control, let's not go back to business as usual.
Let's learn, let's grow, let's evolve.

Sometimes You Gotta Be 'Selfish'

Hi. How are you doing? I'm great. Which means I'm not; not really. I know I shouldn't be complaining about a little menstrual bullshit but for one thing, it ain't little and for another, hell yeah I should be complaining about it.
Why not?
Is my pain not valid?
Of course, it is.
Every time I use the word 'shouldn't' in reference to myself I get annoyed. When I was learning to be a counsellor so long ago, and thus also healing my own trauma, we were told to always eliminate the word, "should" from our mindset.
It's the cause of all our problems.
"I should have sold a million books by now."
"I'm thirty, I should be married by now."
"You should leave him. he's no good for you..."

Okay, maybe that last one is valid.
Anyway, my point is my pain matters just as much as all those afflicted by COVID-19 or any other disease, or injury. And so does yours.
So if you're feeling hard done by and feel guilty about expressing it in the wake of the apocalypse, I am here to give you permission. I give you permission to cry over missing your birthday celebration that you'd planned on having on an island in the Caribbean. I give you permission to cry if you were meant to be the principal speaker at a conference for furries, and now it was cancelled. Whatever pain you're feeling, let it out.
Once you've cried, listen to my podcast. I've embedded it here for your convenience. It might make you laugh a little or it might not. Either way, it's there.

The Biggest Impact I Can Make to this Crisis is...?

So how are you doing? Are you still alive? Healthy? Well?
I am doing okay, just severe back pain plaguing my existence but what else is new? It's true what they say about the forties; they are a fuck fest of non-specific, non-responding to medicines type pain. If you forget to drink your water, eat your vegetables and exercise for just one day, the repercussions are god-level furious.
I'm learning as I go.

So today I'm a bit hunched over, half-sleepy from the opioid painkillers, feeling as if my tailbone might hate me a little bit...but I'm alive and I'm here so Imma do my best to share my wisdom and knowledge with you.
I've been wondering what I can do, in this time of crisis, to help. I was scrolling down twitter when Kenyans were debating the wisdom of using masks and it came to me that I have knowledge to share and not everyone knows what I know.
So maybe my job at this time is to share knowledge and share information in any way that I can. That's what I can do.
So what's new today? Well, I have a new podcast with my thoughts on the Earth taking it's power back.
Masks are good because you not only protect yourself but also the other person. So they protect you, and you protect them.

Hydroxychloroquine has serious side effects and that's why it's not a first-line antimalarial. It can actually cause some problems with your heart even though this rarely happens. You can also have vision problems. Generally, compared to new generation antimalarials, it's the struggle. Does it help with coronavirus? Some studies say yes, anecdotal data says it might.
But then we mustn't forget the pesky side effects.
This drug is not for everyone even before this pandemic. It's shocking to me to hear that DOCTORS are hoarding it and prescribing it all wily nily in the States as if they don't know any better. They pretend to set so much store in their education, making foreign qualified doctors work as taxi drivers unless they want to go back to first year and yet such a basic thing...they fail. American doctors are also culpable in the Opioid crisis. I gotta say that this president has really helped America show it's ass.

More than the direct things that affect us, we have to think about the indirect effects of this. Job loss, hunger, homelessness...I see very little of that being addressed. Most governments are mostly thinking about saving big business rather than their citizens.
It's every apocalyptic fanfic I've ever read.
Well anyway, listen to this week's episode because it's good AF. Also maybe ask me questions if you have some. I am proficient in health, counselling and a myriad of other things that can be researched.