I reblogged this last month, tagged it, and said “might as well see if it works.” I used this video as a reference to find all the forms that i needed (which is A LOT, especially if you’re a dependent) and sent them through the mail, not really allowing myself to hope.
dude.
$2,714 of medical debt from my top surgery - gone. im shaking this was such a weight on me for 2 years and it fucking worked. what the fuck.
Video Transcript:
Person 1: “What’s a piece of information that you learned that feels illegal to know?” Person 2: “Most hospitals in America are non-profits. That means they must have a Charity Care Policy. This is going to sound weird, but what that means is if you make under a certain amount of money the hospital legally has to forgive your medical bills. Let me show you how this works. Type in the hospital name with financial assistance after it. It should be the top link, lets check. What you want to look for is financial assistance applications policy. Lets check the policy. From here, what you’re looking for is a scale, that is right here. 0%-300% of the federal poverty guidelines, they will forgive 100% of your medical bills. So you can see here, that 300% of the federal poverty guidelines is $37,470, so if you make under that amount [annually] the hospital will legally forgive your medical bills. And if you’re a larger household, you can check it out from here. If you want to test it out, I run a nonprofit that does this. So, dm me, and I will actually do it for you. Lets see if we can crash those medical bills.”
[image id: static image after “dude” is the first reblogger’s medical balance adjusted to 0. end id.]
[transcript additional note: everything after “let’s check” is for the specific hospital used as an example; from context, it sounds like the exact numbers to qualify may vary from hospital to hospital but that all U.S. non-profit hospitals do have this.]
So, your landlord/parents/home inspector/favorite movie star is dropping by, and your place is a disaster. You don’t have much time to clean it up. You’re in emergency mode. Let’s get started.
Don’t panic. Panic leads to fear, fear leads to procrastination, procrastination leads to the dark side. You can do this, but you have to stay calm.
Unlike maintenance cleaning, we’re not looking to completely unfuck one space at a time. Instead, we want to decrease the overall mess in stages, spread evenly across the whole area that we’re concerned about. If you think your home is at Level 10 filth, we want to bring the whole thing down to a Level 9, and then down from there. One really clean spot in an otherwise messy home is not going to be helpful here.
Get prepared. You’ll want to shut the computer down (or turn the modem off if you need your computer to play music). Trust me. Get your music going. Gather up trash bags, your vacuum and mop, some rags or paper towel, sponges, and other cleaning supplies. Use what you have on hand. Don’t get distracted running to the store and spending an hour browsing cleaning supplies. A multi-purpose cleaning concentrate or a jug of vinegar will be just fine.
Breaks are very important. Depending on your time constraints, work in 20/10s (20 minutes working, 10-minute break) or 45/15s. But take breaks because otherwise you’re marathoning, and marathon cleaning is no one’s friend. Keep hydrated, don’t forget to eat, and check in with yourself frequently to make sure you’re physically doing OK.
Make your bed. This will be your home base if you get overwhelmed or need somewhere clear to take a break.
Start with the garbage. Going from room to room, throw out anything that is obvious trash. Once you fill a bag, take it out. Repeat as many times as necessary.
Move on to dishes. Gather the dishes from all over your house and bring them to the kitchen. If you can, start them soaking in a sink of hot, soapy water or start loading the dishwasher. After the dishes are all in one place, spend one 20/10 getting started getting them under control.
Now it’s time for your flat surfaces. Countertops, tables, dresser tops, etc. Clear them off and wipe them down. Don’t get distracted in too much sorting and organizing. We’re in crisis mode here. There will be time to get in-depth once this is all done. The same applies to cabinets and closets. Unless you have reason to believe people will be opening closed doors, leave these alone for now.
Attack the floordrobe and shoe pile. Get your clothes either put away or in the hamper. Start a load of laundry if you need to, but keep in mind that laundry and dishes have three steps: wash, dry, and put it away, goddammit!
Get random stuff up off the floors. If something is trash-worthy, throw it away now rather than just move it around a bunch of times. Otherwise, put stuff where it belongs.
Take another 20/10 or 45/15 to catch up on more dishes, if needed.
Head into the bathroom. Pour some cleaner in the toilet bowl, fill the sink with hot water and cleaner, and either spray the tub and shower with cleaner, or fill the tub up with some hot water and add cleaner and let it soak. Put everything away that’s out and shouldn’t be, clean the mirror, counters, and toilet seat. Sweep or dry mop the floor. Wipe down the sink and tub/shower, and give the toilet bowl a scrub. Mop the floor.
Sweep and mop the kitchen floor.
Vacuum everything you can, and sweep everything you can’t.
Walk outside of your house (don’t lock yourself out, please). Walk back in and see what catches your eye first. Go and deal with that.
