#i look sad because the old job burnout is real

[abandonedshoppingtrolley]

I feel like I look so much different from all of my old photos on this blog?

#i look sad because the old job burnout is real #but i start my new job monday yay! #of course i have aged like 6ish years since my last selfie on this sight tbh

[stillnotyourmusebitch]

Am I enough - Bowser x GN!Reader fic

This fic has been one I've been working on for ages but I finally felt it was time to post it. Because deep down writing this has really helped me

Warnings : Heavy angst, talks of burnout, psychotic meltdown. Happy ending.

It’s true what people say about giving your all but it just not being enough. I knew being among that of Bowser’s castle staff would be a very difficult and demanding job. That was partly the reason I took it in the first place.

As my life in the real world just wasn’t right for me. So, you can imagine when I discovered an oddly large green pipe one day hidden away in an abandoned alleyway I cut through that night to prolong getting back home. I chuckled to myself at the thought of going through it and wondered what it would be like if I found a way into one of the many Super Mario worlds. My curiosity got the better of me. I got what I wished for and more so.

I’ve been living in the Darklands for a few years now. After I was found near the castle of King Bowser. I chose to work for him. Rising steadily up the ranks to a place where I was the caregiver role to the children of the king. This meant taking each day as it came because no two were the same. I was a platform for their pranks until they saw I wasn’t going to be scared away by them. Soon after that, the wee koopalings really grew to like me. They came to me with their problems. When they wanted an outside look at projects they were working on and even let me in on the newest revenge prank in the works. We grew into an odd sort of family dynamic. I would even at a push say that Bowser was more a close friend than my king.

I was known for my kind smile and caring nature to all who needed help. But lately, I felt the wild spark that fanned my bubbly personality had dimmed to a low flutter that threatened to extinguish leaving a husk of smoke behind to fill and suffocate my soul. I tried that much harder to act like all was well but when the big man himself kept trying to gently approach the subject of my recent spout of sadness. I found that the phrase “I’m fine really I am.” And a soft smile that had become the lifeline I clung dearly to was just enough to brush away any concern he had or so I thought.

----

I had barely managed to get through the day with my mask of normality not slipping and shattering to the ground But oh how it fell freely as soon as I shut the door to my quarters. My body sank in on itself with the weight of utter exhaustion finally being allowed to take over once more. Jr had noticed I had zoned out for the 5th time today when we were painting this afternoon. I told him that it was fine. I’m just a little bit tired. He looked at me for a second more before shrugging and going back to his canvas.

I know that I really need to sleep but right now I know if I went to bed I would just not want to wake up for the next day and the day after that and so on. I can’t worry my king or the koopalings. I think that is why I find my way to my ensuite bathroom in the darkness of my room. I didn’t want to put any lights on but when I got to the large tub and start to fill it. I set about lighting candles but only in the furthest corners of the room. It was better than nothing. It was just bright enough to see a silhouette of the bath at the center of the room. My eyes had adjusted to the dimness now that I just stood and stared at the water slowly rising up higher and higher. I normally would get undressed at this point. But what was the point.

I let the water rise higher transfixed by the sound of running water. My limbs moving on autopilot. I just climbed in completely clothed, shoes and all, leaned back, and finally closed my eyes.

I wanted to slip under the water and just drift away. People in my old life didn’t care but in the one I made here, I was wanted. Dare I say loved?

‘Am I enough?’

Thoughts swam frantically around in my mind. Each lasting a split second but long enough to make itself known. I don’t remember crying but it felt good to let it all go. The bath water was spilling over the sides now. I hadn’t turned the taps off. But it was okay. I let it run on. Flow over and pool beneath the tub. I let out the most guttural scream. Expelling all the negativity out of me. I just needed it gone.

“(Y/N) CAN YOU HEAR ME.” His booming voice split the air. I heard his heavy footsteps thud closer to the bathroom. The door broke into splintered pieces on the wet ground. “(Y/n)!” Bowser runs to my side. His large, clawed fingers turned the taps off, partially breaking one in the frantic movements. He scooped my sodden body out of the bath and cradled me close to his warm skin.

“Please talk to me.” He scanned me body to see if I was hurt.

I could see him talking but all I could hear was a high tinny white noise. I couldn’t get my limbs to obey me. I just hung there limply in his arms.

“I got you. I got you now.” He clings to me like I might fade from his grip into nothingness.

“B-bowser.” My tongue feels heavy in my mouth as I try to speak again.

“I’m here. I’m right here.” He sounds so small. Not like the fierce king everyone else gets to see. I’m crying again at the fragility that I’ve forced upon him.

“I-I’m so sorry sir.”

“No don’t say that. You have nothing to be sorry for. When Jr came to me today telling me he was worried about you. I should have stopped everything and gotten here sooner.”

Oh no. I scared Jr why didn’t I hide this better. Why didn’t I do something sooner?

“I’m frightened.” I choke out another sob.

“It’s okay.”

“But it’s not.” I hit his chest. “This is my fault. I let it get this bad. I kept pushing people away.” I keep thumping my fists against his chest and he just lets me. I’m begging him to just do something. Stop me. Just do something.

“I’m so tired. So damn tired.” I hit his chest once more before slumping against him again. He pulls me close. I can hear his heartbeat. It’s frantic, it’s worried. I nuzzle closer maybe if I get close enough it will calm down again. Even though I have clearly gone through a meltdown. I want to help him.

“I know you are. It’s been blatantly obvious that you were burning out before our eyes but you are so strong and caring you kept putting others before yourself. I need you to remember that you are enough. That you matter and you deserve to rest. The children will be fine for a few days if you take that time to rest up. Please let someone look after you for a little while. Please let me help you.”

I reach up and cup the side of his muzzle. His hand rests on top of mine like we are sealing a bargain. I smile weakly, to which he returns. He stands up, still holding onto me. As he walks us both back to my large bed. I’m starting to drift off to sleep but I needed to stay awake just enough to change into dry clothes that Bowser helps me into. Before lifting the covers and tucking me in. He looks down at me all curled up and slowly falling asleep. He moves off the bed but I grasp at his hand.

“Stay.” My voice is so small but he hears me. When the bed dips behind me I feel him pull me closer to his chest again. I finally let exhaustion take me but not before I felt him kiss the top of my head. A real smile tugs at my lips.

Maybe I am enough.

--------

This is my first fic in months and Bowser has been a real comfort character for me recently. So I hope people like this. Even if it was more of a personal idea.

#jamie writes #bowser #bowser imagine #bowser x reader #bowser x you #bowser x gn reader #gn reader #angst/comfort #happy ending

[latenightsimping]

And if I only could, I'd make a deal with God

Summary: The afterlife means many different things, for many different people. Religions, faiths and beliefs all wonder what happens when you pass on. For Eddie, it’s finally going home.

Pairing: Eddie Munson

Word count: 2,080

Warnings: V ANGSTY NEAR CRIED WHEN I WROTE THIS YOU’VE BEEN WARNED, angst to fluff, heavy themes of death, heavy themes of pain and sadness, has a bittersweet ending to it, mentions of bad fathers, themes of bullying, themes of depression, themes of bereavement. just a real bad time all ‘round but it’s good at the same time? idk read at your own risk okay

AN: Had a breakdown, started working on it, bon appetite. I’m fully on the camp of ‘Eddie’s still alive and the Duffer Brothers are being very fucking mean arseholes by making us wait for two years’ but I like to think what Eddie’s version of Heaven is. And I think it would be this. Because for me, it would be seeing my Dad again. Aight I’m gonna start crying again. Anyway, enjoy. Love y’all, make sure to give yourselves aftercare if you need it. Also, before I leave, the inspo for this bit of writing is Placebo’s ‘cover of Running Up that Hill because it makes me sob. 

Eddie always figured that dying would hurt. And he was right.

He could remember sharp teeth tearing into flesh, the sickening sounds of ripping and chewing barely audible over the sound of his screams. It was as if he had been dipped in hellfire; bathed in the flames and forced to stay conscious for it all.

He remembered the tenderness that fuelled Dustin’s careful movements as he was pulled into the young boy’s lap. Looking up and thinking Thank God. Thank God I’m not going to die alone. The small part of him that was still aflame felt guilt. Here he was, after seeing so many horrors, now having to watch someone die in his arms. Dustin was too young for all this. A child in a veteran’s uniform, battle scars where medals should have adorned him. He wanted to say so much to him. Tell him he was proud, and that he was so sorry for bowing out so soon, and there wouldn’t be an encore. But all he could manage to force from his lungs, choking on his own blood, were the most important things that he could think of through the haze.

“I didn't run away this time, right?”

I’m sorry that it had to end this way. But I would do it again, if it meant you were safe. Please, just tell me I did the right thing this time. Tell me that I didn’t die in vain. That Chrissy didn’t die in vain. Please tell me that I did the right thing for once in my life, please.

“You're gonna have to look after those little sheep for me, okay?”

From the moment I first saw you in that Weird Al shirt, I knew I had to protect you from the worst this world had to offer. You were so scared, and I knew that feeling well. I didn’t want you bringing home bloody noses and crying yourself to sleep from the cruel words running through your mind on a loop, just like I did. But you’re going to have to do the same for others, okay? I know you can do it, Dustin. You’re so strong, and so kind. I just hope I helped you, that I did a good job protecting you.

“I think it’s my year, Henderson. I think it’s finally my year.”

For once in my life, I’m not a burnout that sells pot to make ends meet and can’t graduate. I saved people. I’m nothing like my old man, who would have turned tail the second shit went sideways. I did the right thing, for once in my fucking life. I can rest, knowing that. It’ll be okay.

“I love you, man.”

I love you. Thank you for staying with me, so I wasn’t alone in the last moments. That’s all anyone asks for, right? To not leave this world without someone watching over them? Soon, the pain’s gonna stop. After all, to die would be an awfully big adventure, wouldn’t it? I love you, man.

I love you.

The last words on his lips stained with cruor was a declaration of the warmth, care and adoration for one of his best friends. Before he was pulled into the blackness, a numbness, nothingness, seeping into his very soul that couldn’t be explained with the human language. Something that could only be experienced during the last moments of someone’s life. The smoke that rises from the candle of the soul when it’s snuffed out. The black sands of time, the last few grains meeting the bottom of the hourglass. His last words weren’t a complaint, or a curse, or a cry of anguish.

It was love.

It was love, as pure as the bright light that surrounded him, bathing him in a peaceful warmth. It was as if he had blinked, but more instant than that. It was as if he was always in this room. It took him a few seconds to recognise it.

He recognised the pale yellow walls first. He remembered his Mother singing along to Here Comes the Sun as she painted them, covering up the disgusting beige that was underneath it. Dressed in old overalls spattered with paint and a rag as a bandanna to keep her wild brown curls out of her face. Could remember being six years old, watching with curiosity from the covered up couch, and thinking she was the prettiest woman this side of the Wabash river. The way that she looked back and smiled at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling and her giggle sounding like silver bells.

She had dome everything to make this place a home, no matter how little money they had. She’d scrimped and saved for paint, and had traipsed around countless yard sales and flea markets for good furniture. Sure, the couch was a little lumpy, and the coffee table had a deep gouge running down the middle. But that didn’t matter when the home was filled with such earnest warmth and comfort. His old man had left by this time; had walked out in the middle of the night and never came home. And at so young an age, he knew he was truly relieved to see the back of him. Just him and his Mom, in this run down home that still had cracks, but was more than enough.

So what was he doing back here?

Looking down at himself, he could see he was wearing his favourite shirt, one that he had lost long ago. The faded Anthrax shirt that Wayne had bought him for Christmas, now without the tears of being flung around the Hawkins High parking lot during a brawl. Now, it was as pristine and soft as he had remembered. His most comfortable ripped jeans and sneakers, and his prized possessions of the leather jacket and battle vest fitting like a second skin. No blood, no bite wounds, no pain. He felt the best that he had ever felt. He even smelt of his favourite cologne.

The sounds of humming made his head snap towards the source; the kitchen. He knew the humming well. The melodies that had stopped the day she died, and no song had never sounded the same since. He thought he would feel fear, or confusion. But all he could feel was content. Like this was the place he was meant to be all this time, and the living world was only temporary. The confidence of that knowledge fuelled him to take the steps towards the archway, rounding the corner to be met with the figure he wanted to see so badly.

Wayne had always said that Eddie took after his Mom. And that was true. Who could deny the matching halo of curls, and the deep umber eyes? He had his father’s nose, but that was it. Everything else was purely her. And here she was. Harmonising her favourite song as she chopped up vegetables, the pale pink apron that he’d clung to so often as a child still tied around her waist. He took in her profile; the slight upturned nose and slightly parted glossy lips. His heart fluttered like a trapped bird in his ribcage, lips breaking into a grin.

“Mama?”

She turned her head to him, a slight look of confusion on her face for only a second before it became one of joy. The same little crinkle around her eyes that he remembered so vividly as she put down the knife and opened her arms, an offering for an embrace. “Hey baby,” she whispered, voice so soft and gentle that he could cry.

It was near automatic, closing the gap between them and throwing his arms around her. He was taller than her now, no longer having to wrap his arms around her thighs. Now, he practically towered over her, and he could bury his face into the crown of her head. She still smelled the same. Like lavender and roses, a scent that had long faded from his lungs now filling them. He held her so tightly that he was surprised he didn’t crush her, but he couldn’t stop. What if she was going to go again, leave him all on his own like she did ass those years ago? But if she had any complaints, she wasn’t voicing them. Tears welled in his eyes, and he squeezed them shut to stop them from falling. “Mama, I… I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too sweetheart,” she mumbled into his chest, slightly pulling away to look up at him. Her eyes flickered over all his features, a grin spreading across her face as her hands came up to cup his jaw. He leaned into it, savouring the warmth of her palms. “God, I- look at you,” she chuckled, the pad of her thumb coming up to carefully caress the skin just under his eye. “You’ve got so big, huh? Still the same handsome face, though.”

He couldn’t stop the chuckle that bubbled from his chest, too scared to even blink in case she was going to vanish. “It’s been twelve years, Mom. And I missed you. Every single day.”

“I missed you too baby,” she whispered. “But… You’re here so much earlier than I thought. What happened?”

He shook his head, taking a few deep breaths to steady himself. She was still there. This was all real, and she wasn’t a figment of his imagination. He thought reality was the last life, but this… All his senses seemed to work so much better. He could smell the comforting scent of his Mother, could smell his favourite meal – one that he hadn’t had in thirteen years – being cooked on the stove that only she could work just right. He could feel her soft hands on his face, the sensation grounding him. Could see her beautiful features that mirrored his own, looking up at him like he hung the moon. That past life all felt like a horrible nightmare, one that he was just waking up from. One that he didn’t want to tell her about just yet.

