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almostnothuman · 2 years

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EMDR Fun - Thoracic Battleground

CW: long af (at least that’s the way the first draft was trending before I saved it as a draft and it disappeared from existence in the interceding time (and I forgot all the jokes I initially had, so long and boooring)), middle-aged moroseness/malaise, some suicide talk.

I’ve never been great at holding myself accountable, except when it comes to blaming myself for everything, regardless of how much responsibility I actually bear for whatever trespass, real or imagined. That’s one of the reasons self care - journaling, posting here, writing shitty poetry and shittier songs, riding my bike, going to the gym, etc - tends to slide for the right for me. I doubt I am unique in that sense, but maybe relatable. I went through an angry at everything phase (which I think is almost over, hopefully I haven’t just gotten used to it), a really fucking hard to get out of bed phase (it’s always hard, but harder lately, so I added “fucking,” a word that has become solely an adjective anymore, though I do find myself missing the verb form, but that’s a whole other thing (sorry, I got frustrated for a minute about the lack of non-solo sexual activity in my life, which probably stems from a larger frustration regarding a stark lack of any form of intimacy in my life, but not so frustrated I’m inclined to do anything about it because... people)), am on the fence about suicide (though currently getting my affairs in order seems like work, and who needs more work, but disconcerting that it feels like a viable option - again a whole other thing), a “I’m going to buy a lot of stuff to keep me busy and distract me from my problems” phase, and I’m working into a “shit, I should probably stop spending my money and act like an adult” phase. Still hard to get out of bed though.

I was told by my therapist a few months ago that, thanks to my marriage and childhood, I have complex PTSD. She recommended EMDR to help with some of the traumatic experiences in order to try to gain some traction on a sense of self worth. This is something I’ve struggled with for quite a while. Since middle school my baseline mental state was somewhere between the call of the void and passive ideation. I just thought it was like that for everybody, and the crap I had to endure (partly from childhood but mostly during marriage) were things everybody dealt with more gracefully, at least outwardly, than me. It occurred to me recently that maybe my baseline could be better, discussed it with my therapist and set some goals for EMDR.

Initially it was fantastic. Cheap ass bike my rich dad and stepmother got me for Christmas because she didn’t feel I was worth spending more than the bare minimum on? Boom, done! (Little disappointed in myself for the material nature of this particular touchstone but hey, I never claimed to be anything more than a trope). Ex telling my buying a new wedding set would go a long way towards her getting over her cheating on me? Rapidly fading memory! (Still salty though, this was one of my favorite things to get all twisted up about - stupid personal growth). Being ghosted by a person I didn’t mean to get feelings for but accidentally fell all the way in love with? Fucking Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind that shit! Wait... why didn’t it work on that last one?

Instead I had pain ping-ponging around my chest and left shoulder for 2 days and for the next week I experienced what can only be described as aggravated, full-body nausea. The only real respite I had was taking a day road trip, putting on an audiobook to avoid the doldrum of driving and destressify any traffic I would hit. Otherwise, with any idle or otherwise unaccounted for clock cycles my brain tends to gravitate towards this person. For better or worse I tend to get stuck on certain people, places or things. Basically, for any proper noun there is a low likelihood of fixation, but a high severity if it happens. And in the case of people, when feelings hit holy shit do they hit hard. Sometimes this leads to me getting in incredible shape, or writing a shit ton of songs, or hand- wringing about people. Brain-wringing maybe more accurate? So there are weeks like the last one when, aside from 37 minutes I had to try to pay attention in a meeting but ended up obsessively picking at what I though was a zit on the bridge of my nose (it was not, I basically just scraped of the top layers of skin) while composing a lighthearted conversation with a not-very-close friend (that I would do anything for regardless) complete with two alternate endings where she ended up sending me nudes (trope alert! And none of the predicted variations of this conversation materialized, nor did any actual conversation for that matter, but better over-over prepared I suppose ), that any spare brainpower I have reverts to maladaptive daydreaming (maladaptive my ass, I doubt I would’ve ever developed any social acumen without it) about scenarios involving this person, how things went, and how things could go. But I’m straying from the point.