If you’re being inspected or your landlord is coming in for repairs, spend time on whatever area they’ll be focusing on.
Give the whole place one more once-over and pay attention to anything you’ve missed so far.
It’s an old trick, but if your place is a little funky-smelling, put a pan of water on the stove on low heat and add some citrus or cinnamon or vanilla. Don’t leave it unattended or forget about it.
Take a shower, put on something clean, and eat something.
You can do this. It’s overwhelming, yes, but it is not impossible. You just need to do it. You have a list. You have directions. You have a whole bunch of Internet strangers who have been there before and who are cheering you on. You can do this, but you need to get started.
Why are you still here? GO. START. NOW.
the number of times in my past that I desperately wanted/needed someone to sit me down and tell me this stuff. I will never get back the hours and hours lost to headless-chicken mode, but it’s nice to know that in the last year I’ve learned so many coping mechanisms :D
hey i just wanted to put a quick post up for people that may not know, cuz i certainly didnt until a couple years ago, but the whole prescription glasses industry is a massive racket, and i wanted to let people know about the more affordable options for buying or replacing glasses
when you go to an optometrist to get your eyes tested, they take a lot of measurements and will give you a prescription that lists things like how near or farsighted each eye is, spherical and cylindrical measurements for astigmatism, etc, but one measure they almost always leave out of the portion they give you is your interpupillary distance, that is, the distance between your pupils, measured in millimeters
the reason they leave that out is because if you have your full prescription, including the interpupillary distance, you can just go online and buy glasses from a place like zenni optical for less than $20 USD. and if you go and buy them online, thats ~$200 they dont get to bilk from you
so, you have two options, you can either request your interpupillary distance number when you get your eyes tested, which they cant legally withhold from you because its medical information
This Is Specifically Enforced By The Federal Trade Commission!
they dont get to withhold this! a lot of them will lie to you, or try to skirt around it, because they want your money. raise a fucking stink. this is an argument you can win.
the other option is to measure your interpupillary distance at home, using either a ruler and a mirror, or a phone app which is made for this purpose
once you have your full prescription information, you can buy glasses online, made to your specific prescription, for well under a TENTH the cost of ones you would buy at a brick and mortar store
listen to me: you DO NOT always need to give it your 100%. you really do not. because let’s be honest, you’re human and you’re simply not always going to be able to. there are days when you can only give it your 80%. or your 50%, or heck, even your 10%. and THAT IS OKAY. only skimming one paragraph, only solving one equation, only memorizing 5 words is better than not doing anything because you have this idea in your head that things are only worth doing when you can give what you consider to be your 100%. 10% is better than 0% and some days that is all you can give. it will still add up, and you will still succeed, i promise.
Also, I had to teach this to myself:
Always giving 100% is inefficient. Not everything needs your 100% attention and it’s a waste of energy to put 100% towards every single thing.
“Why do people like a character who’s committed war crimes but hate this other character just because they’re annoying” because it’s fiction Susan, and being annoying in fiction is a greater sin than being a supervillain, because it won’t make me want to read about them. It isn’t difficult to understand
“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” (Oscar Wilde)
The war crimes are fictional but my annoyance is real.
Arts and crafts are perfect for adhd folk bc there’s an immediate and visual progress.
Cut fabric, sew it together. You just made clothing.
Put some beads on some twine. You just made jewelry.
You can see your productivity.
Chores are the opposite. Yes, your kitchen is clean now. But you’ll cook again that evening or the next day and you’ll have to start over. Yes, you vacuumed. But two days later it’s dusty again. Laundry done, until next week.
Chores never end.
But arts and crafts, nobody can undo the thing you made. You can hold it up and say “look. I made this. I did the productivity today” and nothing quite beats that serotonin rush.
God this is so true
Also: you can do crafts with your hands while listening to something else.
If only I could eat while doing crafts. I’d get so much done
please use sparknotes. please use khan academy. please listen to school house rock songs and watch the history of the entire world i guess and tim and moby and bill nye. any documentary you watch in class can be found somewhere online with a quick google. get your books from project gutenberg and z-lib. download textbooks off the internet whenever you can find them. use desmos for a free online graphing calculator. if you’re learning something and you don’t get it look up the wikipedia page on it and put it into simple english to get the gist, then put it back into regular english to get the full story. cheat if you have to. school sucks so bad rn and if you’re like me and you get all your materials secondhand or from the lost and found, online resources are really useful rn; all of the above have helped me pass a class in some way, and i hope they can help you too.
stay inside and stay safe. best of luck to all the students out there.
this site definitely doesn’t allow you to paste the link to any article blocked by a paywall (say, a NYT article) so that you can read it free of charge! that would be illegal and would benefit broke college students too much. it definitely does not do that. promise.
