meg’s malaise

The landscape of this country would be entirely different if the Reconstruction Era electoral wins secured by newly freed Black folks had never been stifled by lynchings and pogroms.

The violence now, after decades of wins for queer, trans, Black, Brown, disabled, and migrant folks, same energy.

People with mild ME/Long Covid & people who have recovered, please start advocating for the most severe instead of mildwashing the disease & using your story to sell your personal projects while feeding the media narrative of “individual overcoming” 🙏

A tumblr text post from kdhumecurious. It read as follows: "I get that people don't see the damage they do by spreading covid unless the consequences hit them or someone close to them. But I do. I see suicidal ideation posts in the long covid support groups every week, often from people who have never had mental health struggles before. I hear about kids losing their childhoods, teenagers missing their youth. I hear stories from ultra marathon runners who can't get out of bed and doctors, engineers, and scientists who have to retire because of covid brain damage. When we spread covid, we ruin lives. Not some tiny percentage, but millions of lives. Possibly permanently. In the face of all this pain and damage, I cannot understand the refusal to mask in public. It makes me doubt the goodness of friends and family and people I've known all my life. Especially when I beg them to care, not just about me, but about strangers. Kids who are going to grow up in pain from damage they never should have been exposed to in the first place. Why don't they matter enough to make a change? What magic combination of words can I use to make that pain matter? Why won't you try?"

PEM warrants recognition as a neurological pathology resulting from metabolic and immune dysregulation (3). Approximately 48 hr after a triggering event—physical, cognitive, or emotional—patients experience what is colloquially termed a “crash.” This involves a surge in neurological symptoms that may render them unable to function: profound fatigue, cognitive slowing, hypersomnia, photophobia, phonophobia, tinnitus, nausea, headaches, migraines, executive dysfunction, word-finding difficulties, working memory impairment, pain, and worsening dysautonomia with orthostatic intolerance, mood disorders. Although these symptoms may be present at baseline, they rapidly escalate in the disabling cacophony of the “crash”. Many patients report diurnal variation, with symptoms peaking midday and easing somewhat towards night, repeating daily until resolution, suggesting a neuroimmune process with a circadian rhythm. Patients often experience disablement until the episode resolves over days or weeks.

Great to see a UK GP writing a BMJ e-letter like this:

"Research must consider Post Exertional Malaise as a neurological event underpinning fluctuating cognitive dysfunction in Long Covid"

www.bmj.com/content/390/...

#PEM #LongCovid

It’s an absolute shame that DC fired Gretchen Felker- Martin for exercising free speech and then @bsky.app suspended her account. Every writer here should be decrying this because we have to stand up for each other! This is ridiculous.

I don't mourn white supremacists

Thinking more about the quiet violence & deaths than the loud ones 💙🕯️

The MSNBC commentator saying that most political violence has historically come from the left just once again showed how we suffer from failing to learn history. Lynching, pogroms, race riots, the political violence that ended Reconstruction, and against the Civil Rights Movement. Come on.

At least 2 students injured after shooting at a Denver-area high school, officials say | CNN At least two students are in critical condition after a shooting at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado, where more than 100 law enforcement officers cleared the school “room by room” as it w...

Two students & the shooter are in critical condition after a shooting at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado. The shooting happened outside the school.
This is the 47th shooting that took place at a school in the US so far this year 23 were on K-12 school grounds
www.cnn.com/2025/09/10/u...

Shooting at Evergreen High School in Colorado leaves several students hurt; suspect among those injured Three students were critically wounded on Wednesday in a shooting at Evergreen High School in the Colorado foothills. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office says one of those students is the shooting s...

Save any empathy you were about to give Charlie Kirk, the TPUSA founder, double it, and send it towards Evergreen High School instead.

Three kids in critical condition….

www.cbsnews.com/colorado/new...

Three high schoolers, who likely didn't make a career out of enabling and encouraging fascism, were shot in Colorado today.

