263 - Health and Wellness
Navigating illness while poly
Especially in the midst of a viral outbreak, talking about health and wellness not necessarily related to STIs and sexual health is vital. This episode covers some tips on how to stay healthy and keep your partners healthy in general, though it also discusses COVID-19 briefly. Thanks to Multiamory’s good friend Phi and her blog, Polyammering, there’s already been some discussion within the community on how to stay healthy and illness-free during cold and flu season and some topics to discuss within your polycule:
When plans have to be changed due to illness, figure out how to navigate the situation. Will your date simply be canceled, or will you have a make-up date? Do you go to events even though you’re ill? How do you support a partner when their plans get canceled?
Support each other when someone is out of commission, maybe by bringing them medicine or goodies to help them feel better, doing small chores for them, helping take care of pets, checking up on them via phone or text, etc.
Discuss with your polycule if getting flu shots is something you all should do, or if anyone involved is immunocompromised in some way. Do you have a policy or protocol in place for if someone gets sick? Do you stay away from partners until you’re better?
The coronavirus outbreak
During a global pandemic like the one occurring right now, it’s easy to panic and spiral. Making your mental and emotional health a priority during times like this is critical, even if that means taking a step back. Some tactics for prioritizing your mental health can look like this:
Take a social media break if you need to. Some apps, like Twitter, even have filters where you can filter out certain hashtags or topics in order to decompress.
Be selective about your news sources. The CDC and WHO are good resources that convey information rather than inciting panic. Some local news or local health departments may also fall into this category, but take care that they don’t send you down a rabbit hole of dread.
Continue to take advantage of whatever regular measures you take to help mental health, such as therapy, processing, medication, art, exercise, self-care, meditation, etc.
Set boundaries if you need to. It’s all right to let people know you’d rather not talk about it, and if possible and applicable, remove yourself from the situation.
Taking precautions
The CDC guidelines to preventing infection are good to keep in mind:
Wash/clean your hands often. Wash for twenty seconds with soap and water, especially after coughing, sneezing, blowing your nose, or being in a public place.
Use hand sanitizer containing at least 60% alcohol IF soap and water is not available.
Avoid coming into contact with high-touch surfaces in public areas, such as elevator buttons, door handles, hand rails, people’s hands, etc.
Don’t touch your face, nose, eyes, etc.
Wear a mask if you MUST be around people when you’re sick; they’re more effective at preventing you spreading illness than they are preventing you catching something.
Take your sick days if you get them, and if you’re in a position of authority, make sure your employees have sick days.
Stay safe during these stressful times, and take precautions to make sure that you and your loved ones are doing what you can to take care of your physical, mental, and emotional health. We love you!
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about how to stay healthy within your polycule, within your community, within your group of friends, within your family, whatever it is. I do want to say upfront here, we are recording this during this whole coronavirus thing. We're going to tackle that a little bit but this is not an episode about COVID-19 or coronavirus. If you're sick of hearing that sort of stuff, don't worry, that's not what this episode is about.
However, if that is something that you're worried about, we are going to be talking about things that do apply. See there? It's not exactly about that, it's universally applicable stuff about wellness and health in our communities especially with people that we're in close proximity with. It's going to be a good one. It's one that we've been meaning to do for a long time and we figured, well, now's a good a time as any.
Dedeker: The thing is that we were all into being healthy before the coronavirus thing happened.
Emily: I see. Okay. Pat ourselves on the back here.
Dedeker: I'm just really, really into hand sanitizer and hand-washing before coronavirus was a thing, and now everyone's all in the bandwagon. Funny thing is actually, literally last week, there was a new study released about polyamorous communities and polyamorous people. Specifically, the intention of the study was to try to find the origins of stigma toward non-monogamous relationships. It was really interesting. They found a variety of things. One of the things they found is that the people who are more likely to be in consensually non-monogamous relationships are also less likely to be germophobes funnily enough.
Emily: That makes sense.
Jase: Yes, I could see that.
Dedeker: Which really makes sense because if you're not weirded out by kissing more than one person, I think that makes sense.
Jase: Right or holding hands with people or yes, any of that.
Dedeker: You would think that them-- They found a number of other things also that people in consensually non-monogamous relationships are more likely to be okay with casual sexual relationships and stuff like that. They found those things, however, part of the stigma research was that they found that even though on an individual level, someone's less likely to be a germophobe or something like that.
In practice, they tend to have actually very good sexual health practices because of that so they're talking about how it's like, Interesting. On an individual level, you can see someone who's more comfortable with casual sex are more comfortable with germs in general, and yet in practice, they don't do those things. So in the gap is where stigma comes, essentially.
Emily: Interesting.
Jase: By don't do those things, you mean don't do risky behaviors in either case? Is that what you're talking about?
Dedeker: Yes. It's like this weird thing where it's like--
Jase: That was a weird way to say that.
Dedeker: Yes, sorry. I do not have the text of the study in front of me, it's purely just coming out of my brain in bits and pieces.
Jase: Got it.
Dedeker: On an individual level, people in non-monogamous relationships maybe have the personalities of someone who is more likely to engage in risky behavior and yet in practice, they often do not, basically.
Emily: Interesting.
Jase: That they do take more risk management, like proactive things.
Dedeker: Yes, more risk management actions.
Jase: Wow.
Dedeker: Yes, there you go.
Emily: There you go.
Dedeker: It's clear as mud.
Emily: Clear as mud. Perfect. Yes.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: We have a lovely friend by the name of Phi who has been on the show before. She has a great polyamoring blog and also her podcast is called Polyamoring. She had this great blog entitled "Health and Wellness in Polyamory" and so we really wanted to touch on a couple things today that she discussed in it since it pertains to some of the concerns that we have heard from our community.
Our community has been talking about the coronavirus and just how it's affecting their day to day interactions with people. Maybe going to play parties, doing things like that. When I was looking up stuff for this episode, Phi's blog came up and it was fantastic. I loved what she had to say about all of this.
Dedeker: You pulled this quote from Phi's blog, which to give our listeners some context, this is a text that Phi received from a metamour talking about the challenges of dating multiple people and catching illnesses from each other and things like that and that her metamour texted her, "Polyam authorities do tend to gloss over stuff like how to handle cold and flu season or how to navigate changing dates and plans due to illness, how to support each other if illnesses take someone out short terms and stuff like that."
