#also my whole life is an exposure therapy of some sort

[rialitysworld]

me to me while writing flashcards for my social anxiety lecture: you don't know everything about this topic just because you have it

#i try to keep myself humble #but tbf i do already know most of the stuff #bc you guessed it - therapy #also my whole life is an exposure therapy of some sort

[despazito]

like i have such conflicting feelings about the pathologizing of mental illness nowadays and the culture it creates. i think the need to have ones dx, at least in my case, was driven by a fundamental urge for validation that what i’m feeling isn't just a phase or something that will sort itself out. i think women especially have had our pain and struggles so minimized, i had lows wishing i just had a broken leg so others could at least see my pain. i clung to my dx and feet like waving it to the world shouting its not just in my head!! i’m not just lazy!!

in some ways getting the dx is like getting a pedigree for your fucked up brain. like this isnt some backyard bred tiktok adhd, this is PUREBRED adhd with the papers to prove it!!! all these women like myself who were looking for a voice and affirmation through dx to prove they “aren’t just one of those girls who’s too sensitive and googled their symptoms”, but now that’s also created its own trope of “overdiagnosed girl in her 20s” and there’s a whole new stereotype to mock and invalidate. there’s just no winning, it really feels like our pain will never get taken seriously by society to matter which route we take to get heard we are dismissed.

but of course these slips of paper become vital if you need any assistance or accommodations, so they are incredibly beneficial to have.

my issue is the more i reflect, the more i do feel like many emotional disturbances or brain funkiness ESPECIALLY depression and anxiety are the result of, or at least become more aggravated, by unluckiness in your childhood relationships and the narrative we created about it. turns out you don’t need to be textbook abused to have adverse experiences, and a failure to have a healthy secure relationship to your primary caregiver fucks with you for life but nobody wants to talk about that. i do think we live in a society here in canada where parental rights to parent how their want is overstepping on the child’s right to have the healthiest possible environment to be raised in. i had spent years reading about the lifelong effects of parental deprivation or bad socialization in dogs and parrots before reading about it in humans, and i think we forget how much humans are also animals.

but the thing is you can work on relationships, you can begin to process trauma. when i tell myself “i’m a person with anxiety” it feels really loaded with a sense of finality that i will always live this way.. the more i use that language the more futile it feels about ever improving, when so often depression and anxiety are the result of deeper unresolved issues. I see so many people with phobias or fears resign to living painful lives than trying to work on any exposure or processing their fears. i’d still be miserable if i never worked through my intense fears of intimacy, i was perfectly resigned to a life of being alone and thought i was content with that.

turns out growing up with trauma can cause the same unfocused and disorganized presentation as clinical adhd.i’ll admit i didn’t like learning that one, as adhd already has so many deniers my kneejerk response was anger at my adhd being invalidated. but i think a lot of adhd people fall somewhere in between that venn diagram, and rejecting a traumagenic theory for some people’s symptoms means they will be prescribed the wrong treatment plan. and this is why all treatment plans put emphasis on talk therapy just as much as pharmacological intervention.

obviously some things aren’t the result of your childhood! your mom yelling at you doesn’t cause autism, but chances are if you’re autistic and had cruddy support you’ll face more adversities and mental health struggles than a good supportive environment. similarly, you could’ve grown up with all the love and support to thrive but one day your thyroid decides it’s time to make you feel like roadkill.

idk, what i’m trying to say is don’t corner yourself or resign from living life because of your mental health dx or think that you’ll never get better because you “have” this, chances are there’s always room to feel better. the most hurtful thing is our inner voice if it’s internalized negative language, and there’s exercises you can practice to drill more positive or at least neutral nonjudgemental language into your inner critic. because even if you have something that will never be cured, the way we talk to ourselves about it is a variable we have some power over.

the narrative part experiencing trauma is uniquely human. some people will experience horrible things and internalize the negativity or self blame, but resilient people have better prognosis because they have ability to frame things in a narrative that don’t assign self blame, and critiques the behaviour instead of the self. because so many complications and struggles arise out of kicking ourselves when we’re down. but the thing is this usually can’t happen on its own, we need to see this modeled by the people around us. but thankfully if we missed the boat, we CAN retrain that voice

anyway that’s my musings from my perspective. for anyone curious here’s a lecture that really resonated with me, its got some hard hitting truths i didn’t want to hear but sometimes you gotta hear things that make you uncomfortable

#mental health #maybe you feel like none of this applies to you and thats ok! #im speaking for my own experiences

[butchbenrey]

"the science team is all one big happy family post-canon" is cute and all but it's overrated. let's talk about gordie's crushing fear of being alone from her ptsd in the aftermath of all of it.

everything in her fucking life got morphed and changed into something she can no longer recognize, so she feels like she needs to cling on to the science team for some sense of normalcy, some sense of familiarity. who could she even begin to relate to but them? who else went through anything similar to what she did? who else could she talk to about all of it without sounding insane? they provide some feeling of being heard but of course, they could never understand exactly what she went through. nobody else got their arm cut off, in fact, two of them were the ones who did that to her in the first place. she thinks it helps to be around them, she thinks it's some weird kind of exposure therapy and that the discomfort she feels around them will go away if she just keeps ignoring it, but it doesn't.

she wants it to go away, not just so that she'll have friends she can talk to, and a feeling of having conquered it together and making it out the other side (like she assumes these sorts of things are supposed to go), but also because she's wracked with guilt. she feels so deeply and unalterably guilty for all of it— she was the one who caused the resonance cascade, after all, and she was the de-facto leader of the group, so she feels responsible for all of it. she can recognize that she was treated unfairly at certain points (like, y'know, the whole forced amputation thing), but in retrospect she feels like she had it coming, like it was her responsibility to foresee those events and stop them before they happened. sure, nearly all of them attacked her at some point, but they were all under stress too, it was understandable. if you really think about it, bubby and benrey were right to cut off her arm, i mean, they were scared! <- (gordie inner monologue). so if she left them after all of it, that would make her a horrible, awful, cruel person, in her own eyes. so she has to go to all the stupid little outings and parties, she has to excuse herself to have meltdowns... she has to look in the eyes of the people who hurt her so profoundly and she has to sit through the flashbacks and the emotional turmoil because if she doesn't, she'd be worse than them, in her trauma-addled brain.

it feels like atonement, to her. necessary atonement for the shit she thinks was entirely her own fault. and if she ever feels the nagging desire to cut them off, a voice reminds her that she'll forever be known as some cruel son of a bitch who almost ended the world and then abandoned the people who carried her through it. and then she'll be alone. because who would want to be friends with someone so spiteful and miserable.

in my heart of hearts i do believe one day she comes to her senses and realizes she does not have to be friends with that random old man and the guy who tried to kill her and that she will become more outwardly friendly and positive with hard work and therapy. but please imagine the absolute state of this poor girl in the meantime with me

#barking #hlvrai #gordon feetman #bubby #benrey #this is. again. almost entirely projection on my part with my own ptsd #and its so cathartic. thank you art for being an outlet forever and ever

[fiber-optic-alligator]

*sees your tighnari Genshin-posting*

*RUNS TO YOUR ASK BOX*

Ahem ahem uh I’d like your thoughts on silly fox boy perhaps um g/t related perhaps vore related 😀

(Once again I know nothing Tighnari farthest I got in Genshin was Inazuma 😭 but I want to hear your thoughts anyway)

Oh my god dude I love Genshin so much. If you still have it you should definitely play the Sumeru Archon Quests because even though they’re quite wordy, I really enjoyed them and some of my favorite characters are from Sumeru, Tighnari being one of them. Tighnari is so so silly, he’s just a little fox guy who’s also kind of rude but in a kind, worried sort of way, and his Story Quest is really sad. There are TONS of characters from the game that I think g/t thoughts about, Tighnari being one of them. I just think he would work out so great as a giant? Like, he’s a forest watcher who catalogs and studies flora and fauna throughout the rainforest, imagine how he’d react if he found a tiny? He’d be fascinated, wanting to know everything about you, writing down whole pages of notebooks about your habits, way of life, diet, etc. Then he’d probably move onto the more personal parts of a friendship because I think he’d grow very attached to you and really want to protect you. You’re just so small! He really can’t believe such a creature like you exists. He just wants to learn all he can about you and your species.

Oh gosh, I think about Genshin vore scenarios a lot more than I should. Tighnari would definitely do this. Not in a malicious way or a “I’m hungry so I want to eat you” way, but absolutely in a protection or even healing way? I feel like he’d be rather opposed to it at first because it would go against his morals, but his fox instincts would probably LOVE the idea of gulping down prey, so he’d end up kinda craving it. But he’d never hurt you and he’d be devastated if he scared you. Perhaps vore could be used with him as a sort of exposure therapy to help you grow to trust that he’s not gonna hurt you. Ooogh so much potential for angst too heeheehee.

I actually have part of a vore fic involving Tighnari being the pred written…Mayhaps I should finish it some day👀

I just really love genshin guys I want these characters to eat me so so bad

#gator answers #giant tiny #g/t #sfw g/t #safe vore #soft vore #sfw vore #genshin g/t #tighnari #not transformers

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

tw neglect , social anxiety / anxiety

hi i would like some advice

so i plan on moving out as soon as i can once i turn 18, it’s impossible for me to live at my “home” any longer than necessary.

im not cared for correctly my parents wont get me in any doctors appointments of any kind (eye, yearly doctor appointments, therapy, etc), theyve emotionally neglected me my whole life, they wont let me leave my house on my own i dont live in a dangerous place and its not far walks to go places here i get the hesitation since im a girl but again this is not a dangerous place and im not trying to go super far people walk here all the time. i dont know how to live on my own in any way. i can survive being alone in my room 24 hours a day but i have severe social anxiety and along with the neglect i havent been in school. i’ve always struggled with school and that was always ignored but i think it’s something more but i cant know for sure since my parents wont get me in with any doctor. as soon as i got into homeschool since i was experiencing really bad anxiety (instead of actually trying to help and get to the root of the problem they just put me in homeschool and turned a blind eye and acted like everything was fine) everything has only been festering and growing since and its debilitating now.

i dont have a driver’s license or id and not much school record since i got homeschooled 5 years ago (i would have been a senior next school year/in a couple months) i cant get a job I for one: dont have any of that i mentioned and also no idea how to socialize i dont have any friends and it just seems very hopeless. im not sure what to do. i need a job to start saving up to move but i have no way of getting one for the reasons i listed and also every time i try to do exposures for my social anxiety my parents wont let me (the walks for example). i cant live here any longer than i need to i really cant and thats not all the reasons why. i feel trapped here theres no room for me to do anything or grow at all. i just cant take it anymore i want to spend these next couple years trying to get better to leave but i have no idea how.

im not expecting anything from this i guess i just need any sort of advice or anything on how to navigate and get through my situation. how would someone handle this? not even just about the job aspect just how do i get out of this. i have no idea what to do and i dont have anyone i can talk to or go to. thank you for your time!

