Anna Biela
nuclearanna.bsky.social
Anna Biela
@nuclearanna.bsky.social
1.7K followers 660 following 1.7K posts
Nuclear engineer, enby queer, and collector of hobbies. Any pronouns.
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If anyone would like to join me in memorializing my father, Tom Biela, please consider donating to the Joslin Diabetes Center or the American Diabetes Association.

joslin.org/giving
diabetes.org
But even if you have psych that treats you like a person, the laws/regs (including the DEA, of all people, setting production limits) presume ADHD isn’t *really* real. Or if it IS real, it’s not that serious. And if it is that serious, then surely they’re over-diagnosing it. If they’re not over-dia—
See, I’m a 30-ish year old white person with an impressive-sounding profession. No one treats me like I’m drug seeking, tbqh.

It’s when you dare to show symptoms of your ADHD, are desperate for help, or are outside the bubble of respectability that suddenly they start treating you like a criminal.
Seriously? That’s not even a controlled substance. I’m sorry you have to deal with that for absolutely no reason
Jfc. The only way to even kinda optimize this mess financially is to set a bunch of reminders to do it on the exact right day.

But there’s no winning with doctors constantly suspicious that you’re the enemy in a made up war on drugs.
Exactly! They’re so worried about misuse that it forces patients into worse regimens and pill hoarding.
(I promised a more niche and weird answer to this question and hope “I think you should give your friends secular acts of penance” delivers)
There’s parallels here to restorative justice, but I think restorative justice is more about doing right by a victim or community when you’ve genuinely wronged someone, whereas this sort of interpersonal confession is more about making things right with your conscience & becoming a better person.
The secular version of “say 5 Hail Marys” is, perhaps, to volunteer at an animal shelter or do some chores for an overworked family member. Or bringing a coworker you were short with an apology donut.
It’s better, ethically and socially, for both people to acknowledge the hurt (even for the things that are genuine accidents or momentary, sympathetic mistakes), consider what atonement looks like, and act on that.
This is disrespectful to their feelings and agency, and causes moral injury to fester. Even if the guilt is unreasonable and you understandably want to comfort your friend, it doesn’t actually ease that guilt to tell them it doesn’t matter.
I think Catholics are on to something with confession and penance.

People naturally confess feelings of guilt to close friends and partners, but it seems the default response to this nowadays (unless personally aggrieved) is reassurance & justification. “It’s not your fault.” “It’s not that bad.”
Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?
Actually, this isn’t even an interesting ethical stance. It naturally follows from any ethical framework that believes disabled people are people and should have control over their own bodies.

I should do better and post something actually niche and weird. I’ll have to think on it. 🤔
Methylphenidate and amphetamine aren’t dangerous enough to justify all this. Just let clinicians write refills per their own judgment and let patients get a 90 day supply.
Making people with ADHD see a psychiatrist every 90 days (and then go, in person, to the pharmacy every 30 days) to get their brain juice is a waste of the clinician’s time and limited resources, and a particularly egregious burden on ADHDers.
Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?
Reposted by Anna Biela
It should not be as niche as it is, but I keep having to repeat it:

If your values don't apply to *everyone,* they're not actually your values. They are simply a favor that you do for people that you like.
Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?
This one hurts to consider, but imo that’s how you know an ethical stance means something and isn’t just a justification for what you want.
This is amazing! Thank you

The little charge and headbutt is too damn cute 😭🥰
Reposted by Anna Biela
Oh hell yes. I’m so proud of everyone involved
Last week, the Indiana University administration asked their student newspaper not to print any news stories in the Homecoming edition. When the faculty advisor refused, IU fired him and ended paper printing. So students at the Purdue paper printed the IU edition and drove it down to Bloomington!
Purdue student journalists deliver special 'solidarity' newspaper to IU Bloomington campus
The special edition blasted across town features columns from IDS and Exponent editors, alongside QR codes to support both student papers.
www.heraldtimesonline.com
and inflatable office furniture
imagining an alt history where Carter, Regan, and Obama fought over a lil White House SMR