I know that that was part of the inspiration for Phi to write her blog about health and wellness. Let's dive into that. Why do you think that this is something that the people who "Polyam authorities" which make us sound--
Jase: I'm like, "Who's this authority?"
Emily: I know, "I was like--" Yes, exactly. We do joke about that.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: The board of directors.
Dedeker: Yes, the polyamory board of directors. I definitely have some theories about why this is sometimes glossed over, but what do you all think?
Jase: Give it to us. No, what do you got?
Emily: Please, by all means.
Dedeker: I think that we-- people who talk about these stuff or make content about this stuff, we tend to put a pretty heavy emphasis on sexual health because, for better or worse, that's the first thing that tends to come to most people's minds is like, "What about the sex? What about the STIs? What are you going to do about that?" But also people having just legitimate questions and concerns of how do I navigate this, how do I talk about this, so we tend to put a lot of emphasis on that. I will say that there's one blog post from a couple years ago entitled, "The Dark Side of Polyamory" that is kind of the semi-parody posts.
Jase: It was just about illness, right?
Dedeker: Yes, it's about the fact that like, oh, yes, when you and your polycule everyone gets sick at the same time and it really sucks. I do think though that part of trying to manage stigma is not wanting to be like, "Yes, germs get spread."
Emily: Interesting.
Dedeker: It's like, "Yes, we really are the awful, horrible, filthy bacteria-ridden Petri dishes that you think that we are so all your sickness is justified." I think that's why people are like, yes, colds and flus like whatever people deal with it and there isn't a lot of content out there that's specifically about, hey, we do have to think about this and mange this stuff.
Emily: Yes, that's the thing in any community. Any community that's super close-knit-- I'm in a play right now and a ton of people are sick, including myself, because we are in such close proximity to each other. The show gets very sexual at times and there's a lot of kissing and drinking out of glasses on the stage and all this crap, and I'm like. "Yes, no wonder we're all sick. It makes a lot of sense" but that is the question. How do you support each other when something like that comes up and how do you prepare yourself for the inevitable when you might get sick from other people or what do you do in order to make that not happen?
Jase: I think what this question of why do people gloss over it and then also why do the authorities-- why did the board of directors gloss over this? Also, what I always like to do is look at what are other kind of analogous situations to look at where we do talk about this so that we can apply it. Like when you think metamours, you think about in-laws or something, right? That there's ways of being like, "What's the closest relationship I could think of that's like that?"
When I think about a polycule specifically, the thing that come to mind for me is a family, and it's kind of the same thing, right? Your kid in your family gets sick, they come home and then everyone gets sick. Brother and sister, mom and dad, everyone gets the sickness. What's interesting about that though is it's also a thing that doesn't get talked about a lot within families. There's this assumption that, "Oh, well, whatever" you're in that family so if everyone gets sick, you're just going to get sick or you just need to care of them and hope that you don't.
There's not a lot of people, I think in any context, really talking very a matter of factly about just illness and wellness and not spreading things if you can help it. That's one. On that same note of thinking about families, I know that there are some families I know where it's like that. It's like one person gets sick and then everybody gets sick. I also know some families where that doesn't happen.
I do think-- we'll get into this more on the second half of the episode when we talk about real practical day to day things that you can do to help both not get things but also to not spread things. Anyway, I do think there's a variety there and I think the same is true with close groups of friends or with polycules or things like that. It's depending on--
Dedeker: Coworkers.
Jase: There are things you can do to affect that risk. Coworkers. Yes, exactly.
Emily: We're going to discuss three different topics that she talked about within that text that she got from her metaphor. Metamour, not metaphor.
Jase: got this from her metamour.
Emily: Exactly. No, I think she actually did get it. The first one is going to be how to navigate changing dates and plans due to illness. Phi does talk about some of these things in her blog posts. Again, go back and read that, but we wanted to touch on each of them and speak about each of them. Some of these were from my brain, some of them are from Phi so just wanted to point out that, yes, Phi did inspire me a lot when doing this, so thank you again.
If we are going to navigate changing dates and plan due to illness, some things to ask yourself might be is the date going to be changed to a later time? If you or your partner gets sick, are you going to have something like a makeup date? Is it just going to be awash? I know when I was dating multiple people, I generally would have like a couple of nights a week or one night a week would be with a certain partner and then if that night just ended up going away, then you might have to ask the question what happens then?
Jase: Right. I think this especially comes up when people do have somewhat rigid rules in place, even if they call them agreements if they're rigid, where it's like you only get Wednesdays with that partner and everything else has to be with me. In situations like this, especially if you haven't had this conversation beforehand, it's like you just said, it's like, well, what happens then? Do I just not get to see them at all? Does it get to be scheduled for another time? What's the deal? We'll get to this a little bit more later, but are they allowed to come over and help take care of me while I'm sick?
There's lots of things that can be hard to have that conversation when you're feeling shitty and sick or feeling sad that your partner canceled on you on both sides too. Maybe you're the one who got canceled on because they're feeling sick and maybe you're the one who has these strict rules in your relationship and now you're, "Well, can I accommodate that or not?" We have to have a conversation about it, I think it's worth addressing.
Emily: Absolutely. That's something to talk about and something that hopefully will be brought up with all of this going on just because people may not have thought about it beforehand. Along those lines, do you go to things like play parties or events with multiple people? If you are ill or if your partner is ill, if you have been around people that have been ill, is that something that you're going to go to and take that risk?
We did have a thread in our Facebook community, our Multiamory Patreon only group about this topic specifically. Like, have you seen events canceled or play parties or things along those lines, has that changed at all because of the scare around Covid-19? That was an interesting conversation and a lot of people said no, things are going on just as normal. That's not something that is really being thought about at this point.
Dedeker: I would like to envision a future, sorry, I'm backing myself up. Just thinking about I want to envision a future where we're teleconferencing to our play parties more frequently.
Emily: Teleconferencing.
Jase: Wow.
Dedeker: I'm sure someone's done it. I know there's cam rooms and chat rooms where people cam and stuff like that. I don't know, I'm just thinking about the like in-person play party event that's canceled due to fears of coronavirus or stuff like that, but instead, we have the proxy that is a big old Zoom room full of people just doing it.
Emily: Like on the camera recording-- envisioning here.
Jase: What I love about this is because yes, like you said, that's like chat roulette that whatever. There's things like that where it's just camming in a room, but what I think is interesting is if you did it and structured it like a play party and that you had social areas as well as little private rooms and you tried to virtually structure that same sort of thing, that's interesting.