Hi anon, I'm very sorry to hear about the emotional and physical neglect you have, and currently are experiencing, as well as the lack of resources provided for you to become an independent adult (which seems to include both financial, as well as educational, abuse). I can deeply empathize that it likely feels like you are very much alone in all this, but sadly you are not the first, or only one, and I found several resources that might be of assistance (both for getting independence, as well as further validation).

Here’s a page that discusses the abuse that is sometimes found in homeschooling environments (which isn’t to suggest all are, but in your case, very much sounds so).  If anything this page might validate some of your experiences, as well as potentially sharing them with the reddit, and/or facebook groups.

Here’s an article that discusses what financial abuse is, suggestions of how to develop a safety plan to leave, as well as resources linked at the end to find shelters/services near you that might be of assistance.  

In my opinion, first focus should be about getting you into a safe environment, with trained professionals, who can help you navigate personal independence as you connect with community resources, and begin your healing journey.  Though my hope is that as you practice and experience safe environments, with safe people, it might help alleviate the social anxiety (if it’s a trauma based response), or, at the very least, they might be able to assist in developing new coping skills to navigate the world with the anxiety.  Either way, I promise there are people out there who care, want to help, and will - and I hope with at least some resources shared, it might be a starting point to help you connect with them. 

#trauma talks #social anxiety #anxiety #neglect #abuse #resources #mod kat

[mbat]

its such an experience getting over something and having to get used to saying words that previously felt dirty or forbidden, but they never actually were, and now you have to come to terms with that

this applies to several situations, but my personal situation is about my trauma. im doing my best to cope with it and try and get over it with what little resources i have, and while i definitely have work to do, ive come a long way i like to think

and part of that is, you guessed it, saying words that felt forbidden. like the word itself 'trigger', i used to feel utterly ridiculous saying it in a serious context because the internet had warped the word to a joke or to mean 'offended' or 'angry' or just generally upset, but that is NOT what that means. i mean, i guess i cant entirely fault people for not understanding the weight of it, i didnt get how bad it was until i had triggers of my own. i used to think it did mean people were just upset about something and didnt want to hear about it. now i know that it is so much more than that.

but also words i need to get used to saying or hearing are triggers themselves. ive been unable to escape hearing about my triggers because theyre brought up a lot nowadays anyway, and also im not willing to tell people what they are for various reasons so people didnt exactly know to avoid them around me. the thing is, is that once youre ready to do it, exposure therapy can help a lot. for the longest time, i wasnt willing to do it, but it was happening to me anyway because of how often people would bring it up, and i desperately tried to block it out to little success.

not to mention how much i cling to still secretly hoping my triggers wont stop hurting because it makes what i went through feel real, like im not just making up how much it hurt, just to feel special. but just because i dont freeze like a deer in the headlights anymore (and i mean that literally) doesnt mean it didnt hurt and change my whole life.

now that im opening myself up to exposure, it means potentially talking about it if i feel ready to, which means i might have to actually say the words that feel forbidden. it feels ridiculous to feel scared to say a normal word.

whats wild about it is that these are words that i used to say with love and confidence, then i avoided them entirely, and now im trying to come back to them. ill never say most of them the same way i used to, but maybe one or two ill find some sort of joy in again, though definitely not the same level as before

what sucks is not really having anyone to talk about it to. im sitting here hesitating to type certain words and i cant just go to a friend and be like 'how silly is it that i feel scared to write out the word _____ lol?'

it feels like if i type it out that something bad will happen, or that somehow itll hurt me again. but its just a word. its not like it was the words that did this to me. and yet they have power, power that i need to take away from them. maybe one day i can type them and not hesitate.

i dont have a point, i just wanted to talk about that. its just silly to me that im sitting here on my phone being scared to type these completely non-harmful words that other people probably dont even think twice about.

#long post #personal #my post #trauma #i just need to talk about it somewhere. i know no one cares #ive just gone through a lot both in suffering and recovering and blah blah 'good damage' blah blah but it feels bad to say nothing

[bipolarmango]

Hey. Idk if you can or want to help me with this. No pressure, if you can't or don't want to, feel free to delete the ask. Thank you either way.

I suspect I might be traumatized. I don't know how to proceed with this tbh. I don't have therapy and I'm not sure how to grasp what trauma is and what not. I just feel descriptions of others fit with me almost the right way... What steps can I do, if you know any?

Thank you so much.

Hello there. I'm am by no means a specialist, but here comes the little I can help you with.

According to Trauma Info For Medcare, trauma results from exposure to an incident or series of events that are emotionally disturbing or life-threatening with lasting adverse effects on the individual's functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, and/or spiritual well-being.

That being said, I understand it might be confusing to grasp whether you have experienced a trauma. I myself could well understand my childhood was a trauma due to how out of normal it was. However, for me personally, it was harder to understand that my latest breakup and the aftermath of it also were a huge trauma for me as I unintentionally thought that everyone goes through breakups and they're never nice.

I think the relevant thing is to focus thinking trauma as a disturbing incident leaving lasting adverse effects on the individual's functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, and/or spiritual well-being. If it has caused you this, it's a trauma. Different people can get traumatized from different things to the different level and there's no shame on it. Also, past trauma may lead you to process new things differently, leading to new trauma. Ie. because of my childhood trauma my breakup hit me worse while someone without my background could have done better.

It is confusing and other people like to dismiss the trauma people go through because they don't think it's trauma.

How to proceed with it? I truly recommend therapy to help you to process the trauma and find ways to deal with it. I tried to go without hwlp and "get over it and move on" with my childhood trauma. I could bury it down for many years until the other major traumatic time happened and everything came crushing down. Only then I found out that I had built my whole behavior for trying to survive the trauma and now I need to unlearn things and develop some parts of me to function like a more normal person. So, in my opinion, you can't run from the trauma forever and the best way is to process it. The best therapists for trauma are trauma therapists but any psych educated therapist should be able to help you to the point. Just pay attention that your therapist has real training in psychology as in many places, "therapist" is not a protected title and anyone offering any sort of therapy can use it. Always check what the therapist has studied and graduated with.

If you don't have access to therapy, there are some books written by medical personnel about trauma. Perhaps you can read these? I don't know how much help they offer but at least the information is medically correct.

Also, please remember that sometimes traumatic events are, in fact, a crime against you, even if it might feel you deserved it or caused it. In this kind of situations, please seek help and report the incident(s).

#tw trauma #trauma #ptsd #ptsd recovery #post traumatic stress disorder #childhood trauma

[celestialsky198]

it seems i have rather unexpectedly stumbled on to the Shakespeare side of tumblr, a surprise that, while not what i originally intended for my dashboard, is nonetheless absolutely delightful. a particularly popular play appears to be romeo and juliet. however, i have (regrettably) not read or seen a production of romeo and juliet. thus, my good gentlefolk, i am here today to present, for your viewing pleasure, what i think mercutio, romeo and benvolio are like, as informed by tumblr memes. i hope you enjoy my fever dream of a presentation on the gloriously nicknamed montacrew.

mercutio:

- extremely dramatic, to the point of sacrificing his own safety for the aesthetic

- possesses little to no sense of danger

- gayyyy

- sticking around for the DramaTM

- prankster

- would speak purely in memes if social media existed when the play was set and would have held a funeral complete with an elaborate mourners procession and a gravestone for vine when it eventually lost relevance

- is one of the main sources of comedy - minute he dies the whole show hurtles way way faster to the train wreck of a tragedy it will eventually become

- no braincells. there’s nothing but dust and a few pebbles rattling around in his head

- tipsy half the time, however it’s almost impossible to tell the times when he is and the times when he isn’t apart because he’s just Like That normally

- LOUD

- bad at expressing his emotions but genuinely quite sweet when he can get his words out properly

- theatre kid but cannot sing for the life of him

- this doesn’t stop him tho

- feral

- if he has a problem it is not his for very long as it very quickly becomes EVERYONE’S problem

- the biggest flirt you’ve ever seen in your life

- very excitable, sort of like caffeine if it were a person and made poor life decisions

- poofy sleeves

- petty crime

benvolio:

- level head (kinda)

- he has more than one brain cell which admittedly isn’t a lot but it’s millions better than the other two

- so so tired

- tries to keep the other two in check and out of trouble but is becoming slowly more feral due to exposure

- dumbass in training if you will

- also a silly and a prankster but feigns reluctance bc he (sort of) has a reputation to think of

- mercutio on the other hand has no reputation other than being ridiculous and thus has nothing to lose

- deathly loyal and very supportive of his friends even if it’s kinda their fault that they’re in trouble

- boy has been through some next level suffering, he is not okay, someone get him some therapy and maybe a hug

- lots of deadpan humour

- dating mercutio

- probably deserves better he’s seen some stuff

- gays are never happy :(

- confident, fairly easygoing but has limits you don’t cross

- with him you joke until he gives you The Look and then you shut up quick

- dog person

- possible clairvoyance?? i don’t make the rules

romeo:

- feelings!!!

- will cry. just in general. about anything.

- impulsive as heck

- big romantic, the ‘sighs dreamily’ type

- simply does not Think, at anytime

- this means he can screw up sometimes and be a bit of a jerk but he means well

- he does not jump to conclusions he hurtles towards them at 200mph

- sad often

- anytime he appears on the scene things escalate

- *slight air of tension but generally quiet* *romeo appears* *all hell breaks loose*

- optimist but easily disappointed

- prankster also

- they all joke around to be honest

- unearned confidence

- refuses to listen to any and all authority

- a little gullible but we don’t hold that against him

- just an ongoing, never ending crisis as opposed to a midlife crisis

- a hot mess

- doesn’t really comprehend such fabled things as Consequences or Repercussions and his primary motivation for things is almost always ‘it looked like a fun time’

- he’s a laugh and fun to be around but don’t trust him with anything

- kinda like a golden retriever but somehow more reckless

#celeste says things #william shakespeare #romeo and juliet #mercutio #romeo montague #benvolio #mercutio x benvolio #long post #bencutio

[habeascorpseus]

aahhwhaa i’d love to here or see anything on your favorite AUs or if you have any AUs!! :D

oh my god. you have no idea how many aus i have. i think my absolute favorite I've made so far is a figure skating 3rd Life au (i used to work at an ice rink and skate, it was awesome) centered around desert duo and grian learning what it means to have a friend, based on seeing and working with all these professional skaters who literally have been skating since they were three and have 0 friends because they were homeschooled and too busy training. in the end grian learns to appreciate the little things in life and also perhaps has a crush, but he's not even READY to face that. for now he just is dragged into various hijinks by his rinkmates getting crushes on each other or scar deciding to help him do all the little activities he never had time to do as a kid.

