which I'm not really sure how to do in an election year without completely unplugging from the Internet

but I feel like unplugging from the Internet will make me feel lonely and isolated

I've been going to the cardiologist lately. My chest keeps hurting, I keep feeling dizzy

they had me wear a heart monitor for 24 hours, and couldn't find anything wrong except for the fact that my resting heart rate is in the triple digits

they suggested that its either stimulants (which I take almost none of at this point. I don't drink coffee, I drink very little soda these days, I don't take any stimulant drugs...) or stress

and like, the stress explanation feels like a copout and I'm pushing for a CT scan (which they're making me wait until September to get, boy golly isn't US healthcare awesome), but I have to admit that I am very stressed and like half of it is money problems and the other half is the specter of Donald Trump winning the election in a few months and

I completely understand

building concentration camps and defunding public education and defunding what little healthcare protections are in place and removing what little legal protections LGBT+ people have and all the other insane shit Trump has promised to do

and like I can't even focus on trying to support Trump's only real opponent this time without being called a shill for a genocide enabler and being accused of not caring about Palestinians and just holy fuck

I care about Palestine, ok?

but like, it's going to be Biden or Trump, it just is. The only way it's not is if one of those old fuckers dies

and even then, if Biden died, I guarantee that whoever replaced him would not be any fucking better in terms of standing up to Israel

And that's not an excuse for Biden that's an indictment of how fucked we are

we are the baddies

We are the Fire Nation

We are the Galactic Empire

and every four years we have to participate in this fucking fucked up trolley problem where we try to pick the slightly less ghoulish motherfucker

and we're at a point now if we fail to stop the worse of the two even once thats fucking it

we're already at the precipice of tipping into just full on fascist military power

I mean I know we're basically already there but I mean like full on Nazi Germany 2.0

Trumps already talking about rolling the US military into Mexico to take out the cartels

and like I know he says a lot of insane shit and only some of it actually happens but that feels like a 100% believable thing at this point

Just rolling into neighboring countries on whatever flimsy justification

because we can

who is going to stop us?

We already just ignore the fuckign UN whenever we feel like it

ugh my heart is pounding again

I completely understand what Biden is guilty of with Palestine. However who in their right mind thinks Trump won't be actively worse? and dislike all you (general you) want, those are our choices. Bad and Evil.

Usually the argument is that people just don't want to participate in the choice at all if the only two real options are a fascist and a turbo fascist and like I get that but, Trump and his more importantly his team have some really fucking ghoulish plans this time around

I feel like throwing up

it's so bad

I really need Trump to lose in November and even if he does I know things are still going to be bad

and like I don't have the energy to do shit about shit anymore

my finances are drained, my heart is being weird, I have kidney issues, I'm tired and achy all the time, it feels like a monumental effort to just buy groceries and shit

It's like I have all these personal scale problems and then in the background it's also the end of the fucking world

I'm so tired

komikbookgeek: thank you

you're welcome.

I even feel bad about feeling bad because like, of boo hoo, I have to wait a few months to get a CT scan because of bureaucracy? Meanwhile countless people in hospitals have been bombed into oblivion.

Oh I can't afford groceries because my increase in pay hasn't kept up with the increase of cost of living? Cool over in Palestine people are starving to death and eating whatever they can because the Israelis are intentionally blocking aid and killing aid volunteers with weapons from the US

cool cool

their suffering does not negate your suffering

yeah, your problems are real and are not invalidated by the fact that others elsewhere are much worse off

have they already checked your bloodwork for things like iron deficiency?

i usually have excellent blood pressure and a few years ago i suddenly started having high blood pressure every time i showed up at my doctor's office, and they made jokes about "white coat hypertension" (when being at the dr makes you so nervous your blood pressure goes up)

but it turned out it was actually anemia and the walk from the parking lot to the office was enough to make my heart react like I'd just finished going for a jog

so i would make sure you get iron deficiency ruled out too via bloodwork

oh yeah that's a good point

also they shouldn't be taking your blood pressure unless you are sitting still and quietly (talking is fine but like not passionate talking or stressful talking) with both feet flat on the floor

I take my own blood pressure almost every day at the dr’s request, I bought a little machine for it. Even with medication it’s quite high, as is my bpm

My log since starting bp medication:
6/20, 7:45am: 149/105 84 BPM

6/22 9:26am 152/100 95 BPM

6/23 7:26am 153/101 98 BPM

6/25 11:35am: 150/99 93 BPM

6/27, 7:50am: 149/100 94 BPM

6/29 9:52am 134/88 102 BPM

6/30 1:17pm 147/98 86 BPM

7/2 8:20am 156/95 103 BPM

7/3 8:00am 145/100 99 BPM

7/4 3:50pm 140/104 94BPM

7/5 11:50am 137/91 81 BPM

7/7 8:01am 139/99 85 BPM

7/9 7:17 am 142/100 82 BPM

That’s after sitting in a chair for a few minutes breathing slowly in the proper bp testing posture

It's so fucked up, I'm sorry.

ack, the sitting time is 15 minutes btw, but yeah that's too high.

Man, so, those efforts to cut back on my politics intake have not worked out 😂