Dedeker: Honestly, I'm sure it probably already exists. I don't think the three of us are super connected to that particular world enough to know of it, but I'm sure someone's already thought it, like Zoom conference version of a play party event.
Jase: That's true though I'm also realizing now that that many years ago, I've probably been to stuff like this but in second life. Because then you actually have rooms that your avatar can go in to and interact with people.
Dedeker: That's true.
Emily: That's true.
Dedeker: Then you got to pay for those animation packs and stuff like that.
Emily: Yes. It has made me wonder are the big conferences like polyamorous conferences that happen every year, are those going to just end up being more online? You go into a giant Zoom room or something and watch somebody do a talk and then that's it instead of having to actually get together.
Dedeker: There has been a push for that. I have seen there have been a couple of online conferences now particularly more for making it just accessible to people who can't necessarily get out of the house or can't be bothered to get out of the house or can't afford to go get a hotel room somewhere or have a special accessibility needs that are just better-met teleconferencing, things like that.
Emily: I think it does. It's an interesting point to be made that what is the meaning of community? Does it mean that you need to all get together and actually be in physical proximity with one another or can you actually have a community when you are, I don't know, just sitting there on your computer and talking to someone the way that we're talking right now? Is that so community in a way?
Jase: I think as far as the online community thing goes, it came up in our episode with Andy talking about restorative justice, but we also talked about how a lot of the online community platforms, Facebook specifically, are not set up to truly foster the supportive type of community that I do think you can get in, in-person gatherings more easily. Instead, is set up to reward controversy or just talking at other people about something or arguing even.
I do think that that idea of doing something that's accessible online is interesting. I think the same thing as this play party analogy of what if you tried to take all the things that make up a play party and include that? All the parts of it, not just the play part in your online version of it. I think the same, I would say it would be true of these things is if you're going to go that direction, make sure there's also ways for people to connect in other ways. Do what you can to foster as much face-to-face interaction like in-video groups or have a sense of interactivity and that you're included in something.
I know there's platforms out there and this episode isn't about how to make your conference be online, but I do think it's worth thinking about that. Yes, it's worth thinking about that. I think we'll get to it a little bit in our bonus episode for this one when we're talking about our favorite sick day activities is similarly like how it's possible to not be with people but still feel close to them, and things like that.
Emily: Finally in this one, we wanted ask the question, how do you support your partner if it's another partner whose plans got canceled? For example, if we are in a hierarchical setting and say like, Jase and Dedeker are together and I get my plans canceled because I'm sick with Dedeker. How does Jase help her and me, make those plans happen again in the future or at a later date? Do you give them a little leeway? Do you try to keep your own plans as best as you can? What happens within those settings?
Dedeker: Yes, well that's another question to ask because I know it's something that I see a lot of couples do starting out is like, okay, well when you go on a date, I go out on a date, but if your date cancels, then you have to cancel your date also or things like that. Just talking about that ahead of time, it doesn't even have to be sickness related, but just if your date cancels, what happens? Do we proceed as planned? Do we need to do anything different? I think the ideal would be if you committed to a date, still go on your date or whatever, but having that conversation because it's probably likely going to happen.
Jase: It's a balancing act too because, on the one hand, I find when you do have good communications with all your partners and metamours are supportive of each other. You can't have a situation where it's like I have a date with a different person planned on Friday, but Dedeker has to cancel on Tuesday because she's sick. I talk to the one on Friday and say this is Dedeker's only other day off, she's hoping she's better by now, if you're flexible, could we move ours to a different day?
There can be this chain reaction of scheduling changes that can happen, but you can also get yourself in a situation where, especially if one person has a more volatile schedule than the other, where then someone can start feeling put out or taken for granted or like their commitments aren't being honored. There is this balance between the beauty of flexibility, but also remembering to be respectful and be understanding of other people's time and your commitments to them.
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: Maybe that does mean, unfortunately, you just don't get to see that partner this week. Maybe that is the right answer. I'm not saying that one or the other is always going to be the one, but you got to look at that balance.
Emily: Yes, being flexible is definitely a necessity in times like this or just in any time where maybe there's an illness going around.
Jase: This also applies I would say not just in polycules, none of this conversation is really just specific to polycules. Certain things tend to come up more often in that like these rules or agreements in hierarchy and stuff like that, but it takes place other times where it's like, this is my one day a week I get to see my friend and we have to cancel. The same stuff applies.
Yes, Emily, let's move on to the next topic here. This is about how to support each other if someone that you care about is sick, whether this is a friend or a family member or something like that, someone you would actually want to be involved in taking care of. The first one that we have here is offering to bring over wellness supplies.
Now, this is one that-- I can't think of very many times that people have done this for me, but when they have, it has been huge because if you're sick, you've got a sore throat, you've got a cough, whatever it is, you might not have all of the cough syrup that you want at home or you might not have your lozenges or you might run out of your vitamins or something like that.
It is this kind of like, well, I need those things, I could order them online, but they might take a couple days to get to me and I need to take them right now. I don't really want to get dressed and go outside, go to the store, potentially get other people sick to get those things. It is really nice to have someone come in and bring that to you. I'd say it's a very sweet thing. If I'm sick think about that as an option.
Emily: I guess. I've definitely done this for people. I can't imagine that I haven't at least done it once for you or--
Jase: No, I think you have.
Emily: Maybe when we lived together, I don't know.
Jase: Yes, probably, probably sometime during that time. The next one here is helping out with small tasks around the house. It could be anything as big as taking their car to the shop if they have an appointment for that or just taking out the trash or doing the dishes, if you're over bonus benefit of doing the dishes is lots of soap on your hands, washing your hands a lot, keeping the place clean and so you're less likely to get sick, like running errands, bringing something to the post office, stuff like that.
Dedeker: A good hack for this, I think we covered this on our episode on loss, on supporting a partner through loss, is rather than just asking the person who's sick, "Hey, is there anything I can do for you?" Because honestly, in our culture, the polite thing is to be like, "No, no, it's okay." Just what you've done.
Jase: That's a good point.