second favorite au ive made is a sort of fix it au where c!wilbur spawns in 3L after he dies on November 16th (no the timelines dont match up, yes, i dont care) and then entire "death game" part of 3L is immediately forgotten in favor of everyone fucking with the new guy a-la fake dating.(thanks hermbi server) wilbur hates grian because he reminds him of the worst parts of himself, but after Scott forces him to do desert duo exposure therapy, he accidentally mistakes them for married, and after that the entire server devolves into a series of elaborate pranks where they try to make wilbur believe each team is dating. at one point, wilbur believes that in the culture of third life, a green life killing someone makes them married to the person they've killed. this is my favorite thing ive written in relation to this au ↓

i have ALSO begun to WRITE a fic for an au where doc and awesamdude are long-lost brothers (or are they?) where doc meets sam one day in the multiplayer hub between servers (think wreck it ralph style) after they order very similar meals but accidentally get them mixed up, however, the orders are so unique they cant help but start up a conversation about it. afterwards, they become friends and start hanging out whenever they're traveling between servers. but as the months go on and they grow to be close friends, doc starts to wonder if maybe there's more to their friendship than meets the eye. i plan to have it start late season 1 and go all the way through to dream killing tommy, (and this time for some reason cannot revive him) after which it diverges from canon into some good old fashioned hermit!sam because i think he deserves to have a break and doc deserves to beg X for just this one favor, please, hes his brother-

also sam kills dream and loses a leg in the process. fun for the whole found family!

uhh last and most recent au i made was a jangler/sherlock grian au where grian is trying to hunt down, capture, and expose the identity of the elusive criminal, the jangler. on top of this, scar, his business rival, has stopped showing up to concorp meetings, making cub phone in grian to help solve the case. im still working on it but im honestly kind of tempted to make a moriarty stand in who is the Real threat. maybe EX? lmao. anyways thanks for letting me infodump about my aus. i very much enjoyed it

#habeas speaks #i have way more aus but these are my babies #asked and answered #jacknapot #scarian #hermitshipping #awesamdude #docm77

[lloydskywalkers]

Hey i love your fics, even though they make me cry heh and i wanted to ask do you have a masterlist or would you ever make one for your fics on tumblr? if not thats totally cool, i was just wondering, have a great day!

ahhHH thank you so much!! <3 all my fics on tumblr are under the “my fic” tag, but I’ve been meaning to make a masterlist for ages so I guess this is the day, thank u for finally giving me the push to do this :’D

FIC MASTERLIST

Mult-Chapter Fics (FFN only)

Raising Hell

(my baby I’ll be writing for the rest of my life, essentially a massive fic covering Kai, Nya and Lloyd’s relationship throughout the seasons)

All I’m Asking For

(team-centric holidays-fic au following the aftermath of an Oni battle)

Down Comes the Night

(s9 au where Lloyd, Morro and Harumi have to work together that maN I need to update)

Those Left Behind

(post-s8 fic following Lloyd and Nya coping with the guys’ “deaths”, written before s9 premiered)

One Shots (tumblr)

(below the cut because there are. a lot.)

Skywalker Syndrome pt. I

Skywalker Syndrome pt. II

Skywalker Syndrome pt. III

(Lloyd loses an arm and a whole lot of aftermath, circa s8/9)

any port in a storm

(Pixal and Lloyd and the evolving nature of friendship, as highlighted by the regular burning down of your city. Lloyd and Pixal bonding throughout s8/9)

Heirloom

(snapshots of Lloyd and his relationship with titles)

planetary go 

(Lloyd attends Rachel ((oc)) and Brad’s field trip, and things blow up) 

Wishful Thinking

(post s10 Lloyd and Garmadon angst) 

Wishful Thinking part 2

(considerably less angsty oneshot where Garmadon attempts to understand Lloyd, in disguise)

the idiot’s guide to not despising your cousin 

(au where Lloyd and Morro get to be cousins that’s so long it will crash your browser)

call the police and the fireman (alternative warning: fire hazard)

(Lloyd learns to breathe fire, and it goes as well as you’d expect)

There’s Insurance for That

(Five places the ninja are no longer allowed into, featuring Skylor)

a complicated profession

(mandalorian au with Kai and Nya as Mandalorians)

slipping

(Lloyd goes oni mode real quick and handles it Not So Well)

Sleepsong 

(sad s5 aftermath, featuring Lloyd and Cole) 

what stays and what fades away 

(post s11 aftermath, with a focus on zangst)

and it is a shame 

(s11 ice emperor speculation, featuring Lloyd, Akita and Zane)

in which the monastery almost burns down again 

(the ninja try to throw Lloyd a surprise birthday party) 

flicker 

(Kai-centric fic dealing with his relationship with fire over seasons)

turned to smoke 

(s1 Lloyd and Garmadon versus s8 Lloyd and Garmadon angst)

exposure therapy 

(pre-s8, Lloyd tries living alone)

close for comfort 

(Kai has nightmares after Chen’s staff in s4) 

Kai possessed by Morro rambling 

(not really a fic, but also sort of?? close enough)

hyacinth (in yellow)

(post-s7 Lloyd and Cole-centric angst, focusing on lost parents)

Fic for art where Kai takes a hit for Lloyd 

(it’s. also angst.)

n stands for neutral 

(Kai teaches Lloyd how to drive. Sort of.)

aftermaths 

(post s10 Kai and Lloyd talking)

déjà vu

(Lloyd and Nya after Cole falls in s10)

two a.m. tea

(Pixal, Nya and Lloyd bonding over cheap tea, pre-s7 through s9) 

snip, snip

(Kai gives kid Lloyd a new hairstyle)

it’s me (version 2.0)

(Show Lloyd and Movie Lloyd have a bad day thanks to dimension-jumping oni)

terrorize y’all’s neighborhood

(fluffy team halloween fic with kid Lloyd)

juxtaposition 

(Lloyd and Garmadon, as seen in contrasting snapshots through seasons)

Survivor Ninja!

(post s2, the ninja get stranded at sea for the day — crack)

fears 

(s2 bad end au, the single worst fic I’ve ever written, everyone dies and no one is happy)

heartbreak 

(Wu-centric angst over Lloyd and Garmadon’s similarities)

nightmares 

(Cole’s nightmares as a ghost are particularly dangerous)

lost on you (alt. ouroboros) 

(Morro, Harumi, and Lloyd on loss and the color green)

ninjago incredibles au 

(exactly what it says on the tin, incredibles 2-era inspired)

on gifts 

(Edna and Jay growing up)

could have-beens

(harumi dies?? written during s9 not sure what this one is actually but it’s angst)

weathering 

(post-s5, Kai finds Lloyd watching storms)

like a bad soap opera 

(mid-s8 episode aftermath of harumi’s betrayal)

some other person’s destiny 

(Lloyd and Harumi on the river mid-s8, I cannot believe this was the first fic I wrote for ninjago)

Kai runs into the son of Lord Garmadon for the first time (movie-verse)

Kai and Lloyd prank Chen, featuring grumpy cousin Morro (movie-verse)

Kai and Nya on leaving Lloyd behind in s5

The show ninja watch their movie 

Grave Danger snippet with Lloyd in the river whooo

That ATLA au where Harumi’s a bloodbender 

S5 snippet with Lloyd and Ronin vibing over possession

S9 au angst where Lloyd and Nya never found out the guys were alive 

Halloween Jay and Lloyd fic Tumblr ate like three times

Angsty Jay and Cliff Gordon oneshot

Lloyd gets his ear pierced by Kai

#answered #masterlist #this took sO long hdnjkfg #i didnt realize how many i had lying around #glances at wips #weeps #Anonymous

[onlyherefortheshowmances]

So I saw someone else get an anon message that said: “I hate to admit this, but I really can't shake the feeling that Benji loves Victor more than Victor loves Benji at this point.” I wanted to respond as well, because I think this is something people are probably seeing a lot and I really want to explain how I’m looking at it (from personal experience and just from looking at and examining the characters).

CW/TW: Mental Health, suicidal ideation/action mention, Addiction, Emotional Trauma, sex mention, Predatory relationship mention, catholicism, homophobia, misunderstandings, lack of communication, spoilers for love victor seasons 1 & 2 [let me know if I missed anything please]

I want to be frank in saying that Benji is my favorite character and I project onto him a lot (along with seeing a lot of myself in him). I’m also white AF, so I’m sure some of you think that’s relevant, but I really don’t think it is in this particular case. I do also however identify with Victor in a number of ways and I am trying to see the characters both as complex individuals with deep personal histories. Both have suffered traumas and both are clearly dealing with a lot of their own shit on top of being sixteen/seventeen and dealing with junior year of high school and all the pressures and expectations that brings for everyone.

I think what people are interpreting at loving someone more/less is actually about prioritizing someone/a relationship more/less. In my mind, from what I see on screen and interpret, they both love each other beyond words. They are both very much in love with one another. It comes down to how they display that to each other and to the public as well as where on their list of priorities this relationship falls.

Let’s start with Victor, struggles and life:

He is dealing with internalized homophobia and associated thought-patterns stemming from his upbringing in the Catholic church as well from the vocalized homophobic remarks from his mother (toward himself and Benji as well as likely at other points in his life toward strangers), his father (stating that he hopes Adrian doesn’t turn out ‘like that’; the scene in S1 where they’re at the church in Texas and he calls the hairdresser ‘flojito’; etc.), and his grandparents (on his birthday and likely at other points in his life). As a result of this, Victor tried to make himself straight (or at least interested in a girl) by dating Mia because he did like her as a person and everyone was telling him that’s what he was supposed to do. He ended up hurting her and almost losing her friendship (temporarily, he did, but she does seem to have forgiven him now).

He is dealing with outside homophobia as well. That kid on the very first day he was Creekwood responding to Benji helping him up. Felix’s comment that same day of ‘you don’t want to give people the wrong idea.’ The basketball team/gym class guys roasting him about not hooking up with Mia on the ferris wheel. Felix saying he’d be crazy to not like Mia. Lake asking ‘are you gay or something’ when he brought Felix along to Mia’s house, etc., etc. Some of these things may seem innocent enough, but they weren’t. Not to Victor who was already struggling to accept even the possibility that he might be gay. Once he managed to come out to his parents, obviously his father got better fairly quickly, but Isabel continued to struggle for six months which put even more pressure on Victor to try to lead this double life. Once he came out at school, the whole fiasco with the basketball team also occurred and that was a lot for him, because Basketball as always his safe-space. It’s where he went to get away from all the other pressure. It was something he didn’t have to think about and now suddenly, he did. Those pressure are also affecting his ability to think about what he may want and it seems affecting his ability to think (at all sometimes) about how any of that is also affecting Benji. It’s affecting him so much that he’s basically blind to how it’s also affecting Benji to see him suffer. He doesn’t even consider that possibility until Felix brings up how hard it is for him the night Felix breaks up with Lake and Venji get caught having sex.

