A president makes me cry
And not the one you think. Plus, the Antidote #44: preventing COVID, healing the nervous system, and UFO's.
The Tonic is a lighthearted, heavily resourced newsletter for folks interested in learning about long COVID, ME/CFS, and other health conditions. Come for the info; stay for the whimsy. Or vice versa.
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On occasion, I receive a comment or a note from one of my readers informing me that some aspect of my newsletter is difficult for them to consume. One such comment over a year ago led to my eliminating the use of GIFs (except on rare occasion). That person told me that seeing something that moves within their visual field while they are trying hard to concentrate on reading was basically causing their brain to scramble.
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I welcome this kind of feedback from anyone struggling to get through my posts. It’s sometimes easier to just disengage and leave, but the folks who have given feedback have wanted to stick around, and I really appreciate that.
He made me cry
Lately I’ve been feeling kind of emotionally numb. How about you?
I’m able to feel a level of outrage at what’s going on in the world and particularly in the U.S., but admittedly it’s been a sort of cognitive-only outrage, banging around against the walls of my head whenever I read the latest report of fuckery in the news, but not really dropping down into my body in any obvious way.
I’ve also been noticing in my recovery program (CFS Recovery) that there is a lot of talk of people being in “emotional AP’s” (AP stands for “adjustment period,” and is basically a more constructive spin on a symptom flare after overdoing it, the idea being that we actually need to experience AP’s in order to progress upwards toward recovery). Junior Ky, one of the program coaches and a certifiable sage (he seriously always has a great answer for every question he’s asked) recently created a handout for program participants on how to feel and process emotions, because so many of us with these conditions are either getting lost in our emotions or are unsure how to feel them and move them through.
While I have been making great progress toward recovery and feeling positive and happy about that, I have been wondering lately why I seemingly haven’t been able to feel or process heavier or negative emotions. As my fellow thrivers in CFS Recovery post about being in these emotional AP’s, I’ve been sitting and wondering why I haven’t been having any of these lately (though I do recognize now that I was having periods of sadness/anger/grief/despair much earlier in my illness and recovery). Overall, I’ve been feeling a bit like something isn’t quite ‘working right’ inside of me.
Which brings me to last weekend, and Baldy’s and my wedding anniversary (22 years! Dang, how did that happen??).
I cried on my anniversary, which sounds sad and like not the right idea.
But it wasn’t Baldy who made me cry; it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Well, and the current guy.
Let me explain.
For years and years and years, Baldy and I have talked about visiting the FDR Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY, not terribly far from where we live. Initially when our anniversary was approaching this year, I really wanted to do a hike, now that I can again (we did a four-miler the weekend before - yay!). But the weather didn’t look great (cloudy/rainy/humid and warm - in the 80’s). So, I suggested this could finally be our day to head to Hyde Park, and Baldy agreed.
We entered the visitor center and hit the bathrooms. When we emerged, I noticed that there was some loud audio coming from an open door, outside of which was a sign that said, “orientation movie, plays on the half hour.” Baldy wasn’t so interested, since although he has a shaved head, tattoos, a motorcycle, and a generally bad attitude, he then surprises people by being a Renaissance man who likes artful filmmaking and devours books on history, politics, and current events. But I only got a 3 on my AP American History exam because: boring (back then, anyway). I wanted to see the movie and brush up on my FDR history before walking through the whole museum.
After killing ten minutes in the gift shop (which rather oddly had a whole section of books on Lyme and chronic Lyme - anyone know what connection may have existed between the disease and the Roosevelts?), we went back to the small theater and watched the orientation film along with two other couples who had 20+ years on us (the museum attendees skewed older…well, than us).
It was maybe a 12-minute video giving an overview of FDR’s and Eleanor’s lives, his ascendancy to the presidency during the Great Depression, the dire nature of the economy and Americans’ lives, and what he accomplished during his multiple terms that helped turn things around for so many people. It also briefly touched on WWII.
