My husband has been slowly replacing stuff with Myles Apparel. He’s a weightlifter, so finding clothes that fit his quads (and allows him to still, you know, move) is a tall order. No ripping, tearing, funky workout stink, or any other issues so far! Also looks like they can ship internationally.

Sometimes keeping a symptom journal or diary can help your medical providers piece things together. They are only seeing you once for 10-30 minutes, but you’re living in your body and experiencing symptoms way more frequently. Don’t log obsessively, but maybe once a day review your pain (rated 1-5) and write down any noteworthy symptoms or episodes. And as someone else mentioned, get good at condensing your medical “story” to date, including your current symptoms.

Doctors will always go for the simplest explanation, even if it’s wrong. This is how they are trained (in the west, anyway). So don’t give up! Continue insisting on a proper diagnosis. Get another opinion. See a different specialist. If you find it difficult to advocate for yourself, imagine if this was your friend. How many mountains would move to get the same answers for a dear friend? And apply that logic and compassion to yourself. Have a bestie come with you to appointments if they are willing to.

A big part of the “suck” in this process is the not knowing. Will you be in pain forever? Will you get better? Will you get worse? Is it really a mystery illness? Will you ever get a diagnosis? With chronic pain you’ll find yourself exhausted often with the effort required to ignore the pain. So feel the pain sometimes. Lean into it. You may find it’s a relief to feel it instead of trying to block it out.

It’s maybe also worth accepting that these issues may never totally resolve. If they do, great. But what if they don’t? How can you live a happy and fulfilling life (which millions of people do with chronic pain/disability) even if it stays the same?

Lastly, I want to say that you have a separate problem, which is the lack of social support you are getting from your family. They are gaslighting you about your illness - of course you know your body best and are experiencing what you say you are. You are young and may depend on them financially, so that’s a needle you have to thread. But I’d encourage you to spend more time with friends who love and believe you.

If you have access, it’s worth working with a therapist on all of this. From what you’ve described, you have been left all alone to grapple with a disability that no one can even explain. That is an awful lot for someone to hold by themselves. Whatever happens with your illness, I hope you are able to get the love and support you deserve - which may never be offered by your family.

Shostakovich, Dvorak, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky…I guess I have a thing for the Eastern Europeans, lol. I’m a violinist and idk how to explain it really, but it’s like the Eastern European composers understand the feel of the instrument better. Or maybe the way I play is just more aligned with that style. Either way, I find their pieces are more fun and dynamic (and sometimes, also challenging) to play.

Prep the frogs, make a burrito, use a pillow, thread the stems, put it in the hydration chamber, processing and stripping, cram and jam, just tube it, mechanics, so many more!

I’m a (foam-free) wedding and event florist.

Haha for real! At least we have some self awareness left.

I can’t tell if you’re joking, but apologies if this should have had a TW.

In my opinion, it would require a lot of policy changes on a national level (paid family leave, basic income/safety net things like expanding WIC and food stamps, universal healthcare including mental health and drug treatment, regulating social media for teens, stopping the use of fossil fuels, etc. - the wishlist is long!) as well as local investment in things like community centers, community events, support for parents, and small business.

We have plenty of money to do all of this, our leaders just choose not to. We need better leaders and/or a better system for electing them. And at this point, I don’t know how we get better leaders when a significant proportion of the country is in a cult.

Oops, your white supremacy is showing!

Yes. This is the result of a privatized health system where the only outcome that matters is profit. Doctors write enough opioid prescriptions each year for 46% of Americans to receive one. (Source: https://drugabusestatistics.org/opioid-epidemic/)

It’s absolute madness, but I do think the prescribing is getting better slowly. Unfortunately, the massive jumps in ODs seem very related to fentanyl taking over an illicit drug market that used to be primarily heroin and rx opiates. When I worked on national drug use surveys ~8 years ago, fentanyl was not a part of the landscape at all. Things have changed so quickly.

For sure, the deaths are simply the final outcome of a vast amount of suffering that cannot accurately be measured.

The corrosion of community, friendship, and third spaces are all well documented sociological phenomena that our country has yet to sufficiently address. Part of this is due to the decline in religious worship, which, while not a bad thing per se, does reduce a historically large source of socialization for our country. Part of this is due to the urbanization of our country over the last 30-50 years, and the hollowing out of many small towns. And of course part of it is due to the increased toxicity of our political systems, workplaces, and economic realities that limit our participation in society.