Victor also has struggles away from just his coming out and accepting himself journey. He has the struggles associated with his parents separation. Until fairly recently, Victor always thought his parents had a perfect relationship. He saw that as the ideal. Get together in High School, get married right away, stay together for ever, happily ever after. That’s what he was raised to expect. And now he’s seeing their relationship fall apart before his eyes. Hell, his devoutly Catholic mother had an affair, and he’s wondering if it’s really possible for your first love to be your only love especially after he and Benji start butting heads, so he’s already vulnerable to that viewpoint when Rahim brings up the possibility. He gets so lost in what’s happening to his parents and what Rahim is saying about it not usually working out that he forgets how in love he is and he sort of loses his will to fight for what he wants, because maybe it’s just doomed to fail anyway (until he sees Benji at the wedding and it sort of hits again - and then Felix’s speech thereafter, obviously). He kind of loses his way by getting caught up in the statistic improbability of your first love being the one and watching his parents’ marriage potentially fall apart and he wonders for a moment if it might be easier, if it might be better to just walk away and go toward Rahim who he seem to get along with and seems to understand the things Benji doesn’t about him, but what he fails to examine in that moment is that he’s only barely scratched the surface with Rahim and that Rahim doesn’t know him like Benji does and that every relationship has it’s ups and downs and what it always comes down to is how willing both parties are to work to make things right. How much you’re willing to step into the other person’s shoes and try to understand. In my opinion, even if he were to walk away from Benji and go to Rahim, that bubble of understanding isn’t going to last forever either. He’s failing to remember that when he got together with Benji (and for most of the summer it seems) that’s exactly what it was like and failing to remember that they have grown beyond that into a deep soul-altering love for one another that deserves his time, energy, and effort and NEEDS those things to keep it going.

Now let’s talk about Victor’s priorities in life:

Victor has always been close with his family, especially his mother. The strain on that relationship is very taxing on his mental well-being. He has a hard time ‘standing up to’ her or talking back to her, etc. because he loves her and he just wants their easy, close relationship back. He already overcame his own anger at her affair to get her back, but now she’s the one pulling away because of his sexuality and it’s hurting him because if he was able to forgive her for something that was actually wrong, why can’t she forgive him for something that he has no control over. So he loves his mother and his family and he hates disappointing them. He has spent most of his life fixing his family’s issues (as he explains to Simon in S1), but now he is the issue and he doesn’t know how to handle it. When in 2x1 he decides to just bring Benji over and try exposure therapy with his mom, it backfires in a big way. Even though they barely touch each other. Even though Benji just says the word boyfriend once, it’s too much for Isabel and Victor desperately wants to please. He desperately wants to not lose his mother (who has always been the person he is closest to), so that causes him to take a step back from going against her and the steps he still takes (telling her he wants her to call Benji his boyfriend not just his friend, the whole conversation outside the church, the conversation with Adrian, etc.) are things that Benji doesn’t get to see happening and it frustrated Victor that Benji won’t even listen to him when he tries to say that his mom is making progress at all, because she is so important to him and yet it seems like Benji just doesn’t even recognize or care about that. This leads him to say the thing he does at Brasstown before Benji runs out, because he assumes that it has to do with Benji being white and of course, that is part of it, but I think Victor in that moment is so overwhelmed by the rejection of his mother and now the refusal of his boyfriend to even try to understand that he snaps. He forgets all the struggles Benji has told him from his own past and he just lashes out which causes Benji to leave [more on Benji’s viewpoint of this whole thing later].

Victor also loves basketball. It’s true that in some case LGBTQIA+ individual participate in certain activities to make them seem more ‘normal’. Gay men participating in sports to seem more macho is a common one, so Benji thinking that’s why Victor plays basketball makes sense to an extend, but he never bothers to ask Victor about, only makes assumptions, and Victor feels like the fact that he actually likes sports makes him ‘not gay enough’ (see conversation with Andrew). What he’s forgetting entirely is his encounter with Bram and the gay basketball league in NYC from episode 1x8. There are many ways to be gay, and sports gays do exist and are perfectly valid. That’s not the type of gay Benji or his friends/bandmates are, but it is the type that Victor is and Benji failing to recognize that and failing to understand or even ask Victor about that drives one of many wrenches into their relationship. In episode 1x5 when Benji shows up to Victor’s first game back on the team and does the Go Grizzlies dance with the other basketball girlfriends, it definitely does a lot of help Victor realize this was just a miscommunication/misunderstanding rather than anything malicious. Basketball and his teammates continue to be a priority for him after this, but that seems to be something Benji is now capable of understanding.

Finally, Victor loves Benji. He wants to be with Benji; there is zero doubt about that. However, for Victor when he’s put on the spot (as in episode 2x8) and basically told he has to choose his mom (who has raised him and been his closest confidant and biggest supporter for his entire life) or his boyfriend (who he’s known for almost a year and been dating for six months and is helplessly in love with) it processes as an error message in his brain. He just wants everyone to get along. He’s not mad that Adrian knows that he’s gay (he’s wanted him to know for months), but he is upset that his mom is now even angrier. [see my section about Benji in this moment, for more about Isabel’s reactions as well] In his mind, telling Adrian could wait. In his mind, he was willing to go along with his mom’s requests for a while longer just to keep the peace so to speak. He didn’t want his whole life to fall apart and that’s what he thought was about to happen in that moment. That’s why he asked Benji to leave. He didn’t want to make his mom any angrier. Could he have chosen his words better? Yes. Could he have made Benji understand better? Yes. But he’s sixteen and his brain wasn’t functioning at full capacity because post-sex brain is definitely a thing and he was also looking at his mom who has already been horrible and barely able to look at him for six months, looking even angrier after he finally thought they’d made some progress after church the previous week.

So in conclusion, regarding Victor:

He loves his family (especially his mom). He loves Benji. He loves Basketball. Obviously, he’s not going to prioritize basketball over either of the human beings involved, but I think it’s important to at least note it’s importance in his life. As for Isabel vs. Benji. To Victor, these are the two most important people in his life. All he wants is to be able to love both of them and have both of them love him in return. When they are pit against each other, especially directly, it’s hard for him to make a choice. It’s hard for him to say ‘no’ to his mom and it’s hard for him to say ‘no’ to Benji, but in the moment (episode 2x8 specifically), he takes Isabel’s side, because he knows the ramifications of saying no to her and of making her even more angry that she already is are far worse than the ones for asking Benji to leave for the night. He failed to realize however, how close Benji already was to the edge and how upset he was going to be and how little he understood (or was willing to try to understand) about the situation. This is something he really needs to communicate with Benji (even though it’s not quite as important now that Isabel’s apparently come around). I think it’s important for Benji to understand that Victor values his relationship with his mother enough that it’s difficult for him to go against her without a lot of preparation and having a fully fledged reason, etc.

Now for Benji - Struggles and Life:

The obvious of course is that Benji is a sixteen/seventeen year old that’s barely a year sober and attending AA meetings regularly. Recovering from Alcoholism is difficult at any age let alone for a teenager. One of the most important factors in recovery is looking at the things that led you to drink in the first place. Looking at things that may be considered triggers and either learning to avoid those people/situations or learning healthy alternatives in those situations. I have multiple family members who are both actively drinking alcoholics as well as those in recovery. I also lost my best friend/ex-fiancé to alcoholism a few years ago, so to say I have some personal experience in this arena is putting it lightly. Benji admits to Victor in 1x7 that he used to drink a lot because he knew he was gay, but didn’t want to be. To me that whole story screamed, I’m an alcoholic and while a lot of others agreed with that opinion. I was not shocked that Victor didn’t understand that underlying truth. Those that don’t have intimate familiarity with alcoholism often do not recognize the signs (either as they happen when when they are not directly told). It is made clear in episodes 2x7 & 2x8 that Benji hates this part of himself, in fact he says as much to Victor when he arrives at his apartment late the night of his birthday. Benji has still not fully accepted that the alcoholic part of himself that attends AA meetings and drinks orange juice while his friends are drinking vodka is one and the same with the part of himself that loves Victor with all his heart. This is something I’d really like to see him reconcile and work on in season 3 and beyond. Understand that you can’t compartmentalize yourself. You are but one whole person and all facets of yourself are in fact part of the singular you. [Not accounting for those with dissociative identity disorder.] It’s not directly mentioned if he’s still struggling with urges to drink, but most if not all alcoholics do, especially when experiencing those aforementioned triggers. Seeing Benji meeting with his sponsor after the incident with Isabel/Victor is not shocking to me and if anything, that was the healthy and correct response on his part. The reason he was drinking in the first place was that he was gay and didn’t want to be (internalized and probably external homophobia) and he just experience some really intense homophobia at the hands of his boyfriend’s mom (and partially said boyfriend himself). Benji’s lack of understanding of where Isabel was coming from in episode 1x8 speaks volumes to just how traumatize Benji still is about his own experiences with homophobia. The only thing he can think about in that moment is that this woman hates me for being gay. She hates her son for being gay. Being gay isn’t okay, etc. What he doesn’t factor in is that Isabel is also devoutly Catholic. I honestly don’t think it’s the gay part of the sex that horrified her the most. The Catholic faith is also very clear on the practice of abstinence from sex (at all) prior to marriage. She would’ve responded the same way had she walked in on Victor having sex with a girl, in my opinion, but in the moment Benji’s own trauma is overriding his ability to understand that because all he can see is the homophobia. This is especially true after she calls him Victor’s friend rather than his boyfriend and that in my opinion, is why he snaps. Could he have phrased it better? Yes. Could he have said it without shouting? Yes. But he is a freshly seventeen-year-old whose brain is not functioning on all cylinders in that moment.

Sort of coupled with his alcoholism and recovery therefrom is the allusion his mother makes to ‘dark times’ following his accident. I do have suspicions that perhaps he was also struggling with mental illness, and likely continues to. Depression to the point of suicidal ideation or actions (possibly only in the form of drinking, but possibly in other forms as well). Anxiety is pretty obvious from his actions and reactions throughout the series as well. I also think he is dealing with some sort of trauma-based disorder stemming from the homophobia he experienced (especially the instance of his father taking him to strip-club). It may go as far as C-PTSD (which I myself am diagnosed with) or it maybe something less (or even more). I’m not in the habit of sticking mental health diagnoses of people (fictional or otherwise though). Dealing with these things on top of what in his eyes feels like rejection from not only Isabel, but in a way from Victor as well likely causes some very unpleasant thought patterns and the potential for thought spirals and the likely. I also see indications that he could suffer from co-dependency (whish I also have dealt with in the past), but I’m honestly not sure if that’s me projecting or if it’s actually there.

Then on top of all of that, his boyfriend who he loves more than anything in the world, tells his deepest darkest secret to someone he’s literally never met or spoken to and that said boyfriend has only known for maybe a week at best and thinks it’s no big deal. In that moment, I can 110% see why Benji requests to take a break and I feel that choice is 110% the right one to make. What is a relationship built on if not trust? Victor just destroyed most if not all of the trust Benji had in him. That doesn’t mean he stopped loving him, just that he doesn’t trust him. Love isn’t something you can turn off and on like a light switch especially not the kind these two share. I definitely think Victor has a lot of explaining to do and a lot of apologies to make. I do also think they both need to have a really long, really honest and open conversation. Benji needs to be willing to get a little vulnerable and explain why certain things are causing him so much distress, but he also needs to be willing to listen to Victor explain why he can’t simply go against his mother as Benji seems to think he should. They both really demonstrated a degree of selfishness this season along with an lack of communication and a lack of willingness to understand or even try to understand each other’s points of view and that is a recipe for disaster in any relationship.