Dedeker: Maybe the no is correct, maybe they really don't need you to do anything. It's going to be more effective if you ask them, you're like, "Hey, can I do your dishes for you?" "Hey, can I do your laundry for you?" "Hey, I'm going to go to the store, can I bring something back for you?" Actually offering something more specific makes a little bit easier for people to receive help if it's more your idea rather than putting it on them to ask for something. That's something to think about if you're supporting a partner, a metamour, a family member through illness.
Jase: That's great. I found recently hanging out with one of my best friends and his wife who have a 10-month-old baby right now, is that if I ever am over at their place and I ask, "Is there anything I can do to help get set up for dinner?" Or whatever it is that we're doing, if I see that they're running around, the answer is always, "No, no, we're fine. Have a seat, you're a guest."
But if I just do stuff, it's usually received, especially after-- the most recent time I was over there and I just cleared my own place and washed off my dish, that she was like, "Oh my gosh, thank you for every time you're over, being so helpful." It was something that really meant a lot to her because I just did it and took the initiative and I think that definitely applies here as well.
Emily: Yes, that's great.
Jase: Our next one is calling or texting or messaging, depends on how much this person likes receiving calls. I know sometimes if I'm sick I'm like, "Leave me alone."
Emily: Don't talk to me.
Jase: But other times it is nice to just hear someone's voice especially if you're sick in bed for a while or you start to really get that, I've just been sitting here on my phone for days now. It is nice to actually talk to people.
Emily: Definitely.
Jase: This one's nice, and one thing I will add to this is to check in but also maybe go a little bit out of your way to send them random funny things or just random like, have little discussions so every conversation you have isn't about how are you feeling? Because that can also get really tiring if someone's sick for a while. It's like, all anyone talks to me about is how sick I am.
The last one that we want to talk about in this section of taking care of someone goes along with the second one about little small tasks or errands and things like that is making sure their pets are taken care of, specifically like if the dog's been walked, cleaning out the cat box, but just the dog thing if it's like, you see them trying to drag themselves out of the house, you could be like, "I'd love to take dog out." That'd be great. That could be a big load off for them just like clearing your dishes or whatever it is.
Dedeker: Make sure the pets are petted. I think that's the most one task really.
Emily: Water bowls, that they have water in their bowls or even if they needed some more food or more cat litter or something along those lines, going to get that is important and you don't want to really drug yourself to the grocery store or to the pet store when you're sick.
Dedeker: I will definitely just come out there and say I'm bad at this part of caring for a partner. I don't know why. I've definitely found that people in my life run a gamut that I've seen in my experience of those people who their care-taking thing just comes very naturally to them and for some people not so much. I've been trying to dive into my own family of origin to figure out my narratives around getting sick and taking care of people.
It's something that Gottman's actually talked about is that the ritual around when someone gets sick, whether that's your partner or your child or whatever, it's like, that's important to talk about with your partner because that is something that can be very different depending on your family of origin. Like, how do we care for people when we get sick because honestly, I think I came from a family where it was like, I'm going to set the cough syrup outside your door and then I'm going to go around and disinfect all the surfaces. That's how I respond today.
Emily: I have heard, Dedeker, that your first response is just to go and disinfect everything, the doorknob and all the surfaces and everything if Jase gets sick.
Dedeker: Yes, pretty much. Honey, I'm thinking about that and trying to get better.
Jase: In my family, a big one was specifically making beverages for the person who is sick.
Dedeker: Yes, we did talk about that, you talked about the beverage thing when you were
Emily: How was that? What is it yours is orange soda or it's sprite and what is it Jase?
Jase: It's Sprite and orange juice or seven up and orange juice those mixed together was the drink my mom would make and I would only ever have it when I was sick and it was-- The idea is, it's something delicious that then gets you to be drinking enough liquids while you're sick. It's also a lot of sugar, so I don't drink maybe as many of them as I did as a kid, but it is something that's really nice to have if I'm not feeling great and yes. Stuff like that, though, talk about what are some things that to you mean being taken care of and that for your partner you can offer that to them.
Dedeker: Definitely, talk about your family of origins, also talk about how sickness was dealt with when you were growing up because that can definitely offer some clues. Last section we're going to talk about here before our ad break is, the logistics of really talking about handling cold and flu season in a multi-relationship setting. Things like, are you going to get a flu shot? How do you feel about flu shots? Is that something that we all agree to do?
Like me and my partner and my metamour, we're all going to go and get a flu shot at the beginning of flu season just to be careful and just to have some solidarity. Asking questions like, do you have people in your polycule or metamour or someone in your life connected to you who is immune-compromised. That's also very important, or a parent, exactly, or a child, that stuff that's really important to know about because even if you and your partner and your partner's partner and your other partner or whatever, even if everyone has a super healthy immune system, they may have people attached to them who do not. We need to think about those people too and still have some compassion and care.
Emily: Thanks for reminding me of that one because it's something that I don't always think about. It is very easy to just think about yourself and then maybe the people just to the right and left of you, the people that you see every single day, but not necessarily their family members or their metamours or other people along those lines as well.
Jase: Yes, totally. This has been on my mind recently when I was up in Seattle with my mom wanting to be extra careful because of her. Whereas now that I'm in LA and I'm just in a house with other people who are in their 20s and 30s, now I'm like, whatever, I don't have to worry about it.
Dedeker: Whatever, I'm going to roll around in the dirt.
Jase: Exactly.
Dedeker: Related to what we were talking about earlier is, is there a policy around helping to take care of those who are sick? Is that related to the relationship structure that you're in? Does hierarchy influence that? I can share a personal story about that that honestly like way back in the day when I was in much more strict hierarchical relationships, there was one time when a partner of mine, my primary partner, went to a doctor's appointment with another partner to help support her and take care of her. At that time, I was really upset by it, because to me, I was like--
Jase: This is too intimate.
Dedeker: Yes, this is too intimate. This does not fit into the hierarchy. Going to a doctor appointment with someone, that's a primary partner activity. I have a monopoly in all the primary partner activities.
Jase: Interesting.
Dedeker: Where I'm now I'm like, "Yeah, of course." Your partners, go support them. Go take care of them when they're sick or go to the doctor's appointment with them or stuff like that, but that was something that back then we didn't talk about ahead of time. We didn't talk about the feelings that that brought up or what that meant to us, so that might be a conversation to have with your partner.
Jase: I will say both from my own experience and the experience of one of my friends who, both of us had doctor visits last year, his was more of an emergency and mine was more voluntary, but we had doctor appointments, where at the time we each had two partners, and both of those partners came with us to each of our appointments. It was this really touching like, "Wow, I do really feel cared about and loved", and that my partners came together to support me and in this. It's really nice, especially if you're there because you're really sick or something. It really means a lot.