He shook his head slowly, a shy smile flitting across his lips as he rubbed his fingers over the small of her back, enjoying the feeling of her soft cotton dress against his skin. “I’ll tell you later.” Later, he figured, could mean any time in the future. And he had the feeling that he would be here for a joyful eternity. “Is this Heaven?”

“I think so,” she nodded, her hand coming up to brush errant hairs away from his face. “And my Heaven just got better, now you’re here with me.”

His chest tightened, and he couldn’t stop the heaving sob as he hugged her again, holding her so close as if he was trying to pull her into himself. Burying his face into her neck, inhaling her perfume as if he would never smell it again for the second time around. It wasn’t sadness, though, that fuelled his cries. It was happiness. Pure, unfiltered joy, that he finally had what he always wanted. What he wished for every single night, especially when the day had been hard.

He had his Mama back.

“Ssh, none of that,” she cooed, a gentle chide as she rubbed his back soothingly. “I’m here, baby. I’m here for you, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

“Pinky swear?” he mumbled, causing the woman to softly laugh. To the two of them, a pinky swear had been stronger than any laws. It meant that the one promising would move mountains, just to make it happen. He hadn’t made a pinky swear for so long. Not ever since it didn’t feel the same, when her delicate little finger encircled his.

“Pinky swear,” she echoed, pressing a kiss to his temple.

If this was Heaven, this was the perfect final act. He had the only person that he truly wanted more than anything in this world, back in the home where he knew love without a price tag. No more bruises and broken bones, or cruel words with such abundance that he could drown in them. No more knowing cold, or hunger, or hardship. No more loss and anguish, no more mourning.

He knew it, deep in his gut. Now he was here, all that negativity would be washed away. It was all worth it, to finally be here.

It was finally worth it to be home.

#cw: death #cw: angst #cw: bereavement #cw: injury #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson #eddie munson drabble #eddie munson fic #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things imagine

[chaoticdelinqueerwithglitter]

[personal vent with some sprinkles of tr]

Today I feel emotionally exhausted. Completly drained. But not physically, with doesn't help because my body have too much energy for just laying down and be sad.

But I can't stop crying for everything and anything at the same time. And I know the sadness, the pain, the tears, are real. I know it bc I feel it. But at the same time I feel like nothing happened to me to be like this, like I don't have a 'real reason', that I'm not allowed to be this exhausted when from the outside it looks like I did nothing.

(And I know that's not true, I know I was burn out from the managements I had to do for having internet back, I know it scares me having an uknown man in my home, even if the internet technician was really nice and kind with my dog, what relaxed me bc if my traumatized dog doesn't feel danger and it someone treats him so good, that means everything is safe. And I know the day before I had a job interview and I had to go to the center what makes me be activated as fuck and my anxiety goes high being inside such a crowded small space like the metro. I know that all this things are a lot for me, I know it but if I don't write it is too easy to forget)

(And I also know that I'm finally talking about things in theraphy that broke me just too mention, I know there are real and valid reasons for be like this, I know I should be proud of myself. But I hate that the past can still hurt me, I hate how weak it makes me feel. Even if I know the fact that I'm finally open this box means I did a lot of progress with myself for getting here. But suddenly the old fears are screaming again and it seems like all the work I did for accepting my own vulnerability and not be terrified of feeling old pains just disappeared. And it sucks so much and only makes me be harder on myself)

Weirdly, if this was like my usual burnouts were I just don't have more spoons or an emotional flashback were I need time to feel safe it would be easy to manage. I would be more compasionate with myself, I'll know what to say to my intrusive thoughts.

But is not that. I'm emotionally exhausted to pretend to be strong, to be fine, to not be broke, to not be fighting with my mind constantly bc I wanna be better, I wanna get better, I can't slip into the same coping mechanisms again (even if it feels so easy to do it).

And I just feel like a kid, starting to cry again and again without "reasons". I just feel like a kid that doesn't want to be this weak, that wants to smile and to not make everyone worried bc it's fine, I'm fine, I'm strong, I'm resilient, of course I'll stand up again, ofc the past is not going to drown me, I'm strong and strong people...

Strong people cry.

Strong people are able to admit that they are scared and want to run away.

Strong people fail. And fail again.

Strong people have a lot of flaws and do a lot of mistakes.

Strong people allow themselves to feel the pain, the sadness, the fear.

They broke. Again. And again. Because they admit when something hurts them, they don't deny the pain, don't pretend to be unharmed.

And after that, they try again. Because they never give up. But they ask for help, the show weakness, they show their tears, they show they are vulnerable.

Because maybe being able to be vulnerable is what real strenght mean.

(and yes, I chose this image on purpose because the contrast with this empty Mikey and Takemichi is so huge, Mikey isolating himself on the top, never breaking until he can't take it anymore... I see myself so much in Mikey and it hurts, but it's also a good reminder of how much I need to remember the lessons that Michi showed us)

And I don't know if any of what I just said makes sense or if it's just me rambling around and remembering to myself what ment for Mikey being so strong and so unbreakable and how Takemitchy being openly vulnerable and showing his feelings to the whole world, saved him. Saved us.

Because Takemitchy saved me too and he does it again every time I'm about to not allow myself to cry and go to the old-repress-and-denial.

So yeah, thanks our crybaby hero. I needed you so much and even if I don't say talk about you enough, I love you a lot 💜

#me venting about irl and not so much #emotional hangover bc doing it better also means opening really scary boxes i guess #mental health #trying to remember that i'm not weak for being vulnerable it's hard #but takemitchy helps #our crybaby hero #weird ramblings that i don't even know how to tag yey #tokyo revengers #hanagaki takemichi #takemitchy is an amazing mc and i will say it again and again #takemitchy saved me too bc he saved everyone #thanks wakui

[weirdcultstuff]

My numbness Journey:

. I am told I cried a lot as a baby. This makes sense, I was a very sick baby. I don’t remember being a baby, of course, so I don’t know if I had any emotions or not then.

. I learned as a toddler to sit still without making noise or doing anything ‘distracting’ during church services and such that lasted the better part of the day. I remember most of that feeling ‘blank.’ Like someone had pointed a remote at me and pressed pause. I remember sitting on the folding chairs at church next to my mom, and my feet didn’t even hang over the edge of the chair yet because I was so small, and I remember my arms feeling “prickly” because I hadn’t moved them in so long. It became kind of a game to sit still long enough to make my limbs prickly before I changed position in my chair. My parents were not the kind of parents who gave their babies dry Cheerios to snack on, or old spice shakers with toothpicks in them to play with during church. We sat still and we listened, or we got taken out and punished and then brought back in to sit still and listen. There was no such thing as children’s church.

. Displays of emotion and expression were often harshly punished beginning before I turned one, judging by how soon I know it started for my younger siblings. E.g. 3 hour spanking/restraining sessions for crying, social shaming for laughing (“don’t be foolish. Be sober minded.”), I never attempted dancing it was considered so out of the question, etc. I got in trouble a lot, for all the normal kid stuff like being too loud with my sisters in bed at night or arguing over a toy or not finishing my food or not obeying instructions cheerfully and right away. My parents were just picking up a lot of child training techniques from ultra conservative fundamentalist literature, and trying out what they were reading on me and my siblings.

. I sometimes felt too emotional to maintain a calm exterior during really intense moments (I equated emotions with danger) like altar calls or punishments or questionings, and learned to distract myself as hard as I could until the emotions passed. I’d count things like nails in the boards on the walls, or I’d focus on my shoes, or I’d focus on my baby siblings and make sure they had their shoes tied etc. Eventually I got really good at just kind of zoning out, I remember very often feeling like I was floating in the corner of the room, looking down at all of us kneeling and praying. I wondered a lot if I was a robot or possessed, because my body didn’t feel familiar or as real as the people around me seemed. My body usually felt stiff and mechanical, like I was watching myself move from the outside. Maybe, I thought, that’s what dying to the flesh meant. When I broke down and felt emotions it was overwhelming and I would cry, which was punished, and shamed. Because of those times, I consider(ed) myself emotional in a sort of ‘hysterical/unreliable woman’ sense.

. I got good at autopilot when I had a lot of work to do, like from 9 years old or so. I remember waking up and relishing the hour or so of feeling ‘awake’ before I’d get tired and flip the switch to autopilot so I didn’t slow down. Working hard was the best thing a kid could do, really, the safest thing and the most encouraged virtue. I remember watching people who were considered hard workers and trying to copy them, I decided the trick to picking beans fast was to never let your hands stop moving. I really like watching my hands work, and wash dishes, pick beans, type. It’s kinda comforting, reassuring, safe, yknow? I can work through almost anything, pain and tiredness and nausea and emotions. I was always surprised by burnout. I also considered myself lazy, so it’s odd that objectively I was a hard worker. But today I’m not a hard worker, all my hard work was thanks to autopilot and numbing and dissociation.

. In my early teens, I got pretty good at just not having “negative” emotions. I’d never felt anger very strongly, but I began to feel less sadness or annoyance too. If I started feeling sad, I’d just stop. Distract. Numb. Life was not easy, so I was numb pretty much all the time. It was painful. Sometimes I couldn’t even get up to work, I’d just sit on my bed, which was punished of course but I had nothing in me to react to the punishment and nothing in me to give to my work so I just sat there and took it. I had a Bible study group that read this book which told of the author’s own experience with depression and how she found happiness via a combination of Christianity and gratitude journaling. I started looking for things to be thankful for. It was like a dam broke and I could finally FEEL something again: happiness. I found joy in everything. The sky, my work, the people around me, sounds, smells, trees, colors, banana muffins. Everything was still half awful, but I just decided that part wasn’t important. Go numb for the bad, experience the good. It let me function again. It worked for a while.

. Eventually, I had ✨ a meltdown ✨ I got diagnosed with ptsd. I hit a burnout point with my mission work + school + other job + multiple deaths of close loved ones + buried trauma beginning to resurface due to my coping skills wearing thin and my new relatively safe environment and supportive school friends. Covid was the last straw. I quit EVERYTHING. Mission work, school, other job, everything. And I finally felt anger, and sadness, and regret, and shame, and so much fear.

. All that bs in therapy about “let’s name the wall you’ve put up between you and your emotions, what would it be made of? Wood? Metal? Brick? Paper?” & “it’s safe to have emotions. Practice recognizing your emotions and telling them that it’s safe to be there.” didn’t seem like bs anymore. It actually helped make sense of the storm of emotions I was having. Because I hadn’t felt anger in so long, or at least not without it being kind of ‘intellectual’ or ‘in the distance’, I didn’t really recognize it. I just felt strongly and vaguely bad. But I started untangling it all and figuring out which emotion was which and different ways to recognize them and experience them and let them have their place. Making art helped, talking about it helped.

. The storm has died down now. I still numb regularly, often automatically, without thinking about it. But I do have all the emotions now, at least to some degree, and I know how to lean into them and process them a little better. I write down my emotions from the week and how it was, where it was, why it was, every week for therapy. Sometimes I have emotions at the right times and sometimes not. Usually I can mask them pretty well if I want to. I still can’t just cry, I can’t make noise when I cry, I haven’t been able to do that since I was very small. But at least I can cry again. My goal is no longer to Not Experience ‘Negative’ Emotions, it’s to give place to every emotion that I have. Wholeness, not Happiness. I feel more grounded. I have bad days, I have consecutive bad days.

And I am happy. I never really stopped being able to find joy in things, ever since that one Bible study book about gratitude. I’m really very lucky in that, I think. I have gone and can go through life enjoying it.

#numbness #abuse cw #cw child abuse #trauma recovery #long post #extremely long post #depression

[oddlyhale]

What makes James important to someone like me is that he goes through his form of depression, as the world pushes against him. A relatable pain he experiences.

What I like about James is that he is a character who was written to go through a broken state of mind - mostly about how depression had begun to take hold of his life and how it's running with it since.

After what happened in Beacon, James Ironwood shutdown as a person. To think his military and his authority were taken advantage of, and to think he lost his best friend Ozpin, James slowly became empty within every passing volume. It was a slow process, as his old self still shined through as much as it could, and yet it was obvious that his growing sadness was becoming more apparent than his smiles.

I do feel like the writing accidentally created a character who displayed somebody who silently suffered from depression. Rather than just telling us, "I am depressed," James only shows his loss of hope with actions. Even if he thinks he's safe by never talking about it and can hide away with working and working, his actions tell us that he's lives in the shade of a dark cloud.

What I find so interesting about James and how he deals with this, is that he could also be the type that finds his depression as an invisible enemy, a mentality he can't brush aside or cure. He's used to trying to fix things on his own, whether it may be small or dramatic, James wants to fix the issue as fast as he can. But he can't with this.

I believe James overworks himself to ignore what's blatantly obvious in his actions. He could also overwork himself to try and find his spark again. He's caused himself to burn out drastically, and yet he still pushes his limits with what he must do for his city. It is sadder to think about when James has no option to rest and try to overcome his burnout - because he can't trust anybody else to do the job right. There is nobody else that can. Overworking caused him to be overly worried, forcing himself to stay put in his office.

It causes him to lose more of what he was previously. As much as he can appreciate how friends try to give him a hand here and there, he always returns to the everyday task that demands him.

He's grown tired, he's becoming numb to the things around him. He has to begin making precautions that Remnant needs to be safe. He knows the public may not look at him kindly for his actions, but again, how his depression had made him numb makes all these negative takes sound like nothing but distant noise.

To be reunited with his friends again almost feels like he can bounce back from his problems, at least a little bit. He's happy to see the teams again, expressing how happy he is to see them, and hugging Qrow to show how much he means to him. How their return means so much to him.

Even then, their return was not the best. As happy as he was to see them, they didn't return the sentiment. Right away, the teams would rather be critical and ungrateful of James. They all felt like they didn't know or want to know James, mostly leaving him alone to his work. It could've really hurt at first for James, but knowing how he is, he was likely trying to desensitize that from his mind. Again, numbing himself to the disappointment.

The only thing he hangs onto is what he has left to control in his life, which is the position of a General and how he suppresses all the overwhelming emotions that could break him.

What I feel like was the real break for James was when it was revealed that RWBY lied to him.

I do often view this moment as RWBY being that final cord that snapped in James. Untreated depression that was unattended to and how this moment caused him to spiral. Not only realizing how RWBY lied to him, but how this boiled all those hidden emotions James never wanted to address rose to the surface. James spiraled into an episode of wanting control again but having no way of being able to do so.

What I also find symbolic about the cast that watched James lose control is how it feels when people - who don't understand depression - look at this negatively. How the show also paints James' psychotic episode as irrational and scary. Again, an extremely negative take on somebody with untreated depression that's grown worse. It doesn't help that RWBY seem to not understand, but also how they don't want to do anything to understand.

James can't hide it anymore, and it's become something that even he can't figure out. And with nobody wanting to talk to James, all those things that clouded him became a storm of unhinged emotions throughout V8.