[insert time passing here]

Ok, it’s been like 3 weeks and another EMDR session on the same memory writing/procrastinating this. The sensations weren't quite as acute in the days after the last session, but I still had the full body roiling nausea for a couple days. Then a couple days reprieve, probably due to emotional exhaustion. I thought I was finally in the clear when a few days ago I started to feel that bottomless pit level of nausea I tend to equate with interminable sadness. And my therapist says she wants to go one more session on this memory. Holy fuck.

This does remind me a bit of when I started antidepressants. Initially I had an amazing, halcyon haze where I did not give a shit about anything. It was... amazing, I guess I said that already, but it was that good. After a couple days it felt like my brain was actively fighting the medication. It almost literally felt like a knock-down, drag out fight was happening inside my body. That largely equilibrated to moderate tension and my thoughts were toned down to a dull roar versus constant, full on stampede. The largest benefit of antidepressants is I am not in a near constant state of passive ideation, though that makes it somewhat more disconcerting when my thoughts drift back to more morbid territory.

Hopefully my experience with EMDR will even out like the antidepressants did. Maybe I’m just being petty and am unwilling to give up the hurt because I don’t want the feelings that developed to be invalidated. I mean, even with a heavily asterisked list, I’ve only had post-superficial feelings maybe a half dozen times, and non of the previous really even compare what I felt with this one.

We’ll see what happens after then next appointment. I can’t really drag this post out much longer, I feel guilty for not finishing and continuing to put off something that’s supposed to be self care. Plus I’m pissed I lost the running joke I had in the first draft. I’m sure I’ll get over it, but I’ve gotten stuck worse on less.

(ok maybe just long and not long af)

#emdr #suicidal ideations #not a cry for help just is what it is

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miamaroo · 6 years

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Northern Migration- Chapter 22 (Notes + Preview)

Here it is! The ever fated next chapter of Northern Migration. Through some twist of fate, it manages to actually not be a really bad anime filler episode despite the fact that it’s all just me trying to finish up a plot point my hubris accidentally created. If I had only outlined this story, then maybe I would’ve seen all of this happening. If only.

Anyway, make sure to read the new chapter before giving this a check out. Or, if you have never read this fic before, read these notes for an out-of-context idea of what you’re missing out on. Whatever floats your boat on this wild Friday night.

Spoilers Ahead!

I feel like I’m at a bit of a crossroads with some of my Taako subplots, but the one about him getting used to his body again in particular. On one hand, it’s more than logical to presume that three years without any physical touch is enough to mess someone up. On the other, he’s an elf. Three years doesn’t feel like that long to him. I don’t know. I think I read a fic once where a similar idea had to be done, and I remember thinking that all of the angst in it was voyeuristic. If you think I’m underplaying Taako getting used to his senses again, that’s why. One bad fic experience, and I can’t get it out of my head whenever I want to acknowledge Taako and touch anymore.

By the way, none of anything I said right there is meant to be a diss. I just have very specific tastes in fanfiction and it ruins my life on a daily basis.

I ran into a quagmire with the Magnus and Julia reunion scene here. They need to have a fulfilling moment where Julia’s injuries and sacrifices are acknowledged. But Lucretia is also dying, so I had to make it much shorter than I wanted. I definitely kinda skimmed over Magnus learning about Davenport as well, so I agree that those areas are definitely the weakest parts of this chapter. If it’s any comfort to you, I’m not done with either plotline yet. I still have a couple of character moments planned for Davenport and Julia in this upcoming interlude surrounding their sacrifices.

Remember that Stevie and Taako scrap I posted a while ago, and I said that I was most likely not going to ever put it back into the fic. I hope you can now see why I had to cut it. Honestly, shame on me for writing it all out in the first place before realizing that Lucretia was just lying there, almost dead,

One last apology for not jumping right into Taako’s emotional arc like I wanted to. Again, accidental plot point happened and I had to solve it ASAP. I did my best to leave little crumbs of what’s to come though, including Taako’s feelings of estrangement from the rest of the crew.

