#how to study with a mental illness 2.0 i think | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luminous-studiess · 3 years

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Ummm so I'm new to tumblr so don't judge if I did something wrong.Ummm how can I be like you? Like you know? Productive and smart.I always push myself but ended up being distracted by things (I have adhd and depression).I can't even remember anything after.I suffer,and continue suffering, from my mental illnesses.I just can't keep myself on track.My family makes fun of me for trying.I'm actually trying to find a part time job here but nothing hires minors.Idk please help meee.

hi, friend! answer under the cut because this will be long.

please know you’re doing nothing wrong, and that the fact you keep trying to become better and to push yourself to always get things done despite difficult circumstances already shows that you ARE already productive and smart.

second, it also helped me when i was struggling very heavily last year to learn two things: 1) there will always be particularly bad days when you live with mental illness, but all the little efforts you take, it slowly does get less difficult. getting better does not mean completely getting rid of all the symptoms you experience, but mostly just learning the best ways and small, gentle things you can do for yourself to manage your condition. this really requires a gentle but firm balance between pushing yourself to do the things you absolutely need to do, but also knowing when what level of work/school/self-care or hobbies is the limit, so that you don’t get too overwhelmed. this means most of the time, you don’t have to worry about being productive for its own sake. it helps me when i feel like i’m drowning to know how little i can do/the most non-negotiable bare minimum, that still helps me not to fall behind.

^ this is a small, cheap pad of sticky notes i carry with me throughout my entire day. it’s only big enough so that i can only write a few school tasks/personal things i need to do/chores, which helps me evaluate what exactly i can only get done, especially on days where i don’t feel well. checking off absolutely everything on my tiny list makes me feel like i’ve accomplished a lot, because i i have-- they aren’t necessarily a lot of tasks, but they’re the ones that i know really do need to get done. it also helps me focus when i have a lot of nervous energy, and have a panicked sense of “so many things need to get done!!!?” because i can give myself a bit of time to sit down, maybe turn on an episode of a show i like or make some coffee, and write down my tasks. it really helps me with the faint, tiny guilt and dread i used to feel day by day that i was being unproductive or lazy, because now i know i’ve fulfilled all my obligations to myself (everything from doing laundry, to making dinner) and to other people (schoolwork and other tasks). it’s okay to move at the pace that’s only possible for you right now. it’s better to feel comfortable with the smallest things you can do, and build on that as the days come. 2) getting distracted is normal, given Everything Happening Right Now, plus with a mental health condition that makes it hard to focus. it can also be hard to remember things when i study, because of my own health conditions, but i’ve found that the following things have helped: regarding distraction - use a small system that keeps you from accessing any distractions when you need to get something done. i try to leave my non-essential device in another room, and set up a timer-based blocker, to limit the websites i access. - i try to acknowledge the distractions as they come, and try to figure out why: am i hungry? am i tired? have i gotten enough sleep? do i need a break? if it isn’t anything serious, i just acknowledge that i’ve gone briefly off-track-- without guilt, without judgment. then i try to turn my mind back to the task at hand. - a good ambient playlist can make me feel more focused during hard tasks in the sense that i have some form of stimulation to keep the “itchiness” at bay. video game soundtracks and film soundtracks are also wonderful for long, tricky tasks. - sometimes i just have to start to feel motivated-- the focus actually comes in in the middle of the task. the fact of starting something may actually make you feel motivated.

- procrastinate productively: sometimes when i really don’t want to study i turn on a movie or a show and use the time to clean my room or fold laundry. my life still feels put-together, and i enjoyed myself! win-win.

- and sometimes i realize that focus may be impossible at the moment: take a break, go for a run, do something you like, take a nap. regarding learning and remembering things i used to have the worst time recalling things for school, until i prioritized two things: SLEEP, and not cramming. i used to get extremely poor grades in my first year of law school because i would put off studying at the last and latest moment-- a few days before exams, pulling all-nighters right up until the hour the exam started. i would also just use my free time to scroll on social media, instead of taking a nap or going to bed early. this was absolutely wrong. during the exam, i couldn’t recall anything because i was too tired, too frazzled, probably didn’t have breakfast, and because i had started and finished half a semester of reading in one night. my grades have gotten much better lately-- i’d like to think it’s because i’ve centered it around two things: (a) getting enough sleep every single night (helpful ESPECIALLY if you have health problems-- mental or physical), and (b) making exam day the least stressful it can be. how do i do this? - this means not only learning things for the exam, but also for classes on a daily period. you don’t have to study particularly hard, but you just have to study enough that you can understand what the professor is saying in class. set definite study hours every day, stop at a very specific and reasonable hour, and go to bed. try to get at least 6 hours of sleep. sleep helps me absorb everything better (idk science but this is from experience and also some very smart people i know ALSO prioritize getting sleep). wake up at a reasonable hour. - how to study: read the syllabus, and try to get a decent overview of all the topics you need to cover before you start testing/making flashcards/doing active recall (which is IMPORTANT bc this helps you actually train your brain to retrieve information). imho as someone low-energy i find that rewriting notes/making reviewers/making flashcards makes me very tired and leaves very little time for actual studying, so it just helps to test myself by looking at the syllabus and trying to explain the concept to myself, then peeking at the textbook or materials to see what i’m missing. mind-maps are also energy-efficient ways of figuring out how concepts fit together. - how to study for exams: the very latest you should start is a week ahead. two weeks ahead is ideal. map out how much information you need to re-learn from the syllabus. move slowly with the aim of finishing the coverage by the first week. the second is for reviewing and RESTING. - THE NIGHT BEFORE THE EXAM: do a final, gentle survey over the topics you may not understand. stop at 10 pm. go to sleep. - EXAM DAY: you’ve done the work. take the time to eat breakfast, test yourself SLOWLY AND GENTLY (avoid reading huge chunks of textbook at this point-- youll only confuse yourself), and set up your workspace to take the exam. crush said exam. as a final note: it can be hard to get things done when the people closest to you aren’t supportive. try to reach out on studyblr and find discord study with me servers, or study communities on reddit (they’re actually really nice), or with students in your class. if you need to talk, just dm me. you can do this friend, okay? take care always. gentler days will come.

#mental health support #mental health tips #student mental health #uni tips #college tips #study tips #how to study with a mental illness 2.0 i think???#studyblr #asks

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inkskinned · 6 years

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literally just a dumb unorganized list of school tips

source: im a grad student. i’ve had a lot of school. also i’m adhd & mentally ill and require +8 organization. this is mostly directed @ college students, but maybe high school students can use it too, fuck, idk, it’s been forever since i was stuck in that hell hole

just say “professor” either ur using the correct title for a person (will make them feel good) or you’re giving them a bigger title on the assumption they deserve it (which will make them feel good) and also prevents having to ever i mean ever use their names

talk at least 1 time a week in each class, aim for 1 time a day. even lecture classes. i fucking hate talking in front of more than 5 people, so what i would do is prepare a question about the hw/etc (even if i didn’t need it answered) to ask the professor after class so they saw me and got used to me and saw i was invested in their class. about 89% of teachers - if they see you try, they will pass you. i mean it’s literally that easy. i know people who went from like a c- but because they legit tried, their grade got bumped up to a b-.

if u have to bring a laptop, pre-download the required material/screenshot it, and then turn off your wifi. it’s too easy to not listen.

physical writing will always give you more information recall over typing.

nobody cares about stupid shit anymore trust me they don’t remember that you were accidentally locked in a towel out of your room bc they have their own dumb shit that happened.... in college all the “cringe culture” turns into “god i wish that were me” culture ... wear ur onesie to a party trust me you make +800 friends and 799 of them will be girls telling you you’re adorable and they’d die for you

about locking urself out.... if ur like me and can breeze past post-it notes placed in obvious areas, don’t be a dumb bitch and rely on post-it-notes. while most schools offer 1 free lockout, dont rely on it - it once took 2 hours before someone could get to me. i was in a towel, which meant no phone. so like. anyway, what i do now is i put something on the handle of the door i have to open/unlock. i can’t just open the door w/out the thing falling down and making a loud “you dumb bitch unlock the door before u shower” sound.

this works for all important don’t-forget it things. other obstacles i’ve used to remind myself to do something include: putting a chair with my wholeass posterboard in front of the door, an entire printer with a single piece of paper that just read “for the love of god check to be sure you have that essay”, and a recycling bin i kept forgetting to empty. guess what bitch finally emptied the bin once it was between me and a swift exit!

no offense and like the whole “it’s the best years of your life!” thing is great but in reality everything goes better scholastically when you treat it as “i came here to win, not to make friends.” i still did make friends, went to parties every weekend, was popular enough i’d be invited to several on one night - but i came there to win. when i put my scholastic life and my mental health first, i went from a 2.0 to a 3.98. yes you can, bitch.

you’re spending the money. don’t squander it. trust me when i say i know plenty of people who breeze through, bc you often can. but like. don’t. challenge yourself bc like. talk about an investment.

if you hate your major, change it. don’t make your life something you can’t stand. on that note, do NOT agree 100% to a track until you have at least some experience in the field. i cannot tell u how many ppl i know who got their whole masters/phd program done, walked into their new profession, and were like, Oh Fuck, I Can’t Live Like This.

college literally offers so many free things and if you’re not taking advantage of them whenever possible i get it but like. try to take advantage of them. this is everything from your gym (which probably has free classes dude) to clubs to like. sober events. these sober events are so ... fuckin good dude i’ve made mason jars with little plants in em... bee aviaries... candles.... go to the free stuff

oh ps on free stuff i wanna say about 4 of 5 days there’s free food on campus just look for things like job fairs, presentations, or discussion groups. also while you’re there at the job fair like. u know, go to the job fair in earnest

i took off 2 years to work and also to just. recover from my bullshit. and it took me 6 years and 3 schools to get my bachelor’s. it wasn’t easy but bitch i lived. there’s no such thing as “too long” to graduate if that’s truly what you want to do.

if on the meal plan, eat as clean as you can the first week. then introduce each part of the cafeteria’s possibly-food-poisoning-creating foods one at a time. give @ least 2 days between each experiment so you know for sure if you get sick what caused it. i literally never eat meat at school but you can still get sick off of unwashed lettuce/salad dressing that hasn’t been refrigerated properly/weirdass things you won’t even think of. this prevents like. dying in a public bathroom.

white loaf bread can be gross & boring. discount bakery section for your slightly chewy artisianal bread needs. if overstale, either toast it or dunk it into water and microwave it (unless u got an oven. use the oven if u can)

steal as many apples from the dining hall/events/etc as physically possible just do it they keep FOREVER and @ some point you’ll be like. fUCK i need a nutrition. ps if you’re keeping them in ur backpack (i wouldn’t keep more than 2) make sure to wrap w/a few paper towels so if you drop your bag you don’t get apple mush

write it all down bitch. “i’ll remember it” no you won’t. unless you are capable of remembering every idea on this list and in order, you won’t remember it. in general, if you write something 3 times, you will recall it correctly at least 80% of the time. i also read it out loud to myself, bc, you know, auditory recall

DO NOT just put your assignment at the top of your notes, unless you’re 100% sure that will work for you. in most cases, it’s much better to have a planner/agenda/place you expect to look for assignments. +7 points if you lie to yourself about deadlines and move them all up.

like not to sound too much like a DARE ad but like. if you don’t like it/don’t want it, don’t fuckin do it. the idea that “there’s nothing to do if you don’t party” is such bullshit. like i promise if you’re like “i am a grouch and want to stay in and binge netflix” about 45 ppl will show up in pjs like “bitch fullscreen it, im a grouch too.” there’s also like. the chance to just.... not overindulge. on wednesdays i have “wine wednesdays” where we sit around and drink a glass of wine while we do our hw. it’s chill and friendly instead of like. drink until u vomit. don’t feel like you either gotta slam the breaks or the gas pedal, is what i mean.

PLEASE know the signs of alcohol poisoning/overdose. most schools have a “Safety Always Matters Most” policy, which means that you can call for help w/out getting into trouble. if you think someone is in danger, act. this also goes for making sure ppl get home safe even if they’re just incapacitated, not poisoned. step in, dudes.

also just. notice when ur starting to rely on stuff too much. i’m super easily addicted to things, so i keep a healthy distance from liquor. i don’t let myself “drink to feel better” bc that’s a scary, scary thing to link to feeling better. if you or somebody u know starts drinking all the time/gets anxious if they don’t drink/drinks in the daytime .... get help. schools have counselling services for a reason.

you’re gonna get a cold/flu of some sort in the first 2 months just brace for it. in the meantime, drink vitamin c, try not to touch too many handles, and when people say “there’s something going around” believe them.

watch kaplan nike just do it

if you can teach it, you know the material. a super good way of knowing if you studied the right way is to try and teach the material to a stuffed animal/imaginary class.