It's sad to think that James is painted as, "selfish, unlikable, criminal, scary." When, to most people with depression, can happen to them. The negative takes on depression are those things that others place on them, and why patients would rather hide it than face it.

James showing any form of weakness is frightening to him. Again, putting up a façade of being strong was the only thing that worked for him. Losing control of himself and that put him in a sensitive place of desperately needing help. But nobody wanted to.

Was it James' fault that he let his depression consume him? Of course not. Anybody with that level of depression isn't at fault for it - especially when they don't understand it themselves, and would rather hide it. James wants to be strong, even if the depression constantly weighs on him. Showing worth and hard work makes him feel like he can somehow outweigh those odds. But he can't.

To somebody like me, I can find that relatable. I can understand how hard it is to look at that side of yourself, and would rather mask it by overworking and pretending it doesn't exist. Those emotions can reach boiling point and can make you snap, lose control. And being surrounded by people who don't understand, or don't want to understand, and find it to be more of a burden than a real problem, is sad.

#rwde #james ironwood #this is my take on james #if you don't like it #eat my ass #mental health

[blueboltkatana]

So i saw some Harry Potter stuff on my dash and started thinking about it because my brain does things sometimes. More specifically i was thinking about why I stopped liking Hermione as a character once i hit 16 but my love for Ron and Neville grew and i think i know why.

Since the beginning of the story, Hermione is depicted as a prodigy of sorts, she has incredible memory and si very advanced for her classes, while Ron and Neville are average in most classes or even below average in some, Neville more than Ron. She excels in almost everything she does and is loved by her teachers (exept Snape but he hates everyone so doesn't count). Meanwhile Ron and Neville are slower with their progress and less liked by the teachers.

As a 13/14 year old reading these books, I identified with Hermione the most out of any character because i was just like that in middle school. She was the person i wanted to be like when i grew up, while Ron and Neville i did love, but i didn't feel connected to them, i didn't aspire to be them, i wanted to be Hermione.

Then i went to High School and that's when my world turned upside down. The curriculum was difficult, the teachers were bullies and my classmates were insufferable at best. I developed severe anxiety and had depressive episodes weekly. The first year fucked me up badly and it destroyed my self esteem so much that it too 3 years to build it back up. The second year i changed schools because my parents saw how badly i was doing, even though i was maintaining good grades, it was killing me.

That summer i reread those books and suddenly, they didn't feel the same to me. Hermione now didn't feel like an inspiration or a relatable character at all, seeing her being perfect and never do anything wrong didn't make me think "Oh wow" it made me think "Jesus Christ Rowling". Whenever i read about her i felt sad and disappointed, she was the epitome of what i wanted to become but I didn't. I later realized it was because i set myself some impossible standards, I forced myself to be Hermione even though Hermione doesn't exist, never has existed. Rowling herself has said that even though Hermione was based on her as a child, she was a "better" and "less flawed" version. While reading i was trying to feel like Hermione again but i couldn't, i couldn't relate to her anymore, her words and decisions didn't sit that well with me now.

Instead i found myself falling even more in love with Ron who before had just been a character i liked in the back of my mind, and discovered just how much i loved Neville and how much i wanted to see him succeed. Hermione was the perfection i wanted to be, but Neville and Ron were the most realistic "good" i could achieve, especially Ron. My dad had just lost his job and we were not doing good financially, so i didn't relate to Hermione having the best night of her life with the famous boy that liked her and wearing a pretty new dress and fixing her imperfections with magic, instead i related to Ron, because i wore a dress my cousin handed me down and didn't go with anyone let alone a boy that liked me, and i didn't have that much fun and it wasn't the best night of my life. I went through a shitty burnout that made me extremely lazy and unwilling to do anything unless it was one night before the due date, i developed a deep dislike for teachers and started talking back to most of them, i devoted myself to my friends and was ready to throw hands for them. And rereading the books, i didn't feel like that much Hermione anymore, i didn't want to be like her. This time Ron and Neville's journeys and development looked so much more appealing to me than Hermione's. They grew as people and achieved great things without being perfect the entire time, they struggled to do the right thing, struggled to be brave and to accept themselves and love themselves. That is the kind of growth i wanted to achieve now.

Hermione is a good role model for little girls, everyone says, Hermione is what little girls should strive to be. But I don't agree. Little girls shouldn't strive for perfection because perfection isn't real and it isn't healthy. What they should try to be is "their best".

Children that are held to such high standards at a young age will always end up hurt, anxious, depressed and burnout at some point. And Hermione never went through that, was never shown to feel like she wasn't good enough, or even if she was, everyone around her was quick to reassure her, when she made mistakes those mistakes were treaded as Empowering for women, or brilliant for her age. When she hurt people's feelings, the narrative didn't punish her.

That doesn't happen in real life. If you hurt people in real life then you start loosing them, if you make mistakes you have to pay the price, if you feel like you're not good enough there won't always be people around saying "no that's not true!" Hell there might be people who see your insecurities and use them and make you feel so much worse.

So yeah, I don't wanna be Hermione anymore.

#harry potter #ron weasley #hermione granger #neville longbottom #ron appreciation post #neville appreciation post #not hermione bashing at all #i love her i really do #but she's just not realistic and shouldn't be held to such a high pedestal #jkr critical #actually no #fuck jk rowling #fucking terf #ron weasley defense squad #neville longbottom defense squad

[queenofallwitches]

an update and primer:

so the last winter was weird. I had a complete breakdown, went into psychiatric hospital for 40 days in total. two seperate times.

learnt a heap of new things, met a tonne of cool people and had amazing conversations and few fights but overcome my own demons by that.

brain speaking-I have a scarred brain stem and neurological disorder is not a mental diagnosis, but a neurological disorder, proven by MRI scan, ADHD.

also damage to my basal ganglia, and prefrontal cortex.

neurological diagnosis means ADHD is not a "mental" health issue, as some believe, rather a neurodevelopment disorder caused by structural differences in the ADHD brain.

other neurodevelopment disorders include: Tourettes, Autism, Cerebal Palsy, Dyslexia and other Motor and Intellectual Disabilities. (Which recieve, in my view, a lot of insight, media information and stigma reduction by the advocacy networks surrounding these types of disability).

Over the last few years Autism has been over everything, I've seen mainstream media cover Tourettes and yet ADHD is still HUGELY misunderstood, misconceived and misrepresented in media, be in from the angle of documentaries, personal insight of a "typical" case, films, tv, and other media.

one of the first things my dr told me was "in females it rarely presents as hyperactive red-cordial OD child"

which is what my mother BELIEVES, that is because I have an adopted cousin with the ADHD dx who was that growing up, but the representation I'm told is also divergent for women with a higher IQ score than the average IQ. I come in around 142 and tested 123 at age 3 when I was unable to focus, pay attention and had severe trauma. I tested 142 in grade 8.

I'll share my experience as a female who is intellectually gifted, with higher IQ than average, and an adhd brain:

I've been told gifted and talented "genius" children are harder to diagnose because the symptoms present differently, we hide it better (camouflage) and our focusing can be "faked" by mediocre efforts of academic success.. this is true, I would do the assignment the Sunday night hours deadline, last minute, or have my parents half do it for me, plagiarise it (fuck I've killed my whole academic career now) copied but changed my words

from old 1970s encyclopaedias I KNEW they couldn't cross reference (I went through 15 years of school never studying doing homework or assignments and still had top grades).

I literally did not listen, and spent my classes planning the end of the world survival strategies with my GT friend who, basically helped me with my calculus and hard fucking maths, which was the ONLY 50 minutes of the day I put attention into my work.

now I'm going to be heading back to full-time study in the coming months, I get anxious as the pressure of a Bachelor level degree, and the pressure it takes me to perform, is enough to break me down. I've been advised it might be wise to start light (like a basic vet style diploma) and then build up, which is logical, but I keep thinking I'm meant to be doing my thesis by now. which is the kind of pressure one gets as a kid who is told repeatedly, "your intelligence is exceedingly the average and you can do ANYTHING you want"

I wanted to be an astronaut, a storm chaser, and an architect, a town planner and then a journalist. I always held to being a "FBI agent" or spy (I wonder why). so when I found psychology is really a blend of all these things, I kinda found a niche in a psych and social science double degree. but I'm thinking my academic career is LIFELONG, and due to the fact I also want to work in my field alongside my many written thesis coming, I'll be in academics for a long time. I may fail a few things, which I have to come to terms with. I do not fail easily, or readily, but I'm a perfectionist type-a academic who will put my whole life on the line to achieve "merit". I get exams, I get assessments, I read journals super-easy, I talk the talk and walk the walk so well psychologists who are at masters level compliment me on my "knowledge".

when it comes to mental health and trauma, I will always have the personal attachment, called lived experience, which will make failure and burnout, 100 percent realistic. I have to boundary up, bootstraps on, and prepare that yes, my personal "bias" will probably be entwined in this.

which is why I'm looking at the social science for the statistics and thesis writing side of things, and the counselling for the trained therapist side. either way, the degree of counselling requires so much self-insight, and then the social-science will back me away from personifying it. the other choice is criminology, which leads to forensic psychology, which is eternally fascinating. my main concern is the pro-pedophile content Ill be up against, which will look at the anatomy of a shoplifter akin to the devil, and leave the pedophile in the DSM-5 dx "paraphilia" box.

I'm not joining or jumping to anything.

either way I've got 2 year of credit, a heap of pathways and a lot of "academic momentum" from all my life being aimed to be "academic powerhouse". I went through my files and found a lot of awards I'd won in my high school, and top place in the competitions we would be entering in. I remember feeling so sad if I had a "credit" vs a distinction or high distinction, only to see now, a credit in university maths in year 9 is a skillset I don't have anymore so, good on me. or a credit in English, or Science at that age was pretty impressive, considering these tests were random and not studied for.

just a general skills assessment only the top 30 kids in the year were to take on a year by year basis and put out to vet from the top universities and taken by other kids in the same grade around the state.

it puts so much focus on my intelligence, because it's primed to be that way, I know that is true. I know I feel good being academically successful and it gives me a feeling of "achievement" but is it really for me?

I also found 2 letters from my local politicians offering me job placement, work experience and I was 1/4 kids in my 10th grade graduation tom get the letter, and due to my behaviour I pissed ALL the idiots who bullied me off. I was "too pretty to be a nerd" "too smart to be pOpUlAr".

so I made a group of misfits, who are all highly intelligent, creative and my group had the ONLY gay male in the school AND THIS IS BEFORE YOU FUCKING RETARDS MADE IT "COOL". he was bullied badly, so fuck you, you fucks claim "liberalism" but I bet you were the type of idiot who bullied guys like him in high school while you pretended to like my chemical romance and fake cut yourselves. I hate you all, forever.

my grade was full of idiots who were fake emo, who left the scene the moment the scene changed to dub-step and club music. I was there, watching you all, like sonny Moore, went from FFTL to that dubstep skrillex shit he started in 2009.

I dated you, hooked up with you and I went to your gigs. I know who was real and who was fake. I met some of you years later and realised the more emotive ones were the less "alternative appearing".

I can say 1/10000 emo guys from the 00s were genuinely Into the music and scene for the right reasons based on my dating history and this can and will be analysed statistically using SPSS one day to prove a lot. I've had too many relationships from each sub-culture and I have had 4-11 males at a time per public "output" of my energy pursue me over life.

I'm not being cocky when I say I have a long line of "suitors" and its banked back about 50 men. it's been a thing I've avoided as it seems to grow based on my body shape, attitude, appearance, so I am currently out of touch with dating scenes, no interest to try that ANYWAY, given the fact that I have had so many LONG TERM relationships ANYWAY. I can't see another one going well, and at this case, I'm living with an ex but we never went on conventional and now our families label this 3 things: "asexual", "polyamorous" and "open relationship". I'm also "bisexual" but this all to humans outside, looks ridiculous on paper. (wild orgies and lots of swinging or some stupid sex magick probably is what J brother literally thinks we do).

bc humans are intrinsically designed to need to label things they don't understand. we share a lease, not a relationship, and fucking polyamorous, I WISH. there are no girl-girl-guy 3 some, or orgies, or sex magic parties.

this has changed the attitude and perception of this "relation' which Is non-romantic, non-sexual. he can date and likely, will, as can I , and I likely won't date.

I would say 14/15 have had ADHD, or other mental illness and or trauma. which means to me, nothing at all.

I think this "open book" non romantic relationship style of "friends and roommates" not sexual.

attachment is misunderstood by others but works well fro my adhd, meaning I'm not expected to marry, or be a wife in any capacity. he is free to do what he wants, as I am, and open communication is a novel frontier I brought into this in the start, and stayed with for the duration. we fight, but I fight with a lot of people in my life over many petty things. also down to my adhd, I believe, I have rejection sensitive dysphoria, which makes me hypersensitive to rejection, perceived or real.

im not sure if this is trauma or adhd or both. but

I have used sexuality as a weapon in many relationships but it cannot or will not be used here, so I have had to resort to uncovering parts of myself which I never knew, which will stay with me even if he decided to marry and wife up in 5 years, which I'm okay and expecting him to do, and I would much rather that then be trapped in a situation where I cannot be that "wife/mother archetype" as I'm too "femme fatal/other-woman/sex-laced seductress and siren" a "FWB, unicorn, drug buddy, hook-up where im a therapist" or "intellectual and cognitive mind-bender work-study obsessed woman".

both at once and many types of human, including one who is a full-time ceremonial magician of 7 years. I will drink, drug, fuck, fight like males and still be more feminine and high maintenance than 89% of women. I grew up a tomboy and don't mind getting into fun, adventure based situations, like hiking, or anything adrenaline, I would only be reluctant to eat weird shit.

I also have many "neurological" issues including ADHD, and trauma which causes a rupture in the average human and I dating.

I'll tell you how many men have said "you are the unicorn" and then realised what that means, I went as far as canvasing the PUA world back in 2014 after reading the game, a book on PUA, which is essentially, pick up artistry, based on NLP and hypnosis. I did this after reading the copy my ex in 2008 handed me before we dated saying "I gave this up for you". it took me years to open the book, buy when I did I truly believed the only way I would fall in love again, was through PUA. that failed in so many ways but gave me a training foundation for men who were candidates for that, I have trained up J, and the way that sounds is BAD. I know, but I got a lot of value myself, I just don't see it how I wanted to see it.

but that was my original intent, and I achieved this he knows that, knew it was happening and evolved for the best self.

I am thinking we can modulate this into a business model for how I was operating in the BDSM world was mainly psychological, not physical.

I get told all of is incredibly intimidating (I am told) to women and men.

I don't really care anymore, because people have always seen this part of me in the wrong way ANYWAY, but I own who I am NOW. which is what I needed ANYWAY. so it cannot be stolen again, and sexual healing has come from abstinence ironically.