I’d say it was about eight minutes in when my waterworks started. As the video quickly ran through a list of all the domestic programs FDR created or signed into law, I was struck by something that feels so foreign in 2025 America: “wow, this guy actually gave a shit about the people.”
His nebulous New Deal is thought to have spanned the 12 years of his presidency (he was elected a mind-boggling four times, at first by enormous margins, and then increasingly smaller ones with each subsequent election, though still wide margins by today’s standards). Taken from the University of Virginia Miller Center’s webpage on Franklin D. Roosevelt: Domestic Affairs, FDR had a hand in:
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), guaranteeing the savings of average citizens.
the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which was charged with regulating financial markets.
the Federal National Mortgage Association ("Fannie Mae") that, along with the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) made it possible for millions of Americans to buy or renovate homes.
the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) made direct cash allocations available to states for immediate payments to the unemployed.
the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) put 300,000 young men to work in 1,200 camps planting trees, building bridges, and cleaning beaches.
the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) provided for national economic planning as opposed to individualistic and competitive, laissez-faire capitalism. The NIRA included the Public Works Administration (PWA), which allowed for the construction of large-scale public works and put many to work, and the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which proposed a business-government partnership in which business leaders would draft fair codes of competition regulating prices and wages.
the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which aimed to give unemployed Americans jobs rather than signing them up for “the dole.”
the Wagner-Connery National Labor Relations Act (or the Wagner Act, for short), which guaranteed labor unions the right to organize and bargain collectively—and established the National Labor Relations Board to enforce these rights.
the Social Security Act, and with its passage came programs like Old Age Assistance (Title I), Old Age Insurance (Title II), Unemployment Insurance (Title III), Aid to Dependent Children (Title IV) and Aid to the Blind (Title V). Taken together, these programs represented a significant commitment to developing a welfare state in the United States.
I think it was that last one that really hit me personally.
Had the SSA never been passed, I and so many others would never have had access to cash disability benefits in our time of need.
I felt bizarrely, retroactively, cared about. This feeling only deepened, and prompted more tears to fall, when I thought about the current state of the U.S. and on some level, the world.
I am undoubtedly not the best person to write about the nuances of history nor of current affairs. But I can write about how these things affect people’s lives and how that makes me feel.
The New Deal vs. the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
One sought to repair, to lift up, to remedy.
The other sought to further line the pockets of the already wealthy at the expense of those most in need.
To be sure, FDR’s policies and actions were less than perfect and certainly had their critics (conservatives of course felt he was giving money away to the “undeserving poor”). The benefits didn’t always reach down to those living in abject poverty, to the working class, or to poor white or Black tenant farmers and sharecroppers (and in reality, still don’t - just look at the many who apply for Social Security Disability who are repeatedly denied).
In the museum’s fairly extensive inclusion of the great works of FDR’s wife Eleanor Roosevelt, there was evidence that she often tried persuading him to do more for those who were marginalized. By these accounts, he listened to her respectfully but kept his focus on fixing the larger economy and then on WWII. Lifting a nation out of a depression is indeed no small feat. (If you’d like a dispassionate summary of FDR’s legacy, including what was not achieved and for whom, check out UVA’s brief essay Franklin D. Roosevelt: Impact and Legacy).
To my mind, FDR’s accomplishments - and even his limitations - were at least rooted in dignity. They were about trying to do right, not by himself, but by the people of this country.
They stand in direct contrast to the active, pernicious moves by our current president (and legislature, and oh, Supreme Court) to discount, demoralize, deport, imprison, and disenfranchise the American people. To strip so many of their rights, to instill fear into the hearts and minds of its people, to create a dictatorship.
What once were considered very American rights like free speech and due process, and what should be considered fundamental rights, like bodily autonomy, public health guidance based on science, the right to vote without obstruction, and healthcare for all, are being systematically shredded to bits.
I’d say it’s like comparing apples to oranges or to some other fruit, but what we are comparing is not in the same category by any stretch of the imagination. There is no fruit that is so revolting that I can rightfully use it in this comparison. I’d say it’s like comparing apples to the bacteria-laden scum buildup that accumulates around the insides of my garbage disposal, the kind they warn you online to wear a mask and goggles when you clean. The sight and smell of it nauseates me every time, and yet it’s here to stay.