“i don’t know how to study” bitch me too the fuck. this is usually bc we’ve been taught that studying is just sitting down and staring @ ur notes. it’s not. it’s different for everyone, and you need to understand it’s 99% preventative care. if you don’t go to the class or do the homework, studying is going to fucking suck, bc you’re learning the material all at once for the first time. the place you should consider “studying” is “i’m confident in 70-90% of the material, but need to review.” do not let yourself fall behind .... just go to office hours and ask questions if ur not getting something. studying should feel like you’re remembering what you already knew but kinda forgot, not like you’ve been blindsided.

the whole “writing it down in ur own words” while u have been told this 700 times it really helps bc it means u gotta translate it through your own understanding. if you can’t, and it’s not bc the material seems too obvious to you to state in another way - ask yourself if you don’t understand the material. chances are u are missing a bit of info.

i know it’s like A Thing that Some People do but i never had the mental health points for it but i know some people just take 15 minutes after every class to review their notes. since i’m 100% early to every class ever, obnoxiously so, i try to do it before class. having the last class’s notes up in my head super helps. like. put down the phone i know you’re socially anxious me too but review those notes. chances are if u start flipping through pages other ppl will too. this is also fun bc as soon as you start this whole thing, at least one person will be like “is there a test?” no bitch there’s no test but im gonna be ready when there is!

literally so much of success is fucking posturing i could link about 800 peer-edited studies that show that when a student is expected to do well (and knows they are), they do well. like i literally didn’t change my appearance at all, never bothered to look nice (once winter hits i wear 67 layers all the time), but when i showed up after my 2 years off from school, i presented myself with the whole “i came here to win” vibe and people... really respected me? i mean in hs i remember ppl saying shit like “yeah, well, you aren’t gonna have the homework”. by the time i was in college i had an honest-to-god conversation which included someone being like “so tell me what you’re overachieving at right now” like they just expected it from me. wild.

i live by “bite off more than you can chew, and then CHEW IT” but it’s probably unhealthy. the truth is that i have a lot of energy all the time (lmao adhd!!!) and i used to get told i was “trying too hard” and for a long time (still???) i didn’t (i don’t?) know what that was, you know, bc i had a D average, clearly i wasn’t trying. it turns out i was just. putting all my energy into stuff that wasn’t making me happy like toxic friendships etc. when i decided “nope, all this energy is for me and my schoolwork”..... uhhhhh suddenly i was a golden child and everyone praised my try-hardness ... it’s a fuckt up system tbh

take at least 1 class just for fun. i try to do that every semester. it helps break up all the requirements. if you’re like an engineer and got no time or credits left to spend, try to audit your fun course.

make ur advisor love you i don’t care what it takes make them cupcakes show up to thank them i dONT CARE just do it

the library isn’t always the best place. if i start getting anxious bc i pavlovian train myself that library=work, i find a new place to go to do hw. try to go outside if you can!!! not like where i live bc like it’s snow all the time but try. a little green really really really helps depression.

if you’ve been in the same “Studying” place for 1 hour and haven’t done anything the chances are Something Isn’t Right. first, look @ ur body. are you not focusing bc of some pressing physical need? sometimes just taking a shower and coming back helps. are you uncomfy? are you too comfy and going to sleep? if body okay, look @ the material. do you not understand it? do you just need to switch to a new topic for a little bit? can you find a youtube video that will help you better understand it? make notes on what you don’t get so you can ask in the next class. if it’s not the material, it’s not ur bod, check the Actual Space. sometimes just getting up, going for a short walk to a new place, and trying it there actually? really works? if none of this is working.... try ur brain next. hardest to reset bc like, what, turn it on and off again? i use things like caffeine, a short workout, a nap, or a podcast all to just... give me a little boost.

don’t be afraid to leave. i mean this about class, friend groups, and the college ur at. just get up on outta there if ur not feelin it. i cannot recommend “drop the class” enough. even if it’s a required course see if u can switch the times if u hate the professor day 3 it’s not gonna get better just get the fuCK out

don’t nap in the same position u go to sleep in, nap upside down w/ur head away from ur pillow. don’t ask me why but it works to 1. fall asleep faster 2. make sure u sleep okay at night and 3. wake up less annoyed

on that note don’t ever do anything in ur bed in a sleeping position unless it’s genuinely sleeping in it. body will get confused. just sit up, lazybones.

when/if the library has those therapy dogs during finals week.... just go pet them make the time for it

ask before hugging people, but don’t expect a “yes”

get a backpack that fits and doesn’t hurt ur back u fuckin hippie idc how cool it is to wear ur backpack super low just don’t do it it’s not worth it

the tutoring center is a fucking goldmine.... free essay edits my dudes

bring a fan dorms are always hotter than u expect

switch dorms if u can if u realize ur in the wrong room/wrong roomate like just don’t bother with nonsense

when in doubt, follow preschool rules. tell ppl when they did something cool, just ask when u need help, and be confident even in your mistakes, because at least u tried

#anyway

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cannabisrefugee-esq · 5 years

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(via Now That’s Some Serious Chronic Fatigue. Spoon Theory 2.0? (Patreon Link Within))

October 4, 2019

Many chronically ill people eventually learn about the “Spoon Theory” of chronic fatigue, which is basically a way to explain to healthy people what it’s like when you no longer possess (or never had) virtually unlimited mental and physical energy to do what you want. Because it’s always the responsibility of the weakest and sickest to explain ourselves to healthy people innit. A person’s spoons are a visual representation of their physical and mental energy reserves for the day, where a physical or mental activity “costs” one or more spoons to perform and when the spoons are gone the sick person has no choice but to stop acting and rest. With adequate rest and recovery time, hopefully their spoon reserves will replenish by the next day but that is not always the case. Many days, seriously ill people may have no spoons at all.

Spoon Theory was described and named by a chronically ill woman and it is pretty accurate in my own experience. For the first time in my life, after putting myself through law school, studying for and passing the bar exam, and then working more than full time in a stressful and demanding career in addition to a lifetime of “adulting” meaning maintaining a household and nurturing various parasitic males I no longer have anywhere near the energy I once had and can now barely get anything done, regardless of urgency or import. It’s not a matter of how important anything is anymore, nor how badly I need to or want to do it. I am not in control of that now and it is debilitating and terrifying.

Healthy people have no idea that’s even possible and they often refuse to believe it. And that’s an example of ableism, or discrimination in policy and practice against disabled people and in favor of healthy people. Young people seem acutely aware of the concept of spoons, chronic illness and ableism while older people seem to have not a clue; the implications of that are terrifying but I will leave that for another day.

I recently attempted to describe my own limitations to my mother, and even though as a nurse who claims to have rigorously studied the issues and thinks she knows everything there is to know about health, wellness and chronic illness (LOL) she had never even heard of “spoons” or spoon theory. Considering that that information is literally everywhere if one only cares to look, her research skills get an F. Her practical knowledge gets an F. Empathy F. Effort F. Fucks given on behalf of the chronically ill F. Fucks given about me and my new normal F. Decent human being D+. Maybe. Maybe there’s hope, I think to myself, and at least a D+ is better than an F in that department, although the D+ is likely generous. It’s a pretty important department and I like to think it matters but maybe it really doesn’t. Maybe there is just no way that healthy people will ever understand or care what it’s like to be seriously chronically ill no matter how decent they are but I decide to try.

I proceed to explain my limitations to a nurse, to my own fucking mother thusly: in a week’s time, in addition to fulfilling the basic survival needs of my business, myself and my 2 adopted shelter cats (procuring nutrition and toileting basically) I can maybe cook/prepare food 5 times, clean up the mess twice, and shower once. That means there are at least 3 times a week where I cook/prepare food and do not clean up the mess right away. Yes, that’s a thing that happens and no, there is nothing I can do about it. My mom responded by shrieking “bullshit! bullshit!” into my ear, as if that changes anything except to (more) completely alienate me and yes, to waste even more of my spoons. My mom is a garbage disposal for my spoons and causes extreme spoon deficit on the regular, or she will if I let her. And by “let her” I mean have any contact with her; I haven’t spoken to her in a year and a half, and very little in the past 7 years since I became seriously chronically ill and that’s why. After her most recent outburst and what it did to my spoons I think I could easily go forever without speaking with her again.

Then yesterday I came across a post by another chronically ill blogger who described her own experience with chronic fatigue in a unique way that despite my own extreme brain fog and forgetfulness generally, I will probably never forget. Michelle reads and comments here regularly (hi Michelle!) and has recently become a fulltime boondocker which means that she lives in wilderness areas in an RV all or almost all the time. Like most or all chronically ill people, Michelle is a “Spoonie” and suffers from chronic fatigue and has only so many fucks to give and so much energy to burn on any given day and while it’s not up to her how many spoons she has, it is kind of up to her how she spends them. Despite her “garbage can” diagnosis of ME/CFS she does the absolute best she can, as do we all, but in her case she has particular trouble using and maintaining her bulky and temperamental portable generator and cleaning up the dishes after she cooks and eats.

The really striking (and totally relateable) part of her experience, for me, was this:

Michelle often parks her RV in bear country and dirty dishes attract bears and she knows that. But still she cannot necessarily muster the mental and physical energy needed to clean the dishes right away and the task must be put off until the next day or possibly even the next. Get it? Now that’s some serious fatigue, and I (and she) don’t mean to say that she has any worse fatigue than any other chronically ill person. She may and she may not, how would that even be measured? Rather, I (we) mean that chronic fatigue is serious, it is seriously and unbelievably debilitating and in this post Michelle explains the reality of it so well. She cannot do anything more than what she can do, even if when her life literally depends on it. And in her situation her life actually does depend on it.

Do you see what I am saying? The import and urgency of the task changes nothing, NOTHING about what she is and is not able to actually do. When her spoons are gone that’s it, and the only way she might have a spoon left over to do the dishes is if she never even cooked at all. Do you see the problem there? Because I do. She can either risk being attacked by bears or not cook (and therefore maybe not even eat) at all. From what I’ve gathered through reading her blog, Michelle will probably not decide to stop boondocking if she can help it and she has (actual, valid) reasons for that too, one of which being that boondocking gives her spoons, being in nature gives her spoons, and being peaceful and quiet preserves the spoons she does have. If she wasn’t boondocking in beautiful natural areas, maybe she would have even less spoons than she has now. Maybe she would have no spoons at all.

THAT is the fucking reality of serious chronic fatigue and all the cursing and shrieking and being berated by others in the world will not change it. It doesn’t matter how much you wish things were different. You no longer make the rules. The woman who gestated and birthed me does not make the rules. Michelle doesn’t make the rules. I don’t make the rules. If we ever made the rules we don’t make them now and there is no reality-based reason to think that we will make those rules for ourselves ever again. I would beseech healthy people to attempt to grok that, to please for the love of God grok that shit already but even that doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter if healthy people grok it or not, or at least their understanding will not in itself make sick people’s material reality better or worse.

What will help, though, is if the people we rely on for comfort, companionship, conversation, money, shelter or whatever don’t waste the few spoons we have by demanding we explain shit, or destroy those spoons in the garbage disposal of their shitty shrieking ignorance. Now that would actually help. And by help I mean stop making it fucking worse. That is the reality of chronic illness and chronic fatigue and that reality cannot and will not be changed, or anytime soon, not until these serious, debilitating and fatiguing chronic illnesses are able to be treated or cured. That is not the case today where most chronic illnesses including the one I suffer from, Crohn’s disease, produce symptoms that can maybe be somewhat managed sometimes (and maybe not) but that is not the same thing as treatment and it’s hell and gone from a cure.

__________________________

And on that note, I would like to leave a link to my Patreon and ask that my readers consider and pass along this most recent request for donations. Despite my symptoms and their all-encompassing effects on my life, I have made some progress towards getting disability and housing benefits, but it looks like I am going to need to buy myself more time (or have it purchased for me as it were). The game has now changed somewhat and with much (well, total) effort on my part, I now have additional medical evidence to support my claims, and my disability advocate has put me in contact with an organization that may be able to help: it’s an organization that helps autistic people maintain their independence and I am hopeful that they might actually come through. This whole time, it has seemed as if no one really cared about the Crohn’s diagnosis but now that I have an additional diagnosis of high functioning autism, my disability advocates seem hopeful that they now have something they can actually use. And importantly, they seem keen on doing some of the legwork to actually make that happen, like helping me fill out and drop off forms and such. That is huge.

In a nutshell, it is very important that I stay where I am for now and not lose this apartment which does take housing vouchers if I am approved for one. That means, as soon as I am approved I will start receiving rental assistance without having to wait for an eligible apartment to become available because I am already in one. It also means I will not have to move again, when the move I made last year nearly killed me and left me seriously depleted of spoons for an entire year. If I have to do that again, I literally very well may be unable to do it and if I can’t, it won’t matter that my life depends on it. Can’t is can’t when you are chronically ill. I know many of my readers know exactly what that means.

Thank you so much for reading and thank you for your support.

Comments Open.

#spoonie #autoimmune disease #cfs #chronic illness

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peachymess · 5 years

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This is it guys...

It’s almost time to say goodbye to 2018. It’s been a long.... LONG long year. Not all of us made it. But for those of us still on our feet: here we are. Just the doorframe ahead of us left to pass through, and we can finally, officially, put the year behind us.

Did you guys reach your goals? What WERE your goals? For me, the year has been rather successful what goals are concerned - but perhaps more so what stability is concerned. It’s been several years of struggle, applications here and there, complaints to file and new application to fill out and send. At one point I had to get a lawyer. That process is still on going. I’m not DONE yet, but two very important things were hauled over the finish line this autumn: 1. I bought my own place, a stable home I can recharge in and retreat to when needed (no more moving around every year), and 2. My application for welfare was approved. I suspect mainly my long time friends will care to read this, and to those, my struggle with mental illness isn’t news, so I won’t go into detail about it yet again... but I’ve been in strong need of financial aid - and as long as I’m too sick to work, I will keep needing it. Since November, I have finally gotten this official confirmation that welfare has my back. With a home to recharge in, and a safety net for my economy, I am finally finding the stability I’ve sorely needed, to recuperate, to grow, and to hopefully get well. In this regard, 2018 has perhaps been the best year I’ve had in years. Fun/dull years aside, I can’t remember the last time - if ever - I felt like I had the stability that I have now. I feel like I can finally look forward and focus without fear or worry, on getting well and to make myself useful with the resources that I have. With a stable ground to stand on, I finally have my life ahead of me. And with the tattoo I took in December of 2017, that symbolized me choosing life over death, this is sort of my reboot. My life 2.0. That’s why, despite 2018 being the bringer of these things, I feel like 2019 will be my official kick-off. I walk into 2019 with stability, hope and motivation all ready at my side. And I really, really can’t wait to see what I can make of it! I’m so proud of my constant development, and how strong I’m becoming. Just two years ago, I was so low I was ready to give up. I had made a suicide pact with myself... well, look at me now. There will still be ups and downs - my diagnosis’ will surely make sure of that... but I’m growing ever stronger to deal with them, and I’ve never been more equipt to combat them than now. I’m ready for the future. No, I’m LOOKING FORWARD to it! And that is a good feeling. ❤️

As for goals, my official goals for 2018 were: 1. I have finished a first draft of a book, 2. I own an apartment, 3. I have saved 1k USD, 4. I have grown enough to do redraws.