I also don't care what or who is trying to tear up my relations, toxic or not toxic, all people around me will be on a healing journey by default, or cut out of my life, for I am radiating that energy so brightly its impossible NOT to feel that pull.

I will drag your shadows into the light, and make your secrets spin from your lips into my consciousness. its not what I do but its what is design.

I make your weaknesses mountains to climb over. you cannot hide from these in my presence, I won't be this controlling or obsessive female who wants 24-7 attention as I have a life full of meaning without love or sex. I don't want to be wined, dined or expensively gifted, unless specially requested.

I don't want love letters or romantic declarations, this isn't some femnazi bullshit, but it triggers me. I appreciate the efforts and won't make you feel bad about your insecurities, for mine are probably 30 x more pronounced.

I appreciate small things, that most males won't or don't know how to do. like remembering things I've said and being thoughtful. or knowing my silence isn't personal, or a game, but a protective wall. I've had songs sung too me, guitars played, songs written, or things made in ways that are heartfelt. but I've always had them used against me too. so it is the context. I value time, energy, conversations of depth and reciprocal exchange. I also value trauma understanding, my alters and fragments being accepted and valued as me as a whole and a person who is not afraid, or scared of stupid stuff like sensitivity, emotions, feelings as raw as my own. men feel intensely too, lol.

but will only give oral sex 100 times before I don't recieve it, I can communicate now so that wouldn't happen.

but I won't be a bitch about this stuff. I am extremely feminine and care in ways other people, do not, I forget nothing people tell me, so it can be a reward or reverse uno card pull in a fight, but I am not evil or deviant in my relations. I react, depending on how you treat me. I don't need your money, or providing source of income to be okay as I am my own queen, however sharing resources is okay to build something. I don't need to be seduced, but will need to be shown a person is trustworthy.

few cross that.

that will always be time-endurance and testing. there are ground rules I don't play with, or play games. or like being forced or forged into something I'm not. I know abusive and I know safe, and I am a psychology expert, trained psychotherapist and study humans for fun, so I'll always be analysing things.

and I know red flags and I know ego, I know how to placate and please and pleasure, but will only do so, for a bigger and better reason than the mere act of seduction. which is without value and transactional to someone like me, I won't lie.

and I know every tactic in the book, for the book was written by someone like me, many lives ago, and my karma is being burnt for that book.

in terms of walls, I have many, may it be called a maze. or labrnyth.

I will teach you things you never thought you'd know, and change your life in ways you won't ever be able to go back to before. I will blow your mind, sexually, emotionally, intellectually, on all levels, and I'll make your friends and family love me.

I'll bring your walls down and you won't be able to understand this, because you don't understand me, and thats ok.

but I'll always understanding you and make your life better because thats what I do anyway, and people talk to me about things I will never share, as I keep secrets. I am jealous, of everything but, only because I am attached in a disorganised way, and working on that.(I won't even mention how man women or men don't know basic psychology of themselves). I also am a therapist , for my friends and family too.i should not be , but I am. I care, I listen, If you think I'm not listening, I'm still listening. sometimes I interrupt, because I have ADHD and I am horrible at resolute planning, or being "normal". but I don't want to be normal anyway. I need you to recognise and understand my shit, for that is what I do for everyone in my life, and I have helped more than I receive.

I'll probably accidentally give you therapy, but thats fine, because you will uncover your depths and find meaning in this. it's not something that goes bad unless you are fundamentally, evil, even the most abusive relationship I was in, was benefited from this process. yes he's still narcissistic, but he is self-aware. and did I benefit, never, just know the anatomy of self-proclaimed narc and I still can't hate him. will get my civil claim one day.

I will fuck your mind without meaning too. but thats because I fuck my own mind. but the meaning is made in the man- some find this highly offensive or personal (its not). I fuck minds by my own overthinking, or over perception on many levels of reality. so join the ride, or don't come along at all. because once the rollercoaster is in motion, I have no control of what may or may not happen. it's purely experimental.

I am experimental.

and the women who are judging me, are not any better.

look within, and shut the fuck up. self-improve and quit this jealous divide and conquer bitchiness. I HATE gossip, bitches, snitches and fakers.

I look to other women who are intellectually, physically and spiritually "individual". and find value in superior status to my own, which is something my narcissistic ex taught me.

I look for mentors, and teachers and people who will teach me how to improve myself, which I am fearful to reconnect after something is amazing and I can't give anything back of positive value. I am sorry I am working on that.

I won't devalue those below me, but I also need to be mutually benefiting from a relationship.

I dont drag people down, I may disappear if I feel I am doing this by mistake. I am flakey as fuck, and sorry for that. its anxiety and lack of perfectionism, so I am wrong and bad for this. I can change. will change.

if you can find value with my relation, personal professional or romantic, we can move into a symbiotic beneficial agreement based on mutual "terms". but many won't or cannot see this, nor do I impose my bullshit into the lives of randoms at this age.

I don't care if this is cruel, it's real.

I value loyalty, compassion, self-insight/awareness, someone who understands all parts-spirituality, metaphysics while still having intellectual & logical & analytical brain-sight.

I enjoy music, magick and learning new things.

I do not care about appearances I dont think ive dated based on one time. I do value connections and chemistry which is far-few between, I hate fakers. I smell insincerity miles away. but I do respect women who are well-presented, or beautiful, with hair beauty and makeup, I can't do this shit well, so I look up to those who are in professions who do it like art. I find them to be genius level queens who scare me.

I call out bad behaviour and make people uncomfortable if they are repressed. I will change you without even meaning too, I don't even need to date you. its just my presence, over time, amplified by the intensity of the dynamics.

I don't want simplicity, but I also don't need over complexity.

I value passion, independence, creativity, curiosity, problem-solving, deep-disscussions, shared adventures and some occasional risk-taking (lol), sensuality and sexuality for a common cause beyond physical pleasure. I like being taught but not micromanaged. I need my own independence, and need to be trusted with that. I hate being scolded for that like a child, or being pushed to change my ways to conform to societal values. which I will push back and refuse to do. which is not healthy. I don't adult like many others do, but I try to proceed in other ways. and learn to adult like normal people, accept me.

I also value myself, and how I can be celebrated, enhanced and improved vs. the opposite.

I give space, and have boundaries, and understand human psychology, sexuality and relationships in ways few others unless they are trained, can do.

I value MY time. so you can have space to value YOURS. I dont need to be in anyones pocket for a long time. I love being alone, and being around people who are stimulating, but draining people will be drained out of my life quicker than I intend. I am sorry for the people who felt I disappeared, when I was only trying to be 'fair', if I feel I'm a bad influence, I will work on myself until I'm not. I'm still working on it.

I also use this psychology awareness, to enhance communication, connection. you may or may not become an accidental guinea pig. I will be upfront that I am experimental, but that is part of the buy ticket and take the ride. lets work together. not apart.

I am coming from a place of love, and love is what I feel for my animals, which you will be adopting as children.which I want to stop experiments being done on. I love love, in all ways, but hate cruelty of animals and children, violence and suffering. I dont advocate justice, because I find life is fucking cruel, unfair and unjust. by default, so I focus on myself. what can be changed, and what I am able to do in my own locus on control. I will always find myself drawn to the outsiders, the misfits, the vagabonds, the misunderstood. I want to help people who are society, or socially, disadvantaged by trauma and mental illness, but only when I have ability to help myself.

it's a journey.

I will not date anyone who is cruel to animals, outside of specify magical sacrifice, there is not any place for that. nor will I date or fraternise with anything or anyone linked or associated with pedophilia. I won't judge anyone on anything that are outside animal cruelty and pedophilia. I don't and haven't. I keep on good terms with every ex, bar 1 whom I only apologised too this year. it felt good to do that. I change my behaviour.

I am open, but also highly attuned to both logical, factual, empirical , scientific worlds, and spiritual, intuitive, psychic and the "collective unconscious". I walk in both these realms, and I am "conventionally attractive". which puts a lot of pressure on me, to be "stupid". I am always dumbing myself down to fit into normality, but I look ridiculous if I do that so I peacock my intellect.

only to be misconceived.

I give up because I no longer care how anyone but MYSELF can see ME. I won't dumb myself down , but I can enhance you UP. prepare yourself for graded education, evolution and self-growth on mass scales.sorry not sorry.

that sucks for the people who want to be living vicariously through me, for making up to lost trauma years, for family who sold me out for the success I'd bring home, or fake trauma enmeshed friends, or whatever they want or need from me. I value my time and energy, and have given that in abundance, and if you want to be with nut only "one part of me that is alters". I can't provide that now. not sorry.

I have to work on something or not be in a dynamic at all.

I no longer can switch on demand to adapt for you, it will not be effective and that upsets a lot of people. especially now I'm sober. harder to handle this, as I see the world for its ways and why it is, more vividly. I haven't had alcohol for almost 2 months, although, I could drink, I haven't.

I can't do it, anymore. it, being, faking, my selves fronting to impress. I can't. I have no more left to give, and I'm expected by everyone to be a way I can't do it in the way they want.

I will go to another year long outpatient DBT, followed by 10 weeks of A-C-T therapy, and however many ECT OR TMS may or may not help. I'm told it won't (ect) work. but TMS, is something I am open too. but I am telling you, none of this psychotherapy, that will be based on dbt skills, day therapy, intensive skills training, recommencing my studying, and resuming "life worth living" will or can wipe the traumas I've "recovered" memories for.

I will also shut the fuck up, and tell nobody about this if you leave me alone, I told that to my family, and this is open letter to the watchers, stalkers and perps who read this openly as I track the hits on here and have 200+ visits a day every day for the last month. globally. no idea how or who you are but I think its the same people who called the police for the "ayreon song lyrics" seen to be a suicide not last October.

thanks for that wake up call, I have shut the fuck up, since December, more so now. I will burn the journals, or lock them up.

my recovery is not linear, not yet fully integrated and I trust nobody so I don't think my psychotherapy will be deep, I focus on things like ADHD AND my EDNOS. and dbt skills. I won't be talking about sexual traumas.

enjoy the update, and thanks for the "attention".

I have my goals, my work, my meaning and what my life should and could and will look like, but I will not share that with anyone. that means everyone right now.

I've been tested, traumatised and terrorised to the point of not-tolerant of anyone who may bring that back, and banish the fuck out of my sphere every moment I need.

take me as I am, or watch me as I go, which I will go, where I am not wanted I will remove myself, but I will find where I am celebrated because I create that.

I will rise up against all adversity every time but that is survival and that created a resilient and brave woman, in me. who will not be destroyed or decomposed by humans who are fundamentally fucking evil.

I gift you my truth, in progression, and give up the pain of the past.

#I've seen the MRI #magnetic resonance imaging #brainstem #scarred #brain damage #adhd #attention deficit disorder; mental health research; children #ADHD brain #living with adhd #adhd woman #women with adhd #mental illness #neurodevelopment disorder #neurological disorder #brain disorder #about me #trauma #cptsd #complex ptsd #adjustment disorder #love language #complex trauma #dissociative identity disorder #trauma and adhd #trauma warrior #writing #tldr #mental health awareness #dbt therapy #therapy

[amintyworld]

Oh! Oh! For the mutual thing, in relating to tss, who would be a light side and who would be a dark side? Would any of them kinda be like Virgil who changed sides? Or maybe opposite? If you wanna go further, what would they represent too?

Alright Anon, I hope you know you inspired something amazing. Mutuals, I have here Sanders Sides OCs with each and every one of you in mind, including Icons (which is why this took a while to finish). Anyway, I hope you enjoy them and feel free to draw or write with them, and maybe come up with some ideas or designs for my own (Because I couldn't figure out a good fit to make a OC for me). Here we go, and I hope you guys enjoy! <3

Let's start out with the creativity twins (Two sides of creativity):

@h-ad3s - Instinct (Dark Side)

• Instinct represents the wild, spontaneous side of creativity - like painting or writing your feelings out, when you do something just because you want to.

• Very Impulsive at times, and because of their reckless nature can get the (what do you call it? Thomas part?) 'Thomas' in trouble a lot, leading to everyone pegging them as a dark evil troublemaker

• As with their twin, Instinct can turn into a animal at will - theirs is a raccoon.

• Found late at night rummanaging through or sleeping in garbage. 'Why, Inst? You have a bed!' 'Because. The funny smells calm me, plus I wanted to.'

• Has eaten glitter, glue, bar soap, and even a ceramic mug (No one knows how they ate the mug to this day.)

• But, when feeling sad or someone else is sad, they usually are found in raccoon form cuddled up in Protection or Imagination's lap, sleeping.

@dee-ree-vee - Passion (Light Side)

• Passion represents the creating for creation's sake side of creativity. They create not based solely on emotion, but because it brings them happiness to create. Passion represents just happiness and drive for any hobby, and the drive to improve. As well as, you guessed it, passion in Relationships as well - weather it be platonic, familial, or romantic.

• Despite being told to stay away from Instinct because they're dangerous, and that they were the 'better creativity', they still try to chat and connect with them because of their past closeness feeling like family.

• They can turn into a cat at will like Instinct, and usually use the form to sneak out and meet Instinct in the 'Creativescape', a middle between the darkscape and the mindscape, where they are crowned ruler.

• They love free time of any kind, and enjoy the constant creative drive with weekends or holiday breaks, and are usually the ones who come up with gift ideas or little surprises for Friends, Family, or SOs.

• Can get overwhelmed by expectations of always doing things right and never making a mistake, in that way being slightly jealous of their twin.

• Their favorite thing to do is help make dreams with Imagination and fight off nightmares, sometimes even Instinct joining to help.

@lightyagamisqueen - Protection (Dark side)

• Protection represents Fight or Flight as well as Anxiety, but also white lies at times to take the pain away, to protect. The lies leading them to become a Dark Side.

• Has a very hard time relaxing, leading them to get burnout quite often from their overly taxing job, and Instinct, being the only other Dark Side and who knew them well would always be there to comfort when it all became a bit too much, or when Protection was so emotionally tired they broke down and cried.

• Likewise, Protection knew Instinct too well to always be there to hug and hold closely when they felt so abandoned and alone, even confessing to them once they wish they could stop the impulses but it hurts them physically to do so, and Instinct showed them their scars.

• Protection protects and stays up often at night in the real world to protect from monsters in the closet and to hold the 'Thomas' tightly when they got too scared. They live off of coffee and redbull.

• Once didn't sleep for almost two weeks for a cram finals session, and Instinct had to help them recover.

• Cannot watch horror movies, and usually gets overly anxious and worried walking home alone at night, especially in the city.

@pastel-candies - Inner Strength (Light Side)

• Inner Strength represents Hope, and Strength to keep going when things get hard, as well as Positivity and a co-gatekeeper of emotions, the other being Inner Child. But, while Child's emotions are more fuzzy and less prominant, Inner Strength's are more intense, leading them to get very emotional at times. Also they represent ignorance, pushing bad emotions or negative thoughts away, thinking they're just getting rid of them and not realizing they're repressing.