Emily: I think we both went to a Dedeker appointment to once upon a time. remember that.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: I drove all of us back from that--
Dedeker: That was great.
Emily: It is nice.
Dedeker: I love that.
Emily: Lovely.
Dedeker: Again, questions around policy and protocol. If you get sick, if your partner gets sick, if your metamour gets sick, stuff like that, is our protocol going to be, we just stay away from each other until someone gets better. I wrote down the question to ask yourself, are you going to weaponize this shit stuff that we like to talk about on this podcast, because unfortunately, that is something that I have seen weaponized the same way that I think sexual health concerns can get weaponized, which is this idea of, your partner's other partner gets sick and so then you use that as like, well, you can't see them for three weeks.
If you've seen them or have been intimate with them or touch them, I'm going to be punitive and not touch you or kiss you or anything like that. I'm like, "Just don't do that." Sure, take actions to protect yourself. So, if you know that your partner's partner is sick, maybe you do take the action of like, "Okay, well, I'm going to disinfect some surfaces and I'm going to hug you but maybe not kiss you for this week until it seems like things are okay." That's okay.
If it's coming from a place of being punitive or wanting to punish your partner, it's like really, just get real with yourself and honest with yourself about whether or not you might be weaponizing your health concerns. Another thing as Phi does point out in her blog post, that these are questions that also can be asked about your boundaries with sexual health, with STI status, and things like that as well.
Jase: Great. We're going to move on now to talking a little bit about coronavirus, COVID. This also could apply to any kind of thing that's on the news a lot that a lot of people are very scared about. We want to get into protecting your mental and emotional health during those sorts of things. Then we're going to end with just some concrete, best practices about how to keep yourself and the people around you healthy.
Before we do that, we're going to take a quick moment to talk about our sponsors for this episode so that you can help support us get involved with some cool products, and then also help support this show and keep this going and make this available to everyone for free.
Emily: All right. Let's just say talk briefly about the elephant in the room, which is the coronavirus because it is on a lot of people's mind right now. I know, Dedeker, you've said that clients have talked about it, people are talking about it on the news. When I'm serving people at work, they're talking about it. I've been pretty sick recently, so it's something that has been on my mind. Our community also, the Multiamory Patreon community has been speaking about this and posting articles like debunking myths, also things that they're hearing from various healthcare providers, et cetera. Things will probably be okay.
The majority of people do recover from this and are totally fine, or get a very mild case, but it is important just to talk about some of the fears that people are having. Dedeker, you wanted to start off with the mental health regarding all of this as well for people to stay mentally healthy during this fearful time.
Dedeker: Yes, because I do think since it's just-- by the time this episode comes out, who knows how things are going to feel or what's going to happen, but as of the time of recording, it just feels like it's coming from all angles and it's hard to escape, and everyone's talking about it, and so it can be really easy to feel really anxious, to feel really overloaded, to feel sick of it, to feel frustrated, to feel scared. It can bring up a lot of emotion. I definitely found that I feel like almost no official sources are talking about your mental emotional health in the midst of all this, and I understand that it's like physical health-
Jase: I certainly haven't seen that.
Dedeker: -is the number one thing to be thinking about when people are worried about a virus, but your mental and emotional health is also really, really important in the midst of all this.
A couple of things to bear in mind that it's totally okay to take a break from social media, whatever your social media of addictive choice is, it's okay to take a break and let yourself just not scroll so often. My partner Alex, specifically put a filter on Twitter. You can filter out words on your Twitter feed, so he put a filter so anyone mentioning coronavirus specifically would get filtered out. It's like, that's okay if you want to carve out a space for yourself where you're not thinking about this all the time, because the way that our new cycle works is that, especially with things like this, they really make it easy for you to be thinking about it all the time.
Take action, do what you got to do. It doesn't have to be a permanent break from social media. It could be a day, it could be a week, it could be a couple hours, just whatever it is that you can carve out for yourself. It's also okay to be discerning and selective in where you get your information from. Of course, I would definitely recommend any place where you can go to get facts only without spin and without opinion would be great.
Jase: That can be hard to find sometimes.
Dedeker: It's very hard, yes. Things like, CDC website, World Health Organization website, maybe your local news or local health department if you need to stay updated on what's happening in your locality provided that looking at the local news is not going to suck you down a rabbit hole.
Jase: That's one where I'm hesitant to even suggest that as something to look at. I do know something that's been suggested to me in the past just about mental health in general
with news is to get your news from a written source rather than television. To just read through, have like a certain amount of time each day, if you're someone who really wants to stay up-to-date on things, certain amount of time each day, you read through articles, you get it, you know what's going on, and then you stop and you don't do any more of it.
All of it is set up of like they make more money the more time you spend consuming their content, whether it's a TV show news program or whether it's a website or whatever. It's in their best interest, unfortunately, to keep you upset enough and keep you addicted enough to keep reading it and keep being worried about it so then you keep coming back to check more information. Find what that is for you that let's less of that play on you. Whether that is just a quick reading thing or like I know Google Home, and Alexa and stuff, have options for, "Give me the five minute summary of the news." There's things like that that you can find. That might be a good option.
Dedeker: Then make sure that you're still taking the regular measures that you might take for caring for your mental health. Processing with someone that you trust and who has the emotional labor available for listening and processing with you or talking to a therapist, doing art. If you have regular medication, make sure you're still on your medication or meditating or just your usual self-care practices. It's still really important even if people are panicking or even if it feels like everyone's talking about this, that you're still carving out time to take care of yourself and still prioritizing your mental health.
Jase: Then also, it is okay to have boundaries to tell people you'd rather not talk about it. I know that right now it feels like all anyone can talk about at work or with my family or anyone and it can sometimes feel like you can't without being rude, but just like with any sort of boundary, it can be a little bit scary to actually enforce them and protect yourself, but it's okay to do it, and it's actually a good thing. Maybe they'll actually end up being relieved that you don't want to talk about it because they feel like they have to talk about it too. It's okay to have that.
Then, part of that could be removing yourself from the situation. Maybe it means for a while, don't have your lunch breaks in the break room, go have them outside or try to find somewhere else or listen to stuff on headphones or something like that to remove yourself from the situation if you can.