I have completed a new first draft for each month. Sadly, these are all very short, as I have myself the minimum requirement of one sentence per draft, so that I could not fail. The goal is reached, but I can tell I have been cheating myself. This year will be different (stay tuned for my 2019 goals). I also barely managed my 1k goal this December, which I will use work on my apartment in 2019. And as for the last goal... well. It’s undecided. I didn’t DO any redraws... I know I’ve grown. But I’m not sure if I can tick this one off. But it’s ok, because I know at least I’ve gained a lot of experience, and I’ve drawn way more this year than the previous ones (maybe even combined?).

I’ve also been setting monthly goals. I keep journal for these and manage my days using it. This has given me a lot of structure. The tally today, is 103/125 goals reached this year! I’m more than happy with this!

For 2019, my goals will be these: 1. Finish ONE serious first draft for a book. I’ve made a bet with my little brother to see whom of us will be able to finish one quicker, and this has really lit a fire under my butt. 2. Get the apartment ready so that I can rent out my spare room come summer (in time for the fall semester, when students will be looking for a room). 3. Start taking commissions (I’m thinking this will happen very late in the year, as I still feel like I have some growing to do - on confidence more than anything). 4. Save another 2k (I got my apartment due to high levels of moisture in the bathroom so I have some serious saving up to do in order to be able to renovate before it reaches critical levels).

I also have some bigger goals for a more distant future - like getting back on a study plan that I can handle, but if there’s one thing I’ve finally learned, it’s that trying to rush something that needs time and carefulness, will only set you back more time than it would take to do it slowly in the first place.

Thank you all for the year that’s passed (it’s custom to thank people for the old year here in Norway, does it sound weird in English?) and here’s to 2019 becoming the amazing year we’ve all been longing for! And here’s to all your goals and projects of the year being successes! I’d love to hear what your goals are! ❤️❤️❤️ Good luck, everyone! ❤️❤️❤️

#personal #new year #new years resolution #2019

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elegant-etienne · 5 years

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10. How did your character come to learn the tricks of their trade? (Combat or otherwise!)

FFXIV asks!

Etienne: Strongly believes that the key to understanding most conflicts is to understand what the other person/creature wants, and determining whether it’s better to give it to them/imply you can give it to them, help them find what they want, or cut off their path to what they want. These came with the hard lessons they learned while apprenticing to become a butler at a noble household, and during their time in the pillow industry. Mostly, this perspective came from understanding the anger that motivated shitty nobles who threw their weight around and abused them, and why that violence was easily turned against them, and how they could lessen the impact of it, or even try to stop it at its source. It was essentially a survival tactic. This outlook has served them extremely well in their previous employment as an adventurer, an information gatherer, and yes, their current job as a counselor.

After Etienne left Ishgard, they eventually went to La Nosca and trained briefly as a summoner, but couldn’t emotionally connect to their carbuncle enough to make it work. They became a thaumaturge after doing some delivery work for the Order of Nald’thal and overhearing one of their services, which led to them having a spiritual epiphany and becoming a thaumaturge. They trained and quickly became an adept at thaumaturgy and would aid them in missions to close voidgates, etc.

Etienne began some training in swordplay after a terrible incident where they were abducted by a stalker from their former life.

Etienne eventually came to @ashen-enclave via @ashoix , whom they had the good fortune to run into literally the day before their (doomed) wedding. As other aspects of their life fell apart (their free company falling to financial ruin, feeling isolated as their mental health and marriage consistently failed), they recalled the company Ashoix mentioned and interviewed to join @ashen-enclave . In short, they were running to the only friend who knew them outside their adventuring life ... and their marriage. While initially, Etienne offered to work as child care, their interest in helping people from the pillow industry and those that struggle with addiction, and penchant for figuring out how other people ticked led to them being trained by @rose-and-thorns as a counselor, which is their current position.

Etienne stopped studying swordplay as the development of their muscles increased their dysphoria, but have started training again now that they’re on HRT.

Adi: Was trained by his father, Telesphore, an extremely powerful conjurer, from the age of five or so. His talent and power are not a joke, but they came at the expense of his freedom and body autonomy - he was frequently tortured and forced to heal himself quickly or die. He is also completely incapable of doing anything more offensive than protect spells.

He traveled alongside his father who would help heal other duskwights in isolated communities, so he learned on the job that way too. He also was the primary healer for his family as his father’s health began to fail from their hereditary illness from the time he was a young teen, and this was essentially providing hospice care for his own family.

When he turned 18 or so (he’s not entirely certain of his age), he was permitted, with his mother’s insistence, to receive formal training at Stillglade Fane. He received very high marks for skill, but was noted to have a brusque bedside manner and not work well with others. Due to careful coaching from Abelaire and finding he strantely cares what other people at @ashen-enclave (and his boyfriend @moth-to-a-flame-ffxiv ) think of him, Adi has slowly learned to behave more politely.

Kadin: Was taught to fight and hunt alongside his sisters, and equally learned to survive on his own from a very young age as his penchant for getting lost was viewed as character-building and he had to find his way back to his family on his own. He became a pugilist (rather than a lancer or archer like the rest of his family) after he lived in Quarrymill recovering from a serious injury where his family left him behind to die. He befriended the Ala Mhigan resistance there and had a close friendship/crush on Meffrid (this part of his backstory was from when I played 2.0-3.0 and assumed we’d never see Meffrid again/he’d always be in Quarrymill), since he related to their being seen as outsiders to Gridanians. He also began to worship Rhalg’r, relating to the idea of rebirth through destruction - as he was literally reborn through abandoned and nearly dying, and came back “new” (living his truth as a man and learning a new way to fight). He eventually sought out further training at the pugilist’s guild, and currently fights in a mixed martial arts style. Though he can still wield a spear reasonably well, he prefers to only use that to hunt big game rather than fight.

Pelhi: Was taught in the same way Kadin was, and was quite the star child in their mother’s eyes. She ran away from their family - after Kadin was gone, she was identified as the next least-conforming person and was subjected to similar bullying. She ran as far away as possible, leading her to Ul’dah. Wanting to live the opposite of a poacher and a bandit, she enlisted in the Flames and served as an officer for several years, where she improved her skills. She also took up sewing as a hobby, and soon also took side jobs at the weaver’s guild. She looks up to Redolent Rose as a master weaver, and found she had a talent for fashion. After burning out as a Flames officer, she took early retirement and now works at Sunshine Tapestries, as well as her personal side business where she specifically looks after the needs of gender-nonconforming folk. She makes custom pieces with her leather-working and weaving skills, with materials she’s hunted and gathered herself, and leans into customers in the Gold Court who like to brag at having ‘all naturally sourced from a Keeper artisan born out of poverty.’ 8) Any time Etienne has specific looks commissioned for fashion, it’s as a result of collaborating with Pelhi. She’s also the reason Kadin owns more than one set of clothes.

Houmei: Still doesn’t know much about anything, yet, an the things he does know he’s not sure how he knows it. Has the Echo which makes him super quick on the uptake despite being a bit of a lazy airhead.

#ooc #about #asks #trahearnes

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greekprodigies · 6 years

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Why Shows Like Insatiable Are So Toxic, Despite Their Intentions

As a teenage girl who has only recently grown out of watching Disney Channel, it was safe to say I was intrigued when Netflix released the teaser trailer for their new 12-episode series Insatiable, starring Debbie Ryan, who played the title character of Disney’s Jessie for four seasons. It was a 30-second clip of Debbie Ryan in a hot pink dress, walking down a junk food aisle at a colorful grocery store, smashing everything on the shelves with a sledgehammer. Ryan’s voiceover says, “I’ve heard stories of girls who grew up happy and well-adjusted. This is not that story.” My first thoughts were, based solely on this teaser, that the main character seemed to be the villain, or at least a girl with a grudge. And, based off of this girl’s seemingly bad relationship with food, I also figured it would portray fat shaming in a way that most popular television shows don’t. I was hoping that Netflix would take their power over the teenage demographic and show a perspective that strayed away from the (respectable and still necessary) insecure overweight character still coming to terms with her own body (i.e. Kate from This Is Us or Rachel from My Mad Fat Diary). A perspective that I, an overweight high school senior who has already been through the ringer of despising my fatness, could relate to.

It’s obvious, in retrospect, that I was thinking way too deeply into a vague half-minute teaser video. I had gotten my hopes up. Those hopes were soon diminished when the official trailer was released

The video starts off with Debbie Ryan in a fat suit (I’ll get to why that is so grossly offensive later), introducing herself as Patty and showing her constant struggle as a victim of bullying and fat shaming at her high school. Her classmates (who seem to all be thin) call her “Fatty Patty”, and go so far as to spray paint it on her locker. Irene Choi, who plays Patty’s cruelest offender, is shown shouting “Porky! Butterball!” through a megaphone in the cafeteria, pointing to the main character. Then, after what seems to be a fight over a chocolate bar with a homeless man, Patty is punched in the face. Her voice-over tells us, “Having my jaw wired shut lost me more than just my summer vacation.”

Enter Patty 2.0. She’s the sparkling image of every chubby girl’s dream weight after she watches a show like this and vows to cut off carbs. No stretch marks, no cellulite, nothing that reflects what somebody’s body actually looks like after losing a large amount of weight in such a short period of time. The trailer escalates to a montage style of clips of Patty slapping, punching, and even pouring liquor onto some of her classmates before lighting a match.

It feels like a fantasy that’s trying to be relatable. That’s telling us that every bullied teenager, who’s frontal lobe isn’t developed enough to have a lot of perspective, craves revenge from their tormentors. And it’s easy for this narrative to be confused as a realistic depiction of the experience of being a teenage bullying victim. It’s even in the news, shown in the series of article published about domestic terrorist Nikolas Cruz revealing him being an orphan and being described as an “outcast” in interviews following the Parkland shooting. Sure, Insatiable’s revenge plot is meant to be satirical the same way Dexter (which Lauren Gussis, the writer and executive producer of this show, also worked on) is, but because it’s set in a high school during modern day, Patty (possibly, based on what’s shown in the trailer) killing her classmates hits a softer spot.

In the Teen Vogue article that was released with the trailer, Gussis explains how she “felt it was important to look at [bullying] head on and talk about it.” But it’s hard to look at bullying head-on when its changed so drastically over a span of 20 years. It’s past mean nicknames and cruel but clever comments said as two characters pass in a hallway. And more recently, it’s past cyberbullying. Or, at least, the way adults view cyberbullying based off of tone-deaf shows like Glee and dramatized TV movies like Cyberbully (which stars not one, but two former Disney Channel actresses). I’ve never met a high school student who got called a slut or gay 200 times in the comment section of a Facebook post. And, if I am completely wrong due to the fact that I’ve grown up during the social media transition from Facebook to Instagram and Snapchat, that form of bullying died when the Facebook phenomenon did. It is a subtler conversation than the beautiful cool kids versus the ugly losers.The solution is simple: If you’re going to make a show based off of your experiences of bullying in the 80’s, 90’s or even early 2000’s, make the show take place during those decades. Colliding old stereotypes to a character who exists in 2018 is unrealistic and humiliating.

Intention wise, Insatiable can be easily compared to another controversial Netflix original series, 13 Reasons Why. In the warning videos that are shown before watching, the stars of the show say, “By shedding a light on these difficult topics, we hope our show can help viewers start a conversation. But if you struggling with these issues yourself, this series may not be right for you, or you may want to watch it with a trusted adult,” And this message perfectly conveys a show that’s purpose seems heartfelt but is ultimately clueless. Here we have a television program that is produced by a bunch of 30 year olds, where people in their 20’s play high school students (yes, everyone who plays a teenager in 13RW are actually in their 20’s), pretending to understand what it’s like to be a teenager as if the dynamic between young people and mental illness hasn’t changed immensely in just the past couple of years. Just in five, the use of memes and irony has shifted from simply making fun of something, to helping us cope with the fact that our world is on fire. Everybody is laughing at the jokes about depression because, since the rise of social media and the quantification of how many people like us, we all feel depressed. Suicide, though tragic, has now been boiled down to kids saying they want to kill themselves when they have too much homework. We have an education system that teaches us about the anatomy of sex but never teaches us what questions need to be asked about consent during our sexual experiences. So making a show to start a conversation about depression, suicide, and sexual assault that warns it’s targeted audience (who are constantly surrounded by these topics) that the show might not be right for them is simply irresponsible.

But, if I can counteract what I just said, 13 Reasons Why horrifically also is the only show I’ve seen that has the most correct articulation of modern bullying. That’s not to say that anything else with the show is correct, because it’s not. Perhaps what is so wrong about 13RW is that, because they focus so much on the bullying aspect of high school, it provides a direct correlation between bullying and suicide. Well, that, and the graphic/triggering suicide and sexual assault scenes that were used for shock value. Nevertheless, Hannah Baker doesn’t go home and find a bunch of Instagram DMs of her classmates called her a whore. Any secrets that Hannah’s offenders had regarding what could have led her to kill herself were events that happened IRL. And they were just that: Secrets. Because the bullies were ashamed of what they had done. Even before Hannah committed suicide, Jessica Davis didn’t just go around telling people she slapped her ex-best friend because she thought she had betrayed her.