There also exists the issue of Benji’s parents. His mother especially seems to overstep quite frequently and insert herself into his life where she was not invited or expected. I do wonder if this was always her personality or if this is something that started after Benji’s accident. I have a hunch it was likely the latter. I see indications that perhaps there was some neglect or just general indifference on his parents part as he was growing up. They clearly missed that he had started drinking heavily and that he stole his dad’s car that night. He was also evidently dating Derek for quite a while before the accident. (Derek is another section by himself though.) This not to mention the fact that his father took him to a strip club and paid for a lap dance when he was no more than sixteen if he was even that old, in an effort to turn him straight. Benji tells Victor in episode 1x7 that he and his dad used to be close and that they used to go to Dollywood on road trips and other such things, but that he’s been distant since he came out. We see from the scene where he walks in on Benji and Victor making out that he’s not vocally/outwardly homophobic, but I would not doubt that he still harbors some of those viewpoints in himself. It’s evident to me that Benji is not close to his parents (he may once have been, but at this point it’s pretty clear that he’s not anymore). Benji doesn’t have siblings to the best of our knowledge. It’s also mentioned that his nana (like a paternal grandmother) is deceased, so it’s really not clear how much contact he even has with his extended family or how much of one exists. For these reasons, in his mind, there is no circumstance where his family (especially not his parents) would take precedence of his own happiness or Victor’s. That is why it confuses/hurts/angers him that Victor doesn’t stand up to Isabel, because if the roles were reversed, he would have no problem at all telling his own mother (or father) off. He doesn’t seem to comprehend Victor’s need to keep his relationship with his mother intact. I’m very glad Isabel pointed out to him that Victor has stood up to her and risked their relationship for him, but the disconnect still lies in that Benji isn’t a fan of the fact that he didn't’ do that in his presence and that he didn’t do more.

Then there’s Derek. Derek is at least a sophomore in college in season 2 as he was clearly in college in season 1 as well. Meaning he is at least 19/20 when Benji is 16/17. They had been together for a year the previous spring (episode 1x6) which means they started dating when Benji was 15 and Derek was no younger than 18 (I think he is like at least a year older than the youngest possibility). Georgia’s age of consent is 16, and there are no ‘Romeo and Juliet’ laws in place in the state meaning it is categorically illegal for anyone 18 years of age or older to engage in sexual acts with anyone 15 years of age or younger unless they are legally wed, meaning until Benji’s 16th birthday, this relationship was illegal in general not to mention the predatory nature of someone in college dating a high school sophomore to begin with. They generally don’t prosecute if the people involved are within 4 years of each other though (which coincides with ‘Romeo and Juliet’ laws in other states) which they could’ve been within depending on Derek’s actual age and birthday. It doesn’t seem like charges were filed either way which is questionable on Benji’s parents part. Benji also tells Victor in 1x10 that Derek made him feel bad a lot of the time about the things he like and about being a romantic, we also see Derek crap all over Benji’s special anniversary date in 1x6. The toxicity of that relationship is sure to have left it’s mark on Benji and carried over into his new relationship with Victor. I also find it questionable that knowing that, Benji was shitting all over Victor’s love for basketball at one point (isn’t that exactly what he complained about Derek doing to him about his interests?), though as you see in my earlier comments, I do understand that perhaps Benji wasn't’ fully aware that Victor actually liked basketball and wasn’t just doing it to seem straight/make his dad happy/etc. I also think it’s quite confusing that Victor managed to come up with that date idea for Benji in 1x6 and then the best he could do for Benji’s birthday was champagne and sex? I’d be more than marginally hurt over that if I was Benji, to be completely fair. It is also worth it to note that Benji stayed with Derek for over a year despite all of their problems (which goes back to the possibility of co-dependency issues) and yet he was willing to break up with him just to chase after the possibility of Victor. They had already connected on so many levels even prior to that night that even the possibility of that relationship made Benji willing to leave someone he’d been with for more than a year (obviously Victor’s little speech in the hallway played a part in that).

Benji’s Priorities:

In Benji’s world, he has a few things that could be considered priorities.

Maintaining his sobriety is obviously one, but he keeps that separate from everything else. I don’t see it being held above or below anyone or anything. It’s just a completely separate thing to him (which again I feel he needs to reconcile). He was able to do that while also appeasing his friends and Victor (see episode 2x4 where he switches out his cups).

His music/band is obviously a priority, but again that’s something basic that everyone knows about and accepts. He doesn’t have choose between that and anything or anyone else that we’re shown.

Victor is his primary priority however. To him, that is the most important relationship/person in his life. He doesn’t know what he’d do without him. He says he loves that part of his life which I take to mean, he loves who he is when they’re together and not so much when they’re apart. To him, there is no question of who he would choose if there was a choice in front of him between Victor and literally anyone else (including his parents). That is why it confuses/hurts/angers him when the choice isn’t so simple for Victor when he actually has to make one between Benji and Isabel. Benji isn’t close with his parents and he doesn’t seem to understand what it is like for someone that is. Even if his parents didn’t come around right away. Even if they still may not be fully on board with everything, it didn't’ matter that much to him, because he could stand up to them because he didn’t care about destroying a relationship, because there already wasn’t much of one to begin with. This leads to him not understanding that Victor is seriously conflicted in the moments where he is made to choose between his boyfriend and his mother, because to Benji that choice is crystal clear. Again, they could really do with an honest conversation about this where Benji actually listens and tries to understand where Victor’s coming from, because right now, I think he just doesn’t quite get it. It’s clear that Isabel’s speech at Brasstown helped him to understand or at least start to, and obviously now that Isabel isn’t so much of an obstacle everything becomes a little easier, but it is still something that I really feel they need to discuss and understand about each other.

In conclusion:

Both of these boys need therapy (individual, family, and couples), and they would really benefit from a lot more open and honest communication where they both are able to speak honestly about their needs and desires as well as both being able to listen to and understand (or try to at least) one another.

#long post #this is so fucking long #text wall #i'm sorry #venji #love victor #victor salazar #benji campbell #mental health #addicition #alcohol #alcoholism #trauma #emotional trauma #homophobia #age of consent #predatory relationships #catholicism #family relationships #neglectful parents #let me know if you want me to tag anything else in this please #suicide

[rwhague]

Using Psychology to Develop Character Personalities (Part 5 of 5)

Neuroticism

If you have been reading my blog for long, then you know that each of the personality traits that I have been describing have good elements as well as bad elements associated with them. Often, the names can be misleading in that way. Today we’re going to talk about neuroticism and what it looks like in a fictional character.

Because of the negative connotations associated with the term ‘neuroticism,’ researches have now started to call it ‘emotional stability’—which sounds just as bad especially if you are low in emotional stability. For the sake of this video, however, we’re going to continue calling it neuroticism.

A person high in neuroticism experiences negative emotions more than others of the population. This often is in terms of fear, but can be associated with anger and sadness as well. A person high in neuroticism is often afraid of things that other members of the population are not, especially as it concerns the future. When presented with a bad situation, a neurotic person will often assume the worst possible outcome. For example, if they show up to a coffee shop to meet a friend and the friend is not there yet, they may assume the friend has died in a car accident or doesn’t like them anymore and forgot all about their appointment. A person who is low in neuroticism will assume their friend is running late, order some coffee, and wait.

Neurotic persons often come across as vulnerable and insecure. Often, they have heightened levels of anxiety—some of which are associated with anxiety related mental illnesses such as agoraphobia—or the fear of leaving home.

Neurotic people also express a lower satisfaction with their lives—which is not surprising. Unfortunately, this is not associated with good outcomes when it comes to jobs or marriages as they tend to be unhappy in these ventures which also leads them to fail. They also have a higher mortality rate and are more likely to get heart disease.

This topic of neuroticism is especially pertinent to my life at the moment. Last year after weaning my son from breast feeding, I started having panic and anxiety attacks due to my changing hormone levels. I am still dealing with this and struggling to come out the other side of this newfound level of neuroticism. I was always a bit neurotic, but this is on a whole other level. Thankfully, a high level of neuroticism does not have to be a constant state for someone. There are ways to change one’s thinking to better cope with negative emotions.

Some of the ways I’m trying to manage my anxiety is by eating a better, more stable diet, taking adequate supplements, and mediation. I am also currently in therapy to better enhance these practices and come up with better ways of managing anxiety.

For people with phobias such as agoraphobia or claustrophobia, there are different methods of facing one’s fears and becoming more able to cope with them. One of these are exposure therapy where, often with the help of a therapist, a person confronts their various fears until they become more comfortable with them. The important thing to consider about exposure therapy, however, is that the confrontation to these fears must be voluntary. If the person is afraid of snakes and are tossed into a snake pit, they will not get over their fear of snakes.

So what all does this have to do with building a character? This is actually a fantastic starting point for a character arc. Having a character high in anxiety face their fears is a classic hero’s story. Think about Batman. The guy’s afraid of bats, so he exposes himself willingly to them and uses them as his whole persona. Of course, this is just the obvious visual of what’s going on underneath the story. Bruce Wayne is traumatized by the criminals who gun down his parents, so as he gets older, he trains and immerses himself in the criminal underworld, overcoming his fears, and fighting the demons who traumatized him to begin with.

You can do this will all sorts of characters! A musician that is too scared to play on their own. A guy terrified of kids who has to learn to be a parent. An adult forced to go back and analyze their traumatic past. All experiencing a neurosis or a high level of negative emotions and learning to overcome them and save the kingdom, win the girl, etc.

The higher the level of neuroticism or fear, the more dramatic the transformation will be. So go wild with it! My character Jared, who I talk so much about, is so terrified his hands shake continuously causing him to be unable to write anymore. So he’s a hard-working, highly intelligent kid who can’t pursue the tasks ahead of him because his hands shake from terror. The more nervous he gets, the more his prophecy of failure become self-fulfilled. Talk about tension!

So what sort of struggles are your characters facing? What are their greatest fears and needs to overcome? Tell me about them in the comments below.

#bookblog #writersblog #writer #author #authorblog #writerslife #authorlife #bookworm #bibliophile #booklover #books #characterdevelopment #writingtips #writing #writingadvice #mywriting #personalitytests #personality development #literature #literary devices #literary #literary characters #literary character development #big five #psychology #using psychology in writing

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Hey. You can call me Story.

TW for religion (Christianity); neglect, lgbt-misia, amatonormativity, ageism, and ableism from family. Mention of ABA "therapy", bullying, disordered eating, sh, and invalidation.

My parents and I have never had the best relationship. They're both toxic parents, and their marriage wasn't exactly functional. They argued, I stayed in my room or outside. I did something "bad" (being a kid) around them, they sent me to my room.

This was all fine until they started putting me in a completely empty room for days at a time. That level of mistreatment only lasted for a couple months, I think, but they continued ignoring me regularly. Often.

