Covid, fear, oppression, and keeping your joy and health

[Trinity]

What are the things you do to stay mentally healthy as a nonbinary human, to nurture yourself and not get poisoned by the crap going on around us, to rise above the madness and the monsters and live happy joyous and free in spite of it all?

[Trinity]

Me- music, joyrides, candles and insence, horspower, shaved legs, binge watching good tv, prayer, 12 step programs, reaching out to others, talking on the forum, being who I really am at home, sharing with others.

And compulsive spending, brain lock, obsessive thinking, rage, anger, depression, facebook hypnosis of the phone, retreating, hiding.... I can go there in a heartbeat, latest obsession is how to get my hands on a 9 shot revolver for self defense that i doubt I need.

[Ativan Prescribed]

I have faced some of the worse over the years, the ability to not dwell on things that I can't change and instead just note them and move on until the conversation calls for my opinion.
But I have seen people face far worse than we are facing in this country and despite it all, the death, the hunger, the disease, the oppressed dictatorship they lived under, the constant threats from every direction, they still found the things to be happy about.
We tend to think of things as being bad when they are just inconvenient, the majority of people have it far better right now still in this country than they do in a lot of places around the world, and the threat of the virus is just one more thing, in Africa the threat of Ebola is still there, malaria as well, starvation is a thing in far to many places, and the war torn places in the world are some of the worst, yet the human spirit lives on despite it, we really don't have it bad at all, just turn fox news off and the world is a much happier place.
In fact, take all of the news with a grain, because what you hear and read is just a snippet of what is really going on, tune out the gibberish and tune out trump, don't let the jackasses in life dictate your happiness.

[Trinity]

Jun 26, 2020 9:38:21 GMT 8 Ativan Prescribed said:

I have faced some of the worse over the years, the ability to not dwell on things that I can't change and instead just note them and move on until the conversation calls for my opinion.
But I have seen people face far worse than we are facing in this country and despite it all, the death, the hunger, the disease, the oppressed dictatorship they lived under, the constant threats from every direction, they still found the things to be happy about.
We tend to think of things as being bad when they are just inconvenient, the majority of people have it far better right now still in this country than they do in a lot of places around the world, and the threat of the virus is just one more thing, in Africa the threat of Ebola is still there, malaria as well, starvation is a thing in far to many places, and the war torn places in the world are some of the worst, yet the human spirit lives on despite it, we really don't have it bad at all, just turn fox news off and the world is a much happier place.
In fact, take all of the news with a grain, because what you hear and read is just a snippet of what is really going on, tune out the gibberish and tune out trump, don't let the jackasses in life dictate your happiness.

The key is in the perception, the oppression, the choices we can make, and yes what we cannot change.  But its head choices, warrior choices, what are we going to do about how we feel, sure, we have a lot, can write the gratitude lists and should, see it that way, but feeling bad is feeling bad, with the roots of the reasons for it.

Getting at the root thinking that creates the pain is key, having hope is key, and then making the best of the moment, seizing it and squeezing it for all the joy it offers, thats the deal.

Live life like you are creating it, write your play, make it a thing of joy, there are choices we can make and things we can turn off to do that, create the environment that makes joy and live it out....

[Leena]

I'm basically still mostly just staying inside. Not much different than when I was staying inside because I was depressed pre-transition. I'm not really depressed now, so I'm just enjoying it, though sometimes a bit bored. I'm getting back into drawing, it calms me down and is something I can do before bed that isn't too stimulating like playing music or doing anything that involves looking at LCD screens.

There is quite a lot of overlap between the people that are bigots and people that are refusing to wear masks. The willful ignorance these people have has always existed in this country. Maybe you just didn't see it before. I didn't totally see it when I was in semi-denial. What scares me a bit is that I might have been wanting to go out to the bars and not wear a mask had this virus happened 10 years ago.