Dedeker: I think we've all heard the typical CDC guidelines a couple of times now, a lot of these guidelines that they put out are not necessarily like COVID-specific, it's like these are things that the CDC has been saying for years. Like I said at the top of this podcast, we were all into being hygienic and washing our hands and stuff before it was cool.
Emily: I didn't ever wash my hands to the degree that you do, Dedeker. I have to wash them a lot of work, but the fact that you say you're going to talk about like your hand-washing regiment and mine is never that specific and not like long, so I'm very impressed, but yes.
Dedeker: Honestly, I was also bad at handwashing until I started traveling, honestly.
Emily: That makes sense.
Dedeker: Traveling really shook up my priorities as far as how I take care of my own health.
Emily: I'm sick right now, and I know that I have not disinfected this house like you would have, and that's maybe not great, so I should perhaps think about something like that. All of the doorknobs all the time. It's like, do I do it constantly? What do you do, Dedeker? What do you do?
Dedeker: Oh, what do I do? Honestly, I--
Emily: Is it every day?
Dedeker: I love doing it. I feel like Marie Kondo, and maybe it's mostly psychological, but I don't know, it's super simple. I just get those alcohol wipes and every surface, literally everything. Nooks and crannies, doorknobs, light switches. My trick that I like to do is actually get several packs of disinfected wipes and put one in the bathroom, one in the kitchen, and one in the living room so it's always there. It's just super easy. After you use the bathroom or before you use the bathroom to just get the light switch, get the doorknobs, get the toilet flush handle and then go about your day. I don't know, I feel like a Disney princess, honestly, when I do it.
Emily: You are a Disney princess.
Dedeker: I don't feel like a paranoid weirdo. I feel like Snow White-
Emily: I'm not suggesting that.
Dedeker: -cleaning out the house, so like Cinderella, like whistle while I work. I feel good and pretty, and maybe that's weird.
Emily: No, I think that's great. I mean, hey, all right. Just because for someone like me also who really didn't take these things to heart until recently, let's just throw out the CDC guidelines because, hey--
Jase: Not throw them in the garbage but let's talk about them-
Emily: No-
Jase: -and then talk about how to do that.
Emily: -throw it out there to our audience.
Dedeker: We're going to put them on the table on the pre-sterilized disinfected table.
Jase: Good, good.
Emily: Exactly. Crystal clean, nothing's on it.
Dedeker: If you want to see a much more fun version of this, Vietnam put out--
Emily: Was it Vietnam?
Dedeker: Yes, it was the Vietnamese government put--
Emily:
Dedeker: Yes, put out a video-
Emily: Thank you, John Oliver.
Dedeker: -attached to a really wonderful pop song about washing your hands and staying away from crowds and stuff like that, and it is great. There's a dance that goes along with it, and it's fantastic. Anyway--
Jase: , I need to check that out.
Dedeker: Jase, definitely go check it out.
Jase: There's a TikTok?
Dedeker: Yes. Yes, just clean your hands often. Wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Doctors say that it really is specifically the scrubbing action that does it, so it's less important to make sure that you have an antibacterial soap or stuff like that. Normal soap is fine. Sing happy birthday to yourself twice.
Emily: Yes. This is the thing the Dedeker does that's so impressive to me. I'm like, two times of happy birthday?
Dedeker: It's really not that long and it's like, "Happy birthday to me." It's great. Think of it as a nice little thing that you do before --
Jase: Dedeker got me doing this recently-
Dedeker: It's almost my birthday, but--
Jase: Yes, Dedeker got me doing this also a while ago. Again, we were doing it before it was cool. But I did find it first, especially, I just constantly through my day would have happy birthday stuck in my head. I'm like, "Why do I have--?" Oh, right, it's because I was singing it to myself every time I wash my hands.
Dedeker: Again, wash your hands after you use the bathroom, blowing your nose, coughing, sneezing when you come in after being--
Emily: It's all the time though, right?
Dedeker: Yes. When you come in after having been out and about in a public place, it's a really good habit to get into. I know Jase does this.
Emily: My mum is great at that.
Dedeker: Yes. I picked this up definitely after spending more time in Japan. Just like as soon as you come home, the first thing you do is wash your hands.
Jase: Yes. This one was really interesting to me picking it up in Japan, and it's also partly the way that Japanese homes and apartments tend to be set up where you enter through the kitchen, and it's the people that I would know, and I didn't know this at first until I actually went over to people's places, but it's like you walk into your house, you go wash your hands, and then you go-- Well, okay, you walk in, take off your shoes, then you go wash your hands, and it's just that that's like a habit and a ritual to get into. It is something that once I started doing it, it now just feels really nice. It's like, "Oh, I'm home and my hands are clean." I just feel like now I can kind of settle in and relax.
Dedeker: Yes, and something else that I do as well to attach some self-care, maybe some indulgence to it, maybe some more Disney princess feels to it, is I also like to invest in like a nice Burt's Bees hand cream because when you wash your hands a billion times, it does dry things out and just finishing up with that. Just you can make it nice. I think that most of us when we were kids were forced to wash our hands by everyone and it turned into this like, "Oh, I have to wash my hands," kind of thing, but you can make it really nice for yourself. Just find some joy in the simple things.
Jase: When I was a kid -- Sorry go ahead.
Emily: No, go for it. No, I just was talking about this awesome aloe vera, like a hand cream that I have right now that works wonders, so go get some and use it to your heart's desire.
Jase: When I was a kid, my parents would-- If you went to the bathroom, you had to wash your hands, right? I didn't like it because the water was cold or it was too hot or you know, whatever. I was fussy about it I guess. What I started doing is I would just run the sink for a little while and stand there so that they would hear the water running and think I had washed my hands then I would come out.
Emily: Oh.
Jase: After I did this for a little bit, I had this realization of like, "Oh, part of the reason I wasn't doing it is because I didn't want to take the time and now I'm taking the time anyway. I might as well just wash my hands," Then I just started washing my hands.
Emily: That's good.
Jase: It's just weird that it just seems like such an inconvenience when it's really it's 20 seconds and it's a nice little ritual. Then also, if soap and water are not available, you can use a hand sanitizer, use one that has at least 60% alcohol in it. I do think the wording of this one is worth noting, which is if soap and water are not available, and what that means is that hand sanitizer is not a substitute for washing your hands partly because of the scrubbing thing like Decker was talking about, but also like having the water in the soap and everything is going to do a much better job.