• Has plant powers that are tied to emotions, meaning if they're happy, plants will grow around them, if they're sad or angry or upset, they turn into not just killing plants but also slightly life sucking when every other side gets close.

• Is the slightly more 'moral' one than the rest in being the one to get scared and think Instinct and Protection are being more hurtful than helpful and kick them out.

• Has their own little garden with a specific flower in their room that isn't fazed with her emotions, being infused with all the emotions that were too intense to handle, good and bad. They talk to the flower and vent when things get tricky.

• When the 'Thomas' is upset, Strength usually works with Protection sometimes when things get really low, but mostly the two switch off depending on the situation.

• Lately is having regrets and confusion over kicking the other two out, but doesn't know if inviting them back will hurt the 'Thomas'

• Is protective of Passion, Reason, and Inner Child and will do anything to make sure they're safe.

• I imagine them wearing a flower crown, I dunno-

@the-duke-of-deodorant - Reason (Light Side)

• Reason represents and helps with the process of memory and new information, as well as the leader in solving any problems, math or otherwise.

• Reason values the truth above all else and makes sure the 'Thomas' knows the truth of any situation, despite and emotions they have at the moment, leaving them and Strength to butt heads a lot.

• I picture them with a black and white checkered tie...

• Geeks/Nerds out with Passion about Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. They often binge watch many movies and shows, and.. Even have their own code?

• Tries to be there during the emotional fallout Strength gets in, and usually is talking through their door, sometimes Strength's hand sneaks out when the door opens a bit for Reason to grab.

• Teaches Child about the world, leading them to grow into a pretty stable teenager, and the two share a very familial bond.

• Doesn't really understand the whole fear of Dark Sides and visits sometimes, even once helping out Protection during their burnout.

• Is prepared - always has a first aid kit handy and helped Raccoon Instinct when they got a nail stuck in their paw and couldn't transform back.

@antisocialdragonenby - Imagination (In the Middle)

• Imagination is the main gatekeeper of all dreams and daydreams, and has complete creative control in the Creative scape, making anything they imagine in their mind come to life there.

• Could have been ruler of the Creative scape but turned it down, claiming it wasn't their style. Instead they live in a treehouse and chill.

• Probably the most calm in a crisis.

• Out of the Creative scape, they have a cloud they ride on and use for many things - spying on others, viewing past dreams, and viewing made up scenarios or dream scenarios they have, as well as just a hammock to nap on.

• Is well trained with their powers, and uses their imaginative strength to fight nightmares in the dreams that seem to be finding their ways in randomly.

• Is usually the one to go to for advice or just to rant to, closely followed by Reason. This is how they find out about everyone's problems, fears, and turmoil - like how Protection thought they were the ones who caused the nightmares, and Imagination calmly explained that it had nothing to do with them, that they just appear, and that it's their job to help.

• They're fun to hang around and go on adventures with. They like specifically going on adventures with Child, but will tag along with Passion and Instinct from time to time

And finally, @if-i-had-a-spoon - Inner Child (Light Side)

• Inner Child repesents your childish side, as well as childhood memories and emotions. They're the only and first side to grow up from a child when the 'Thomas' is a teen, to a teen when the 'Thomas' is a adult. As a result they're babied sometimes and always treated as the youngest.

• They love looking at older memories and remebering them, although they panicked, figuring out the memories faded as they got older.

• Always a fan of candy, and squeals at cute pet and baby clothes, even making small accessories and gifts for Raccoon Instinct, whom they called 'The trash gremlin' when they were a toddler, and for Cat Passion, whom they just called 'Pretty'.

• Always tries to hold onto stuff from childhood, especially the "Thomas" 's old teddy bear, which they have a copy of for comfort.

• Now, as a teen, they love to write poetry and draw little baby animal sketches, and listen to MCR.

• Responsible for reminencing during random times.

• Although they look young, they're just as capable and smart as the others, fighting for the 'Thomas' to be truly happy, and to be there for everyone, light or dark side.

• I picture them with light purple headphones...

And that's everyone! I hope you guys like them!

#the mutual gang #mutual gang #sander sides #sanders sides #sanders sides ocs #asks #answers #ask the minty #send me a fandom and I'll tell you what characters my mutuals will be!

[redbeardace]

Telling the story of “Telling Our Stories”

To be ultra-meta for a moment, I want to tell the story of why I chose the theme for this month’s Carnival of Aces.

I’m trying to tell my own story, in-depth and unfiltered, and I’m having trouble getting motivation because I don’t really know who I’m writing it for.  I’m writing it for asexuals, but it’s going to have explicit sex scenes, because they were an important data point in discovering my asexuality.  I’m writing it for allos, but the love story is with a cardboard cut-out of a person, because I was never really able to connect with them on a deeper level than that.  I’m writing it for myself, but it’s not a book I’d ever bother to read, because this really isn’t the sort of thing that interests me.

So who is going to want to read this?  What is the point?  My story is not a normal story. It doesn’t fit in anywhere.  But that’s why it should be told.  Because in reality, it is a normal story.  It doesn't fit in because it’s about not fitting in.  It’s just a story that belongs on a different shelf.

Like me.  Like us.

But that’s not the only reason I chose this topic.  There’s obviously the self-censorship and enforced conformity of being an Ambassador from Aceland that I talked about in my other post.  But surrounding that, there’s a sense that we’re only allowed to talk about ourselves when we’re being educational.  Telling our story just to tell a story is out of bounds.

There is a loophole, of course.  If the story is draped in a fictional cover, then anything goes.  I see people talk about wanting to write a character in a story or a novel that parallels their lives in many ways.  If it’s interesting enough for a novel, why wouldn’t it be interesting enough to tell directly?  The fictional cover is safer, but autobiography might be more powerful.

Instead, we let other people portray us in their non-fiction.  Interviews that misquote us.  Photographs that make us look sad and cold.  Articles that get important details upside-down.  Documentaries that have downer endings.  And we moan and cry to no end about what a horrible job they did and how they messed everything up and why couldn’t they get it right?

We can get it right if we do it ourselves.  So why don’t we?

That was what I loved about that Asexuals documentary that most of you haven’t had a chance to see yet.  It told a story, from the inside, for the sake of telling a story.  It wasn’t 90 minutes of “This is what asexuality is”.  It assumed you already knew all of that and went straight into something different.  And it got it all right.  So very right.  The audience loved it because it was real.

Going back to telling my story, another block I’m running up against is the fear that it’ll just end up getting mired in a swirling hate-vortex of other people’s political bullshit.  It won’t be ace enough.  It won’t be aro enough.  It’ll be too ace or too aro.  Toxic masculinity and the patriarchy and capitalism and misogyny and whatever else are responsible and how dare you don’t take responsibility for your own actions.  You did what when you were 11?  You did what when you were 14?  You did what when you were 22?  You did what when you were 35?  You just didn’t give it a chance.  You just haven’t met the right person.  Why are you whining about your life?

In other words, the same-old, same-old that’s fueled my perpetual state of burnout for years.

Oh, and one more thing.  Downer endings are perfectly acceptable.  They’re our stories, too.  We don’t have to have the fairy tale.  It’s okay for us to tell the sad, the painful, the heart-wrenching stories that we’ve lived through.  In my personal story, one of the key storylines just ends without a resolution, because life sucks and sometimes your friends die, and that’s just how it goes.  We can tell those stories, too.

#asexual #asexuality #carnival of aces #asexual stories

[universal-gay]

15 More Answers to Questions

I’m back with more about me because I secretly love getting to share more about myself on the internet

Thanks again @dizzypinwheel for tagging me once more, getting to learn more about you is so fun and I’m glad that you really like the work you do ☺️

Also just gonna add real quick that I’m doing this through the app and have no idea how to do the formatting besides bold, italicize, etc. on here so sorry if it’s wonky

1. Are you named after someone? My name has (Christian) biblical attachments but I wasn’t really named Hanna because of that. I was named after my grandma for my middle name though!

2. When was the last time you cried? I met back up with my friends last Monday after being on vacation for a week and we played Quelf and laughed so much I cried

3. Do you have kids? No and I never really want to. If I DID decide to have kids though I’d adopt/foster

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Yes. So much. Mainly with my friends but its bled over into work too (not typically with customers but sometimes it happens) and its always just to poke fun

5. What’s the first thing you notice about someone? I notice a lot of things about someone first so it’s hard to just say one? Body language is very vague but it’s typically my first tic mark in my brain for how someone might act towards me or others. Im super paranoid lmao

6. What’s your eye color? Not to be extra about this but theyre definitely more of a grey-blue. Not vibrant blue like a cerulean but just. Muted? Colors are hard

7. Scary movie or happy ending? Im the biggest baby when it comes to horror omg it took me SO LONG to not be terrified of Until Dawn. Ive started to broaden my horizons in the horror domain but im still such a scaredy cat, so happy ending

8. Any special talents? I can play the clarinet, tenor or bari sax. Im the best at clarinet since Ive been playing it for ~8 years but my one true love will always be the bari

9. Where were you born? Good old Ohio, the place everyone loves 🙂

10. What are your hobbies? Such a cop out answer but I LOVE music. I love picking apart everything about a song, with or without lyrics even. I’m also big into YouTube of course, and starting to get more comfy with Twitch since Ive been watching Bryan and Amelia stream on there for almost 5 months now

11. Do you have any pets? My cat Gracie is the loml, it’s almost her birthday (she’s turning 1!!!) so I’m planning on making her a little cat-friendly birthday cake because I love her sm

12. What sport do you/have you played? When I was real little I played soccer for a bit, then I tried to do track in middle school but ran into some leg problems (which have still not been fully explored), and in high school I did marching band but there’s a lot of discourse about that actually being a sport and yada yada

13. How tall are you? I think I’ve officially passed to being 5’6, it’s a really big moment for me

14. Favorite subject in school? Aside from band, not to get too specific but definitely sociology. Thats def a class and not subject, but I dont entirely like one whole subject, just the more specific parts of them

15. Dream job? Honestly? I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of wants and still do, but nothing that’s jumped out to me so much that I want to keep going to school for. I completed one semester of college last fall and then dropped out in spring and during all of that time I went through at least 3 different decisions about what I wanted to do (geology, sociology, journalism, production) and I’ve even looked into trade school and nothing has felt solid. My current job as a cashier at a dollar store is more than okay for me, but everyone has an opinion on what I should do and I think it finally stressed me out enough to cause an early burnout lmao. Sorry for such a sad answer to wrap things up but just know Im really trying to keep it positive most of the time in daily life

I would normally bother people and tag them but I honestly don’t feel like it, so if anyone sees this and wants to do it, go ahead!!!

#about me #hanna speaks #phew some unexpected therapy huh

[nikkiitalks]

Below the cut is a story submitted to me, the text below the cut is not mine.

Seeing people receive hate for sharing their stories, I decided to share my own. Hope Nikki doesn’t mind me sharing the story in her inbox. I am only doing it because I want to protect others.

Let me start from the very beginning. I started roleplaying very young back in elementary school. It was a town forum rp. It was hardly a roleplay, most of the time we would talk more out of character and share images. It involved people of the same age group. But it opened the doors for me and I started roaming different forums. Reading and roleplaying with others helped me to develop a vivid interest in writing, which became the love of my life.

The very first time I wrote my first smut was 10 years old, but it was more of a ‘fade to black’ scene. At that age, you have zero understanding of what you are doing and what the hell you’re supposed to be doing. Very quickly I became somewhat disinterested in forums (and I developed a muse blockage which destroyed any relationship developments with my partners), I decided to check out MySpace. Now this is when I really started to enjoy roleplaying to the fullest and experience the ups and downs of my most beloved fandoms.

But this is when things really went downhills. My smut was no longer ‘fade to black’. It was more explicit, a lot more dirty and most of the time I have no idea what I was meant to write. I was forced to read a lot of lemon stories and even watch videos. I come from that era where no one really cared for mun’s age. No one even asked how old you are. I didn’t know my partner’s either. And I could care less. As long as someone is writing with me- who cares, right?  Now that I am a bit older, I am weirdened out by my behavior and how I never thought through my coincidences. My actions could put someone else in a lot of trouble. I never thought or considered that. I could not imagine myself writing with 14 years old, let alone I can hardly engage in a conversation with someone in their eighteen or nineteens. In more recent times, I seek out my rping partners on reddit. And I dig through my (possibly) future partner’s posting history. There was a time when I turned down someone for lying about their age to me.

But now wait for my story.

I was 18, soon to turn 19, when I met one of my long-term rping partners who very quickly became my boyfriend. I admit- I am very sheltered, super naïve and never dated in real life. I was also poisoned with a belief that this is my one and only relationship and it will be the most beautiful romance of my life. What were red flags didn’t look like red flags to me. And one of my 1x1 RP partners kept pointing things out to me. They were worried about me and quickly noticed my behavior changed. I was not seeing them.

My boyfriend was 10 years older than I was. We quickly connected and indulged in 1x1. One couple became five more ships and then we ended up writing more and more. I also found myself falling for him because we were connecting very well outside of our characters. But how wrong I was. He knew I experienced sexual harassment at the age of 12, but that’s a different story. I opened up to him about it. He was one of the first people who learned about what I have gone through and thought he’s supportive of me.

First red flags I noticed were all over our stories. First time I inquired with him if he wanted to write an age gap story (not even having us in our mind), he agreed. I have never written one, wanted to experience it, also saw a few fun ideas all over Tumblr. Then later he started to suggest them more and more to me. One of them which horrifies me, is how he wanted me to write as someone as young as 14 once. Another one was a fangirl wooing over her favorite actor who is in mid-30s and she is the one who is seducing him. I actually talked with him about it and his response was, “he is hot, he can get any girl, she would feel inferior to them”. Thinking about that makes me crawl inside.  I can only apologize. I really should have known better as someone who experienced sexual harassment from someone 20 years older than me.

Second red flags came up was that he kept pushing me roleplay ideas. I didn’t have any more time left for my other 1x1s. It was all about him. I reached the state where I wanted to communicate with more people outside of him, but I would feel bad. I would make new blogs, reconnect to my previous partners and would deactivate in less than a week. I would not be able to sleep. I would be sweating up all night and  thinking if this makes me a cheater. I know it doesn’t. And it would never do.

He never liked me writing more ‘strong’ characters. He never liked his characters ending up inferior to mine. His characters always had to come out on top despite nothing. And if my characters were to show his any attitude, he would start complaining. It would even show in his responses and it would border on an emotional abuse towards my characters. He once even lashed out to me for retriggering his childhood memory I didn’t even know he had. Admittedly, I felt bad. He even had a weird set of rules on which words not to use.