With Insatiable, it seems like everybody in this fictional high school (except for Patty’s best friend and maybe even a popular girl with a heart of gold) is insanely okay with harassing a girl just because of her appearance. It’s insulting, both as a fat girl and an observer of modern bullying. There isn’t one school in the country where 99% of its students just allow this sort of cruelty. Because we have perspectives and opinions that (surprise!) aren’t always swayed by whatever Instagram model is trending right now. Just because Emma Chamberlain is successful and skinny, doesn’t mean that we’re brainwashed to only make skinny people successful. I’m not saying that there isn’t an institutional privilege that skinny girls have, and have always had when it comes to social acceptance. Because they do. But there’s a gray area where most people stand when it comes to issues as new and contentious as body positivity, and Insatiable is ignoring it. You don’t have to be a body-posi activist to know that making somebody feel like shit because of their weight is wrong. And I hope this show can have a character that, without having any relation to Patty, recognizes that what these bullies are doing is outrageous.

After we recognize that the intention of these shows is ultimately flawed, we can then try to take a step forward and look at the impact. 13 Reasons Why, after being loudly criticized by suicide prevention experts, broke virtually every rule of portraying suicide. And as a result, a study shows that searches such as “how to commit suicide”, “suicide hotline number” and “teen suicide” were elevated after the show’s release. The time period for the search ended on April 18th of that year after NFL player Aaron Hernandez committed suicide, which could have influenced data. And any searches related to the movie Suicide Squad were discounted. Sure, the show had increased suicide awareness, but it also unintentionally increased suicide rationalization. And I fear that Insatiable may be on the same path. Regardless of the revenge plot or the bullying, there is still a skinny actress in a fat suit portraying a fat character who only eats, sits on the couch, and feels bad about herself. Then, after a summer of not being able to eat, returns to high school skinny and composed.

Firstly, the use of a fat suit is sickly but overall not surprising. In a world where blackface and yellowface in Hollywood has only just become unacceptable, fat suits seem more defendable for skinny people who don’t understand that there are a plethora of plus size actors who could have played Fatty Patty just as well (and most likely better) than Debby Ryan with pillows stuffed up her shirt. Perhaps the show could have avoided being so oblivious to its fat-shaming storyline if they had an actual fat person weighing in on it.

Secondly, there is the characterization of fat people as losers who do nothing but eat and watch TV. If there were a time and place for these characters to exist, it is definitely not now, where the call for diversity in Hollywood is louder than ever. Plus, we’ve already seen these people before. And it’s the same plot every time. They are only created to provide a funny prequel to a supposedly more stable version of the character. “Fat Monica” from Friends and “Fat Schmidt” from New Girl show a universe where plus size people can’t be taken seriously until they shed the pounds. When in reality, fat men and women are perfectly capable of being successful in their professional and romantic lives. Ironically enough, another New Girl character comes to mind when I think of plus size characters being accurately portrayed: Emily. She’s Schmidt’s ex-girlfriend from college, who dated him when he was her “Big Guy”. After Schmidt reminisces about losing his virginity to her, she resurfaces into his life as a confident woman who goes on dates and isn’t ashamed of who she is. There even seems to be a layer to her character showing that there had been a time where she was insecure about herself and her body but has overcome them. This is an example of a healthy goal for young girls and boys who are self-conscious of their body. Not Debby Ryan’s character, who only gains confidence after losing an obscene amount of weight.

It may actually be the casting of Debby Ryan that could cause a rise in body dysmorphia in young people from watching this show. Since her face is plastered on every poster, teaser and trailer for the show, Disney Channel fans, and former fans might watch simply because she’s cast as the lead role. It’s certainly what sparked my interest in the show. And since Disney Channel’s demographic has gotten younger and younger, there’s a generation that will watch this show and not see it as fat shaming, but a way to become the person they’ve always wanted to be. Skinny, beautiful and confident while simultaneously making all of their classmates' jaws drop as they walk down the hallway. But Patty doesn’t lose weight healthily, she literally could not eat solid food. Depending on how the show addresses this, it is a possible glorification of anorexia. Just like 13 Reasons Why glorified and romanticized depression. But two wrongs don’t make a right, and anorexia and depression can not make anybody beautifully broken.

To make things clear, I am not telling you to not watch this show. And based off of the 100,000 signatures (and counting) on a petition for the show’s cancellation, none of us may even get to. But speaking as a person who fits into all of these groups, Insatiable gets everything wrong about being a high schooler, a teenage girl, and a fat person.

#insatiable #netflix #debby ryan #op ed #fatphobia #fat shaming #body positive #body posititivity #anorexia #depression #13 reasons why #13rw #suicide

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aphaskengland-bitter-tea-drinker · 6 years

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Superhero AU

... I forgot to send you the Superhero AU thing yesterday, so yeah... Anyways, let's imagine this: 1. Name: The Magician Real name: Arthur Kirkland Age: 23 Alignment: Good Powers: -He can use a variety of spells that include moving, transforming and creating several objects as long as he uses his wand. He can also use the magic of it as a force to hold things in their place or to fight against other forces. -With his hands, he doesn't have that many different options, but he can still use basic spells. -He can see and communicate with several magical creatures such as fairies and unicorns. Abilities: -He can be pretty intimidating thanks to his sharp eyes. -He's a great detective. -He can read very quickly. Disadvantages: -If he kills or purposely hurts a good (or not completely evil) creature, his powers will be taken away. -He isn't very good at summoning spirits. -He needs to be focused to make his magic work. -He can't cook for shit. Trivia: -He's a librarian. -He has a crush on the cute waiter who works near his house. -He loves his little brothers. -He has a bunny called Jensen. 2. Name: *I'mnotgoodwithnames* Real name: Alfred F. Jones Age: 19 Alignment: Good Powers: -Superhuman strength -Matter Ingestion (?) -Superhuman endurance -Telephaty with his twin brother. Abilities: -No one's really sure if it's actually a superpower, but he can literally eat anything without getting sick. -He's very brave and heroic... except when it comes to ghosts and haunted stuff in general. -He's very energetic and smart. -His puppy eyes can convince anyone to do anything for him. Disadvantages: -He's pretty bad at geography. -He can be very oblivious and he's easily distracted. -He can't see shit without his glasses or contacts. Trivia: -He's studying archaeology. -He has a huge crush on a Japanese superhero that he hasn't met... yet. -He loves fast food and movies. -He has a Golden Retriever called Hero. 3. Name: *x2* Real name: Matthew Williams. Age: 19 Alignment: Good Powers: -Invisibility -Force-field generation and manipulation -Super strength -Telephaty with his twin Abilities: -He's very elastic and agile. -He has a pretty good knowledge on how to deal with injuries and illnesses. -He's so sweet and nice that people can't say no to him. Disadvantages: -He can be too soft. -He's very shy and soft-spoken, so it's kind of hard for him to be intimidating. -He can't see pretty well without his glasses or contacts. Trivia: -He's studying to become a nurse. -He's actually dating someone. -He loves maple syrup, pancakes and helping people and animals. -He has a huge Chow Chow calles Kumajiro. -When he gets mad or he's in his hockey mode, he's scary, strong and intimidating af. 4. Name: *x3* Real name: Gilbert Beilschmidt Age: 24 Alignment: Bad Powers: -His whole body (and his special clothes) can transform into an specific material if he touches it with his hands. I mean, if he touches gold, he's gonna turn into it, but he'll conserve his human form, abilities and brain. -He can communicate with birds... yeah. Abilities: -He works out a lot, so he's very strong and agile. -It's really hard to get him drunk. -He's incredibly good at planning and organising. Disadvantages: -He has to wear special gloves or rings to avoid turning into random materials in public. -If he's wearing normal clothes, he looks weird, but he can't take them off because that would be awkward. -Bad at flirting. Trivia: -He works as a History teacher for kids. -He's dating someone. -He loves birds, potatoes and beer. -He has a bird called Gilbird. -He has a lot of plushies and he loves them. 5. Name: Le Triton Real name: Francis Bonnefoy Age: 26 Alignment: Bad Powers: -Mind control (He can do it by seducing people with his eyes or his voice. He uses his eyes for simple tasks, his talking voice if they try to resist and his singing voice to completely brainwash them). *In said people's eyes, he looks exactly like the love of their life (he can even look and sound like a girl or like someone non-binary) or as their dream lover. If they're asexual or aromantic, he looks like someone they really admire. -Sonic scream. Abilities: -He's very sneaky. -He's not sure if it's because of his powers, but people adore him after they eat his food. -He does have a nice singing voice. -Good at flirting. Disadvantages: -If they can't see or hear him, his powers are useless. -He's not very strong, and he's definitely not good at hand-to-hand combat. -He's afraid to actually make someone fall in love with him, so he's never tried to use his powers at their maximum. -His powers (except for his sonic scream) don't work with his biggest enemy, The Magician (I'll let you analyse this one). -He pretty much has the powers of a mermaid, but he can't grow a tail and he's not that good at swimming. -He's a crybaby. Trivia: -He has a café and he works there as a cook and waiter. -He's single, but one of his customers has catched his eye. -He loves wine and designing his friends' suits. -He has several doves and they're all called Pierre. 6. Name: *x4* Real name: Antonio Fernández Carriedo Age: 25 Alignment: Bad (Not really, his friends are just really bad influences on him). Powers: -Plant manipulation. -Poison generation -He can communicate with plants andanimals. Abilities: -He has a very loyal bull that sometimes follows him and charges at his enemies. -He's very good at playing the innocent person, though. -He's also very strong, and it's really hard to catch him since he can mentally communicate with the plants. -If he gets mad, nothing's going to stop him... except his boyfriend. His boyfriend is scary. -It's not exactly an ability, but he usually has a small and angry Italian boyfriend covering his back. -Good at flirting. Disadvantages: -He's naive af. -If there are no plants, he's fucked up. -He can't control animals. -He doesn't realise when he's flirting or when people are flirting with him. Trivia: -He sells his own vegetables that he grows on his little farm and he also is a Spanish tutor. -He has a small and angry Italian boyfriend who also has superpowers. -He loves tomatoes and his boyfriend. -He has a chihuahua called Tomate, but it lives with his boyfriend. -He has a pretty bad sense of fashion. So, in this AU, Antonio, Gilbert and Francis are the members of the Bad Touch Trio, a group of supervillains whose goal is basically to cause chaos, mess with the good guys and be hilarious... Yeah, they just haven't found something else to do with their lives. So, Artie, Alfie and Mattie are the siblings and the heroes of the city. Neither of them have much experience, but they do their best. Bonus: Alfie pretends that he hates the BTT, but he actually thinks that they're hilarious. Bonus 2: Since I love drama, guess who's dating Gil and who's dating Mattie... Jk, they know each other's secret identity. Bonus 3: It'd be a shame if Arthur and Francis fell in love and started dating their worst enemy... Bonus 4: I got this idea thanks to the choreography for Sax in Just Dance, so that's the BTT's song in this AU. -Gil 2.0

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horatiosroom · 6 years

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I’m going to enable asks on this blog again so that from now on any myspace questions you have can be answered here!

It was also brought to my attention that some people might not be able to see those recent myspace au info posts (probably because i have c4rc4ss listed as a blog with sensitive content) so I’m going to paste the info here for you guys under the cut :^)

Anonymous said: omg i would love a visual novel of myspace au !!! (I would pay good money for it) but for now tho, did you take away anything from tlj to work into the au?? how is myspace 2.0 any different, if at all?

AAAAAAAAAAA YAY!!!!!!!!!! I’m hoping that once I hit my next goal on patreon then i’ll be able to dedicate more time to it~

Anywho, to take the story where I wanted it to go I stopped trying to fit concepts from the movies into it. At this point the only things connecting it to sw are the characters’ names and very VERY base personalities that were established in tfa, otherwise it’s become its own thing!

The au will explore the reasons for their weird experiments and the consequences that go along with them. For the au I don’t want to fetishize Hux experimenting on Kylo. As much as I’m into that in other iterations of the ship, their reasons for doing stuff like that here are related to complicated issues regarding intimacy.

I think the biggest change to the au is how Hux is presented. It would take a while for me to try to talk about how much of a characterization MESS he was initially so I’m not gonna get into that, haha. What I will say is that he has a consistent personality now. I’ll list some stuff that is integral to his character in the new version of the au:

Hux is still asexual. In this version he has had no experience with anyone and has difficulty initiating even simple types of affection (for example, he will touch Kylo’s lips with his fingers to ask for a kiss). He doesn’t have trouble touching people and isn’t shy, but touches with meaning are hard for him to figure out.

He has a tic disorder which manifests mostly as twitching and excessive blinking. He is self conscious of his disorder and thinks it makes him ugly.

His father and older brothers have an unhealthy view regarding Hux’s mental illnesses and tic disorder, treating him like an embarrassment and a freak. Hux has trouble accepting help from others because he is afraid that they want to “fix” him like his father and older brothers tried to do.

Hux’s interests can skew towards morbidity, but he has no desire to hurt anyone. He is afraid of the fact that blood and organs are more sensually appealing to him than any kind of sexual act. With good intentions, Kylo encourages Hux to explore these interests to make him more comfortable, but it results in some dangerous consequences.

He is fascinated by bugs. He collects specimens to inspect, display, and eat (if they’re edible).

Hux has a collection of items related to Kylo (strands of hair, beads from a broken kandi bracelet, slips of paper he doodled on and threw away, etc).

He often feels detached from reality, like he doesn’t even exist. This is why he feels more comfortable with bodies or specimens rather than people. Kylo is the only person who ever made him truly feel alive and happy and real.

He doesn’t intentionally self-harm, but Hux will scrape at his arms with his nails when he has a panic attack or dissociates.