If you haven’t been able to tell by now, the accidental plot point itself was the fact that Lucretia needed a healer and Merle wasn’t there. When I had realized that, everything spiraled as I realized how Neverwinter was going to be like towards the ship and all that good stuff. There was a point of time where I almost just wrote a loose summary of having to sneak into Neverwinter, but in the end I think this chapter proved to actually be something the story needed. Merle running off to Barry now has more consequences, we can immediately see how the public opinion plot is developing, I can fulfill the sprinklings of a plot thread Magnus meeting Bane a bunch of chapters back started, and I also got Stevie to the emotional place I want her to be at before the next John scene. So in the end, this chapter is honest to god a blessing, and I really have to pat myself on the back for accidentally fixing a bunch of potential hiccups this story was going to have.

I had the misfortune of having to debate how to handle Garyl’s first scene in this fic. I’m personally not that big of a fan of him, but I know a lot of people are. It really wasn’t until I was proofing this chapter that it occurred to me that there’s probably going to be more than a few people peeved that I skimmed over the coolest phantom steed like that. And to those people: I’m sorry. I should really know better.

The orc woman is hands down the best character in this fic.

Magnus and Stevie versus the militia is the highlight of this chapter. I was really excited to write it, and I’m happy with how it turned out. It hit a lot of writing tricks that I just love to use, including the repetition and inevitable inversion of a phrase or idea (this one being the sentence “she’s ten). There’s a lot more about this I could probably say, but I’m just going to leave it there.

I tried to use Magnus’s speech to Stevie afterwards as an in-story hey look at this thing moment, but in case that wasn’t clear enough: Stevie saying that her parents fighting Kalen is her inspiration for wanting to be an adventurer is a significant marker of her growth because when we first meet her, one of the first things we learn about her is that the Power Bear is her favorite story. Stevie’s arc is 100% a coming of age story, and as I get older, I realize more and more how much I love those things.

This Isaak scene is interesting because the first part with Noelle’s family was actually written months ago. It’s actually a draft of his introductory scene that I had scraped in favorite of writing him discovering Phandalin instead. I never thought I was ever gonna get to put it back in, so I’m really happy that it just so turned out that now became a good time to throw it back in (in no short part due to the fact that he disses the militia and this chapter has a lot of Militia Doing Bad Stuff).

Another reason why I’m so happy we got to see Noelle’s family is because of chapter 4. That chapter starts with a long sequence of various side characters who will become important to the plot seeing the Hunger’s spies and reacting accordingly. It mentions Angus, Hurley and Sloane, and Noelle’s family. After I trashed their scene the first time around, it really bugged me that they only got that one mention, especially since that mention was placed in there in the first place to serve as an entryway for Isaak. But now order is restored and I can be at peace.

I also adored writing that rowdy bar scene. If you haven’t been able to tell by now: I love rowdy bar scenes and people being drunk.

Also I finally got Carey and Isaak where I want them. First interlude chapter, and I already got the first part of the next relic arc set up…

As I mentioned in the chapter notes, this is going to be the last of the long chapters for a while. I really don’t want to spend a month between updates again, so I’m going to go back to the 2-7k word count limits. That will most likely mean that not every chapter will have both major character and major plot developments. There might be times when there’s going to be a chapter where there’s only going to be one of them, or even just minor developments. That’s going to be infuriating for a while, but I ultimately think that doing the smaller chunks will be better for the health of this story and myself.

Thank you. And without further ado, here’s the preview for the next (short) chapter:

The Hammerhead base is on fire. Militia tape already seals off the street, a combination of battlewagons and sheer manpower pushing back the crowd of spectators. Wizards cast dampening spells over the warehouses as none-magic users rush water from the canal by the bucket-load. The stench of smoke makes Taako gag and, despite the hot weather, he pulls his scarf up and over his nose.

“How the hell did Merle manage to do this?” Magnus asks. He has Stevie on his shoulders, holding her calves in place as she scans the crowd. When his eyes finally reach Taako, a brow arches. “You doing okay?” The amount of care on his face is disgusting, especially when he and his wife are still in the middle of some kind of argument.

Taako doesn’t get it. He was there when it all went down yesterday, with the healer situation and all. Somehow this version of Magnus is still furious. At least, Taako thinks he is. Between getting his first proper night’s sleep in three years and having to trek across Goldcliff with Magnus, he’s hasn’t had enough time to scout out all the details of this marriage-arrangement-thing. But he knows that he’s already caught Magnus sleeping on the couch, which makes Julia a bad person in his books.