I spent most of my life being drug around churches and crowded community functions by my mom. Not because she wanted me around, simply because nobody was available to watch me for her. These were the sort of Christians to preach the whole "love thy neighbor" thing and never practice it. It was... Bad. Constantly being told by "trustworthy" people that your existence is inherently evil is really not fun.

When I turned four everyone I knew started doing the whole "Oh, I can't wait until you have a husband and children!" thing. Since I'd only met two couples that weren't falling apart, I was less than thrilled. Sometimes the very thought caused me to completely break down.

A year or so later I got an autism diagnosis. Almost immediately my mom started the ABA-esque tactics (punishment for stimming, forced eye contact, forced exposure to Bad Sensory Experiences, etc). I spent the rest of my life until just weeks ago constantly masking so she'd think I was "better".

When I started school, a classmate of mine (I'll call them M) began bullying me almost immediately. It went on for years, even continuing when I moved schools.

My life was basically constant mistreatment unless I stayed in my room 24/7, which led to me undereating and later being stuck in a binge/restrict cycle based on others' schedules.

Within the past three years, everything except for the broken bonds and poor eating habits was uprooted. Mom moved in with her best friend, parents got split custody of me and my siblings, I started at yet another new school. With that and the fact that at some point I became hyperaware of everything going on, it all became too much. I started self-harming. I never remember doing it, but I wake up with marks on my arms and implements in my bag semi-regularly.

Not exactly sure why I've opted for talking about it in an anonymous Tumblr blog. Maybe it's the constant "suck it up" and "it's not that bad" comments I always see others get, maybe it's the mistrust of authority figures, maybe a combination of the two. All I really want is to not have to struggle in complete silence. Sorry for taking up your time and energy.

Hi anon,

Please don't apologize, you're using this space exactly as intended. I'm sorry to hear about what you went through.

It sounds like there were a lot of things in your life that made you feel not in control and demonized, which may have been internalized. It's possible that those factors influenced self-harming and disordered eating habits as a way to regain a sense of control, and/or as a display of internalized self-hatred that religion and ABA has imposed on you, as well as other factors.

I hope that you can continue healing from this. Please know that recovery isn't linear and so it's natural to take some backwards steps in the process. I encourage you to look into a therapist if that is an option for you. Therapy can be incredibly effective in undoing the things that these traumas may have taught you. You also deserve the care of a professional who knows what they're doing.

I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

#mod bun #trauma talks #trauma details #abuse #emotional abuse #story

[lunasquared]

It’s a Quiet Starry Place (But With You I’m Safe)

Summary:  Tony used to love space, however after the Battle of New York that changed and from then on he feared the one thing he loved most. Until one night almost 5 years later when Peter asked if Tony wanted to watch a meteor shower with him.

Trigger Warnings: Mentioned/Implied Child Abuse, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, and PTSD

AO3 LINK

Story below the cut!

Tony used to love the stars.  

As a child he would sneak up to the roof of the mansion on Long Island to lay and watch the stars.  It was peaceful for him, quiet he would describe it.  A quiet place where his father would never think to look for him.  But by that point his father was either too drunk to want to find him or had hit him enough to want nothing more to do with him.  

Aside from that, the stars and the moon and the planets up above were fascinating.  Space as a whole was fascinating, he could see the stars, he could see the moon, and every once in a while he could see the planets — but he couldn’t see the rest of space.  What he could see he was mesmerized by and what he couldn’t see he was determined to discover everything he could possibly discover about it.  

Space was safe, to put it in simpler terms.

It was always there when he needed it most.  It was constant, yet always changing.  It was a topic he could always learn more about, always discover something new and excited about.  It was something that was his own to learn about and no one could ruin it for him.

It was rare that Tony would ever bring someone up to the roof with him.  Only a special few ever got that privilege, but the night when he was 5 — only his third time to the roof — Jarvis had found him up there quieting his sniffles while staring at the stars.  Jarvis didn’t speak at first, he only laid down next to Tony, but the words he spoke that night were what fueled Tony’s interest.  

“Look right there.”  Jarvis had said, pointing up to the brightest star Tony could see, which Tony had always found a particular interest in the nights prior.  “That’s Polaris or the North Star.”  There was a pause where Jarvis moved his finger as if it was connecting the stars with lines to make a spoon like shape.  “But all of those make up Ursa Minor.”

“What’s that?”  Tony asked, curious as to what significance was to the formation itself, as well as what it actually was.  

“It’s a constellation.”  Jarvis explained.  “One of many.  You can’t see all of them from here, but in different parts of the world you can see different ones.”  

“Is there a story behind them?”  

“There’s a story behind all of them.”  Jarvis answered, giving Tony an affectionate pat on the head before standing up and going back inside, leaving Tony alone with questions flying through his head faster than he could comprehend and forgetting about why he had even come up to the roof in the first place.

The next day Tony had gone to the library after school and checked out all the books he could about constellations.  And for years after that, stars and space were Tony’s fixation.  He would go to the roof every night he could trying to find new constellations he had learned about.  The nights that were particularly bad for him, he would find all the ones he knew while quietly reciting the stories of each of them to himself.

When Tony went to college at 15 he found out very quickly that the views from the top of his dorm building in Cambridge were nothing compared to what he had seen on Long Island.  Nevertheless he enjoyed them just as much and was determined to find any constellations he could see in Cambridge and not on Long Island or in Manhattan.

Through their years at MIT, Rhodey had never questioned where Tony had gone almost every night for a few hours — Tony never brought it up and Rhodey never asked so why would Tony say anything?  However, the night before graduation, instead of going to a party with the rest of the graduating class, Tony had grabbed Rhodey’s hand and led him through the city of Cambridge until they reached the roof of the tallest building.  

“What are we doing up here?”  Rhodey asked eyeing Tony as the boy laid down on the roof.

“Stargazing.”  Tony answered, and Rhodey only shrugged before laying down next to Tony.  

“Any particular reason why?”

“Well I thought I could show you my favorite spot.”  Tony replied while messing with his hair, that desperately needed a haircut, nervously.  “Also there’s a meteor shower tonight.”

“Is this where you go most nights?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for showing me this.”

“Thank you for putting up with me.”  Tony thanked with a quiet chuckle, and when he saw the first shooting star for the night he made a silent wish that Rhodey would stay his friend even when they parted ways after graduation.  

But now �� now Tony hates the stars, now Tony hates space.

Of course the one joy in his life that had never left him, was now the thing that scared him most — and it was all because of that damn wormhole.

He saw the army that came through it, and he saw the army that was left in it.  He felt the suit shut down, the dead weight it became as he was left suspended in space, the cold seeping into the suit, the suffocation of no longer having oxygen, the fear yet almost sense of peace that had consumed him because maybe this was what Yinsen meant when he had said “don’t waste your life”.  Tony had always thought the parts of space he couldn’t see were full of nothingness aside from the stars and the asteroids and the meteoroids and the planets.  It wasn’t supposed to be filled with an army that was ready to take over the world.  It just wasn’t.

Anytime he closed his eyes and saw that army he would see the little dots of stars with it.  His greatest joy and his worst fear in the same place.  It shouldn’t be like that, but he supposes that he doesn’t deserve to have that joy.

That’s the worst part about the whole situation; now he doesn’t have his one joy.  He can’t go outside at night anymore — seeing the stars is too suffocating, it’s like he’s going through the wormhole all over again.  

Going to a roof and looking at the stars used to be Tony’s favorite thing to do, but now it’s too terrifying to even think about.

For years after the Battle of New York, Tony avoided going outside at night at all cost.  The fear even extended further than not going outside.  Inside the tower any room he was in at night, the windows had to be blocked out with some sort of scenery.  If there was just black it made him claustrophobic — too similar to the feeling he got while stuck in the cave in Afghanistan.

The thing is, Tony did try to get over the fear.  It wasn’t like he didn’t try at all.  But anytime he would go outside or look out the windows after dark, he would have a panic attack.  He tried so many times, especially after his therapist had said to try it for exposure therapy, but it ended the same way every time.  It was too debilitating to keep doing.

After the whole “Civil War” debacle with Steve and recruiting Spider-Man/Peter Parker in the process, then offering a real internship to Peter after the whole Homecoming fiasco, Tony had built a sort of strong relationship with the kid.  He wasn’t exactly sure what he would call it because mentor and mentee was too formal, but father and son was too intimate, they were somewhere in between but Tony wasn’t sure what exactly that was.

Peter would come to the compound Wednesdays and Fridays after school for lab days and more recently had started spending every other weekend at the compound because that was when May worked night shifts.  Tonight was one of those weekends.  Tony knew that the kid noticed how he kept the windows after it got dark, or how if Peter was going home after dark Happy would drive him, but if it was still light then Tony would, but he never said anything, for which Tony was grateful.  Regardless, the fact that Peter didn’t ask was a constant worry within his mind.  He would get paranoid that Peter would ask and he would have to explain, to the point that more than once he had spaced out with that running thought and Peter would snap him out of his head.

This stupid fear affected all aspects of his life and it sucked.  Tony wanted to be able to go outside and look at the stars again, he wanted to be excited to learn about space again, but anytime he thought about it, all he could see was that goddamn army.  It didn’t matter that the Battle of New York had happened over 4 years ago, he could see the army as clearly as the day he saw it in his mind.  

Granted his was improving slightly, so in a few small aspects it could be considered a win.  Now there could be one or two windows that were not blocked out in a room and every once in a while on a really good day he could drive when it was dark, the only criteria for that being he couldn’t get out of his car until he was back in the tower or compound garage.  It was miniscule, but it was progress nonetheless and he was told to be proud of his progress even if it was small.  Either way, even though he was proud of his little bit of progress, he was still terrified that Peter would ask about it.  He did not want to explain it because explaining meant reliving what had happened and it wasn’t like he could just brush it off as nothing.  Or could he?  Well probably not because Peter was smart and-

“Mr. Stark, did you hear my question?”  Peter asked tapping Tony on the arm causing him to jump slighting and pulling himself out of his thoughts.

“No, sorry kiddo, what did you say?”  Tony questioned, mentally cursing at himself for going so far into his head that he missed something Peter said.

“I asked if you knew about the meteor shower tonight.”

Tony froze and forced himself to take a deep breath and hoped that Peter didn’t notice the reaction.  He had stopped paying attention to any sort of space event years ago.  In the past he kept up with the events because he loved to find the best spot to watch them all, but now- oh right Peter.

“No.”  Tony answered, unsure of how long he was silent for and hoped it wasn’t too long.  “I don’t keep up with those.  Why?”

“Well I figured the roof of the compound would be a good place to watch it and I was wondering if we could maybe do that instead of watching a movie tonight?”

“I-”  Tony started, but quickly cut himself off unsure of what he was even going to say.  Of course he never wanted to say no to Peter, especially since the kid looked and sounded excited about this, how could Tony take that away from him?  But at the same time, the amount of panic that crept up into Tony was overwhelming.  He could probably say that Peter was welcome to go up to the roof by himself, or he could possibly ask if he wanted Pepper to go up with him, but Peter had specifically asked Tony if they could watch it together.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”  Peter quickly added most likely picking up on Tony’s nervous silence and now that he was attempting to focus on what was going on inside his body, probably the tense body language as well.  