Hux can be an asshole and will say rude things without thinking. He gets in trouble at school a lot for talking back to his teachers or making tactless jokes. His rudeness is more of a defense mechanism than a desire to actually be mean to people. He knows that others think he’s creepy or scary so to protect himself he just amps that up. One of the many reasons he likes Kylo is that Kylo ISN’T afraid of him and can see through the bullshit.

I could probably go on a lot longer about the other changes (remind me to talk in depth about Kylo!!), but I hope this gives a little more insight into MySpace 2.0 :^)

Anonymous said: Omg !! Tell us about Kylo in myspace 2.0 !!!

YES!!!!!!!!!!!! OKAY!!!!!

Kylo has the kind of personality that lets him befriend p much anybody, but those are only surface friendships. For all the thousands of myspace friends he has, he’s very lonely. He masks his depression and anger with an over-the-top persona which ends up hindering him further - not many people want to get to know who he really is underneath the impulsive melodramatic clown facade. He feels like people think of him as a joke and he doesn’t know how to change that because he put himself there in the first place.

With his parents divorced and Leia always busy, Kylo is desperate for attention which is one of the many reasons why the scene lifestyle appeals to him - he’s essentially a myspace celebrity and even though most of the people in the community are insincere, the attention he gets from all the drama makes him feel less empty.

Besides being starved for attention, Kylo is also starved for physical affection. This manifests in him going too far too fast and coming across as “slutty” even though ultimately he’s just looking for the comfort and security that physical closeness provide.

Kylo is nonjudgmental and appreciates people for their eccentricities or differences. He can see past things that other people might consider strange or off-putting. For example, Kylo doesn’t consider Hux’s tics to be unattractive - he likes how when Hux blinks a lot it draws attention to his pretty eyes and eyelashes.

When he has the time, Kylo helps his uncle Luke teach karate to younger kids.

Kylo doesn’t usually take the time to consider the consequences of his actions so he often finds himself in sticky situations.

He is more passionate about having fun and making others happy than about any particular hobby or field of study.

Kylo doesn’t realize this until later on, but what he likes most about Hux experimenting with him is that Hux will bandage him up and take care of him afterwards. He loves how meticulous and doting Hux is and tries to be on the receiving end of Hux’s care as much as possible.

Though unaware of his own true feelings a lot of the time, Kylo is very perceptive of others’ moods and is good at helping people feel better if they’re having a bad day.

#myspace au #myspace 2.0 #horatios space: info

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artemisia-black · 3 years

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Sirius Black is emotionally and academically intelligent

To celebrate the start of Scorpio season and in honour of our bestie, I have planned 3 metas about what I think are common misconceptions around his character. And here is number 2.

A common mischaracterisation of him is that he’s not very clever and when at school he needs to copy homework from other people.

1.0 Sirius at school

When recounting Sirius’s school days, several characters mention how clever/brilliant he was. In particular, queen Mcgonagall says:

‘ Precisely,” said Professor McGonagall. “Black and Potter. Ringleaders of their little gang. Both very bright, of course — exceptionally bright, in fact.’ PoA

McGonagall never gives praise lightly and in fact at this moment she thinks Sirius is a mass murderer. Even when she appears to be fond of a student, she’s very realistic about their academic ability and in HBP she says the following to Neville,

‘“But the problem is Transfiguration. I’m sorry, Longbottom, but an Acceptable’ really isn’t good enough to continue to N.E.W.T level. I just don’t think you’d be able to cope with the coursework.” HBP

So calling Sirius and James, ‘exceptionally bright,' is not Hyperbole.

Furthermore, during the fire-call Remus says,

“Look, Harry, what you’ve got to understand is that your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did — everyone thought they were the height of cool — if they sometimes got a bit carried away . ” OoTP

Yes Remus is a biased source, but it can be strongly inferred that Sirius was indeed a very high-achieving student, even if his behavioural record had much to be desired.

Also quick note- these dorks enjoyed amateur cartography ‘height of cool,’ is a little strong.

2.0 Sirius is arrogant about his intellect

This view of his intellect is also held by Sirius himself and this is demonstrated by several things during Snape’s Worst Memory:

He’s long finished his OWL exam and is just sitting there looking hot.

“Well, I thought that paper was a piece of cake,” he heard Sirius say. “I’ll be surprised if I don’t get Outstanding on it at least.” - homeboy is so confident that he thinks the exam board might make a new grade for him

He doesn’t need to read the transfiguration book, not because he’s barely literature and only cares about his hair, but because,

“I don’t need to look at that rubbish, I know it all.”

Indeed, Sirius is so sure of his own intelligence that he attempts to outsmart Voldemort and James trusts him to do that. I know some of this trust is rooted in their bond as brothers, but James must have had to greatly respect Sirius’s intelligence to risk the lives of his wife and child.

3.0 Sirius Post-Azkaban

Sirius is still very clever, despite having been in prison for 12 years and being in various states of starvation and mental ill health:

In PoA He conjures manacles with another wizard’s wand, despite being 13 years out of practice.

In GoF he immediately recognises that Harry’s scar hurting is a bad sign,

‘ I’m flying north immediately. This news about your scar is the latest in a series of strange rumors that have reached me here. If it hurts again.’ GoF (this quote also ties in with my previous meta about him being a mature guardian).

He remembers how to deal with dragons, despite having probably not opened a book during his 12 years in Azkaban and one year living rough,

‘I was going to suggest a Conjunctivitis Curse, as a dragon’s eyes are its weakest point.’ GoF

He pieces the majority of the plot together, while half-starved in a cave and scrounging newspapers. Indeed, he is frustrated at himself for not being able to fully figure it out:

‘Sirius stared at the cave wall, then made a grimace of frustration.’ GoF

He understands Priori Incantatem immediately,

‘.....The Reverse Spell effect?” said Sirius sharply.’ GoF

In OoTP he studies his hand with interest (which is a nice nod to his curiosity) when he gets bitten by something and immediately fixes it,

‘ Sirius sustained a bad bite from a silver snuffbox; within seconds, his bitten hand had developed an unpleasant crusty covering like a tough brown glove.

“It’s okay,” he said, examining the hand with interest before tapping it lightly with his wand and restoring its skin to normal, “must be Wartcap powder in there.' OoTP

He heals the injury that Kreacher inflicts on Buckbeak

Despite being 13-14 years out of practice, he easily matches with some of the ‘best’ death eaters,

‘Now Sirius and Dolohov were dueling, their wands flashing like swords, sparks flying from their wand tips. ’ OoTP

Dumbledore describes him as,

' A brave, energetic and clever man.’

4.0 Sirius is also emotionally intelligent

Sirius understands emotions and is able to verbalise them. One of the key scenes that demonstrate both his emotional and intellectual intelligence, is the scene in the Shrieking shack where he is describing how he survived Azkaban,

‘ I don’t know how I did it,” he said slowly. “I think the only reason I never lost my mind is that I knew I was innocent. That wasn’t a happy thought, so the dementors couldn’t suck it out of me’

In this quote, he is demonstrating an understanding of the nuances of his emotions. Because yes he is innocent, but it’s not a happy thought because James, Lilly and 12 muggles are dead. So he understands that it’s not a thought that can bring him joy or hope, but a thought that has enough nuance to also not be bad.

' so when it all became . . . too much ... I could transform in my cell . . . become a dog.’

In this quote, he’s showing awareness of his mental limits and he also shows this during OoTP when he withdraws during his more intense periods.

‘ Dementors can’t see, you know. ...” He swallowed. “They feel their way toward people by feeding off their emotions. ... ‘

Here he is showing his intellect and how well he understands how Dementors work. And both types of intelligent merge in the next part of the quote,

‘ They could tell that my feelings were less — less human, less complex when I was a dog.’

He clearly understands the nuance and degrees of feelings and how some feelings are more surface level whereas others have caveats.

During the rest of the series, he shows his emotional intelligence in numerous ways,

By providing Harry the Hogsmeade slip and allowing Harry to feel like a normal child who has a guardian who cares for him.

During GoF, he allows Harry to talk despite having broken into a house and needing to talk to Harry about the task,

‘ I’m — ” For a second, Harry tried to say “fine” — but he couldn’t do it. Before he could stop himself, he was talking more than he’d talked in days. ’ GoF

And to be a good listener, you have to be emotionally intelligent.

3. He sends Harry a muddy pawprint as a good luck gift for the last task as he understands that Harry appreciates knowing that he’s thinking of him.

4.On the dark side of this, he’s able to deliver such cutting insults because he understands people so well. This is demonstrated by IMO is the only time he’s a bad godfather and I will never defend him for this,

‘You’re less like your father than I thought,’ He said finally, a definite coolness in his voice. ‘ The risk would’ve been what made it fun for James.’ OoTP

Here Sirius is demonstrating his understanding of how much Harry’s masculinity is rooted in his idealisation of James, so he goes for it.

In conclusion, Sirius Black is cannonically very emotionally and intellectually intelligent.

Note: I am happy to have a debate about this, but any ranting/abuse will be ignored :D

#sirius black #hp meta #harry potter #marauders

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lovemychinchilla · 3 years

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Do Chinchillas Get Bored?

Chinchillas have needs like any pet. As the pet’s owner, it’s your job to provide for these needs. But do chinchillas like to play, and do you need to keep them entertained?

Chinchillas get bored if they don’t have enough to do. You can tell because it will start displaying repetitive behaviors, such as digging, bar chewing, and excessive barbering. Chinchillas get lonely and even more bored if kept alone. You can help a bored chinchilla by getting it a cage mate and some toys.

The guide below first establishes whether and why chinchillas like to play. Then, it covers how to tell if a chinchilla is bored or unhappy, and how to entertain one with fun boredom busters.

Do Chinchillas Like to Play?

Chinchillas enjoy playing, like many animals. You can see these behaviors both in the wild and in captivity. When your chinchillas are playing, you may see them:

Exploring. A playing chinchilla will run about sniffing new places. This is especially the case for pet chinchillas, which get excited when you let them out of their cages.

Jumping. Chinchillas jump when they’re excited, and can leap up to four feet in the air.

Climbing on and jumping off things. Chinchillas are from the mountains, and when they play, they jump up and down off rocks. Pet chinchillas do the same with surfaces.

Play fighting. A chinchilla may kick its cage-mate to get it to chase it.

Your chinchilla may also play with you in these ways. It may clamber onto your shoulders, for example. Or, it might jump onto you and off you again. When you watch your chinchilla doing these things, it seems like it’s having fun.

While you shouldn’t anthropomorphize your pet (think of it like a little person), it’s clear a chinchilla is happier if it can play than if it can’t.

Conversely, if a chinchilla is kept in its cage on its own all the time, it can’t display these behaviors. This is when you notice your chinchilla getting bored.

Why Do Chinchillas Like to Play?

There are several core reasons why they enjoy, and even need, to play. While chinchillas aren’t as intelligent as people, they like to play for the same reasons that we do:

Chinchillas are social animals. Play builds bonds and reinforces social structure. From the time that they’re kits, chinchillas learn to play with their siblings and parents.

Play is a kind of practice. Animals chase each other and use self-defense when playing, which can serve as practice for real situations.

Play is fun. Animals take pleasure in many things, just like we do, including play. This is something that’s impossible to measure, but which you can see as a pet’s owner.

Play fighting is the best example of how play prepares an animal for dangerous situations. Kits (baby chinchillas) fight each other to develop their strength and self-defense abilities. Fighting strength also establishes dominance and attracts mates, so developing it from an early age is necessary for surviving and establishing breeding rights.

Without play, animals become bored. In the complete absence of stimulation, they can become stressed, depressed, and even ill. That applies to captive animals like pet chinchillas too.

Do Chinchillas Get Lonely?

[caption id="attachment_3875" align="alignright" width="300"] Chinchillas can get lonely, like other pets do.[/caption]

Chinchillas do get lonely when they can’t interact/play with other chinchillas. In the wild, chinchillas are herd animals. The size of a herd can range from a dozen up to a hundred, which as you can imagine, means that wild chinchillas socialize a lot. Chinchillas don’t like being isolated from this natural group setup.

If a chinchilla is kept alone, it will miss out on this socialization: the play fighting, the collective foraging for food, the alarm calls from other chinchillas that keep the group safe, and the use of a shared burrow.

When any animal can’t demonstrate natural behaviors and inclinations like these, it becomes unhappy and lonely. Chinchillas are no exception.

How to Tell If a Chinchilla Is Bored

You can easily tell when a chinchilla is bored. You should notice your chinchillas playing frequently. Your pet will also display behaviors which indicate it isn’t happy. You can spot these behaviors and give your chinchilla something to do, and if you do, these negative behaviors should stop.

So, is my chinchilla happy, or is my chinchilla depressed or bored? Here’s how to find out.

Your Chinchilla Is Inactive/Lethargic

Lethargy, also known as inactivity, can be a sign of different health issues. But it can also be something you see in a bored chinchilla. When a bored chinchilla doesn’t have enough to do, it will sit still and not do much. This applies even if there are lots of things in your pet’s cage.

This indicates that a chinchilla is bored of its surroundings. It may have previously run on its wheel (for example), but has since become bored and lonely. Over time, it becomes depressed.

Your chinchilla will remain like this for a while. It will then start showing other symptoms of boredom which are more serious.

Repetitive Chinchilla Behaviors (Stereotypy)

This is an issue that you will see with all kinds of pets, chinchillas included. When a pet is bored, it will perform repetitive actions. These actions may be damaging for the pet’s health.

Because chinchillas and other rodents have been kept in labs and farms, we know lots about these behaviors. An article in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior Clinical Applications and Research looked at this specific issue.