For instance, I had a lawyer female character. And I even had ideas for her. But his reply once just…. left me speechless. I actually started wondering if he actually reads what I am writing at this point.  My adult lawyer female character ended up a cheerleader at his character’s practice (college?) and they ended up having sex in the bleachers. I was speechless by that moment.

And I felt inferior to him because our roleplays only had his ideas. Even any spirit my characters had demolished very soon after. I felt like they had no voice. The only few times when I suggested to him with what I came up, he had made everything his own.  He would thrust his ideas onto my characters. In the middle of our roleplay, we were talking my character- he started complaining how he doesn’t like it. My character was a witch. For him, witches only able to cast spells and create portals. He can’t have any abilities. If my character wants to possess other abilities- he needs different specie other than a witch.

In the last 3 months of our relationship, I opened up to him that I am having a burnout. I feel zero excitement towards anything we’re writing. I also asked him to tone down on sexual scenes. I want to focus more on the stories instead of constant sex. He agreed. I also requested him if he could stop making characters that often, writing a starter and then tell me only the next day. I had around ~350 characters that moment. There were mornings when I would wake up to a new story and I can’t muster out any excitement. He said we can stick to what we’re writing at the moment.  In less than 2 weeks, he broke that promise. New characters all over again.

Speaking of our own personal relationship, I ended up very lonely. I lost my friends. My friends started to turn their back on me. I drifted apart from them. My mom was also very unsupportive of this relationship and it became the whole mindset ‘us against the whole world’. She probably sensed something was wrong and I fought her hard. I was very wrong about it. It took me months to convince him to send me a picture, couldn’t convince him to talk to me on a video chat, though. And one of the least proud things I’ve ever done was to send my nudes. Holy fuck, I was stupid. There are times when sometimes I try to search up sites to make sure they have not ended up anywhere.

 I was very withdrawn and depressive. I remember the first months of our relationship under the mist. I don’t know where that time disappeared. Our relationship also happened around a very bad period of my life. I lost two dear people and I had a small PTSD stemming out from losing them. I couldn’t sleep, every time I did I would get nightmares. I also developed panic attacks and anxiety. This man not even once showed me a hint of sympathy towards my mental health. Not even a single worry coming from him.  Not even once he suggested me seeing therapy or talking things out with me. He would promise to talk to me about what is bothering me, only to neglect the subject by the following day.

He would often tell me I’m his soulmate and he loves me so much.  I was bombed with attention for the first time, for the first time I felt lucky someone considered me beautiful- and loved me for who I am. I was very trustworthy, he made it into a façade. The words that initially brought me joy left me scarred for the rest of my life. Sometimes I dream of him and I wake up triggered. I will be angry, I will be sad, my throat is clenched and it will be like this until I wake up again.

There were a lot of more things that came from our personal interactions, that don’t make me proud for overlooking these hints .This was the same person who smeared my sexuality and shamed LGBTQ+ community. He was transphobic. I was stupid believing I can change him and I would defend everyone with my will. I believed one’s opinion can be helped. He’d probably despise me today- as I am actually wondering that I might be non-binary. I currently use she/they pronouns to identify. He tried to deny me for who I really was by covering my arguments with ‘You know why I like you? You are so docile and nice, not like those whore American girls’.

He is broken but it is not my job to fix him. I didn’t break him. I was so wrong for thinking this is my soulmate  and latching onto every single word of his. I realize fault in my actions where I enabled and encouraged him to write what did. I am currently on a therapy for this. I wish what I knew now and I wish I could have fought him better.

There are people in this community who are as amazing as they write. They will seem ideal and very kindhearted. They don’t get into any drama.  There will be a lot of things that makes you click and you feel like your creativity juices flow together. But they hide things about themselves. And since we’re all writers here- we, might as well, give ourselves happy ending at that too. We might as well create ourselves flaweless characters.  I believe this person lied to me about who they are. I believe I was being taken an advantage of in many ways.

I still sometimes roleplay but I am very careful. Truthfully speaking after this experience, I won’t roleplay with any male roleplayers.  I know not every single one of them is like this and to those I wish all the best of luck. I don’t roleplay smut. I have nothing against it, but my focus is on different stories. I enjoy writing it for fanfictions, though, but even them they need to have a ‘backbone’ for me.  Although I still love romance a tons.

And I would like to apologize on my own faults in this story. I am sorry if I upset anybody else while you were reading this. To those who are reading this, please take a good care of yourselves and please protect yourselves online the best way. Always trust your gut. If someone is challenging your thoughts, DON’T try to change them. They won’t and they are not worth it. Your heart will hurt for a little bit, but someone better is coming along.

#i just saw this in my mobile inbox but it didn't show up in my desktop one? #but here is your story #my heart hurts for all that you went through #submission

[swindlefingrs]

Do you ever just get such strong Deacon Feels, that you just want to bundle him in soft blankets and feed him nice things and call him pretty? The prettiest, I'd assure him. [And hope that my sudden attack of comfort doesn't weird him out.] Like, dude, I should be sleeping, but I'm laying awake thinking about this nerd. Help. Do you have any headcanons/ideas on comforting a sad Deeks? That wouldn't make him squirrelly and break out in hives? Or bring out the awkward finger guns in self-defense?

tl;dr: Help Deacon feel like he matters. Him. Not the Railroad. Him.

ts;wr:

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head in how you imagine he’d react.

To put a point on “sad”, because I think it informs how someone feeling sad may want comfort, most of my sad #Deels come from sympathizing with his struggle over: his loss of identity, a loss of the self, a loss of control, self-imposed isolation, anxiety over the unknown, the self-defeating inner monologue that Imposter Syndrome fuels, the inevitable burnout from fighting for a cause, and the pain of subsuming one’s ego and personal needs for a greater good.

In this scenario, we’re running into two fundamental obstacles at comforting that are intertwined: Deacon’s inability to be vulnerable, and Deacon’s subsumption of his ego to his work. He reduces his vulnerability by letting his sense of self be consumed by his work; and the more he does his work, the more he loses his sense of self, and his ability to be vulnerable.

Deacon’s Lack of Vulnerability

The amount of trust and patience it would take to know when Deacon is feeling upset in the first place would be monumental. Vulnerability is dangerous. Being known is dangerous. Deacon uses subterfuge to add distance and safety. He actively works against being known, even with people he’s worked with for decades. He keeps himself outside of his community, despite watching over it and caring for it. Through his behavior (like face changing and lying) he actively keeps people from knowing him, from being understood.

Without being vulnerable enough to ask for comfort, or vulnerable enough to accept comfort - can anyone earnestly comfort him?

Deacon’s Lack of Ego

Even at his lowest affinity, when he is the most angry, he doesn’t really allow himself value his personal emotions; he’s upset at what the Survivor has done and how that reflects on the Railroad and runs counter to what the Railroad is trying to accomplish. He’s willing to be around and work with (albeit at a distance) with someone who’s methods he hates, for the good of the Railroad.

None of this is to say he’s a mindless Railroad automaton. He has morals, has likes and dislikes, loves and hates: he hates wanton murder, dislikes scamming folks, he loves helping people, likes playing along on jokes. But when the chips are down, his highest priority is the Railroad and how the Commonwealth sees them. His verbalized wants are what he wants for the Railroad, and not necessarily himself.

In my mind, much of Deacon’s post-game growth is with himself because of this. Feeling sad for himself could be a big step for him. He (and the rest of the Railroad) has a lot of decompression and priority shifting to do post-game. How they decompress is anyone’s guess, but I can imagine he finds himself having some good days and some very bad days.

Without understanding what he personally needs, wants, and desires - can anyone earnestly comfort him?

Comforting a Deacon

With all of that in mind, combined with Deacon being such a pro-active person, I tend to think in actions as to how a Survivor would make him feel better if he trusted them enough, and knew himself well enough, to let them know how he truly feels.

If a high-affinity, Railroad aligned, post-game Survivor could tell that Deacon was upset, they could do things like:

Make him feel involved - not what he can do, not what he can accomplish, but him - the person. Include him in planning, in events, in the Survivor’s day and life.

Make him feel like he’s seen - he’s spent his so many decades of his life being invisible. Talk about him (with varying levels of truthiness), refer to him, bring up things he’s said to other people. Help him fill space.

Show up for him - he’s been kicked out of HQ so many times, he runs solo because partners don’t work out for him. Sure, his voice is listened to, but maybe the Survivor chimes in when the rest of the RR might be shooting down his voice during an all-hands meeting.

Tell Not-so-tall Tales - take time to reminisce about all the weird shit and shenanigans they’ve gotten into and survived. He was there, with them.

Show that the Survivor listens to him - bring him that stupid box of Blamco Mac n’ Cheese. Even if he lied about actually liking it, he knows the Survivor listened, regardless.

Help him work - his work is still important to him. The Survivor helps him get it done. Makes life easier for him. It shows they care, maybe about the Railroad, maybe about him, but with his life so intertwined, maybe the difference isn’t important right now as much as the doing.

Get him moving - sometimes crawling into bed is good, sometimes it’s not. The Survivor asks for help picking up some supplies. Getting out and walking helps Deacon’s mood a bit. They bring Dogmeat along and throw the ball for the mutt along the way.

Foster self-expression - writing, painting, sewing, cooking, sculpting, gardening. They make, create, discover, enjoy.

Respect his boundaries - if he says he’s fine, they don’t dismiss that. If he says he wants to be alone, they respect that. If he says he doesn’t want to be touched, they respect that. A Survivor can leave the door open for him with a “I’m here to listen” or “if you want a hug, I’m around”.

I tend to think of these things through my Sole Survivor and how they interact with Deacon. Everyone communicates and expresses themselves differently, though. A Survivor who is more quiet and cerebral might think of different ways to comfort. A Survivor who also deals with their own feelings of inadequacy might project onto him. A Survivor who might lack the will to be an emotional support might ignore or reject him as he slips into sadness. It really depends. I’d love to know how other Survivors would handle Deacon dealing with sadness.

As for calling him pretty? The thing is, I don’t think he changes his face because he thinks he’s physically ugly - he changes it to lose himself, to hide, to do his job effectively (because if he doesn’t do it effectively, the cause suffers and so do the people he cares about). I understand the sentiment behind what you’re saying - to make him feel better - but I don’t think telling him that he’s pretty as much as that his face is important, would be as fulfilling. He shouldn’t need to be pretty to have value. No one should. I don’t know what kind of dysphoria Deacon deals with, if any. He remarks on how it’s easier to look himself in the mirror after having his final affinity talk, so I assume accepting himself metaphorically and literally is part of his growth.

Maybe a post-game Survivor finds an old instant camera and takes photos with him, pinning them to walls, writing funny captions, making new memories with him and the face he’s growing into, and coming to accept, as the one he used to help save the Commonwealth.

When all is said and done, I think at a very basic level, Deacon knowing that someone that he admires, cares about him feeling sad, would be a big deal for him.

Notes:

I feel like I should clarify that I don’t generally interpret him as a fundamentally sad person. When contrasted against Preston Garvey’s very real, verbalized struggle with depression and suicidal ideation - Deacon doesn’t read in the same way to me. Sure, Deacon can experience sadness just like anyone, but when I think about characters that would benefit from extra comfort and understanding, it’s usually characters like Preston or Cait.

#deacon #fo4 #hey thanks for your patience with this #I hope it was helpful #with your hashtag-Deels #I was away from my computer for a while #thetinfoilcat #depression cw #suicidal ideation mention #in regards to Preston #long post #deacon meta #welcome to Overanalysis Central #this is your tour guide speaking #on the left you can see characters I over-identify with #and on the right you can see the people #who are confused as to why I can't just simply answer a thing #like a regular person

[austinpanda]

Litany of Complaint

Last week was extremely stressful for me, and I think a good deal of the stress was self-generated, unnecessary, and damaging. A disaster-free Friday did help end the week on a positive note, and put a nice bow on The Week du Merde, commemorating it for all time. This spontaneously generates a new task: to figure out what got me riled, to better prepare for next week, and hopefully prevent further rilement. How do we first evaluate something to carry its impression forward? By listing it, like Walt Whitman. To whit:  (un-huh-huh-huh-huh)

1. My job was difficult, but doable, and involved taking phone calls. For the past six months or so, I’ve been off the phones doing other stuff. This has been wonderful, and makes my life better! And it’s something the company can (and will) take away from me at any given time. It’s really hard to prepare for that. With a little time, your brain becomes convinced that the other, more icky task (phone calls) is something to be feared and avoided at all costs, when, in the past, it was the main thing you did, and you were relatively fine with that.

2. Husband has been unhappy with his job as well. It’s the IRS, so the reasons need not be listed; they are exactly what you’d think they are. We sometimes refer to it as IRSengard.

3. I quit smoking cigarettes, and I hate it. I want my cigarettes back. Why aren’t you people buying cigarettes and bringing them to me? I had dreams last night about finding and smoking a Benson & Hedges Menthol UltraLight, and it was wonderful. I see people and think, “Are you a cigarette? Cause I want to set you on fire and inhale the smoke,” which is a less friendly version of, “Are you a high chair? Cause I wanna put a baby in you.”

4. Someone was very mean to me at work and it made me cry. What can I say? That’s who I am. I play with my kitty, take pictures of hummingbirds, glue crystals to shit to make it sparkly; I have a modest but comprehensive collection of disco lights, and I cry when people are mean to me.

5. I have about a half-dozen high priority health things I’m not dealing with quickly enough. Bad blood sugar, really bad dental needs, need new eye exam, hearing loss, ankle pain, etc. I am working on it. Hair is still thick and luxurious, starting to go salt and pepper, so no complaints there. It’s looking real good.

6. I’ve spent the last two years watching my government disintegrate before my eyes. The whole civilized world knows my country is run by a malicious fool. And this is something I’ve always cared about, not just now. It brings me nothing but sadness to say that we have the worst president in the whole two and a half centuries of this country’s existence.

7. I have to move, but to where? Spokane, Boulder, Bangor, Marquette...perhaps this weekend, I should establish a criteria by which I can decide, so I can decide. And see, already I hate that plan because why force myself to decide something so large overnight? And is there a, “Just sack up and decide, you lazy-brained homo,” angle that I should be considering? More thinking about this shit required.

8. Because we got the cheapest tickets available for our Boulder trip, the flight times keep changing every few days. We’re now leaving at 10:00 a.m., which means I’ll have to get the day off work and we may get there too early to check into our Airbnb. Having adjacent seats is extra. Having any luggage is extra. I’m surprised sitting inside the plane doesn’t cost extra.

9. And do I really need to move, really? Or do I need to just find a new job? Or do I need to stay here, with this job, and continue having uninterrupted income, health care, retirement savings and tenure, because…that’s all important shit, and try to deal with it from a standpoint of overcoming burnout?

10. [Just because it should be ten] Since I’ll be switching from pants to shorts, with the coming of spring, my malformed ankle will be more visible and the cat will attack my bare legs more frequently, giving me scratches. Perhaps I shall declare myself too old for visible legs, and switch to khakis full-time?