“Taako,” Magnus says, as if he didn’t brush away every word his wife sent his way before taking their daughter with him into this jaunt into Goldcliff.

“Peachy,” Taako finally grumbles back, rocking onto the tips of his toes to peer over the crowd’s shoulders. “Why the fuck can’t that old perv just answer his stanking stone for once?”

“Found him!” In her excitement, Stevie almost falls off Magnus’s shoulders. She grabs his hair, causing his to shout in pain as she pulls herself upright again. “Hey! Merle!” She waves her hands high in the air. “Over here! Uncle Merle!”

“Uncle,” Taako says, craning his neck for any sign of the dwarf.

He can hear the light smile flit across Magnus’s face. “Technically, you’re her uncle too.”

He glowers. “Fantastic.”

Between the legs of two spectating orcs, Merle weaves through. He looks ripe as rain, a cup of coffee in one hand as he throws a wave up to Magnus and Stevie. “Hey, you two.”

“Uncle Merle!” Stevie jumps off Magnus’s shoulders, causing him to swear and grab the back of her shirt before she can hit the ground. The moment he places her down safely, she throws her arms around the dwarf and squeezes.

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gotgifsandmusings · 6 years

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Unnecessarily Dramatic (maybe? Is it?) SM Update

Oh hi. I have no idea how to start this, lol.

So...it’s not exactly subtle that I’ve had a downturn in content and posts lately. And this was something that I was really debating whether to even explicitly talk about, because a lot of times posts or videos about dialing back from social media always feel very dramatic to me? Or self-serving in some way. Like, “Oh yes, I must be that important to necessitate this.”

But idk, the more I thought about it, I really really do appreciate anyone who’s read/commented on my writing, or followed me, or sent me thoughtful asks, and whatnot. I think it’s cool that we’ve been able to engage with each other over media, and that platform has allowed us to really delve into a ton of issues. Remember when I wrote a sourced series of essays on tropes in GoT Season 5 through the framework of ambivalent sexism just ‘cause?

And even though sometimes that engagement is me you know, being snotty to a rude anon, for the most part my writing analysis online, then fanfic, then podcasting, then building up a website and a community for thoughtful analysis, and even a youtube video here and there has been something really meaningful and rewarding to me. The fact that it’s maybe touched others? At least enough to the point where I’m getting anons saying, “hope you’re okay”? That’s very humbling.

So yeah, I do feel like I want to loop you in on what’s been going on, which I will do below the cut. (Apologies those on mobile.)

I’m starting to feel like a dishonest cars salesman here. “Oh yeah, I’ll totally write about that! I’m definitely going to have this piece then!” Even just the number of answered asks, most of which are incredibly good and insightful, you know, pains me that I can’t get to them. Hell, my drafts folder has about 40 partially answered asks. One is even about Sondheim! Why can’t I finish it??

Here’s the deal. For the past...6 months (maybe? A year?), I’ve kept saying, “when life calms down.” Or “Life has been a bear lately”...whatever that means. And I’m only now at a point where I’m realizing, my life isn’t going to calm down. In fact, my life—that being my primary career, my situation where I am, and my relationships to friends and family—sort of needs to be a priority for me.

Full confession: the reason I’ve been so prolific up until this point was due to the fact that my previous “day jobs” as I called them, while in line with what I studied and cared about, were something I could do in about 15 hours a week, if that. There was a finite amount of work, I was decent at it, and I really didn’t have an ambitious drive at these jobs because they really weren’t as focused or meaningful as I would have liked and the environments were not conducive to my personal professional growth.

So what did I do? I mailed it in. I found more personal fulfillment with what I was writing about online. It began with the Legend of Korra finale, which had excited me so much that I actually wrote my first rambling thoughts about it during work hours. At the time, it was on a Friday going into the “Christmas Break” where I’d be working from home, so it seemed okay to push work off. But I got a taste for that, got in a pattern of doing the bare minimum, and then focused my efforts on the stuff I actually wanted to be doing—chatting about media.