Now if you want to add hand sanitizer on top of washing your hands, that's also a good way to go, but I just want to remind people that hand sanitizer is not a replacement. You could do it in a pinch, but also be sure you're washing your hands. Then to whatever extent possible is to avoid touching "high-touch' surfaces" in public places. Things lots of people are going to touch like-
Emily: The handrail or the escalator railed thingy-wingy, the doorknob.
Dedeker: That thingy-wingy, yes.
Jase: Elevator buttons, the railings on subways, things like that. If you're taking public transit.
Dedeker: If you want a fun piece of trivia, I just learned that this is- high-touch surfaces in Japanese, the word is , which actually translates to like thick touch surfaces.
Emily: Those thick touches.
Jase: They're thick with touching.
Dedeker: I know. Which is maybe a little bit more gross.
Emily: What did they say? They're like use a tissue or your sleeve to cover your hand, your finger if you must touch something. But also, I mean, yes, like okay, I think about this when I have to put gas in the car and that thing is high-touch, thick with touch-
Emily: -and so are the button and I don't know, do I just like bring a hanky with me all the time? What's happening here? I don't know.
Jase: Well, so this actually reminds me of--
Emily: Or just wash your hands afterward.
Jase: Yes, that's what I was going to get to, is wash your hands. It is something that I think in the interest of trying to be more hygienic, people can actually create some pretty unhygienic situations for themselves. One example of that is the whole sneezing into your elbow instead of into your hand thing. While if you're out somewhere where you can't wash your hands, that makes sense so that you don't want that on your hands. Where you're touching surfaces and things.
However, if you sneeze into your hands and then you go wash your hands, it's now taken care of. Whereas you sneeze into your elbow, how often-
Emily: It's still on your elbow.
Jase: -do you wash that sweater or whatever? It's one of those things where it depends on the situation, and I think with this too, where people will be like, "Oh, that's gross. I'm going to pull my sleeve over my hand and open the bathroom door with that." It's like how many times is that bathroom door now on your sleeve before you clean it? It is this thing of really think it through and don't just go, "Oh, don't touch anything." Really try to think through the steps of what's really going to be more clean, and often the answer is to just wash your hands after that or to use a paper towel or a tissue or something that you're going to throw away.
Emily: Yes so the last CDC guideline is something that I'm absolutely terrible at, which is avoid touching your face, nose, eyes, et cetera.
Emily: Because I was thinking about this the other day when I was at work and I'm like, "I have an itch. I need to touch it. My nose is running. I need to like wipe it away or something." I don't even know. "I have something in my eye." I want to touch my eye. All of these things and it's terrible because I'm really bad at it.
Jase: I really struggle with this one too.
Emily: Yes, I get it.
Jase: I just have an itchy face.
Emily: Me too, thank you, of course. I agree. There's just like-- I want to itch myself or touch myself and find out now, and so I'm not quite sure what to do about this one except for the CDC says, "Don't do it." I'll see, I'll maybe try to get better at it, but maybe just have the cleanest hands ever, and then you can touch your face, but if you do touch your face, then you need to wash your hands and vice versa. I don't know. What do you think, Jase?
Jase: This is one that I remember really noticing for the first time when I was living in Russia for a little while, is that my host brother, I was staying with a host family, we were doing a study abroad thing. My host brother was really good about not touching his face, to rub his eyes or to itch his eyes specifically is what I noticed it with, and you'd see him blink a little bit harder sometimes like if his eyes itched, and that's what made me first start to notice it as he had this weird blink thing that he would do, but I noticed he wasn't touching his face as much. I was like, "Oh." I did also just notice in general that in Russia people that I knew at least seem to be a lot more mindful about that just like everyday ways that you can get sick much more so than I was brought up to be.
I think some of that can be related to, I think we sometimes have a bit of an American cockiness about infection thinking that, "Oh, well, it somehow it doesn't affect me," and like, "Oh, if it does, I'll be fine because I'm a rugged individualist or whatever." It was something that I really noticed when I was there and since then tried to bring that to mind if like, "Okay, I know it's possible to do, so I can do this." I still really struggle with touching my face, though. How are you on this one, Dedeker? Do you have any good tips for that?
Dedeker: Well, that actually leads into our next thing and talking about masks. I know that there's a billion articles out there about like, should you wear a mask or should you not wear a mask, stuff like that, but that's my thing, is I tend to only wear a mask when I'm on a plane. Again, was doing it before it was cool. Thank you very much, but I feel like that's the most effective thing, is that enables me to scratch my nose through the mask instead of directly putting my fingers all over my nose or mouth or whatever it is, is that, but other than that, no, I'm terrible. I touch my face all the time. It's a way of life.
Jase: Even the ideal best practices for using surgical masks is not to touch the mask either. That is-
Dedeker: Wow.
Jase: I know, it's a bummer. I do find though if I have one on, it makes me at least more aware of that, and so hopefully it's like adds a little reminder of like, "Oh, right, don't touch my face." To just have that on makes me more aware of it.
Dedeker: What if we all just use like that compressed air for cleaning out your keyboard?
Jase: Just have can with air just into your face.
Emily: To spray your face constantly? I love that.
Dedeker: Disclaimer, do not do that. It'd be very dangerous and very painful but the image of it is funny to me.
Jase: I have found, I do sometimes now if my eyes are real itchy, like if I'm tired or something, I will sometimes go to the bathroom just to wash my hands so that I can rub my eyes guilt-free, it got to be.
Dedeker: Wow.
Jase: That one's hard. I don't have a ton of good tips for it, but just gradually becoming more aware of it, and the more often you wash your hands, the less of a problem it is. Then we just wanted to say real quick about masks also. If you are sick and you have to be around people, please wear a mask. I know that in the United States and in Canada and a lot of Europe, people think it's weird to wear a mask.
Dedeker: I've literally been bullied on an airplane because of wearing a mask.
Emily: What?
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Bullied?
Dedeker: Again, before the coronavirus thing even happened, I would wear masks on airplanes and literally bullied, stared at, harassed.
Emily: What did someone say?
Dedeker: Harassed. It wasn't a drunk person who started, this guy who literally was like touching me and trying to grab me to get my attention and harassing me because he thought-
Emily: You're like, "Do touch me."