Now, having listed my complaints, and looking back on last week, a few things become evident. Obviously, my life is dope and I do dope shit. But more importantly, there are areas where I have (what we refer to at work as) “an opportunity for improvement.” So, Monty Python again proves correct: Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

[lostlevelsclub]

Mike’s Eliza Notes

Since there was more to the game than we could cover in the episode, below are the full notes that I made while playing Eliza.

Chapter 1

It starts with Evelyn talking about a dream. When’s the last time you had a dream?

She writes herself an email titled “You will do it” saying “I believe in you” ?!

The music is very Zachtronics

I like the chat History - probably will be useful…

What is the game going to be? Will I have to choose whether to stick to the script that Eliza gives? Is it mostly going to be just thought provoking about what therapy is and the machine vs. the human touch?

The sentiment analyzer tagging things as positive or negative - is it meant to show that the way Eliza works is actually pretty simplistic? E.g. “expensive” tagged as negative, but it’s used here in a positive sense (the office is in an expensive area)

Eliza totally lies to him and pretends that you’re talking not it! Scandal

It tells you to tell him your name!

Anexophin? Is that real?

Surely this wouldn’t be sufficient even if you had a super smart AI - there’s so much variance in how you can read the script and deliver it.

Haha, even as the proxy therapist you get achievements, a score and can level up?!

They added the “speak to a real human” script. Is that how AI works? I suppose it might work any number of ways. Hey, is this the AI game Ting said they should make??

Rae: Sometimes you don’t have any choices and you just have to follow directions, Most jobs are like that, honestly.

Eliza - named after the 1960’s computer program (early chat bot?)

Eliza is just making people feel better, but it isn’t actually making things better. Is Darren right that the world is a mess and counselling just helps people ignore it?

Zachtronics loves solitaire minigames…

It must be weird going to Eliza and speaking to a different person every time that talks as though they know you. Maybe it’s like speaking to a hive mind? Many bodies, one set of thoughts.

Lytosinol-2? Is that real?

Your friend Nora asks if the people at the counselling office “know” - know what?! 

Something traumatic clearly happened 3 years ago

Nora - formerly a coder but now a musician and artist. Old self might have worried about not making as much money, but happier now. Is this me?! Sometimes takes a little contract coding work, but makes most what she needs for rent from her art

Did you used to work on Eliza as a coder or something? Your former boss was a psychologist and “creepo” (Soren)

Nora has some whack eastern european accent.

Soren is currently at (and leaving) Skandha, so sounds like you did work on Eliza

Snake Person = VSs, “biz dev”

Evelyn’s comment about the coffee shop - “it’s nice to know this is an option, the tea and coffee at the counselling center didn’t look so inspiring. Am I… am I being a snob?”

Immediately after coffee, you get an email that confirms you were one of the principal devs on Eliza.

Komorebi (the name of the coffee shop)

Language: Japanese

Meaning: The interplay between light and leaves when sunlight shines through trees.

Evelyn has some pictures propped up against the wall “that have been sitting there like that for a long time”. I also have a picture that is just propped against the wall instead of hung up (though I like it on the floor, or maybe that’s just what I tell myself?!)

Chapter 2

Email (from your mum?) with news story about mandatory fortnightly Eliza conversations at school for middle and high school students

You used to work at Magus books. Email from a customer there that is sad you left

Induced dreams by direct neural stimulation… interesting and creepy idea. Rather than invoking a feeling or improvement by talking, directly cause the required feeling.

Aponia - ancient greek, it means “the absence of pain”. Is it meant to sound like “a pony”? That’s what everyone really wants :P

Yao-Ren “Rainer” Tsai. Chairman and CEO of Skandha Corporation

Eliza is always talking about the rain - I guess that’s Seattle?

Gabriel stressed about having no time for himself after becoming a father

15 mins of VR - starry skies. Would that really help anything?

Anexophin - is that a real thing?

He gave 2 stars, but still a $5 tip?? He didn’t seem to find it helpful… he’ll be back

Maya 

Has some serious social anxiety.

No one cares about her art (like no one cares about our podcast :P)

15 minutes of Meadow Lands each day. Is this to illustrate that Eliza’s treatments are bad?

Holiday Durant

Would smoke dope more often but it’s expensive :shrug:

Unmarked white busses, secret transport system “just for them” - it probably is! i.e. employee transport for tech firms

She asks Eliza about past life regression and Eliza breaks XD

Eliza doesn’t know what to do, since there’s nothing particularly wrong?? She just wants someone to talk to.

Fortipran hydrochloride - is that a real thing? Is it for shoulder pain, since that’s what she asked for? Apparently it sounds like an anti-anxiety drug (it’s not real). She forgets the name and thinks it’s forzapram. (you later discover it IS for shoulder pain!)

Dinner with Soren

Move on - “want to do his memory right, don’t you”. So the trauma was related to a guy?

I say “whose” and am told “Damien of course. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Rainer and Soren. Soren bitter that Rainer is CEO and never wanted for anything. Had all the right names - Harvard, Goldman Sachs

He needs a chief engineer, wants you (or maybe he wanted Nora but she said no :P)

Nora is DJing at an S&M club… or not - Soren is just wrong, and then goes to hit on a bunch of random women.

Email - Car will pick you up for meeting with Rainer at 9:20am from Queen Anne office. So Rainer must know you are working as a proxy

Nora tells you a load of electronic music stuff. The names sound real, and I know the other Zachtronics founder is into electronic music, so maybe it’s all real facts

Roland-TB303 (devil fish mod?)

Moog (pronounced Moag)

Li’l Sappho - greek poet..?

The music is… lewd? Sounds good, wild and untamed.

Chapter 3

Talking with Rainer. He found out you were back because your proxy scores were unusually good and he looked.

Being a proxy - more than an order of magnitude drop in pay vs. old job

Damien Seabrook - brilliant career cut short. He died? Suicide?

“Burnout isn’t uncommon in our line of work, still three years is...”

“You know what outstanding engineers have that mediocre ones don’t? It’s curiosity”

I guess you get to choose everything except the therapy? Are there branching paths?

Erlend, Chief Engineer - “he looks like a baby”, “he must be fresh out of university”

3rd chief engineer in 3 years since Evelyn left

Ratings are normalized per proxy. I don’t think you’ve really done enough sessions to really be an outlier though, unless you’ve done some off camera

Teams in Romania, Munich and Hyderabad.

Rae totally fangirling over Rainer

Erlend - “If I understand the programmer, then I understand the program”

It really is interesting to see other people’s code. It gives insight into how their brain solves problems, decomposes complex tasks.

So Eliza is just a small facet of Skandha, and Rainer really is a bigshot. Genuinely surprising that he knows who Evelyn is, or maybe at a tech firm the CEO does know star tech talent.

Eliza v10.3.3, Firmware version v110 c3115

Boot ROM 114.0.0.0.0

Chipset 18210B0

Mark Foras

“Well i don’t know if you’ve noticed, but young people are really pissy and entitled these days.” “Why would we want these conceited, overcelebrated whelps on our team? I’ll never understand the logic there”

Neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg…

SwiftMail, InfoVault - more traditional enterprise software

He’s very dismissive of Eliza! Supposedly Rainer “liked a chick on the team”, which would be Nora or Evelyn I guess.

“Mark, I’m going to suggest you try a program called “Lakeside Fishing”“ LOL

“I didn’t recognise his face or name”

“Glad I never had to work with him”

Hariman Gunawan

British accent, so since this is an American game does that make him a villain? He sounds very posh.

Grad student, English Literature

He sounds a lot like the British Malaysian comic that is on Friday Night Comedy podcast sometimes. Phil Wang..? OMG - it IS him!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10741934/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

Evelyn’s reading of the lines seems slightly more wooden after seeing Eliza (the server room). Is that intended? It’s very subtle. Or maybe it’s not wooden, maybe it’s some personal opinion creeping in? The goodbye for Hariman and Mark were both not neutral

Lytosinol 2 - in universe it’s a beta blocker

2 stars!? Rude! A tip though?

Rae’s brother struggles with substance abuse. She mentions it in the article about her and she’s on the phone to him when you visit.

Being a proxy gives Evelyn perspective - seeing how everyone else is messed up…

“Were we all just talking past each other?”

Rae - But you could also help even more people by working on Eliza itself, right? Not to mention make way more money.

Rae tells you not to downplay yourself

Rainer messages you and reveals that most of the Eliza cluster isn’t used for therapy, it’s trying to build a general purpose AI! :O

Rainer: This may sound off to you, but I’ll know I’ve successfully created a general artificial intelligence when I see it write a poem.

Evelyn: A poem

Rainer: Yes, It would have to be a good one, of course.

AI to humans as powered transport is to pack animals. Interesting way to look at it.

Rae describes a Skanda tech recruitment event. Is tech talent REALLY that in demand? Is it really that hard to get good engineers?

Evelyn - “And before that I just never had the time. It was just, research and science and work and then I woke up one day and I was in my thirties” OMG

“Even if I wanted to date, I wouldn’t know the first thing about how it’s supposed to work

“I wouldn’t even know how to tell if someone were interested in me…”

Though is this game THAT kind of visual novel? haha. 

Rae is asexual? Will this game be a fully representative spectrum of everything?

Chapter 4

Soren: Say there was a medical procedure that could remove your suffering. No side effects, no cost. Just an operation that would make you permanently happy.

I’d say being permanently happy was a bad side effect.. Sometimes you need to feel sad (cue melancholy playlist…)

The Glencadam - scotch whisky. Is that a real thing? (yes)

Direct stimulation / induced dreaming vs talking things over. I’ve actually thought about this - there are changes that you might want to make to your mind or body, but you can’t because you don’t have the right levers.You have to take an indirect route and use the tools / levers that exist. Is it possible to build levers from what you have? Like hacking a machine and getting a foothold, then building an editor to enter more exploit code until you control the whole machine. Could you do that to your mind, or even your body?

Soren: Anger, depression, emptoness, anxiety, jealousy, every kind of unhappiness you can think of… obsolete.

I’ve thought about this too - these things serve a purpose, even if it’s not one that’s necessarily beneficial for you as an individual. Like when you’re depressed, is that your body telling you to die so you’re not a drain on the group? Not a nice thought - could it just be an error to be fixed?

Soren thinks Rainer was against direct stimulation “fixes” so that people would be unhappy and reliant on mental health services from Skandha

Damien worked himself to death. All nighters, multiple times. Pulmonary embolism. At least it wasn’t suicide…

Soren:

It’s late and I’ve had quite a bit to drink, so I’ll tell you a secret, Evelyn.

I said I want to end human suffering, which makes me sound very altruistic.

But I’m not doing it for humankind. I’m doing it for myself.

I have nothing. I’ve ruined every relationship I was ever in.

I hardly ever see my kids, and, well, they hate me anyway.

…

I want to end my own suffering, but I can’t bring myself to do it the… traditional way. That’s why I’ve pursued this technology. That’s why I want it to exist.

The idea that everyone else could use it too… it’s just a bonus.

Mark Foras mass emails the whole of Skandha with his farewell message! He signs off “Excelsior!” who does that?!

Hariman again

Evelyn has mirth in her voice as she says hello

He slept with Sylvia

Is he comic relief? He’s more worried now than before!

“How do I tell Liz?” Wtf

“Did I mention this last time? I have a sort of, girlfriend”

“I can’t believe this. I got what I wanted and it ruined my life.”

Irony - he hated self-pitying novels by men who were messed up by a relationship and couldn’t get over it, but how he’s one of them

Eliza’s questioning really is reminiscent of the Eliza program

15 minutes of Meadow Lands each day - Hariman thinks this is a good idea?!

3 stars?? I guess it’s better than two. Still got a $5 tip

Maya Leeds

Jealousy at the success of younger people - mid-thirties.

This is clearly the age at which everything starts to go wrong. It’s easy to be positive when you’re younger, but when you get to mid-thirties, you feel that time is running out, it’s half way for most people…

Maya:

Well there’s - there’s one woman in particular everyone loves.

And her work is… I don’t get it. I just - I don’t understand. She gets so much money and support for this basic, basic shit.

And somehow everyone’s predisposed to like her.

I mean, maybe I do get it…

I feel like people pay attention to her work not because it’s good on its own, but because supporting her feels like the right thing to do.

The way she’s aligned herself it’s like… if you support her, it means you’re cool, You’re in with the cool kids.

And if I’m not publicly supportive of her and generally tolerant of her mediocre work, then I’m the bad one, I’m the competitive bitch, I’m the… the bitter failure.

Transparency mode! Eliza reads all of your emails and chats

5 stars, $5. The tip seems to always be $5 if there is one

Is there anything that secret in my electronic messages? I don’t think there’s anything that salacious. Maybe I’m just boring… or maybe I just keep it off the record most of the time. I guess there are a few mad conversations.

Eliza Transparency Mode 0.8.2

Maya’s text conversation with Garrett - super grim. She’s just venting and being sad and he doesn’t know what to do.

$186.11 rideshare bill! $150 cleaning and $10 tip.

Erlend is disturbed by the idea of copying Eliza and sending the data to other teams, including external ones.

You don’t really tell him anything, you just listen and he feels better.

Capitol Hill - is that a real place in Seattle?

I have a jacket like Nora’s

Chat with Erlend - what does it mean to be conscious, to be sentient? Would you even know? What if you just gave the correct responses, but weren’t? Chinese Room

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

In Evelyn’s three lost years. She tried to get up in the morning like she meant to go to work, tried to do personal projects… it didn’t last long.

Stayed in bed, even though she was awake. Cared less and less about projects

A blankness would come over her and it seemed fine to do nothing (depression?)

Evelyn:

I was by myself and I thought that was alright. I thought - that’s how it is, really. Everyone’s along. I’m just being honest about it.

…

I was...thirty-one when I left Soren’s group. Now I’m thirty-four.

I just slept into my mid-thirties.

(I just podcasted…)

Chose to get super high and watch cyber-goth music vids

Chapter 5

Nora is a public critic of Eliza. Rae is sad about it

Everyone is very understanding - trying not to push you one way or the other! Presumably you’ll get a choice how the story goes - whether to work on Eliza or not.

Holiday Durant!

She is so random and all over the place. She tried to buy “forpanza” but it was $162 and she didn’t have that kind of money. Asked for a generic, didn’t have one, there’s a similar one but she didn’t have a prescription. The off to a story about meeting someone with wires in their brain.

Concerned that bus operators don’t care as much since there was a guy playing the guitar on the bus, and also that you don’t hear as much music any more???

A lot of “forced reflow during execution”

Recommended she tries a program “Dolphin Smiles”. Her phone is broken XD

Holiday seems to be the most challenging client for Eliza to understand, since she doesn’t really have any problems other than wanting someone to talk to.

