askye, what Zen said, and we're here for you if you need anything.

I'm snuffly today, which is only making my "morning" sickness worse. I really hope I'm not getting sick.

askye, when you were a small child, a lot of scary, painful, confusing, and yes, traumatic medical things happened to you. You were very young, too young to understand intellectually the medical stuff. Even if the nurses and doctors and your parents did everything they could to help you understand, it might not have really gotten through the way it needs to to make those procedures feel like medical procedures to you. Events like those feel different to a child who can't process them intellectually and so create some mental distance. Not only that but the grown-ups around you may have been so focussed on making you comply in order to get things done, that they did not notice you had emotions to process about what was happening to you. It might be easy to find people whose stories seem worse to you, and say, "They have PTSD, I just had some medical procedures." But you deserve care. You deserve to not minimize your suffering for the convenience of others. Yes your parents and nurses and doctors were doing the best they could for you. But if through their own ignorance or inability they were not able to give you the emotional care you needed then so that you had to swallow your feelings then, you deserve care now. You deserve to feel fully and freely whatever emotions you have, then or now - and have those emotions accepted so that you can be the healthiest possible.

{{askye}} What they said better!

Sister says nephew looks a bit better today and they are reducing sedation so he is showing some recognition. Still in bad shape. My niece will be there tomorrow. They are cousins born the same day (2 years apart) so they are super close.

My umbrella stand on my patio is almost two feet tall, and it's almost covered with snow. This is epic.

Tomorrow, it's supposed to rain and be well above freezing, so maybe it'll all just go away without me having to shovel anything. I'd like to be able to go to the grocery tomorrow evening wihtout drama or heavy lifting.

Should I buy three cowl-neck sweaters, on sale for $20 apiece, in a cotton/acrylic blend that I know I like, that might or might not fit, in different colors because I don't know which one I'll like best, with the knowledge that I will be returning at least one and maybe all of them? I should be spending less money, but I do need a nice new sweater.

I don't do austerity well.

My landlord is shoveling my walk for the first time in 16 years. No lie. FIRST time.

Nice touch, but I'd rather he respond to the letter I sent on the 6th with roughly 15 repairs that need doing INSIDE the house.

Gotta get a lawyer. Don't wanna.

I'm going to just point and nod at what WindSparrow said. And WindSparrow, I don't know if I've said it lately, but you are one of the kindest, most wise people I know. Also very eloquent.

Zen, $20 seems like a very good deal to me. It doesn't sound extravagant at all.

Rough day. Funeral this morning (thank god for Nora, I think that almost every day), ongoing family crisis, and I think I'm getting a migraine. Am eating in case it's low blood sugar related - I feel okay but I know I'm not because my normal body signals aren't getting through. Will be chilling out at home tonight, perhaps pronouns will return.

smonster, I don't have time to read this whole article, but here's one on fecal transplants and mental health (as a PDF): [link] I'll try to read it tomorrow, if you need someone to parse the info in it.

t edit This is a super-short editorial, but it refers to a study in mice, where mice who were bred to be anxious had a fecal transplant from mice who were bred to be calm, and the anxious mice because calm and confident: [link]

This 2013 article from Psychology Today refers to the same mouse study: [link]

My cousin is a microbiology professor who is fascinated by fecal transplants (and when she found out that I am, too, she shares links with me on FB), and I can ask her if she knows of any studies on its use in mental health. I'll shoot her an email right now.

Also, in a little bit of googling, you might want to also search on the term "psychobiotics." This article doesn't specifically mention fecal transplants, but it talks about the strong link between gut health and mental health, and addresses leaky gut syndrome, which is a real thing and a big problem: [link]

First off, I haven't read the articles, but is this essentially saying that one person's shit can change the way another person's brain works?