[Ativan Prescribed]

Jun 27, 2020 0:31:14 GMT 8 Leena said:

 LCD screens.

f.lux a good program to adjust out the blue and brightness of the screens.
Windows 10 has a similar setting that works as well.
All monitors, computer and TV have settings that will allow you to take a lot of the blue out of them, Find the general setting and also adjust the color balance by taking out some of the blue.
Turn the brightness down and use more backlight and adjust the white balance so it looks good even with the blue turned down and the brightness turned down, takes some fiddling around but once you get used to it, the colors are right there and the contrast up along with white balance adjusted actually makes for better color, just lots less of that over powering light and especially the blue, what the leds in the back of the screen do is generic bright blue color, which the advertisers and such like for the bright colors they can then have, but I don't have a problem anymore and haven't since using f.lux, turns the screen a deep orange the later it gets in the evening, and although I have it set way to the blue being turned down, you get used to it and don't really notice so much, I get up in the middle of the night and freak over just how orange it looks at first, but your eyes and brain adjust pretty fast to that.
Done right, it is a lot closer to what you see in a sunset and as that happens, you don't notice the color changes around you but they are about the same, nice mellow look and its actually if done right very soothing on your eyes and brain, the frequencies of a sunset are the ones that just make people feel good.

[Leena]

Jun 28, 2020 9:05:55 GMT 8 Ativan Prescribed said:

Jun 27, 2020 0:31:14 GMT 8 Leena said:

 LCD screens.

f.lux a good program to adjust out the blue and brightness of the screens.
Windows 10 has a similar setting that works as well.
All monitors, computer and TV have settings that will allow you to take a lot of the blue out of them, Find the general setting and also adjust the color balance by taking out some of the blue.
Turn the brightness down and use more backlight and adjust the white balance so it looks good even with the blue turned down and the brightness turned down, takes some fiddling around but once you get used to it, the colors are right there and the contrast up along with white balance adjusted actually makes for better color, just lots less of that over powering light and especially the blue, what the leds in the back of the screen do is generic bright blue color, which the advertisers and such like for the bright colors they can then have, but I don't have a problem anymore and haven't since using f.lux, turns the screen a deep orange the later it gets in the evening, and although I have it set way to the blue being turned down, you get used to it and don't really notice so much, I get up in the middle of the night and freak over just how orange it looks at first, but your eyes and brain adjust pretty fast to that.
Done right, it is a lot closer to what you see in a sunset and as that happens, you don't notice the color changes around you but they are about the same, nice mellow look and its actually if done right very soothing on your eyes and brain, the frequencies of a sunset are the ones that just make people feel good.

Yeah, I already do all that, I don't think blue light is the issue. It's just spending to much time looking at screens. I do it for the type of work I do. I do it to stay informed of what's going on. I do it for entertainment. I usually do it when I'm playing music. I used to get a lot of eye strain even before covid-19. I did at least spend some time out at the mall, or walking around outside, and a lot of time driving around as well.

I do find drawing pretty relaxing though, even if it's still something I'm using my eyes for, it's somehow different.

[Yuki]

In some ways, being on the truck is nice for that. In other ways, it's stressful. Making sure we have time/the ability to get necessities done is stressful.

But, when it's not stressful, it's nice. Constantly going down the road all day, watching the trees and scenery go by. Sometimes you go over a nice lake or river, or through lots of green hilly farmland, or through and over mountains. But there's always something new to see.

I like seeing how the trees and flowers are different as we go through different parts of the country. The shades of green change, too.

I'm also knitting with the loom. I wasn't sure if I'd like it or not, but when it was offered to me for free, I figured I'd try it. And I actually do like it. I think I like the fact that I'm making things than can be useful, like hats for us and a sweater for Jax, but I can have fun with it too.. like adding pompoms to Jax's sweater even if it looks a bit ridiculous, because why not. It's fun.

So that's been helpful, too.

I can dress however I want out here because no one gives a shit. The main people we see are other truckers, who don't have the time to care about what they look like, let alone what anyone else looks like. Most of us haven't showered in days. No one has time to care what the other people in the truck stop look like. This all helps with my social anxiety. Especially when it means we also have to not give a shit what we look like when we go to Walmart or any other grocery store for groceries, either. Lol.

We rode our scooters to Michaels yesterday so I could look for a better hook for the looms. It was hot. By the time we got there, we were covered in sweat and we had to take our scooters through the store too and we got stared at for that. Normally that would make me feel like we were doing something bad for bringing the scooters in... and I wouldn't have wanted to go in all sweaty, either. But I have to not care, now.. or I'll never leave the truck.

But that's kind of off topic. Other than just to say I can freely be non-binary, at least in the truck stops, because it means I blend in anyway if I'm wearing men's clothes with a buzzed head there.

But Covid sucks. Most places, we are still the only ones wearing masks. Although I have noticed that, at least where we've been the past few days, more people are wearing masks right now than they have been.

It could just be because we're further north, though, I don't know. But yesterday, more people were actually wearing masks than not.. and the same for when we were in Pennsylvania a few days ago.