Dedeker: -he assumed that if I'm wearing a mask, it must mean that I'm sick, and I need to tell him what I'm sick with and stuff like that. I complained to the airline, they did nothing, so that was cool.
Jase: Boo.
Emily: Remember all those times when you're, "Complain to the airline, they'll do something"?
Dedeker: I know. It's ironic. I complained about there being duct tape in the bathroom, they give me all these airline miles. I complained about being harassed by a drunken fool and they do nothing, so priorities.
Emily: It sounds about right. I'm sorry to hear that. I like wearing masks.
Jase: Cultural differences aside, yes, do it.
Emily: Yes, I like wearing them now. I wore one to rehearsal the other day when I was super sick, and everyone looked at me strangely, and I was like, "This is for you. Not for me. For you. I have to be all up and you all's faces and you don't want that shit. You don't."
Dedeker: All that being said, please do not go out and panic buy masks like a bunch of people are doing, that's really not helping things.
Emily: You're probably not going to be able to find them.
Dedeker: Well, even so, that means that then people who are sick who do need to wear a mask, people who do actually need to wear a mask for work have a harder time getting them, so don't be a jerk and hoard masks.
Jase: Yes. Also, the thing with masks is if you are someone who's like, "Do they really work?" Basically, the quick summary of the findings on that is masks are actually quite effective at preventing you from spreading something to other people. They're a little bit not terribly effective at stopping you from getting stuff from other people in a controlled test. To go back to what I was saying before, I find when I wear one, I'm also just much more aware of hygiene and germs and things like that, and so when I wear one when I travel, if I'm not sick, I will still wear one on a plane, and it just keeps me thinking about it, so I'm more likely to sanitize my hands and wash my hands and things like that.
I think there's actually more benefit to it than some of that research would have you believe because they're literally just testing how many pathogens get through the mask and get on to the person. That's why it's very effective at stopping you from spreading it to people, it's why surgeons wear them because out of their mouth is all sorts of stuff that could infect someone. Anyway, it is a good thing to wear, but especially if you are the one who is sick to protect other people. I've worn them to bed before with Dedeker when I've been sick. I'd wear a mask to bed. It helped-
Emily: Wow.
Jase: -to keep my nose a little more moist during the night and then also kept me from coughing as much all over her and keeping them on control.
Dedeker: It's great. I love that.
Jase: She didn't get sick at that time.
Dedeker: I didn't get sick and I fell even deeper in love with you.
Emily: Oh, wow.
Dedeker: Oh, man, okay. The last thing, and this one's hard, but it's if you have sick days at your work, take them if you're sick. If you are a boss who is able to give sick days, make sure you get them to people. I know that, especially in American culture, we're really used to thinking like, "Oh, if I just have a small cold or whatever, I'm putting people out. If I'm not coming into work, it's going to be better for me to come into work even if I'm sick," and that is incorrect. You're not doing anybody any favors by coming into work when you're still sick. If you have sick days, take them, and take care of yourself things like that.
Now, that being said, not everybody has sick days. I don't have paid sick days. Actually, honestly, most people that I know don't have paid sick days. A lot of us are working part-time or working freelance or working in the gig economy or stuff like that. It definitely can be a privilege based on what your employment situation is.
Something that I use that I find is really helpful for freelancers in general, there's this app called Catch that specifically you link your bank account to it, and you can tell it something like, "Hey, I want to be able to take four sick days and seven vacation days this year." Whatever it is, it's purely you plug in how much you want, you plug in what your income is, and then it will essentially automatically deduct from your paycheck and just put it into this separate account.
Whenever your paycheck comes through, it'll be like, "Okay, we'll take out 6% of your paycheck or whatever," so that you can essentially accrue almost like paid time off for yourself a little bit. You can take it out whatever you like, so it's not stuck in there anything like that. I found that's been really helpful for me to encourage me to actually take time off when I am sick because it's like, "Okay, well, I have a little bit of chunk of change here so that at the very least I'm not totally sacrificing income by choosing to not work today."
Is a great app, they do it also for retirement benefits for health insurance benefits and stuff like that, but I find it's really helpful if you're freelance, if you're part-time, if you work at a job that doesn't have those kind of benefits, and it's helpful to you to have something that's automating it and making it so that it's just already taken care of out of sight, out of mind, I really recommend it. We're not even being paid by Catch or anything like that. That's purely my personal endorsement for the app.
Jase: All right. Then--
Emily: No, that's great.
Jase: I did want to throw out there too. If you're someone in a position not even like you're the company owner or anything like that, but if you're like a lead for your department or you're any kind of manager or something like that, is to encourage your employees to take sick days, like not just to give them that option but also to encourage it. Because I think again, we all have this mindset of like, "I'm somehow doing the right thing and doing you a favor by coming in while I'm sick because I don't want to let you down and not do my work." If you're coming into a workplace and then getting other people's sick, you're actually costing everyone in the company more money to do that.
It's like really encourage your employees to do that. It's something I like about the visual effects company that I work for, that they've always been very good about if you're feeling at all sick, our HR guy will always be like, "Yes, please, take your sick day. We're happy to pay you for it. Go take your sick day. Go be at home. Feel better. Don't get anyone else sick." I like that. I really appreciate that because it takes away that guilt that we all feel when we take sick days, which really sucks that that's how our culture has decided to think about that.
Emily: I'm bad and have in the past been really bad about taking sick days and prided myself on the fact that like, "Well, even if I'm sick I'll go in and it'll be fine."
Jase: I think a lot of people do.
Emily: Definitely. I'm literally serving food to people. I'm very careful when I am sick and when I go to work, but at the same time-- This last time when I was sick, I said to myself, "No, you're not doing this again." I took two days off. It was really good and necessary. I think that it made a big difference in me getting better faster. I'm still kind of sick, but we're getting there. Just do it if you can. If you are able to, then please take those sick days because it's incredibly important for not only your own health and well-being but the well-being of those around you.
We are going to do a bonus episode for our Patreon-only listeners about our favorite sick day activities. We wanted to make it a little bit happier for you all and do a fun bonus episode for everyone. Also, we wanted to hear from you, our listeners, about what it is that you do when you're sick in your polycule, in your community, how you help other people around you stay safe from your sickness, how you best help the environment in terms of your surfaces. If you go on a disinfecting spree, like Dedeker does, if you sing the happy birthday song as well, what you do regarding all of that.
Dedeker: Tell us how you are staying mentally healthy also.