I know a lot of you will relate to feeling this way. Graphic artist Aubrey Hirsch has been asked a lot lately how she stays hopeful in these times. Her recent graphic post might resonate:
Back to the crying
Of course, I didn’t have any of these words in Hyde Park. I just had the feelings. As Baldy and I exited the visitor center after viewing the orientation film, passing by the bronzed Eleanor and Franklin statues as we walked across their beautiful property, I turned and tried to articulate to Baldy just what I was feeling.
All I could say was some simplified version of, “he did so many things for people. I wouldn’t have disability benefits if not for him,” as the tears freely flowed. I think I may have mentioned how stark it all is when we think about what’s happening these days, and as he agreed and said a few words about the detritus that currently rules us, I saw his eyes also well up a bit.
I was struck by how foreign it felt to be crying - to be feeling such heavy emotion at a time when I had been feeling like I was incapable of it. I realize now that it’s just been accumulating. All of the grief, anguish, despair of living in this country at this moment in time. (I have yet to mention our funding the genocide in Gaza, which of course spans back into the last administration).
I am relieved in a sense that something - this long overdue visit to a wonderfully curated American history museum - could get the tears out of me. The tears feel like an act of resistance to the growing presence of fascism, which relies on the populace going increasingly numb, dissonant, compliant.
I can still feel. I still have that.
This week, I’m moving the Government fuckery links that normally appear in the Antidote to “above the fold,” as they say in newspaper lingo. It feels important to drive home some of the points made above with some headlines-as-evidence of what is happening. Sadly, I accumulate way too many health-related government fuckery links each week to think this subcategory is going anywhere anytime soon. But at least for this week, you can scroll down and read the Antidote without the fuckery folded within.
Two Texas moms were forced to wait for urgent care after pregnancy loss. They died
Pentagon told trans troops to get diagnosed. It's using the paper trail to kick them out
Health centers in Speaker Johnson's Louisiana district risk closure
RFK Jr. and Trump silenced a groundbreaking report on cancer and alcohol
RFK. Jr's family members call him 'threat' to Americans' health and want him to resign
Donald Trump faces political catch-22 over COVID, vaccines, RFK Jr.
Poll: Trump's job ratings stay negative; Americans express strong support for vaccines
For some, Medicare isn't covering the updated Covid vaccine yet
Stay hydrated and rested, good people. But most of all, stay awake.
COVID, Long COVID, and ME/CFS
👃🏾 Preventing COVID: with a common nasal antihistamine spray. As soon as I read this, I ordered two bottles for me and Baldy, as we are heading to COVID hotspot Florida soon for a wedding.
🗺️ Everything COVID: Ryan McCormick, M.D. did a great one of his Covidlandia posts recently that included a U.S. map of where COVID is hot right now, an update on vaccines, and a great breakdown of that study above re: the antihistamine spray.
🦠 Spike protein: ever wonder what the difference is between the spike protein in the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the spike protein in the vaccines? Ryan McCormick, M.D. again with yet another fantastic post, accessible to the lay person as is his way.
💊 Metformin: a study on the effect of metformin on the risk of long COVID among overweight or obese individuals. Starting it within three days of infection can reduce risk of long COVID by quite a lot.
💉 Vax injury: Vaccine Makers to Study Potential for Rare Spike Persistence After COVID Shot (free MedPage Today account required). It may be rare, but it’s wreaking havoc on the lives of those who have it, just like long COVID does.
Resources
🩸 Perimenopause 101: Menopause Talks is hosting a one-hour online talk called Perimenopause 101: The More You Know, the Better You Feel by Dr. Wen Shen on September 25th from 12-1pm ET. More info and register here.
🎨 Online event for BIPOC creatives: Sista Creatives Rising Presents: Art & Mind - COVID, Climate & Our Future! September 25th from 6:30-9:30pm ET. For free tickets or info on donating, go here.