[caption id="attachment_4033" align="alignright" width="300"] Image courtesy Michael Shoenewies, CC by 2.0. A chinchilla's teeth will point the wrong way if it chews its cage bars.[/caption]

The scientists behind this study looked at chinchillas kept on a farm. They found that rodents kept in barren cages usually develop some form of abnormal repetitive behavior, which can indicate a past or present welfare problem.

One of these abnormal behaviors is fur chewing. A small amount of barbering is normal. This is where a chinchilla grooms its own fur, or the fur of its cage mates. But in a barren cage, a chinchilla may do this too much, which can cause fur loss.

This is the most common stereotypy behavior. But there are others to look out for. These include:

Bar chewing. A chinchilla may bite or chew the bars of its cage, as if to try and get out. This can cause its teeth to point in the wrong direction.

Cage scratching. A chinchilla may scratch at the floor of its cage, again, as if to try and dig out.

Backflipping. While this behavior can look cute, it can also be a sign that a chinchilla is bored.

If you spot these behaviors, you should immediately take steps to make your pet happier. These symptoms of boredom won’t go away on their own.

How to Entertain a Chinchilla

There are lots of ways to keep a chinchilla entertained. Each of the ideas below will make your chinchilla happier, but will also make it more fun to keep one as a pet. So, how do I keep my chinchilla happy?

Don’t Keep Chinchillas Alone

Keeping a chinchilla on its own is a bad idea. As stated above, these are herd animals. They get bored quickly if kept alone because they can’t socialize. As such, you should introduce your chinchilla to a new friend.

But you can’t dump them in one big cage together if they don’t know each other. If you do, the pair will fight.

Instead, you have to use the split-cage method. This is where you have a big cage with a divider down the middle. You keep one chinchilla in one side of the cage, and the other chinchilla in the other. Occasionally swap the pair from side to side, so that each gets used to the smell of the other. You can also do this with two separate cages rather than a special split cage.

Over time, the pair become more comfortable with each other and are bonded. You can then keep them in the same cage. You may need to get a bigger cage if you want to keep them together.

Make a Chinchilla Pen/Let Your Pet Out

Animals aren’t supposed to live in cages 24/7. Unless the cage is big and rich in enrichment like a zoo enclosure, your pet will get bored sitting inside all the time. You should let it out regularly.

Your pet will enjoy sniffing around and exploring a larger area. While this may not seem important, it’s vital for your chinchilla’s mental health.

But letting your chinchilla out isn’t as easy as opening the gate every once in a while. You have to make sure that your room is chinchilla-proof. That involves:

Remove all power cords from the room. Your chinchilla will gnaw through them, and if they’re plugged in, they will electrocute your pet.

Keep doors and windows closed. Chinchillas can jump up to four feet high, and are unpredictable when excited.

Block up any holes in the wall or in/under furniture. Again, chinchillas are quick and unpredictable when playing.

To make life easier, most owners put their chinchillas in pens. Pens are large enclosed areas with walls. You can either buy one or make one. Ensure that the walls of the pen are tall enough (taller than four feet) to prevent your chinchilla escaping.

Buy Your Chinchilla Toys

Your chinchilla could also be bored because it doesn’t have enough stimulation. While all chinchillas enjoy exploring the areas outside their cages, the ideal cage setup for a chinchilla should be enough to entertain it. That means having enough space, with lots of toys, and several levels.

Chew toys are a favorite of chinchillas. They have to gnaw frequently on hard objects/materials like wood to keep their teeth trimmed. This keeps a chinchilla busy, giving it something to do throughout the day. There are lots of things chinchillas can safely chew.

Another toy you could give your pet is an exercise wheel. Wheels like those used by other rodents aren’t recommended because of their shape. As chinchillas are big, running in a wheel can damage their backs.

But you can buy your chinchilla an exercise saucer. These look like large shallow dishes made of metal that rotate like discs. Because these are flat, they let your chinchilla run full pelt, but without having to bend their backs.

Other Fun Things to Do with Your Chinchilla

[caption id="attachment_3860" align="alignright" width="300"] Photo by Nate Pesce. Handling and spending time with your chinchilla will stop it being too bored.[/caption]

The easiest thing you can do with a bored chinchilla is spend time with it. Chinchillas get bored because of a lack of stimulation. Some owners report that their bored chinchillas are lethargic all day, but get excited when the owner moves towards the pet’s cage. It’s clear that chinchillas, like all pets, crave interaction, stimulation and fun.

You can spend time sitting next to your chinchilla's cage, watching it play. Some chinchillas find this fun, although your pet will still be in its enclosure, so can’t do much.

Alternatively, spend time with your pet when it’s in its pen/outside of its cage. If it trusts you and likes your company, spending time with your chinchilla will make it happy. It’s fun to watch your pet running and jumping around, because chinchillas get so excited when they’re outside their cages.

Below, you can find our chinchilla quiz, new posts for further reading, and a signup for our Chinchilla Newsletter!

[ays_quiz id='9']

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#chinchillas #chinchillafaqs #bored #playing #toys

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healthyworthyofficial · 4 years

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Forgoing Coping Mechanisms for Real Vulnerability and Empathy for Others

ALEC DOUGLAS/UNSPLASHI’m standing in a circle of 30-some individuals in a country yoga studio, peering via oversize home windows on the lush, soggy woods outdoors—and attempting my best possible to not dissociate. It’s the final day of a five-day Yoga, Purpose, and Action leadership training with the yoga and social justice group Off the Mat, Into the World. Cofounders Seane Corn and Suzanne Sterling, together with facilitator RW Alves, are studying self-identifying statements aloud, akin to, “If you have family and friends who are incarcerated...” “If you or someone you know has had an eating disorder...” And “If you have an advanced degree...”Thanks for watching!Visit WebsiteThe train, known as the Ally Circle, goes like this: When you hear one thing that applies to you, you step into the center of the circle and discover who else is there and who isn’t. It feels a little bit bit like an emotionally charged, high-stakes model of that recreation known as Never Have I Ever. But as a substitute of incomes cachet by admitting to having intercourse in a public house or smoking a joint earlier than highschool, I’m about to disclose the issues I’m most ashamed of. My coronary heart is pounding, and my ideas are on hearth: I don’t need these individuals, lots of whom had been strangers every week in the past, to know any extra about me. I inadvertently label a few of the statements “good” and others “bad.” (And then noticing my very own biases and judgments, I really feel responsible about them.) I heat up with the questions on increased schooling and consuming issues. When I hear them, I take tentative steps towards the center of the circle and understand that whereas I could also be within the minority with my grasp’s diploma, publicity to consuming issues is means too widespread. I really feel for these within the circle with me. Some of the individuals who step up subsequent, as a result of they've household or pals incarcerated, take me unexpectedly, and I verify in once more on my assumptions, ashamed of stereotypes I wasn’t conscious I held.Thanks for watching!Visit WebsiteThanks for watching!Visit WebsiteSee additionally How to Use Self Reflection to Identify the Light and Dark WithinThen there’s a query about sexual abuse. It’s framed mildly sufficient—“You or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse or assault”—however I do know that once I step ahead, I’m speaking about me. Fewer individuals than I count on are within the center, and I’m desperately trying for somebody to make eye contact with so I don’t really feel so alone. I step again and my thoughts leaves the room for a couple of minutes, staring on the timber, remembering painful particulars from that traumatic occasion. Then I’m again, simply in time to listen to, “You have been diagnosed with a mental illness.” The assertion feels harsh, however I need to be somebody who's open and risk-taking. I don’t need to overthink it. I need to personal my melancholy. And as quickly as I step ahead, I remorse it. I strive to go searching at who’s there and who isn’t, however my eyes are leaking uncontrollably. I’m conscious of my tensely contorted mouth and clenched jaw. Mostly I’m trying down, this time afraid of assembly somebody eye to eye.I step again and completely take a look at, retreating inward. I really feel the house between my ribs and pelvis shut down and think about an infinite, darkish, churning sky filling my torso. There is not any floor beneath that void. I really feel gentle, like I would float away. I'm in free fall. All of a sudden I perceive that that is what vulnerability appears like, for me.See additionally A Yoga Therapist Shares The Truth About TraumaI can’t bear in mind any of the statements that come after that.

VOLKAN OLMEZ/UNSPLASHThe reality about traumaThe Ally Circle is supposed to crush assumptions, foster belief, and present that compassion may help us join throughout variations. Suzanne explains why it’s a part of the coaching: “Our work with Off the Mat is built on unpacking and taking accountability—for our familial or ancestral wounds and the systemic patterns of oppression that impact us or that we are complicit in—so that we can cultivate the kind of activism or service in the world that is informed by a sense of solidarity and empathy, as opposed to any form of saviorism. We have seen incredible projects come out of this level of vulnerability, self-awareness, and community-building.”The complete coaching takes you on a journey. It begins with private introspection, and you then learn to remodel your wounds into items. The expertise has felt uncooked, like the start of a brand new section during which I’m demolished, then slowly rebuilt. Life has been nerve-racking, and I’m beginning to see that my coping mechanisms are lastly catching up with me. Over time, I've constructed a inflexible, heavy, completely measured body, filled with proper angles, on a slippery and subsiding basis. After a long time of tectonic shifts, the integrity of the I-beams is in query, and the partitions are beginning to crack. See additionally The Avoidance Mechanisms We Have to Face In Order To HealMy M.O., for so long as I can bear in mind, has been to serve—others, a mission, the planet, humanity. And now I get it. Focusing on serving others has been a superb technique to maintain me in my consolation zone and away from the ache of coping with my very own shit.Seane connects the dots for me in her e-book, Revolution of the Soul: When you will have undigested trauma—whenever you haven’t been capable of discuss, scream, or shake it off—“any new situation you experience that’s even mildly uncomfortable produces a biochemical reaction akin to the first trauma. To feel better, to shift energy, you may find yourself reactive.” And, as she provides on the coaching: “If you’re trying to get unmet needs met, your activism (or ‘selfless’ service) can cause harm to you and others.”So, the coaching asks you to dig deep and face demons. And in doing so it permits you to present up and care for and have fun others. What I discovered that week within the woods was that compassion—for myself and everybody else—is the important thing ingredient of service. That I have to maintain my very own home, using forgiveness for all the methods I really feel responsible, ashamed, scared, and uncertain. That I don’t have to attend till I’m fully healed (that’s a lifelong course of) to re-enter the world, however that I do have to remain current to the laborious work of consciousness and private transformation. I have to rebuild a body that may flex with and function a conduit for collective anger, grief, ache, and pleasure. I need to have the ability to stand in the midst of the circle with vulnerability and nonetheless be there to catch another person’s look, serving to them discover floor when they're within the wild throes of free fall. See additionally Here’s How We’re Using Our Experience of Trauma to Help OthersPracticeTry this trauma-informed yoga sequence from Off the Mat, Into the World cofounder Hala Khouri.!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function() {n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)} ;if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=;t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); (function(){ fbq('init', '1397247997268188'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); var contentId = 'ci025a26f8a00025db'; if (contentId !== '') { fbq('track', 'ViewContent', {content_ids: , content_type: 'product'}); } })(); Source link Read the full article

#Life #YJTriedIt

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years

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Life Story Part 49

(it’s turning out that i am suddenly being given little bits of time to do some writing, so i have been more productive than i thought i was going to be)

The doctor's appointment came, and I was taken in to see the doctor that had given me prescription meds for my chemical imbalance back when I was in 5th grade. The problem was, I was pushing myself close to starving, and getting up each morning at dawn to exercise and I wasn't really letting myself stop too much until I hit the point of exhaustion. When I did eat, it was always counted, and it was usually fruit, fish or a healthy shake. My father, who's metabolism should have been lower than mine, was working out half as much as I had, and had already lost 20 lbs. Given that I was only 15 (going on 16) at the time, there was a strong indication that something was wrong. That, and I kept skipping periods. I would sometimes not have one for six months to a year.

So, I went on the day of my appointment, and I could tell that the doctor has some kind of strong moral judgment about me. He checked my eyes and heart and lungs and all of those things, and then rather than ask me about any of the symptoms that I had written down on the paper, he started asking me if I did drugs. He then asked me if I had ever tried to kill myself. Given that I had come in in an okay mood, I didn't understand what prompted this question, and I just told him no – because even though I had been very depressed off and on in my life, I had never tried to kill myself and that wasn't what I came in for. He started asking me about my grades, and how many friends I had, and if I participated in sports. He kept implying that I was eating sugary foods when my father wasn't looking. He then asked me if I did drugs again, only in a slightly different way. It was obvious to even me that he wasn't actually interested in getting to the bottom of my health issues by asking me health related questions. He was profiling me.

He told my father that I had serious mental illness issues and that I needed to take a drug that he prescribed. I sat in the doctor's office while I listened out through the door into the hallway as the doctor explained these things to my father. My father was kind of taken aback by the diagnosis, and like a fool, he was embarrassed to be talking about my personal healthy with anyone – something that he really didn't concern himself with obviously. I kind of already knew that he wasn't actually going to buy meds for me or anything like that, but I was mostly frustrated because I felt like my voice in the whole matter was being drowned out by what the doctor wanted and what my father wanted. Nobody actually seemed interested in what was really wrong with me. I really had this knowing that my period wasn't stopping simply because of stress, and my inability to lose weight wasn't because I was secretly running into the closet to eat cake.