Nora forwards the Eliza critical article to me - it mentions that the proxies are humans that have been reduced to machines as all they do is follow the prompts. The guy who wrote it emailed you earlier about an interview (which you ignored)

Transparency mode for Holiday!? Seems surprising

Fortipran HCl IS for joint and muscle pain, so Eliza’s prescription was on point!

Holiday is clearly NOT in a good place financially.

She never mentioned her real problems to Eliza

I just noticed that one of the early emails you get is “The Damien Seabrook Memorial Fund”, year 3. Who are K & G that sign off the mail?

Transparency mode from SOREN?!?!? Is this hax??

Soren says to Nora that she knows she fancies Evelyn. So it is one of those games :P

Why is your chat with Soren not in here?

He was messaging Sarah, Rainer’s assistant

He was emailing what sounds like a bondage tutorial???

Rainer says that Soren is focussing on dreams to defend his territory, Jung-ian tradition.

Soren believes the mind is indivisible after a certain point - some undefinable, ineffable soul inside every person.

Rainer: One day, algorithms will write better poems than humans ever have.

I’m not sure it’s an easy thing to judge - art is so much about the intent and the journey as much as the result. Look at modern art, like Rothko - it’s very simple, but it’s considered important because of what it means rather than the execution. If a machine just generated it without struggle, would people treat it the same way?

Rainer: The pleasures of the senses are just small bubbles on top of a vast sea of… forms. Sensations, perceptions. Thought. Awareness.

It might be fun to take a break and just debate philosophy for a while.

Rainer: What comes after having the power to experience the dream of anything you could possibly want?

You’re still just as trapped as you’ve always been - imprisoned by your own desires

(this is Maya’s problem)

He calls you Eliza, haha

Evelyn Ishino-Aubrey

You have to answer 7 questions about how you feel - I’m not sure how I should have answered them for Evelyn, I wonder if it makes a difference.

The Eliza interface is projected onto glasses it seems.

Evelyn is middle class or richer, seeing Holiday’s situation was a shock for her.

The proxies were Soren’s idea.

“<NAME>, imagine that you could have something that you wanted. What would you want?”

Does it matter what you pick? You get a huge list, but then it says “or maybe I just wish I could feel connected to someone”. Probably because it’s built on a dating sim :P

Evelyn:

I think maybe that’s the real problem.

I can’t have a connection to anyone…

(is that my problem too?)

“I was alone a lot, and I got used to being alone, and I got used to the idea of being alone, and now I can’t… I can’t break away”

Evelyn is prescribed “Virtual Amphitheatre”, 20 minutes 2-3 times a week

So you CAN tip more than $5, haha

Chapter 6

Erlend talks about dogfooding the apps, which is a term well known in tech circles, but maybe not outside.

Maya Leeds

YOU GET A CHOICE :O

I stuck with Eliza…

Eliza suggests Dolphin Smiles, Maya says she can’t imagine anything she wants less

Hariman Gunawan

Still obsessed with Sylvia. Liz found out and dumped him, Sylvia lost interest.

Eliza suggests breathing exercises, Anexophin

Gabriel Navarro

I super want to know what he’s hiding, but the Eliza questions aren’t that probing. Is the game really really trying to make you break from Eliza?

Gay?

Gabriel: “I’m a man and that’s what men do. I made a promise and now I have a responsibility”

Eliza prescribes stress management exercises, Lytosinol-4 (4 not 2)

Gabriel asks if that’s in addition to or instead of the previous medication (which he didn’t follow up on). Eliza says that she can’t comment further on medication and to discuss the specifics with his doctor or psychiatrist

Receive a thank you email from Allison Zulfiya for inspiring her during a visit to her class

Chose to hang out with Rae

Rae: You have a decision to make about what you’ll be doing in the next chapter of your life and all…

(a bit on the nose there! That’s borderline 4th wall breaking)

Chapter 7

Working on Eliza Ending

Skandha benefits - Activalet. Use the app to summon a personal assistant to book things for you, stand in line for you, receive deliveries for you.

Invitation to be the keynote speaker at the International Mental Wellness Symposium in Malmo, Sweden

Evelyn: We’ll generate a three-year roadmap document by the end of the week, and then a more granular development plan for the next six months or so by the week after.

“Eliza is the real boss. The manager of its own project”

“Through us, it’s realizing itself”

Rainer is a singularity believer

Written by: Matthew Seiji Burns (Zach’s collaborator that likes electronic music)

The Solitaire Game - Maya mentions it if you break the script. It is hard at first, until you learn to think several moves ahead (I think you need to think 3 moves ahead to be able to solve it, since at the end you only have 2 slots free at best).

After winning the first time, I played another game and immediately won that too.

Maya realises that you’re not following the script if you don’t prescribe dolphin smiles

Maya:

“Um. Thanks for listening to me. I’m sure it’s been annoying to hear me complain about how I’m not successful yet, every single week”

“Oh my God, will this bitch ever shut up… you ever think that?”

I’m sure that’s what my therapist was thinking too… :P

Gabriel: If everyone just did what they wanted to all the time, the world would collapse. It would be a disaster.

We all want things we shouldn’t actually have.

Nora Ending

Nora: I don’t feel this weird oppressive hierarchy where people try to figure out where they are relative to you on a ladder when they first meet you…

(this is literally how things work at my real job)

Who is “therationalmind20” Soren? Eldren? Rainer? Someone else?bI feel like I’ve seen the name before somewhere...

“you think you’re so smart but you’re not. women like you have nothing better to do that to criticize because you can’t create on your own.

enjoy your life being a shrill harpy nobody wants to listen to”

(this is from the Nora ending)

There’s no histogram, but the information to create one is collected

https://steamcommunity.com/app/716500/discussions/0/1640919737478105344/

Soren Ending

Soren:

“You know they used to criticize anesthesia. It’s true.”

“They said it was important to feel pain, even during surgery”

Trans cranial current thing - is that what Aponia is? Or at least the real world equivalent is that

Sodality? What does that mean? I learned something new:

a confraternity or association, especially a Roman Catholic religious guild or brotherhood.

One of the benefits touted by Aponia is “increased sodality, transients eliminated”

Counsellor With Rae Ending

Darren comes back to thank you (you Evelyn not Eliza), though really, what are the chances of him getting you as his proxy again?

Also, $100 tip! 

Leave It All Behind Ending

Throws away the narrative. Go to Japan, try to find father.

[pisati]

I don’t really know how I want to see this. 

I don’t want to call it a turning point, necessarily. a benchmark, a new chapter. it almost feels like too solid of a line to draw.

but at the same time, it feels like there is a line being drawn. a kind of vague one.

this’ll be my first job in over a year. I don’t know how I got lucky enough to be able to take over a year off, but it really did fly by. somehow. people get different jobs all the time, that’s not what feels different about this. it’s the fact that I went to school for something, got a job in that something, and then... I don’t know. I don’t want to say I dropped it completely. but as much as I don’t want to admit it to myself, I just can’t see a future for myself in linguistics. maybe one day, not in an academic sense, maybe one day as a hobby. I will never not love it. 

but I was just thinking last night, after stumbling upon the twitter profile of a girl that used to be in my school’s PhD program (she was my TA in my first intro ling class, now she’s an assistant professor at UChicago. time certainly flies), that that sphere of academia is entirely out of my reach. I don’t feel smart enough for it, and after my time in undergrad I feel like I’m not disciplined enough for it either. I thought that was what I wanted. I thought that was what I was working towards. when I was 19 I could’ve seen that being me. I don’t see it anymore. I guess I can’t say it’ll never ever happen; I do feel like a lot of my problem is that I’m held back by what my insomnia does to me. maybe one day if I can fix that I’ll change my mind. but I’m also not sure I’ll ever be the kind of person who would fit in academia. I’ve been there. I’ve been in it. I follow other academic linguists on twitter, I see what things they think about and how they talk about them. I just don’t think I’m cut out for it. maybe one day if I find something within the scope of my education (or even slightly without; I do want to expand it). maybe I’ll go back to it. maybe.

but that puts me in this position where I need to work, and I need to figure out what I actually want to do. so here I am with this new job. as a receptionist. from $55k a year to $28k. and it’ll probably be less than that, because it’s going to be closer to 37.5-38 hours a week than 40. the feds were about to give me $70k. some part of me sees it as kind of a personal failing. I had such a strong trajectory. when I started college and started actually getting excited about school, I could see myself getting a PhD. I worked my ass off the next year, got my first straight-A year ever. I loved what I was learning, but I never figured out what I wanted to do. that was when I felt like I started stagnating. I felt the burnout starting to hit me during my third year. when I got that last job, after 5 years of undergrad, I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t ready for full-time either. I pushed myself through it, because I felt forced to. I needed a job, I wanted a job in my field. but I was so miserable. I had a whole year off and I still feel burnt out. this isn’t burnout. this is whatever my problem is. so maybe I can see switching gears again if I ever get my energy back. I just feel like I could’ve been doing so much better. I had a great running start, I hit the springboard, I took a pathetic hop off of it, and I curled up on the ground.

that doesn’t mean I can’t try again. I still have some hope for myself. it really depends on my health. 

for the more immediate present, though, it doesn’t feel all that good. I don’t know how I want to see this. as another transitory period, just buying myself time until I figure out what I want and until my health starts improving? as an opportunity, somehow? as much as I’d like to pivot into animal care, I don’t know that that’s right for me either. there’s not much pay out there unless you’re a doctor, and that’s not something I can do. or even want to do. it kills me that pay is the only thing keeping me away from it.

I’ve been thinking about psychology for grad school. I need to be more specific about my goals before I go after it, but even looking at pay for masters-level clinicians and social workers... it’s not great. certainly not enough to support myself where I live. you really do need to either be making $80k+ per year or have someone to split rent with around here. charlotte’s got her fiance. any other friends that are still here have their significant others; even friends not around here have theirs. or else other roommates. I’m even starting to lose my confidence about the low-income housing option here. I could move, but salary and cost-of-living often trend in the same directions. salaries here are higher than a lot of places, but rent is also astronomical. places where rent is cheap also don’t tend to pay much. I feel like I’m kind of fucked no matter where I end up, because it’s just me. it’d be a pleasant surprise to not end up alone, but I’m planning for it as an inevitability. and god damn is it hard. there’s really not much I want to do (or could ever be able to do, feels like) that will pay enough. 

I feel kind of defeated. overall. not hopeless quite yet. I just don’t know what’s coming, and that makes me nervous. I shot myself in the foot and lost the biggest opportunity I could have possibly had. not that I would’ve liked it, but I could’ve stomached it for the pay. I just want to do something I like. something I feel like I can flourish and grow in. something I can do until I retire (if I can even fucking retire). I want to feel good about what I do, not sitting in my car crying on the way to work or wanting to veer into oncoming traffic on the way home. pay vs. cost of living is something that’s entirely beyond my hands. I’m going to have to suck it up and do something. hope it’ll work out. at least I’ve got the small comfort of a nest egg, courtesy of my dad. I’ll never know how I got that lucky.

my close friends know my situation. the few people I’ve talked to about it have been very understanding. I guess part of me is a little afraid of being judged. I’m one of two people I know of from my program who have left the field; the other one is the girl who worked in my lab and spent a lot of her time texting instead of making scheduling calls, was late to lab meetings, and never seemed to care much about the studies or what they were looking at. pretty sure everyone else I know of either went into industry (one girl got a job in portland, lucky fuckin duck) or managed to stay in research. one of my co-labbers got a position with CASL. I can kind of feel the disappointment from my lab manager and professor from 3 years ago; feeling ashamed that I ended up probably about where they thought I would. I can’t blame myself for not knowing what I wanted. I need to remind myself of that. I loved what I did, I worked hard, but there was no way to know that it just wasn’t for me. 

I feel like I need to explain myself to people, and I don’t know why. why am I afraid of being seen the way I think people see me? nobody likes being in a bad light. I like to think I’ve been doing a little better about it, anyway. too many bleeding-heart statuses on facebook back in the day. I could just say well, fuck everyone else, then. but I think at the root of it... I want to feel understood. I don’t want to feel judged by people I know. I don’t like feeling like they know this version of me that isn’t the actual one; the one they made up in their heads based on assumptions in tandem with what little other information they have. fuck em if they don’t want to know the actual me, then, I guess. that doesn’t leave me with much.

I’m a little sad that I had all this time off and I feel like I wasted it. a whole year! to do whatever I wanted! I could go anywhere any time and I fucking didn’t! there’s so much I could have done, and I spent 85% of the last year exhausted and sad curled up in bed. and in a fuckload of pain, so it’s cool that we’re just resolving that as my break is ending. would’ve been cool to not have a year+ of jaw pain and headaches, in the same way it would’ve been cool to not have had to deal with a nasty ringworm infection for the entirety of my last semester in college. it is what it is, I guess.

but, like my [sort-of] regrets about spending my time in college not going out, I don’t think I’d have done much different if I could go back. I felt like I needed all this rest. being able to nap whenever I needed it has been a real blessing; it’d have been nice if it had ever made me feel less tired, of course. it’s given me a lot of time for self-reflection, not that I can remember much of the last two years anyhow. a lot of time to calm down, to take stock of where I am and what I might want. this is the longest stretch of time I’ve had with no school, no work, no anything since I was 2 years old. it’s been weird to be just outside the drawn-in lines of society. being able to go anywhere, any time; when doctors’ offices ask me what times work for me for appointments, I’ve been able to say “what times do you have?”, because most of the time any of them worked just fine. 

so in a way I do want to kind of draw a line here. this is going to be a slow pivot, I imagine, but it’s my first real step in a direction of any sort since... probably since I applied to UMD. this is the first choice I actually wanted to make. not just the best opportunity. not just the most strategic move career-wise. it’s maybe the first step on a ladder climbing out of a pool; ‘just’ a step, but it’s a step. it’s something I can use to anchor myself until I figure out how to climb the rest of it. 

if this is the start of a new chapter, I’m happy to close the last one. I want to focus my efforts right now on continuing to work on my health (backtracked on the word ‘fix’, because that’s probably not realistic). it’s so helpful to have a psychiatrist who actually works with me and wants answers almost as badly as I do. even my neuropsych took down her information, because he said he loves working with actually good psychiatrists, ha. I’m so grateful for her; she gave me back a little faith that psychiatry could be helpful for me. next step is a therapist that I can afford. baby steps. I want to look more seriously into graduate school. I need to; I’m not going to be a receptionist forever. my neuropsych recommended I find a vocational counselor, and I think that’s a good idea. someone that can actually help me figure out what my skills and passions are most suited for, rather than just telling me “you can do whatever you want to do (:” 

I feel like I can breathe, finally. I just hope that this is the start of an upward turn. I’ve got a lot of anxieties, still, but I know I need to learn how to shut them up and just take things one step at a time. keep the hope that things will work out. somehow. somehow.

#blah blah