Ibuprofen

I had intense abdominal pain today, which seemed to hit me out of nowhere because of poor interoception. (Nothing out of the ordinary; 'Tis simply The Curse) So I took an ibuprofen & went to lie down. Shoutout to this tumblr post for altering my brain chemistry years ago. It helped me get past that "suck it up" energy I was raised with. And good thing, too! That shit was intense.

Growing up in a household that belittles you for feeling can make you not want to help yourself. But nothing got me out of that mindset more than imagining Stewart Adams and John Nicholson genuinely wanting to help me.

In case the above link ever breaks, here's what it says:

User afterword:
idk who needs to hear this rn but suffering is not noble. take the tylenol

User wahoo-shem:
One time when I was younger I was refusing to take headache medicine and my mom said “the person who invented that medicine is probably so sad you won’t let them help you” and now every time I find myself denying medicine I just imagine the saddest scientist making those big wet eyes like “why won’t you let me help” and whoop then I take the medicine

Other than being in pain, I've been spending time transferring some old scribbles of mine into web-page form. I have yet to put the link in my main "Site Navigation" sidebar because currently I only have my thinly veiled teen angst on there. Unfortunate that everything I've written post-2020 is a WIP.

As "cringe" as my old work may seem to me, I'm also a firm believer in keeping old art around. If for nothing else, then to show my progress as an artist. But I kind of find it endearing to go through my old stuff. Sure, a bunch of it isn't great. But they were earnest attempts at literature! I think that's kind of cute. As flawed as my short story SHY is, it's a good concept to explore, and helped me process things. I like it, and that's what matters.

Ooh, now I'm considering making a literature graveyard page. Where all the one-chapter WIPs that I never got back to can go. The ones that never even got published on Wattpad. Blogging really does grease the gears on site design...