“N-no, it’s okay we can do that if you want.”  Tony forced himself to say, trying his best to suppress the pure terror that was forming a pit in his stomach.  He didn’t want to disappoint Peter, and he had a feeling that if he said no, not only would he have to explain why, but Peter would look like a kicked puppy and that was too sad to look at.  

“Really?”  Peter squeaked, his face lighting up with excitement.

“Yeah.  When does it start?”

If he knew when it was, then at least he could try to mentally prepare himself before they went up and maybe then he wouldn’t have a panic attack while they were on the roof, only after the fact.

“In about two hours I think.”  Peter said after a quick glance at his watch.  

Alright two hours.  Tony could do two hours.  That gave him time to run through many scenarios in his head, which probably wasn’t a good thing to do, but he would do that, and it would give him time to change into clothes that he knew would feel less suffocating during an attack and it just gave him time to prepare, but it also gave him time to overthink.

“Okay.” Tony replied with a nod, already running through different scenarios in his head.  “Do you wanna go ahead and order dinner so we can eat before we head up?”

Peter nodded and somewhere distant Tony heard himself ask FRIDAY to order their usual Friday night dinner, shawarma’s and fries, which oh what a coincidence the first meal he had after the wormhole was the last meal he would have before forcing himself to look at the stars.  Honestly the fact the still ate shawarma considering it’s association with that traumatic event was a bit odd, but a thing in his brain that Tony would not question because he did enjoy shawarma nights with Peter.  

Time moved with a blur.  Tony remembers going through the motions but not much else.  He knows he and Peter ate and he knows he changed his clothes and grabbed his weighted blanket that he held tightly around his body hoping that the weight of the blanket would keep him grounded.  And somehow through all of the blur he ended up on the roof of the compound with Peter and a stack of blankets.  Said kid was laying down on a blanket with his head resting on a makeshift pillow made of a different blanket and Tony — well Tony was sitting criss cross next to Peter, his blank eyes staring forward in an attempt to keep the sky out of his view, with a weighted blanket wrapped around him not doing much to keep him grounded.  

Maybe it was better that he was outside with Peter rather than alone or with someone else, because he was no way in hell comfortable enough to have a full blown panic attack in front of the kid — hence the more internalized panic attack.  

The longer they sat outside the more anxious Tony became.  With some situations it was the opposite, he would calm down and become more comfortable with the situation the longer he was in it, but for this situation, Tony was getting more uncomfortable by the minute.  At some point he had started rocking himself back and forth after pulling his knees to his chest and continued to force himself to take slow and deep calculated breaths.  He wasn’t sure how long he continued to do this before he ducked his head against his chest and rested his forehead on his knees while squeezing his eyes shut.  Even having the smallest bit of the sky in his view was too much now.  

It wasn’t until he felt a hand on the upper part of his arm that he froze in place only now remembering that he wasn’t alone, Peter was outside with him, and Peter had just watched him have a sort of panic attack and that wasn’t good because Peter didn’t need to deal with his crap because Peter already had his own crap he didn’t need Tony’s piled onto it and god it was just so selfish of Tony to even have a panic attack in front of Peter when he knew- he knows that Peter has his own sometimes and Tony panicking could possibly trigger Peter then both of them would be panicking and that's even worse and-

“Mr. Stark are you okay?”  Peter asked.  

Tony wasn’t sure if he could hear hesitance in Peter’s voice or if it was something else which meant Peter was probably scared to ask Tony this and Tony never wanted him to be scared of asking him things which Tony had made very clear but-

“Mr. Stark.”  Peter said again and this time Tony forced himself to focus on the weight of Peter’s hand.

Tony nodded to answer Peter’s question and hoped the kid would just let it go.

“Do you need to go inside?”

Tony shook his head.  He would stay outside because Peter wanted to stay outside, it would be selfish of him to go inside and either leave Peter out here alone or force him to come inside with Tony.

“Are you sure?”  Peter questioned and Tony nodded his head to confirm that he was fine.  “What do you need me to do then?”

At this, Tony shrugged.  He wasn’t sure what Peter could do to possibly help him.  Sure it did feel a bit safer with Peter out here with him, and this was probably the longest he had stayed outside in the dark since New York, so that was a win.  But aside from Peter just being out here he wasn’t sure what he needed that didn’t involve going inside, and not knowing what he needed didn’t help the situation.  

There was a silence for a few moments where Tony could only hear Peter’s soft breaths and his own thoughts, but it was the calmest— no the lightest he’s felt since being outside.  He wasn’t calm by any stretch, but it did feel like some sort of weight within him was lifted somehow.  

“Do you know any constellations?”  Peter asked, breaking the silence.  

Tony knew all the constellations that could be seen from New York by heart because of the number of times he had traveled the state with his parents.  So he pointed above himself drawing a familiar pattern he knew by heart and knew exactly where it would be in the sky this time of year, April specifically.  

“Ursa Minor.”  Tony whispered.  “Commonly the Little Dipper or Little Bear.”

“Is there a story behind Ursa Minor?”  Peter asked.

Though Tony was unsure if Peter was asking because he was genuinely curious or if he just wanted Tony to keep talking, Tony told the short version of the story that he knew.  “Ursa Minor is Arcas, the son of Zeus and Callisto also known as Ursa Major.”  Tony paused and shifted his hand to the left and traced out another pattern of stars that made up Ursa Major.  “Because of Zeus’ jealous wife Hera, Arcas and Callisto were changed into bears and placed in the sky by Zeus in order to be protected from Hera.”

When Tony finished the story he made himself look up at the sky to allow the true shapes of the constellations that his brain and eyes supplied for him after years of staring at them.  For some reason looking up and tracing out the shapes was almost comforting, it wasn’t as terrifying as it had been only minutes before or how it had been the past 4 or so years.  

“Are there any others you can see right now?”

Tony moved his point to the left again and traced out another set of stars.  “That’s Leo, like the lion.”

Before Peter could ask Tony started telling the story of Leo and how he came to be in the sky.  After originating on the moon, the lion could not be killed by weapons and terrorized the city of Nemea in ancient Greece.  Hercules then killed the lion as one of his twelve labors and Zeus returned Leo to space by placing his image among the stars.  

The night continued like this, Tony pointing out all the constellations he knew and telling the story that went with it.  And slowly Tony did feel the panic and anxiety leave his body as he told Peter these stories that he had told himself so many times before.  Every so often they would see a shooting star and every time Tony wished he could thank Peter for being here with him and helping him.  

Space was a quiet starry place that Tony used to love until he found fear in it.  But now space was slowly becoming safe again and Tony was finding his love for it again all because Peter wanted to see a meteor shower.  Here with Peter up on the roof, Tony had relaxed a little and had pulled his kid close to his side while telling him story upon story of different constellations because here with Peter; he was safe.

#Tony Stark #Peter Parker #irondad #spiderson #irondad and spiderson #do not tag as ship #not st*rker #fanfiction #fanfic #marvel #ao3

[autisticchicc]

Unstructured Autism Rant

A/N: For COVID reasons, mask is purely metaphorical in this piece, not an actual face mask, the work scenario was something that happened pre-COVID.

Trigger Warnings: In-depth descriptions of autism-related struggles and meltdowns.

Disclaimer: This is my personal experience with autism, that is not to say that this is the experience of every person with ASD.

“Have I solved your issue today?” I ask the customer on the other end of the phone. I have; I don’t know why I’m asking this. The customer confirms I have, and I wish them goodbye, a good day, and thank you for calling the business. I don’t care if they have a good day, and I why on earth would I thank them for calling us? The entire interaction went on for far too long for my liking thanks to small talk and the customer pushing pointless information about themselves onto me. He told me he was sketching by the riverside, but why do I need to know about that? How do I respond to a piece of information that does nothing to or for me? Upon hanging up, I breathe a sigh of relief. The mask slips off my face slightly as I rub my temples.  

The relief is short-lived, as one of my co-workers comes over to my desk to talk about something. I take a deep breath and pull the mask back on properly before forcing myself to engage enthusiastically in this conversation. I don’t know this co-worker that well, I know nothing about how she talks, her personality, or her humour, only that I have a huge margin for error in this conversation. I concentrate intensely, trying desperately to make sense of her rapidly changing facial expressions and knowing when it’s my turn to talk. After interjecting at the wrong time on several occasions, I give up and just respond meekly when there’s an obvious gap. I feel embarrassed and awkward, and when she walks away, I kick myself. Why is it so hard to have a simple conversation? I’ve yet to make any friends at this job, and I don’t think I ever will at this rate.

I swivel back to face my two screens and lament the lack of a blue light filter on this software. My eyes ache, and the dog (yeah, don’t ask) on the upper level of the open plan office keeps barking. The occasional trilling of a phone irritates me more than usual as the late afternoon sun glares through the floor to ceiling windows at my photosensitive eyes. I can’t close the blinds because my co-workers love the sun, but I’m rapidly approaching a meltdown thanks to overstimulation, exhaustion, and following vague instructions all day. It feels as though every piece of sensory stimuli is stabbing at my eyes and ears. At the end of my shift I clock out and leave without saying goodbye to anyone. I don’t know them well enough to feel comfortable going out of my way to say anything in the first place.

Upon exiting the building, I cover my ears with my big headphones, the relief that washes over me is immense. All those invasive sounds are gone now, and I can listen to whatever I want. I still feel on edge, still teetering close to a meltdown, so I choose not to worsen it by listening to something that would fuel my anger. Sometimes it’s necessary, sometimes I desperately need to hear the pained screams of Pete Steele, the aggressive guitars and lyrics of Body Count. But today, I need something that isn’t going to give me the encouragement to punch the first person that triggers my rage.

For me, music is transformative and transportive. When I listen to particular songs with noise-cancelling headphones, it’s allows me to go somewhere in my imagination while my body moves to my real destination on autopilot. I decide on an uplifting song by The Knocks and Big Boi, Big Bills. It’s a song that makes me feel like a character in a movie that has just moved to a new city and is pursuing an exciting new life. To an extent that’s sort of true for me, minus the excitement and plot armour. Either way, it’s an uplifting song for me. So much so in fact, that I listen to it on repeat all the way home. If something interrupts the song, like an announcement on the tube or having to pause it, I have to restart it or it’s not the same.

When I eventually arrive home, the transformation happens. The moment my bedroom door closes, and I turn my headphones off, it begins. The outcome of this transformation can be vastly different depending on how my day went. It might be that it was a successful day socially, so I leave my phone out of sight and silently bury myself in a hobby for hours in order to recharge. It might be that the mask comes off and I begin to scream and sob, breaking anything I can to stop myself from self-injuring, burying the heels of my hands into my eyes to block any light. The transformation varies, but it is always the result of the same thing: suppressing who I am.