🥄 Pacing webinar: join Steph Fowler, LCPC, CADC for her webinar Pace Yourself: Honoring Your Body in a Chaotic World, October 5th from 8-9:30pm ET ($25-$75). Register here.
❤️🩹 Chasing health: a video short by The Mindful Gardener on the more you chase health, the sicker you get.
📈 How To Finally Make Physical Progress with CFS?
Health miscellany
🩺 AI stethoscope: can detect three heart conditions in 15 seconds!
😔 Mental health conditions: over a billion people live with at least one; the world desperately needs more services.
🔬 Science on Substack: why scientists are flocking here.
🏳️⚧️ Anti-trans legal risks: Erin Reed breaks this down by U.S. state and by adult and youth risk. Meanwhile, transgender people who legally change their gender rarely detransition, a national cohort study from Sweden found.
💪🏾 High protein: our needless preoccupation.
🧑🏼⚕️ Primary care: it’s broken. Here’s what you can do about it.
🫀 Heart disease in women: study pinpoints inflammation as a major contributor.
Inspiration & Recovery
🤸🏽♂️ The 50-year-old gymnast: determined to make her ninth Olympics.
🌀 The path of healing: this video is 26 minutes and has ads but provides an interesting perspective, much of which has felt true for me in my own recovery.
❤️🩹 Healing the nervous system: I have to agree with the premise of this post; there were aspects of recovery that were never going to happen for me until I learned how to get out of fight-or-flight.
🐶 Dog gone it: Why the origin of the word 'dog' remains a mystery.
🛸 UFO! Reaction to shocking video of a U.S. missile striking an unidentified flying object (and NOT obliterating it into a million pieces - scary!)
🥄 New take on spoonies?: I boiled my wooden spoons – and what emerged from them will haunt me forever.
🤔 Curious About Everything: Jodi Ettenberg’s newsletter of that name is always chock full of super interesting reads. Here’s a recent one I enjoyed.
🍝 Pasta: the real reason it tastes better at a restaurant, according to chefs.
🐌 Ding-slime-ditch: Doorbell prankster that tormented residents of German apartments turns out to be a slug.
🤦🏻 Buffoon of the week: So much going on, so many buffoons to choose from…but this week, I’m choosing Jerry Seinfeld, who had the audacity to compare the Free Palestine movement to…the Ku Klux Klan? “Free Palestine is, to me, just … you’re free to say you don’t like Jews. Just say you don’t like Jews,” the 71-year-old comedian said. Umm, no Jerry…how about we just don’t like the slaughter and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent people? I can’t figure out how anyone can conclude that letting a people live in peace and have their basic survival needs met is the same as hating another set of people.
🏆 Winner of the week: The National Book Foundation is awarding Roxane Gay with its annual Literarian Award for her service to the American literary community, and this writer thinks it’s very well-deserved. Gay is receiving the lifetime achievement award for her own prolific writing, as well as for her advocacy for underrepresented and emerging writers. Congratulations to this legend.
🐈⬛ 💩 And finally, it’s this week’s Cat Dump.
Here’s a great post by Minding Mittens by K. Colitti on how to actually pet your cat. This approach really works: I only got little Birdie to start loving me back when I stopped forcing her to take affection on my terms.
Congratulations on your wedding anniversary <3 that's so spectacular. and also the hike wowwww!!!! im shook. (and not so secretly extremely jealous. i used all my energy for the day showering this morning. sigh)
also not to burst your bubble but the nasal spray got a bashing from Dr. Michael Hoerger, and another scientist explains the major issues in the study here https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroCovidCommunity/s/pBxWlLEasG
thank you for your roundups <3
Happy Anniversary!! Thanks for all that history! We're in challenging times, and seeing the juxtaposition of what was to what is now, I can see how it made you so emotional! I hope you have a good trip, and I always do a neti pot for prevention after being somewhere with high exposure. I hope the nasal spray helps to keep you safe.