🤞🤞

Framing of the Trial Long COVID-associated cognitive impairment is a type of ADRD Studying Long COVID-associated cognitive impairment will provide better insight into factors that drive ADRD, especially in younger previously healthy people Long COVID-associated cognitive impairment may be reversible if we target these factors REVERSE LC

Michael Peluso slide from the RECOVER-TLC conference today.

ADRD = "Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias"

As someone affected, I am actually relieved to hear someone be straight about this: Long Covid "brain fog" is dementia. Enough soft-pedaling; it's a crisis.

Wow, well that’s validating 😳 scary, but validating

people are always telling me that we just have to wait for olds to die off & then everything will be fine.

i usually respond with, "the woman who lied about emmett till whistling & got him lynched was 21. the murderers were 24 & 35. there's more to do than wait.”

there will always be hitler youth.

Need this to get national attention, this is such a massive victory for people in Atlanta.

Illustrated graphic with large text reading: 'Finding Comfort When Bedbound: A Community Member Shares Her Advice.' Smaller text below says: 'August is Severe ME Awareness Month. A community member generously shared her personal strategies for making her space more comfortable and manageable while living mostly bedbound.' Illustration shows a bedside table with items including water bottles, lamp, alarm clock reading 10:08, medications, snacks, and personal care supplies. A bed with orange bedding and two stuffed animal figures is partly visible.

Living with severe #MECFS often means being bedbound. One community member shares practical tips, like bedside setups & sensory relief, to make daily life more manageable. 💙 Read more: buff.ly/nkcCa5r

It’s really disgusting when you think about it. Would they use any other disease as a cheeky little metaphor? It’s so inappropriate, and absolutely contributes to the stigma pwLC have to face

It's hard to feel hopeful about us defeating fascism when a bunch of liberals with large accounts on this site waste time punching down on disabled folks, minimizing Covid & chronic illness.

Fascism starts with normalizing eugenics

Can confirm this post made me feel properly defended 🙋‍♀️

Working on a story for @thesicktimes.org about the quality, utility, and risks of exercise trials in Long COVID (and how often they mention/measure PEM). Looking to speak with anyone that's participated in these trials and experienced PEM/other negative side effects as a result.

One of the most annoying things about having Long Covid is that people who see me infrequently ALWAYS ask if I’m better when they do see me.

And like… No 😀 I am chronically ill 😀 chronic means it doesn’t go away 😀 there is no treatment or cure 😀 I’m tired of doing this 😀

My perspective on Covid-19 vaccination as an “OG Long-Hauler” in the Long Covid community:

1) It was not a silver bullet, & other protective measures were dropped or ignored to the detriment of many ppl who continued to die from or become disabled by covid…

I wake up with long covid every day. Decisions about my leisure or work are now guided by disability. When I see doctors, I have to manage their level of ignorance about the illness. In public, I am ostracized, sometimes confronted for wearing a mask. None of this has anything to do with anxiety.

Are acute Covid deaths down? Absolutely, and huzzah.
Are infections down? No.
Is long covid dropping? No.
Is it rising? Yes.
Is it curable? No.
Are excess deaths normal? No.
Are healthcare resources still strained? Yes.
Is vaccine uptake high? No.
Are waves still unpredictable? Yes.

You think death is the worst thing that can happen from COVID? Honestly, Michael, do fucking better.

The millions of people who have Long COVID and the 3 in 10 that get it from even “mild” COVID cases would beg to disagree with you.

Also, death data reporting has changed *drastically.*

This is a good piece. Both because it details what Long COVID can be like and also because it gets into how when you're miserable due to illness or injury you will try just about anything (and that makes you really vulnerable). (I hate people who prey on people who are hurting.)

To understand more ab #LongCOVID, pls read up on these conditions:

ME/CFS

POTS

MCAS

Most have never heard of these conditions

They can be extremely disabling

& they’re NOT the only long term effect of COVID infections

COVID can exacerbate ANY pre-existing health condition

#LongCOVIDAwareness

I wish people would stop blaming COVID mitigation policies for the acceleration of right wing extremism, and instead acknowledge the fact that we endured a mass casualty and mass disabling event that was mismanaged by narcissistic authoritarians who shifted the blame to marginalized communities