And part of that was also due to the fact that I was in a major social rut. I was pretty isolated since I tend to have a smaller group of close friends rather than a large bunch of friends, and our career paths just kind of scattered us. I’d maybe get together with people once a month? I also loathed the dating game. I was, for the most part, working at a small startup with two middle-aged ladies and no options there, which left me with tinder and cupid. I laugh because I’ve gotten asks like, “wow you must have been a busy bisexual bee.” Yeah...3 or 5 months would pass and I’d realize I hadn’t gotten laid, so I’d worry that was a sign I was depressed, and I’d go on some random cupid date to have tangible evidence that that wasn’t the case.

My point being, writing about media and engaging with tons of people online was really appealing, and became an outlet for me in a way I never could have anticipated.

But that entire situation changed. For one, I began dating my now-fiance (as much as I hate that word) over a year ago. It was long-distance, so not a huge change at first. Then my sister moved home and in with me last fall, and my family commitments dialed up (3 cats and a baby!). Which was fantastic, it really was. But I think you probably noticed I produced less and less as this went on.

And then, finally, I moved my ass halfway across the country because long-distance wasn’t making any sense anymore. I wasn’t willing to move without a job lined up, so job hunting began to focus me again on my professional career. While I love writing and analyzing, I’ve never seriously considered this as a career path for myself. Which is no knock on anyone who does—it’s just pursuing that life formally is not for me. I have an engineering degree and a Masters in environmental policy, and the latter is truly what I’ve always wanted as my focus. I was finally able to hone in on a job that made sense for me with my background, not just a job that was around when I needed one.

I found it, I moved mid-April, and I absolutely love what I’m doing. The job, the workplace, everything has so exceeded my expectations in every way, and for once I have like, career aspirations where I am. This doesn’t mean I’m any less passionate about analyzing media, but it does mean that professionally, I won’t mail it in anymore to make time for that. My job has to be my focus, and in fact I’m likely going to be working 50 hour weeks to do accomplish what I want here. And don’t worry—there’s amazing work from home policies and PTO, so it’s not a “work you to your grave” kind of deal. I legitimately want to be doing this, because I care about what I’m doing and feel like it matters.

What does that mean though? Well, it means I have to take a step back from the amount I’ve been doing. I can’t be copyediting every night for The Fandomentals, I can’t be writing a weekly piece, and the GoT rewatch, and two podcasts, and longer retrospectives, and other planned co-analysis, and fanfic, and answering all the asks I want to, and checking my site email to organize and manage our team of contributors. Certainly not if I want to sleep, work out, keep up with the news, be around family and friends, and have some semblance of downtime. That I was able to do all this stuff this long is actually probably not the best sign, you know?

So I’m trying to really focus my efforts. I plan to keep both podcasts going, because I really love doing that. The GoT rewatch is going to keep on keepin’ on as well, as planned. Julia and I will still finish out our retrospectives for S7, and I’ve even already rewatched the Dragonstone scenes. But my weekly pieces in addition to all this are going to stop, unless I’m super excited by something. I have no idea about my fanfic, to be honest, and I think that’s going to have to be a situational mood-based judgement call. With regards to the asks and social media interaction...I will do what I can, but as you’ve been seeing, it’s just not something I have a ton of time for. I haven’t even gotten back into my gifcapping funky flow!

For my LoK blog, god, I don’t even know how the definitive rankings are going to end up. I want to try, but really who knows. Because the other thing is that I come home from work and am actually like...intellectually tired. I need a break. I feel like such a boring drudge now, but it’s true. (Also BOTW is a great destresser.)

So yeah, there’s really no good way to end this. I’m just letting you know why I’m going to be sparse. But that also I’m doing well, so no worries there, and thank you so much for anyone who’s sent something caring about this.

And I’m still me, of course. If some GoT spoiler comes out or promo pictures or something, you can bet I’m going to be memeing like normal, and probably having stupid back-and-forths with some bellicose anon. If I feel like ranting about some movie or comic for 15 minutes in a video, I’ll likely do that. But I just can’t keep placing expectations on myself to do more next month, and it’s not fair to you to keep saying “when life calms down.” Life isn’t supposed to calm down. It’s not an inconvenience that gets in the way of me talking about my feelings on a piece of media. And moving forward, I’m going to do what I can to have a more balanced approach to all of that.

#personal tag #which i don't think i ever established #woo

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