🧵 Last week was a very abrupt and harsh reality check. This is me at 38 getting an EKG because PTSD symptoms have kept my nervous system in such a highly activated state for so long that I was sent to the ER to make sure I wasn't having a heart attack. Thankfully, all the tests came back fine. No organ damage and no heart attack. But it is abundantly clear that I cannot keep white-knuckling my way through this diagnosis without more daily support. My world is significantly smaller than it used to be. It's frustrating. My creativity is gone, trying to work my business that I love feels almost impossible, traveling alone is completely out of the question, and my body is so incredibly exhausted.

Happy early Samhain from Hera 🎃

If Meta wants to use everyone's content to train AI, then maybe we should only post AI generated content on the platform. Let it implode on itself.

The call is coming from inside the house.

Sure would be a shame if everyone decided to report the Corruptor in Chief and his ilk. Make sure you don't do that, ok?

Ew. No. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/…

You might laugh but it is exactly what happens.

The Venn diagram of right wing talking heads advocating for taking women's rights away and freaking out about Sharia law in the US while refusing to acknowledge they're the same thing is a circle. I said what I said.

"To the maximum extent..." None then, got it. Good talk.

Don't send political surveys unless you are prepared for the responses.

If not for the state gas tax holiday, we'd be paying $4.61/gal in Indianapolis. The "Golden Age" looks more like a turd sandwhich.

Numbing them for potentially months at a time opens the possibility for actual healing. It prevents my body from staying locked in survival mode and will hopefully make Cognitive Processing Therapy more effective in treating my PTSD. You can't think your way out of having a brain injury, but you can remove a roadblock in order to treat the trauma layered on top of it.

So what does all of this have to do with a Stellate Ganglion Block? The bundle of nerves in my neck is the receiver of the fight-or-flight survival signals my brain has been sending my entire life.

Recent studies show these complications don't stay the same either, they worsen with age as our nervous systems tire out. Basically, my body will age typically. My brain will not.

Early oxygen deprivation primes the brain's immune cells for chronic, low-grade neuroinflammation. Decades later, that cumulative stress load catches up to you. (aka the allostatic load) The parts of the brain hit hardest are the areas that handle working memory, focus, and emotional regulation.

In the late 80s, medical science assumed if a baby survived oxygen loss without cerebral palsy, they’d just "grow out of" any minor complications. Longitudinal neurobiological studies conducted since have proven that assumption categorically false. 🫠

The doctor did not tell my mother what my 1 minute APGAR score was because he did not want her to panic. I required immediate life-saving measures and spent the first 9 days of life in the NICU.