I think my father was feeling personally embarrassed by the way the doctor had spoken to him, though I am not certain what got his goat actually. There was some elements of their conversation I didn't get a good listening to. He was furious at me as soon as we left the building, slamming the doors and not talking to me. I kind of tried to explain to him that I felt like the doctor was judging me because I had died my hair bright red, and my father snapped at me and started saying that I deserved to be judged for my hair and for my eyebrow ring, and that I was an embarrassment to him and that he didn't want to be seen with me. That I didn't deserve to be treated like a normal person if I wasn't going to start looking like one. I made the mistake of trying to argue my case, that there are certain services that nobody should discriminate against another person for, and this caused my father to start screaming at me to shut up. For nearly a half hour, I was stuck in the car with him as he shouted at me and called me names. It was the first time I think, that I tried very hard not to falter to his cruel and egotistically loud voice. He was basically saying my hair was sign that I was some kind of disgusting person inside and I didn't deserve to be treated well. He started screaming at me about my grades – though it was summer vacation and technically I didn't have grades. The thing about that was, is that I had a 2.0 by the time I left Kendrick High School. I know that doesn't seem very impressive, but for almost the entire time I had been in junior or senior high, I had never had a grade that was higher than a 40% with the exception of study skills and art. Many of my F's were the low 20% or less kind. I had somehow kind of picked myself out of that and managed to get an average 70%.

So, I told him that my grades had been very good, and I could tell this made him even angrier. It was at this point that I sort of realized that he didn't actually want me to do well. This isn't to say that he was personally responsible for every one of my failures, but he to a degree had designed my life away from me truly having that much of a chance, and there was an intention to keep me down in that design. The automatic look of malice on his face when he realized that I was passing school for the first time since anyone could remember actually made me realize that he liked the idea that I was failing. It made him feel good about himself and justified in treating me badly. He then started attacking my personal appearance, calling me ugly, and making this insane deal about the red hair. I sarcastically shot back that a person has to be pretty fucking weak to where seeing the color red would devastate their personal life in any real way, and for the millionth time, I was accused of trying to rebel against society. I shot back that I dyed my hair red simply because my favorite color was red and if he didn't want me to dye my hair, he shouldn't have bought me so many My Little Ponies to play with as a child, since they probably had a lot to do with what I wanted to do with my own hair. Because if I was going to be true to who I was, I honestly just loved color. I had a lot of rebellious silly ideas when I was that age, but dyeing my hair had never been any strongly rebellious thing for me. I was just being myself. If other people saw being yourself as some kind of militant rebellious act, than I didn't know what to do for them.

The whole thing ended up dissolving before I got home, he upscaled his attack till he was just yelling at me continuously so loud I couldn't talk, calling me names, telling me to shut up, calling me worthless like my mother, and all that nonsense I have come to be accustomed to. So I eventually just started crying in frustration and resentment. Besides, we had been driving down the road when all this was going down, and I was afraid if it escalated any further we would get into a wreck. I always felt there was some underlying sexism about this entire affair. Maybe there wasn't. But I just felt like a lot of my power was taken away by a bunch of men. My father had had long hair when he was a teenager at a time and place when it was highly unpopular to do so. And he still was very proud of that fact. But when a girl did something different with their hair, it was suddenly a disgusting abomination that told the world I was some kind of freak or a 'slut'. The doctor had essentially made some kind of cold assessment of what he wanted to do. I really think he was paid by the drug company to peddle the drug he wanted me to take. He was never interested in my health issues, because they were 'women's health issues' to him.

When we got home, I was very afraid of my father, and I just ran in my room to be alone. I was not happy to even be home, and I wanted to go back to my mom's. I don't know what happened or what made him cool off, but about an hour later, my father came up to my room and told me that we were going to go to the movies. I felt drained and confused, and I did want to get back to my mom's as soon as possible to watch Johnny Depp movies and all that stuff, so I didn't object, though the entire act of going out to have any kind of fun at all seemed shady and unprecedented given all that had just occurred.

The hour drive all the way back into Lewiston I said next to nothing. There is a point where I can be horribly frustrated and mad at someone, but at some point in an argument, I simply become emotionally exhausted and melancholy, and I feel like I am more up against a bigger battle against time and nothingness that nobody can win. It's mostly disheartening to see my personal efforts made to connect with someone or communicate at all dashed to pieces and my sense of self worth, already quite shaky, knocked back down after months of attempting to repair it. In any case, all this feeling goes inward. I should still in these times perhaps, rally against my oppressor or realign myself into a position of strength, but most of the time my mind is no longer working all that well to do that. It's not that I have given up exactly, but the battle has been lost. Besides, I was dizzy from not eating, and there weren't enough carbohydrates in my system to even contemplate those kinds of things.

The movie we ended up seeing was March of the Penguins, narrated by Morgan Freeman. It was about penguins, as the name suggests, and their yearly life cycle, and the hardships they endure down in Antarctica. It wasn't the greatest documentary that had ever been made, but it was okay. It was kind of strange as I watched the film, because it seemed so far removed from what I was doing in my own life, and yet it was equally as real and probably at least one hundred thousand times more important. It took me out of my own life for a little while, and though I hadn't forgotten the fight I was just in, or how I had been treated once again, like so many other times, I genuinely felt that there was some sort of terrific truth in always remembering that the world is a very big and fantastic place, even with you not in the center of it all. Of course after the movie, my father made this lame attempt of saying sorry, though not really a sorry at all. He just said 'Lets not fight Renee..' as though I had been the one that had initiated the fight, or we were both equally as responsible, when it really had been him that had lost it. I am just going to say, for the most part, it really always had been him.

It was around this same time that I learned that The White Stripes would be playing in the Gorge, which is this scenic outdoor area that is set up in the southern central part of Washington State. This is about four hours away from where I lived and there was never a band that came that close to me that I wanted to see more. I had loved The White Stripes ever since I had bought Elephant for Christmas two years before. So I asked my father if we could maybe go. I was willing to pay for everything, the gas, the tickets. I felt like both my mother and father kind of owed me. I had been their babysitter for years up to that point, and had they paid someone to fill in for what I had done, they would have been out by tens of thousands by this point. They weren't home very often. Of course, it was wishful naive thinking to think that I was going to be reimbursed for that time I had spent. My father, of course said no. He couldn't, and wouldn't take the time off to go to a concert on my behalf. Which I kind of understood, since the factory was sort of cold and strict about these sorts of things.

I asked my mom, and I really was hoping she would say yes, but she didn't. She actually could have taken one of the days off, and the second day she had off anyway, but she wasn't about to spend that time away from Danny. I pleaded with her. I had never really done this before, pleaded or begged for something desperately. I wasn't the type who typically would keep asking once I got a definitive answer. She told me she would think about it, and then she still said no later on. I was shaken and upset and I started crying. The White Stripes being something I could see live was one of the top things I had ever wanted. This escalated into her mocking me, and calling me pathetic like my father. It seemed like wherever I went, with my mom I was always too much like my dad and with my dad I was always too much like my mom. Nobody even wanted to claim my looks, or any of my personality characteristics. It was strange to be unclaimed like that, when typically parents want to point out what features their children have that they got from them. With me, it was always the opposite. In what way was I not like them?

This didn't happen very often, but I got angry and started pointing out her failures towards me, and explaining that doing something like this would be a way to correct those things and I would overlook all the years I babysat while she ran around doing meth. It did no good. She still wouldn't budge, and I think by this point, she sort of enjoyed her position in being able to tell me no and watch me flail vulnerably, convulsing with desperation for her to change her mind. My mother was a bit of an introverted bully at heart. I was shouting and crying and I could barely breath. She started laughing at me.

Later that same day, I was looking out the window as I cooked something on the stove, and I watched David and Allison playing out in the dusty dirt in the front of the house. David was visibly mad about something, and in turn he knocked over his own castle of popsicle sticks and began screaming and running to the house. As soon as he got into the house, he started crying that Allison had broke his castle. He had started to do this a lot with Allison, breaking his own things or lying to get her in trouble, when he had in fact been given more to begin with, or had been the one at fault. It was making me frustrated, because my parents didn't say anything. Often they would just scold Allison because it was easier than getting to the bottom of it. I really was very disapproving of this sort of thing, and I often would address these issues I had seen just as soon as my parents had been off to work. For this reason, I became the real parent in a sense. I didn't provide food or shelter or those kinds of basics, but at this point I was trying to set a standard for Allison and David to live by, and I was the one who listened intently to their school days, when my parents were largely negligent in those areas. My father would often believe David over Allison, because it was his firm and loud opinion that women were deviant by nature and sneaky. Men were prone to be more violent, but in my father's sick little world view, women provoked men. Men were not capable of being sneaky or using psychological mind games. So Allison often time got the blame for these small childhood skirmishes and it made me rather mad.

I immediately called David out, saying that I had seen him break his own castle, and that Allison hadn't done anything. I told my mother, and he just denied it. Allison was sent to the corner, and I was suddenly in a rage. My mother was folding clothes on her bed, and David ran up to her and was cuddling on her, with a malign look towards me that annoyed me even more. Allison just seemed to accept the punishment, and it made me even angrier. I started yelling at my mother about how she spoiled David and I looked straight at David and told him that he knew the truth about what he had done and that he was pathetic. I was really mad at the two of them, and some part of me wanted to hit them both in the face. I didn't though. Instead I grabbed the pile of clothes my mother was folding and I threw them on the ground. David, who was sort of laying on his back against my mother, had this perfect opening to power kick me in the jaw, and he did just that. I remember crying and holding my face completely jarred. My mother was laughing at me and saying I deserved it. David was laughing at me. I knew that if I reacted any further it would be violence towards the both of them, and that realization scared me a little. It seemed like I had been pushed to this point where I was capable of going a little farther than I had thought myself capable of. I didn't want to be that kind of person, so I took the defeat.

In shock, my head pounding, tears pouring and with a jaw that I discovered was now difficult to move, I stumbled out of the house and down the road. I was sobbing so much I was barely conscious of where I was going or why. It was one hundred degrees outside, and I just kind of stumbled into a ravine on the side of the road sobbing. I don't even know what I was feeling at that point. It just kind of seemed like a lot of everything and nothing all at the same time. Eventually some people stopped, and cautiously called out to me 'Miss, are you okay?', which caused me to become more composed against everything I felt and tell them I was fine. They offered to give me a ride somewhere, but of course there was nowhere for me to go. I told them I was fine and I just sat there some more until I saw my mom drive off to work.

Strangely in all of this, Allison seemed to kind of look down on me for this too, though it had been her best interest I had felt I was defending. I think Allison, seeing the distressing situation and the outcome of it, felt that she would rather feel she had actually done what she was accused of rather than see what had happened, So she resented me too, albeit with a more tender heart than the others. I don't think she wanted to be like me, whimsically ecstatic about life one day, and then putting myself out there to be knocked down again and again by the family. She grew up seeing what happened when you put up for the truth, or you stuck to your guns on something, or you opposed the group. It never really did pan out for me, but I never stopped having that attitude. I think seeing the pain I caused myself – at least as she came to see it, and seeing the violence in general done in her name, she just would rather conform.

And then, shortly after this, I was cooking chicken on the stove at my mother's, and I burned my fingers, badly. It all happened very suddenly. It was one of those ones that has a flat surface. I didn't realize it was still hot. It just melted the tips of three of my fingers. I was in miserable pain. The fingers swelled up with yellow puss and the skin was raw. I was howling in misery for hours. There was no pain medicine for it. I held my hand in ice water, but it wasn't doing enough. I was basically in a state of hysteric pain until I just somehow passed out all at once, at least that is what Allison and David witnessed of me. They were fearful and trying their best to be helpful, but of course there was nothing that either one of them could do.

So, all of this stuff happened in the same two-three week period that I wasn't talking to Sarah. I had managed to fight with and alienate myself from just about everyone I knew by trying my best to be upfront about whatever it was that was bothering me. It was a rather unfortunate run of luck, and I was kind of floored by it. My head hurt from crying, and I just wanted to get away. I liked to envision myself thin and beautiful, in a position of power over my own life, and in a state of constant transcendence and creative chaotic inspiration. If I could just have those things, if I could just have something to look forward to that would get me out of the mess of myself and everyone I knew – to elevate my own existence in some way, to maybe go back to how I felt when Zack had sang creep to me, then everything would be better. Telling myself that I would overcome everyone, that I would step on anyone's head to get out of the place I was in at that moment was like a lullaby to me that made me feel better.

I eventually started talking to Sarah again because we needed to get the school thing going. It was awkward, and I don't think Sarah ever fully understood why I had decided to stop talking to her in the first place, so I think to a degree she felt annoyed with me, not because I had made an impact, but because she felt I had done something incredibly rude towards her. This whole matter of our fighting I think caused more distress for me than it did her, so a lot of the fact that I was just trying to clear my head from all the anger and such hadn't quite occurred to her.

We discovered that we couldn't go to school at the Lewiston High school forty miles away, which is initially where I was set on going. I didn't want to have to see Ava up in the halls of the Moscow High School forty miles the other way, but given that Lewiston had said no to us going, we tried the Moscow High School, who also turned us down. Neither Sarah or I had good enough grades or enough credits. It was well known that the kids in the smaller towns like Kendrick and Orofino were scholastically behind the kids in the bigger schools, so it was a pain in the school's neck to take us in, and they would refuse students on that basis alone, not to mention that we were living pretty far away.

So both of the regular high schools were out of the equation. We decided to try maybe going to an alternative school. I had heard of these schools before, but I knew to many people it seemed like it was just a school where you went and everyone knew you were a failure. I imagined that nobody would be in any of the classes other than some version of Beavis and Butthead. We ended up deciding to try the Paradise Creek Regional Alternative School up in Moscow. We called in and met up with the councilor there one morning. The school was kind of strange. It was near the outskirts of town, though still located in the town itself – quite near the university. There was an A&W gas station across the street. The building had once been a 7 Eleven, and you could kind of see that from the look of the building. It was rather small and enclosed by a hill behind it.