I guess all of that to say - none of this is an individual issue, it’s all systemic and part of the same sociological story. Feeling like a weird person for interacting with a stranger isn’t an isolated incident. It’s more a testament to how much has changed about our social world in the last 30-50 years.

To bring a slightly different perspective here: we’re not coping.

Our suicide rate has increased 60% since 2011 among youth and young adults. Rates of mental illness have doubled in young people. About 1 in 5 young people in this country will experience depression.

Our rates of overdose deaths have doubled since 2011. Over 100,000 people died from drug use in this country in 2021.

One in five of our kids go hungry. One in five Americans live with mental illness.

When you look at these data they are absolutely alarming and the opposite of most other countries, whose rates are falling. We are not coping, people are just dying these “deaths of despair.”

I totally agree. I remember when being in the phone book was enough for people to run a B2C business! The current marketing landscape for small biz owners is a nightmare, both in terms of privacy and the number of places online we are expected to “be active.” A lot of people get really burnt out on it because they also don’t realize that marketing and sales is like 80% of the work, and the fun thing you love to do is like 20%.

Come hang! Sorry, I also thought you were OP when I responded, so ignore references to wedding biz things that don’t apply to you!

Aw thanks! I mostly lurked on the other site but I’d love to make this a good place for good people :) and when you can’t sleep after taking the dog out, and someone asks about the exact tightrope you’ve been walking for years, what else do you do but write a long, sleep deprived answer? Lol

Absolutely! My pleasure and I’d welcome it!

Me too! Unfortunately, most people have traded convenience for privacy at this point. Which means both your potential clients and fellow wedding pros will be in all the places you don’t want to engage with.

But I will say, the nice thing about owning your own business is that you make the rules! You don’t have to do things that don’t align with your values. You can still market your business ethically, you just might need a longer timeline for profitability.

Hi! I’m a wedding florist and educator in the US. I also have PiHole running at home (thanks to my partner) and feel the same way about social media - absolutely hate it, no personal accounts, and it’s only for the business.

Edited to add: I draw a hard line in my business with paying Meta or Google to advertise. I have never paid Zuck a dime. I also refuse to use TikTok because it’s a privacy nightmare.

Here’s how I handle different marketing channels:

SEO - my bread and butter - allows me to blog useful things and not feel slimy. Try to blog about things “upstream” from your services that couples would hire first - venues, planners, caterers maybe.

Instagram - I’m a florist, it’s a must. I used to use a separate device but after forgetting it at a wedding for behind-the-scenes shots, and the having to transfer everything over, I just gave up. I have Instagram on my main phone and it annoys me. I have mic/photo permissions turned off unless I post a story/reel. I use Tailwind for IG and Pinterest static posts.

Facebook - I don’t use the app, just desktop. have a FB page but I rarely log in. Tailwind allows me to post my IG post to FB without logging in.

Pinterest - I don’t use the app, just desktop. And I use Tailwind to schedule. To be honest I do not get any leads from Pinterest, so I stopped caring about it.

Networking - This is another key source of leads for me. We have several local wedding vendor groups here, and I belong to all of them. And I go to meetings regularly. I highly encourage you to go out and meet the people who will eventually refer you! (But never ask for a referral/preferred vendor until you’ve worked together at least once.)

The Knot/WW - Worth having a free listing. Only worth having a paid listing if your service is low cost and you’re interested in volume. Are there French sites like those you could be listed on, some kind of directory?

Wedding shows - I’ve never done a wedding show but some people have lots of success. Whatever you do, make sure you make them book a consultation with you right there at the booth. Otherwise you will lose them. It’s not enough to gather emails (although, do that too) because they will be getting a billion emails after the show from vendors. Be the first in their inbox. Have an incentive for scheduling their consult that’s not a discount (e.g. bigger photo book if they end up booking with you or something).

Hope that helps! Never keep doing a marketing method that isn’t bringing you the right people. It’s a waste of your time and you can’t do all these things, you’ll go mad! Please DM me if you have questions or wanna chat more, I’m happy to help. Je parle français aussi, mais seulement après café :)

If you image search it you will find all kinds of cool stuff! Even better if you get a chance to wander around Tirana and find hidden ones!

I should have linked that too, but yes, he’s great!!

Let me introduce you to Tirana, Albania which has done exactly as you suggest! They elected a former painter as mayor in 2000, and the rest is history. So many of the brutalist buildings in the city are now covered with bright colors, murals, patterns, and more. You can check out some before and after images here: https://blog.ted.com/9-views-of-tirana-albania-with-its-bright-multicolored-building/