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How do we take care of ourselves now?

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Post by Prajnaparamita Wed Nov 09, 2016 10:18 am

I'm in shock and fear, as I'm sure the rest of you guys are now too, but we have to take care of ourselves now, be there for those who need us or even just be there for ourselves. In that vein I wanted to start a thread to encourage self care and talk about how we are taking care of ourselves and how we can take care of others. Please guys I care a ton about you, so let me know if there's anything that I, long distance stranger can do to help right now.

Anyway, for self care today I'm going to go for a long bike ride out in the woods, where news and current events can't follow me. Also, I'm going to try to help out around the house as much as I can--by the blessings of cold medicine I actually got some sleep last night, but I know my parents didn't and they're taking this just as hard.

I love you all and we'll be here for each other here.

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Post by reboot Wed Nov 09, 2016 12:34 pm

I wish I could do some self care. I am at work with a bunch of terrified clients
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Post by Enail Wed Nov 09, 2016 3:43 pm

Hugs for all of you. And kittens.

How do we take care of ourselves now? Enhanced-9333-1415129024-6
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Post by Werel Wed Nov 09, 2016 5:10 pm

I'm going to play with my dog all day. He doesn't give a shit who's president and is mostly just concerned with how the tennis ball apparently dematerializes when I hide it behind my back.

I am also going to remind myself that being brave and kind is better and less pointless than being afraid and angry, and try my best to act accordingly. Not doing so good at that so far, but I think it's permissible to melt down and mourn for one day.
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Post by reboot Wed Nov 09, 2016 5:19 pm

I just do not know what to tell my clients because I do not know what will happen to them or if their families will ever be able to come over. If what was said on the campaign trail happens, they or their families might die. I feel very helpless
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Post by Prajnaparamita Wed Nov 09, 2016 6:22 pm

reboot wrote:I just do not know what to tell my clients because I do not know what will happen to them or if their families will ever be able to come over. If what was said on the campaign trail happens, they or their families might die. I feel very helpless

Hey reboot, I just wanted to say that you're a hero of mine. I know you might not feel like it right now, but even from a distance through online interaction you're a person who I look up to a lot and who has been hugely inspiring in my personal work and decision to move towards social work as a career. I know I only know you through online interactions and even then we haven't really talked that much but I've always admired your wisdom, patience, determination, strength, and insight. It's okay to sometimes not know what to say to people--sometimes there is nothing that you can say. But I'll be thinking of you and weird as this might be to say, I'm really proud of you. Stay strong.

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Post by Wondering Wed Nov 09, 2016 6:56 pm

I have no energy for self-care. All my care energy is going to my newly diagnosed toddler. I have no optimism. When I look at her, all I have is fear that our medical coverage will be cut off and it will beggar us. And if it comes down to a choice between paying for hers and paying for mine, hers will triumph. When I look at her, I have fear she will grow up in a country more sexist and steeped in rape culture than I did. When I look at her, I worry she will become one of the people who voted for Trump because of the normalized and legitimized bigotry that won last night that she will be exposed to.

But...knowing that Clinton won the popular vote makes me less afraid of and angry toward other Americans. It means the majority of us did NOT allow bigotry to rule our hearts. I hope we can move from there.

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Post by Enail Wed Nov 09, 2016 7:33 pm

A Canadian politician who died a few years ago, Jack Layton, wrote something that resonated with me and many other people:


My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.


He had to write those words while he was dying; when the country read them, he was dead. It strikes me now how hard it must have been to write those simple, potentially trite words, how difficult it is to take ideas like that and mean them, and keep meaning them and believing them and living by them however dark the times and however much fear and hatred advance. I do believe them, though. And as disheartening as the situation is right now, I do still believe the many, many Americans who believe them, or ideas like them, will hold the line and help the country make it through.
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Post by Werel Wed Nov 09, 2016 7:42 pm

Thank you, Enail. I needed to hear that, as do most of us.
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Post by eselle28 Wed Nov 09, 2016 10:21 pm

I got drunk and watched dumb movies last night, and today I applied my tried and true method of unhappiness relief: I got up an hour early to do my hair and nails and then put on one of the prettiest dresses in my closet. Getting complimented all day is a vain method of self-care, but damned if it doesn't work. By some stroke of luck, I ended up sharing a department with someone who was also disappointed by the election results, while other people who were cheered by them were also paired together. Tomorrow I'm going to spend all day crocheting and cooking and playing with my cats - simple, useful things that occupy the mind. I have spent all year being glad that one of my first budget cuts after my February layoff was cancelling my cable (which, in my neighborhood, means I have no access to local stations either). I've been especially thankful for that over the last couple days. I'll eventually read the election post-mortems, but for now I'm going to try to concentrate on other parts of life.