We went in and met the councilor. She seemed very different from what I was used to when it came to teachers or councilors. She didn't want to be called Mrs. anything. She was very small, had long wavy blonde hair, and was very warm and calculated in how she spoke to us. She didn't waste her time telling us that we were both bad students. I wouldn't go so far to say that she didn't have an ere of egotism too her, but she genuinely seemed to want to help us and wasn't as interested in making either one of us feel small or powerless in the discussion we had. She met with us, and upon seeing that I had only 15% of the credits needed to graduate, she let me enroll. It was explained that the school ran much differently. For one, we didn't have to be there until noon. This seemed unreal to me, and too good to be true. I naturally stayed up late, and as such, I had been going on four hours of sleep for several years. Secondly, she told us there would be no homework. I couldn't believe that either. I wondered how that could even be. She also said we could eat in the class, as long as we didn't do it disruptively – the same went for using the bathroom, and students could even bring their newborns in while they were in class. There was something sort of sane about this school that I didn't know how to feel about that. It seemed like it didn't match the schema of school to me for the faculty and the regulations to make sense. We also wouldn't be learning out of, or needing to buy any school books. All of the lessons were taught from our teacher, and her husband, Mike's personal knowledge and the source material he would bring to us in segments.

Sarah and I drove home in a daze. It was finally done. We were no longer ever going to Kendrick Junior/Senior High School ever again. Gone were the smelly hallways and the detention slips and watching Kyle and the other jocks jump all over one another screaming at the glory of the Kendrick Tigers. I wouldn't even had to wake up early anymore, it was really that simple.

I received one last and final prank phone call from the Kendrick boys. I had just come back from a walk around town, and I was kind of winding down when the phone rang, and my father picked it up. Their was a male's voice on the other end wanting to talk to me. I nervously answered, and quickly realized that it was a prank phone call, the same kind of calls that I had received pretty frequently in 8th grade. A small part of me wanted to entertain these blockheads on the other line, but I had more dignity than that and I told them to stop calling me and hung up. My dad had watched the entire conversation. I think he felt it might have been some secret admirer I had had initially, so some of my degree of annoyance was put on for the fact that I didn't want to make him suspicious of me more than he already seemed to be half the time. He asked me to check the caller ID with *69, and I did and named allowed the phone number that had tried to dial. Just at that moment, Khris Blegen (Kyle from the days of old's little brother – who was my brother and sister's friend), was over at our house to hang out with Allison and David, and upon hearing his number, instantly told us all that the number was his home phone number – meaning the call had come from the Blegens.

Upon hearing this, my father got this vengeful and gleeful look in his eye, marched right up to our neighbor, the Blegen's door, and demanded to know who had called the house. About ten of the snobbiest jocks filed out of the house, and my father asked each one of them who had done the calling. Most of them backed off fearfully. In all the years that people had thrown this kind of stuff at me, however benign I ultimately felt it was, no one had ever had to contend with my father like this. Samantha's older brother Jake was in the crowd of boys, and he started saying he was going to beat my father up. It was kind of ridiculous really. My father at the time was bench pressing a lot and knew how to fight at least to some extent. Given his work out routine and his need to get fit for the Hot Men of the Lewis-Clark Valley 2006 Calendar, he was looking pretty fit. Jake was nothing but a bobblehead in comparison. So Jake and this smaller and smaller group of boys – most of them apologizing and getting away verses my father ensued out in the Blegen's yard. Jake ended up calling his dad, claiming that his dad would come and beat up my father. Steve, Jake and Sam's dad, was a fool, and he called my father challenging him to a fight. He promised to be there in one hour to put the fear of god in my father, but then he never actually did show up.

The whole thing seemed very distant from me in every way. I hadn't really cared if someone wanted to call me to ask if my refrigerator was running or not. It didn't hurt my feelings. It just seemed like a waste of time. These people weren't real to me anymore. But I think because my father knew he had wronged me on some level of his psyche, felt this need to blame these particular boys for abusing me and combat them in order to deal with what he was not emotionally cut out to do. And honestly, these boys probably did deserve some kind of retaliation from someone. Not for my sake, but for the general sense of entitlement they felt in acting out against unpopular kids in general. I couldn't help but think of that Karen girl in the class below who took every slight very personally, constantly getting notes in her locker and kick me signs put on her back, and how she eventually had to leave school because of it. So overall, I felt justice was fair. Everyone who came outside of the Blegen's house looked scared, and Ronnie Blegen herself said Kyle had it coming.

I was helping my father do some yardwork in later summer, trimming these bushes around the front of the house. Given that the home I live in was antique and built in Edwardian style back in the late 1800's, the intricate style had a lot of crevices where wasps would set up shop. It wouldn't be uncommon for there to be twenty nests set up just in the front of the house alone, and possibly up to fifty or sixty around the whole house and the rock garden in general. And I was always very frightened of wasps. I wouldn't scream and lose my mind by any means, but it was impossible for me to think or ignore a wasp anywhere near me. I saw wasps going in and out of this bush in front of the house that my father was aggressively ordering me to make myself useful by trimming. I told him that I knew there were several nests in that bush, and I felt like it wouldn't be safe for me to get in there and trim that part. This made him angry. He was shirtless and the hot sun was making him sweaty and angry. He ordered me to stop BEING A BABY! Like some kind of drill sergeant.

He pissed me off. I knew he was trying to make me cry at this point. He looked weak to me, getting in my face about something very practical. I decided to prove him wrong. While he was standing there, I put my hand right into the wasps' nests and sure enough they started flying out and all over the place. He personally ran off, but I just stood there and kept trimming, letting myself get stung about twenty times, it hurt but I was so annoyed I didn't care. He looked at me foolishly, and eventually called desperately at me and ordered me to get away from the bush. Sometimes you just have to prove a point.

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yummynutrition · 4 years

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Plant Based versus Animal Based Diets

Today, I will be talking more about eating vegetables. Frankly speaking, I am not a big fan of vegetables but I don’t hate them either. I could say…I am trying to have a balanced diet although it does not always work out. But we all know that vegetables are good for you so let’s talk about this plant based diet, shall we?

[ Photo by Christine Sponchia, www.pixabay.com ]

▣ What is the definition of a plant-based diet?

Kathy McManus, Director of the Department of Nutrition and Director of the Dietetic Internship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital wrote in Harvard Health Publishing that plant-based diet is not something you must have vegetables only for the rest of your life(Katherine, Harvard Health Blog). Plant-based diet would be eating patterns focus on foods primarily from plants, not all of them. This will include not only fruits and vegetables, but also nuts, seeds, oils, whole grains, legumes, and beans. Rather, you could say you are proportionately choosing more of your foods from plant sources and that is exactly what I always think about although somehow it feels like I am into meat-based diet adding vegetables on it, instead. But, now I am interested in this plant-based diet.

[ Photo by FotoshopTofs, www.pixabay.com ]

▣ 3 health benefits of following a plant-based diet versus the currently high animal based diet that is generally followed.

1. Reduce the risk of cancer(Publishing, Harvard)

The researchers from World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research(WCRF/AICR) compared the records with several established nutrition plans and found that the people who most closely followed the WCRF/AICR diet* had 12% lower risk of cancer over all. The diet appeared to be especially protective against certain cancers, such as prostate and colon cancer

* WCRF/AICR) emphasizes a plant-based diet rich in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes like beans and lentils, with limited amounts of red or processed meat (no more than 18 ounces per week) and a strong emphasis on eliminating all processed foods, sugar-sweetened drinks, and alcohol

2. Lower risk of developing coronary heart disease(Nutrition 2018)

Nutrition 2018-the flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, held in Boston in 2018, the researchers shared some of study results found in plant-based diet. In Netherlands, they researched almost 6,000 people; and the team found that those who ate a high ratio of plant-derived protein to animal-derived protein were at lower risk of developing coronary heart disease later in life.

3. Prevent premature death(Heidi Godman, Harvard)

In the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers looked at the dietary habits of more than 10,000 women in their 50s and 60s and compared them to how the women fared health-wise 15 years later. Women who followed a healthy diet during middle age were about 40% more likely to live past the age of 70 without chronic illness and without physical or mental problems than those with less-healthy diets. The healthiest women were those who ate more plant foods, whole grains, and fish; ate less red and processed meats; and had limited alcohol intake. That’s typical of a Mediterranean-type diet, which is also rich in olive oil and nuts.

▣ In my future culinary profession, can I see myself incorporating plant-based foods in my menus? Why or Why not?

I always thought plan-based diet would be something truly vegan, and frankly speaking I am not a big fan of vegan menus. I would love to put a lot of vegetables on any main course but thinking of vegetables being the main course, it just did not come to my heart directly. I just love the sound of steak crackling and the taste of those fats and meats.

However, after seeing one of my best friend getting a heart attack last week(he survived thanks to an unknown passer-by), I am thinking that maybe I should start to add more veggies on the plate. And the fact that plant-based foods does not have to be all veggies, it really relieved me in a way. I am thinking of creating a menu using a good meat as garnish rather than a main meal.

Not all are crystal clear yet, but I may start to create something I never had a thought about. Still, having my kids eat all those vegetables on plate would be my major problem to be solved at home.

▣ Share a vegan recipe, in a standard recipe format

I thought about what I should prepare for this mission for a quite long time and I decided to make up a new one based on popular Korean soup. It is called “된장찌개(doen-jang-jji-gae) and it would be “soybean paste soup” in English.

Base stock of this soup would be usually made from beef or kelp and dried anchovies. However, since I was going to make a vegan menu, I decided to use vegetable stock!! I’ve never done this before but really hoped it would work out well.

So I started off with veggies stock.

- 1kg Onions - 500g Carrots - 500g Celery - 2 Bay Leaves, 20 Black Peppercorn, Thyme, 15g Garlic) - 4L of Water

I added garlic in the stock because I thought if I used the original vegetable stock, it would be too much different from original menu. I wanted to add something that has a lot in common with Korean recipes. I simmered it for 45 minutes and now the stock is ready.

“Doen-Jang-Jji-Gae” Recipe

Ingredients(2 Servings)

- 110g (White) Zuchinni, small dice - 120g (White) Potato, small dice - 60g Button Mushroom, small dice - 100g Onion, small dice - 15g Garlic, minced - 20g Go-Choo-Jang(Korean Red Chili Pepper Paste) - 80g Doen-Jang(Korean Soybean Paste) - 1.5~2.0 T Perilla Oil(or Sesame Oil) - 500ml Vegetable Stock - 3g Red Chili Pepper - Enoki Mushroom(preferred) - Tofu(preferred)

Equipment

- French Knife - Cutting Board - Scale - Measuring Cup - Ttukbaegi (Earthen Pot) : keeps soup hot(or Regular Pot)

Preparation

1. On a medium high heat, place the pot until it gets hot. 2. Put oil in the pot and put minced garlic in. 3. After 1~2 minutes, when garlic aroma comes out fully, add onions and stir. 4. When onions get translucent, put potatoes in and stir. 5. After 3 min, add zucchini and stir.(Vegetables do not need to be fully cooked) 6. Add pepper and soybean paste and stir well. 7. Add stock and bring up to boil. 8. Lower the heat to medium and skim the bubbles from time to time. 9. Add button mushroom in and bring the heat up once again to boil. (You can add diced tofu with button mushroom if you have it ready) 10. Add enoki mushroom and slice pepper as garnish just before turning down the heat. 11. Serve whole pot.

Step by Step

[Oil in the hot pot. Olive oil would not be preferred.]

[Garlic in. Stir well until garlic aroma comes out fully.]

[Add onions and stir well until onion gets translucent]

[Add potatoes in and stir well. If it gets too dry, you can add more oil in.]

[Add zucchini as well. cut off the seeds if possible]

[Add both of the pastes and stir well]

[Add the stock and bring up to boil]

[Skim the bubbles and put button mushroom in]

[Add enoki and sliced pepper. It’s good time to add tofu]

[With tofu in, a nice bowl of soup with steamed rice]

▣ Reflect on my experience. How easy was it to find ingredients? Did I learn a new culinary skill while making the dish? What were some of my challenges? Would I make this recipe again?

Since this is a bowl of vegetable soup, it was not difficult to buy all the needed ingredients from local market. However, the taste of vegetables are not the same from the ones I had back in Korea. Of course, it would be awkward to expect something exactly the same with the ones grown in Ontario and the other ones grown outside of this country.

I did not learn any new skills, but I did find out how different the food would taste when other types of stocks are used. The first impression from my family was that it tastes like western menus and not Korean. My wife also mentioned that this menu reminds her of goulash with just a little bit meats although she knew that this was a vegan. Even to myself, it tasted quite different from the original soup and it even felt like a loaf of bread would be matched better than rice.

I prefer this soup with beef stock in it. Korean version of beef stock for this menu would be using marinated beef instead of using bones and meats from the oven. That said, this new menu did not make it to the top of my favourite menus but it surely gave me some insights.

I would make this menu once again for friends who has never had any chance to taste traditional Korean menus. I am thinking of making this one and original one separate and have them taste both at the same time. I think it would be a good opportunity for them to taste and evaluate. Or...I would make this vegan version when I get sick. They were so easy to digest on the night I had them for dinner that I had to eat something before I went to bed. Either way, I think it was a wonderful experience!!

Works Cited

Katherine D. McManus, LDN. "What Is A Plant-Based Diet And Why Should You Try It? - Harvard Health Blog". Harvard Health Blog, 2019, https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-is-a-plant-based-diet-and-why-should-you-try-it-2018092614760

Publishing, Harvard. "Specialized Diet Gets High Marks For Preventing Cancer - Harvard Health". Harvard Health, 2019, https://www.health.harvard.edu/cancer/specialized-diet-gets-high-marks-for-preventing-cancer

"Nutrition 2018: New Data Confirm Health Benefits Of Plant-Based Diet". Medical News Today, 2019, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322072.php#2

Godman, Heidi. "Adopt A Mediterranean Diet Now For Better Health Later - Harvard Health Blog". Harvard Health Blog, 2019, https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/adopt-a-mediterranean-diet-now-for-better-health-later-201311066846

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