u/ocelocelot

I struggled to title this one. I am a pretty confused deconstruct-ed? (or -ing?) former evangelical. These days I'm liberal-leaning Anglican but to be honest with quite a lot of agnosticism hiding in there.

I'm asking myself what about my Christian beliefs or practice actually depends on the possibility that God is definitely there or could actually do something, act in the present day, whether physically or spiritually (and whether or not God might in fact choose to act)?

If somehow I could know that God wasn't real, would anything about my beliefs or practice actually have to change?

Forgive me if I'm being unclear. What should actually be the solid substance of a progressive faith, that resists being reduced to a social justice club decorated with cross symbols? To what extent can I actually expect to connect with God in a way that isn't just theoretical, abstract, literary, academic?

I completely neglect all my friendships because I don't have the energy to see them (in person or video) or to maintain correspondence. It's just another thing my brain doesn't have the capacity for.

The only social ties I really have now are that my wife's friends sometimes remember to ask after me when she sees them, which I'm touched by but it's not much of a connection to life. I do sometimes see family too. I say hello to the postman if there's a parcel.

Occasionally a friend will contact me and I just about make an effort to reply but not very energetically

I guess I'm kind of hoping eventually they stop bothering...?

It would be easier, in a way. What's the point of trying to keep in touch if I have nothing to say? Nothing happens any more. I rest, I take tablets, I eat. Sometimes I bathe. Occasionally I get blood drawn. Nothing changes.

I don't know. Maybe I'm depressed.

(I can manage posting on Reddit - for some reason because it's anonymous and disconnected from my real life that's different)

(Edit: I'm not a complete misanthrope, I do love and care about human beings. I just... can't... any more)

As in "vacuuming is too exertious for me"

All the other ways to say it are more verbose or less clearly about exertion specifically ("vacuuming is too much exertion for me", "vacuuming is too strenuous for me" etc.)

That is all. Thank you for attending my talk

I love DIY and gardening.

Sawing, drilling, gluing, grinding, routing, adjusting, maintaining, painting, digging, pruning, mowing... it's the perfect hobby for me, I love just getting stuck in with my hands and having a go at making things better. The heavier the exertion the better - a free workout.

Unfortunately since about three years ago I have been severely ill with ME/CFS and mostly bedbound, and now I can't do anything involving even trivial exertion because it makes my illness flare up dramatically and I'm then even sicker than usual for days. Even on my best days I don't have any margin for error and can only cope with the bare basics of daily routine.

There is no solution. It just sucks.

This illness has had almost no useful research until Long COVID came along recently to finally unlock some serious funding, but it will be years before real biomedical understanding of the condition develops and treatments finally filter through.

(It's Severe ME Awareness Week so I hope you all don't mind me posting this here)

Any grand theory explaining ME/CFS ought to be able to explain the phenomenon whereby adrenaline seems to be able to override to some extent the energy production limitations of the condition. The override is temporary, and usually leads to overexertion and PEM. But it's interesting that the body does seem to be able to access "fake extra" energy production when it's pushed.

Is this fake extra energy always anaerobic metabolism (producing lactate) or can it be normal oxidative phosphorylation (the one we struggle with)?

What is the body or brain doing usually (without adrenaline) that apparently suppresses access to this fake PEM-inducing energy? Is there an effort-regulation safety mechanism in the brain that is able to be tricked by adrenaline?

Oh, a ear, a email ear

A, a op of olden un

E, a aim I awl I elf

Ah, a ong ong a ooh un

Oh, a eedle ulling Ed

Ah, a oat ooh ollow oh

E, a eel ith am and Ed

And at ings us ack ooh oh

I can't get this out of my head, please send help. That's the trouble with musical stims

I want to reduce my dose of venlafaxine because I think it's worsening my hyperadrenergic symptoms and my extreme thirst. I'm currently on 225mg venlafaxine, at which dose it has somewhat strong noradrenergic effects and is probably making me more wired etc.

I want to do it in very small slow steps of about 10% by bead counting (reducing by 12.5mg each step, to begin with - later even smaller), holding for a month between changes, because I'm worried about withdrawal effects causing my dysautonomia to flare up and therefore causing my ME/CFS to flare up - PEM

But they want to (a) make the initial step 37.5mg (a whole prescribable amount, not bead-counting), and (b) they only want to hold for 2-4 weeks per step. This seems like a very optimistic "healthy person's taper schedule" but I think it will cause my body a lot of strain

Has anyone got away with such a quick taper and not had severe withdrawal effects?

I would like to know which people's wills are written on this page on FamilySearch please (only available at an affiliated library - which I can't currently visit):

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-996F-R99R?view=fullText&lang=en&groupId=

I don't need an image - I would just like the names of the will(s) featured on this page spread (including any will which starts on the previous page spread and continues onto this page spread)

Ideally I would also like the page number of the above-linked page spread.

Thank you!

We're currently holding the provisional record for the hottest temperature in June in the UK, broken both at Wattisham and Cavendish, the latter hitting 37.1°C.

How are you surviving?

All you need is a zero-plural animal (like bear, in the context of hunting), that is also a verb and a place name (or adjective)

Bear bear Bear bear bear bear Bear bear

(Bears from Bear, Delaware that bears from Bear, Delaware carry, carry bears from Bear, Delaware)

Badger badger Badger badger badger badger Badger badger

(harass, place in Alaska)

(The famous one is Buffalo of course)

Any others?

Polly Proper-Lean 🦜

(Polypropylene)

He hit the roof!

tl;dr: society tends to view people as "ideal moral agents" who can be blamed for not trying hard enough and fails to acknowledge that underneath our "moral agent" façade, our bodies are actually "fallible meat machines" that can't always meet society's expectations for what all humans "should be able to do"

---

Why do some people find it so hard to believe that in some people the body could have a genuine physiological deficiency in energy production? Do they think that the body is somehow magic and that just because everyone "deserves" to have a functioning body that Just Works ™️ that this would make the universe somehow guarantee every human organism has perfect health in this specific way (despite not making any other guarantees of this kind), so that if something "looks like a human" it must "produce energy like a human", and anyone who doesn't is wilfully faking or else not putting mind over matter enough to fix themselves??

My theory: it's one of a few ways that people can tend to fail to see through the "ideal moral agent" abstraction to the "fallible meat machine" implementation that actually underpins it.

They think the universe is fair and reasonable (Just World Fallacy) and structured so that if a particular collection of atoms is A Human then it automatically gets access to perfect energy-generating metabolism that can't fail (because that wouldn't be fair / because they can't imagine not being able to Just Try Harder to get more energy)

Obviously we as ME sufferers can understand very well that the body is not some magic machine that always works perfectly, and that society's expectations for what everyone "should be able to do" are not grounded in the reality of biology underneath their "ideal human moral actor" abstraction!!

End rant

Anyone get prickly hot/cold (at the same time) feeling in skin, particularly arms?

[TW: TMI] >! Sometimes it happens more around the time of bowel movement!<

It seems to be related to sympathetic activation

Anyone get prickly hot/cold feeling in skin, particularly arms?

[TW: TMI] >! Sometimes it happens more around the time of bowel movement!<

It seems to be related to sympathetic activation