Reboot, you deserve all the credit in the world for being able to get up and concentrate on helping others. You remind me of the Fred Rogers quote about finding hope in time of tragedy: ""When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'"

Enail, that's a beautiful post, and I'm going to try to remember those words going forward.
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Post by Wondering Wed Nov 09, 2016 11:49 pm

Y'all have a lot better self-care ideas and routines than me. Smile My normal self-care during emotional crisis is comfort food and wine. Which basically means carbs and wine. Lots and lots of carbs.

But today, when I tried that during the little tyke's nap, all I could think when I gave insulin to deal with all the carbs was that I should probably be stockpiling my insulin and not wasting it. Sad

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Post by reboot Thu Nov 10, 2016 8:35 am

I would love to say that I was being all noble and such, but really I had no idea what else to do and waa kind of in shock. But thank you Prajnaparamita! You totally made me blush Embarassed

Wondering, my coping mechanisms were vodka, cheese, bread and cured meat... alcohol, carbs, salt and fat... nutritionally balanced, no? Rooms and I attempted to drink away our depression and rage, but realized that there is not enough booze in the world to do that. He is handling it worse than me because he has realized he lost a leg for a country where 47% of people probably think he ought to "go home" since he could not possibly have been born here.

So here I sit with a massive hangover and wonder what to do? How do we work to minimize damage and make this a one term nightmare? I do not think marches and protests are as useful as they once were (despite feeling really good), so what do we do? I am thinking I am going to get out there now and try to convince green card holders to become citizens and vote and try to figure out how to keep new voters engaged. It is hard to do when they lose their first vote
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Post by eselle28 Thu Nov 10, 2016 2:16 pm

reboot wrote:vodka, cheese, bread and cured meat... alcohol, carbs, salt and fat

Well, I know what I'm having for dinner tonight...
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Post by Aggrax Thu Nov 10, 2016 6:42 pm

Wondering wrote:Y'all have a lot better self-care ideas and routines than me. Smile My normal self-care during emotional crisis is comfort food and wine. Which basically means carbs and wine. Lots and lots of carbs.

But today, when I tried that during the little tyke's nap, all I could think when I gave insulin to deal with all the carbs was that I should probably be stockpiling my insulin and not wasting it. Sad

I want you to know that you made my day better, because I read that as Crabs and Wine and then imagined a bunch of crabs sitting around getting hella drunk and watching dumb TV.
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Post by Werel Thu Nov 10, 2016 6:44 pm

I think a lot of you were old enough to be aware of 9/11, and maybe some of you even lived in DC or NY and experienced enough nonstop fear for the following 6-12 months that it kinda messed with your nascent neurochemistry. Anyway, this has felt a lot like 9/11, and it's been good to remark that not only do my coping strategies from when I was 14 still kinda work, but that at 30 I am less likely to be entirely incapacitated by fear. That's a nice thing to find out.

But more than that, I've been thinking about my high school teachers on 9/11 who kept their heads, who took terrified kids and put them to work making snack bags for firefighters, who read us poems extolling compassion over self-preservation, who reminded us that we had the capacity to be brave and resilient and good to each other, who gave no quarter to hysteria. They showed us how to behave usefully during a crisis, and I don't know if I could have made it through those months if they'd melted down. Thinking of those teachers, thinking of my friends who are teachers, thinking of how I'd want to behave in front of children right now, has helped a lot. Adults are stronger than they think when faced with people who don't have the coping mechanisms to handle adults' distress. I want to be like the best of my teachers were back then.

Also, Dark Souls and massive blunts.
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Post by Wondering Fri Nov 11, 2016 8:37 pm

Not self-care but part of caring for ourselves in the larger sense of caring for the community:

The safety pin thing: Wear a safety pin on your lapel to show you are a safe person to talk to and be around for Muslims, people of color, LGBTQ folks, or anyone feeling scared or threatened in this new American order. Origins due to the massive increase in violence post-Brexit.

http://www.vox.com/presidential-election/2016/11/10/13586322/trump-brexit-safety-pin

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Post by kath Sun Nov 13, 2016 11:02 pm

Enail wrote:A Canadian politician who died a few years ago, Jack Layton, wrote something that resonated with me and many other people:


My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

*hearts* I miss Jack Layton.
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