Much of being autistic and being forced to operate in a society catered to neurotypical people, for me, is suppressing my natural instincts and behaviour. Even when I have a positive day socially, it’s often contingent on how well I assimilated with other neurotypical people in that particular interaction. This is frustrating because not only am I exhausted because hardly anyone accommodates for me, I am also measuring the success of my day on other peoples’ standards. Many of my interpersonal relationships also operated that way until fairly recently, I was forced to behave and communicate the way that other people expected me to rather than what felt natural to me. There is only so many places and so much time I can maintain this act for, and so I was forced to simply cut those friendships off. I am no longer willing to negotiate my needs with people that clearly don’t like me enough to respect my disorder.

The friends I keep are mindful, lovers of the eccentric, embracing that which is different and persecuted for it. Often times I find that the people closest to me also have parts of their identity that mean they must also wear a mask of sorts when moving through society, be it racist society, patriarchal society, or queerphobic society. Our arms interlink on the fringes of an abstract hierarchy, turning away from the status quo and pursuing a life in truth and diversity. One day I’d love for everyone to be able to live authentically, for discrimination, isms and phobias to fade away into the past. I don’t see it happening in my lifetime, or perhaps ever, but I hope it does eventually.

In an ideal world, I would only interact with those aforementioned friends and no one else, but as we’ve established, that is not the world we live in. The reality is, I almost never get to interact with people who accommodate for me. I deal with people touching me without permission which makes my skin crawl, forcing me to take my headphones off when I’m fending off a meltdown, managers who don’t give me the specific step-by-step instructions I need, classmates who don’t understand that I don’t talk because I’m too shy, not because I’m unfriendly, lecturers that forget I can’t operate well in group work and can’t be in classrooms with harsh, fluorescent lights… The list is endless. Even going to the shop is a struggle, because the employees have no way to know. Although Tesco’s have been considerate and ‘progressive’* enough to introduce sunflower lanyards (https://www.tesco.com/help/invisibledisability/), most stores have absolutely no assistance in place for customers with hidden disabilities. I just have to hope that they don’t speak to me and that I don’t end up getting overwhelmed and having to ask anyone for help.

In a lot of ways, this pandemic has meant that I can avoid quite a lot of the scenarios that would usually cause me stress. I no longer work (admittedly, this causes more stress than it relieves), I don’t have to attend class in person, there is little to no in-person socialising, family events are cancelled, seasonal holidays are cancelled, queuing and crowding is no longer allowed (without distancing), etc. That has all been excellent and a relief. But on the flip side, it has given rise to a whole host of new problems. I hate being on camera or speaking in online lessons, there is no way for me to remind the teacher subtly I can’t do group work, masks trigger heat-related meltdowns for me, the financial instability of being unemployed has been a huge stressor, and the lack of government support is utterly enraging. 

Overall, it’s been a huge adjustment. The job that I talked about my experience with at the beginning of this rant is long gone now, so many things have changed. I have never dealt well with change, but this year has forced me to. In some ways I suppose you could say this is a positive development, exposure therapy is best at times. I just wish it had been more on my terms and not at the hands of a viral pandemic. 

#autism #asd #meltdown #sensory overload #aspergers #autism spectrum disorder #aspie #aspiegirl #women with autism #autism at work #autism at school #school #university #autistic enby #covid #covid19

[bubblegumchaos]

TW: Violence, dark humor, all that jazz. Go no further, angry shit, yadda.

So, yanno...i'm just gonna yell into the void about something.

When i was very young, I read a lot of encyclopedias. Most of my knowledge of the world was attributable to the Encyclopedia Britannica, which my mother kept because well, a home should have a nice, impressive looking set of books. Along with a bunch of other old books that just...really weren't the best choice for a regressive anti-technology apocalyptic fundamentalist cult, but then, as we used to joke, my mother doesn't have to make sense, she just has to make decisions.

So, I eventually started plumbing the depths to try and figure out "what the hell is wrong with my family."

While i didn't get an answer about my family in general, I did note that i seemed to be oddly suited to the definition of "psychopath," minus the whole "being a problem for society at large" thing. Asocial, low empathy, lack of guilt, inability to plan cohesively, difficulty conceptualizing consequences, near total lack of emotions except curiosity and rage, both of which are carefully stifled, aggressive tendencies...frankly, I look at my younger siblings and i can definitely assure anyone that asks that had I not been raised quite far away from society, or if I'd stayed in the cult, I would most definitely have been a problem for society.

But psychopaths are *monsters,* you see. They're so, so bad, you see. Everyone assured me, at great length, that I couldn't be that, no, no sirree. I was too nice. Too kind. I didn't punch people nearly often enough (largely because I don't like being punched outside of sex, and I like to be in charge of where I'm being punched, and even that mostly cause I'm kinda badly out together physically, but that's aside the point.)

I wasn't *hate-able.* My empathy was too high.

On that last note, I have spoken elsewhere and i believe here regarding my empathy. My empathy is specifically a learned skill picked up by reading Edgar Allen Poe's Auguste Dupin stories. Dupin explains his near preternatural ability to get inside people's heads by his learned skill of micro-mimicking body and facial language and then analyzing what he feels when he copies someone else. Works absolute wonders, particularly as up to that point (i was 8-9), I was using the classical technique of provoking and hurting people around me to experimentally figure out how other people worked. Admittedly, it's somewhat like recording a speech and listening to it at the lwvel of a whisper in a crowded room, but then mimicry is far less likely to get you punched, and see previous for my feelings on getting punched.

But now i had, for all intent, a system to demonstrate empathy. Thanks to my mother's abuse, I had a complete paranoid delusion aping guilt. I could check plans past others, and once I got my hands on Google at 14, I had the capacity to directly look up what the general, societal consequences of most actions were and model behaviors that achieved my ends. I further had 18 years of direct training in mind control and manipulation, thanks to my cult.

You may notice that what you just read sounds like the origin story of a serial killer. Ape people around them to avoid detection, paranoia making them scrupulous enough to not get caught, and careful study of laws to find the lines, plus a hyper manipulative persona.

Roll with me here. This continues forward.

So, i'm out and about, 2, 5, 6 years free of my cult. I have married a self avowed psychopath who actually HAS been diagnosed with antisocial disorder thanks to a teenage habit of theft and punching people. He is fairly sure I am not one, since I perform guilt and empathy fantastically, by rote at this point. I literally have days that my face hurts from faking emotions for too long, i am slowly developing agoraphobia because there are far too many people to mimic in a retail job, and my guilt subroutine is just a voice chanting in my head, "they're coming to get you, don't fuck up" 24/7 to the point that i am developing hallucinations, but yeah. It's definitely not psychopathy. At this point, that's just ASPD, and i'm just too darn social. Never that. I'm no monster, you see. I'm "nice."

About this point, I have learned to use mind control techniques to help people, carefully applying them with direct permission to help people open up and discuss problems. My near preternatural ability to get into people's heads, my ability to find information, and my absolute lack of fucks about morals (thus making me wildly nonjudgemental), makes me the go-to confidant for many of my friends. This neatly surrounds me with people that can smooth my life out, but you can't tell people you're friends with them cause the world is made of grey paste and you're deathly bored 24/7 and being allowed to pick through people's minds and help them optimize is the closest you get to not wanting to shoot yourself or others. Or that you carefully maintain contact with people so you can check and make sure you're not doing anything jail worthy. Or that a large group to mimic lets you blend in easier, and finding one that also is transgressive, but socially permissable (thanks, kink) blows off some steam.

Of course, people that don't know me find me deeply off-putting, as I am at this point rapidly learning to turn off the mimicry when not immediately interacting with people. This results in me appearing utterly emotionless, but as soon as people talk to me, bing, back on. I had also joined the kink subculture, giving my hedonistic and transgressive sides an outlet.

I'd also gone to the trouble of getting a multifaceted degree. Ostensibly, my degree is "multimedia journalism." If you aren't aware, this means I have a degree in research, interpersonal communication, public speaking, written communication, mass communication, some psychology, critical thinking, media creation and analysis. In short, I have the literal perfect degree for figuring out, communicating with, and functionally understanding people, as well as a vastly enhanced ability to locate obscure information.

Fast forward again. Three mental breakdowns, four years of therapy, poking at my gender, figuring out a lot of mental health problems, and a rotating series of diagnoses, life is...slowly improving. I've left a toxic marriage (toxic on both sides), moved to a completely new place, started over. I have sort of resigned myself to focusing on my (admittedly annoyingly complex and wide ranging) physical disabilities.

And it comes up, in talking to my partner, that his adoptive mother displayed (she's dead) quite a few signs of ASPD. And he asks curiously if there's any connection between ADHD, autism, and ASPD, mainly cause the "personality disorder" part. PD's can, with long or early exposure, sometimes be passed on, you see.

Guess what's being studied, right now? Not a connection between ASPD and ADHD. A connection between psychopathy and ADHD. Wait, but I thought psychopathy wasn't a thing, says I? I thought there was only ASPD, now?

Ah, but for you see, the DSM is a load of horseshit. And i have heard that from multiple communities with different relations to it, and from multiple therapists, psychiatrists, professors...as a general rule, when the people who use it, the people it's used on, and the people who teach it all agree that a document is manure, I get a touch distrustful. I get more so when current studies use umbrella terms disavowed by a document known for being reductivist and that has been noted as having a great number of entries that were manipulated deliberately to make them as narrow and unusable as possible.

So anyway.

Turns out that while no, ADHD and Autism don't make you a psychopath, there's a distinct overlap. Empathy issues are a possiblity in all three, though both ADHD and autism can create *hyper*empathy. Inability to navigate social constructs is another point of overlap.

But really, it's the serotonin deficiency that hurls it across the line for me. And the genetic factors. Can psychopathy result from environment? Yeah, seems so. But there does seem to be a genetic and neurochemical component. Which is...curious for a disorder presented as purely a traumatic abreaction that creates dangerous amorals.

I then looked it up. And wouldn't you know, psychopathy is only pathologized as ASPD/APD, and DPD? The former is the sort of psychopathy that is characterized by violent amd criminal antisocial behavior, and the other an inability to understand and perform social mores at all. But this is the DSM, so these are of course diagnosed by problems caused for others as a first line.

Violation of societal norms, lack of emotions other than rage, aggression...it's almost like the same people that named a serotonin and function deficiency Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to enshrine the disorder only by those aspects that make neurotypical people uncomfortable rather than seeking to help the neurodivergent person, the same people that invented torturous behavioral correction therapies to "fix" the neurodivergent person? Those strike me as people that might possibly have looked a serotonin deficiency that causes rage, limited emotions, impulsivity, difficulty conceptualizing consequence, and potentially a hell of a lot of other fun side shit and decided to call that "Doesn't get along with others well" disorder.

What really kicks it in the teeth for me, however, is that psychopathy used to mean more than "a social pariah." You see, Theodore Millon, the guy that wrote the book on personality disorders, noted between 5 and 10 subtypes. Do you know what they are?

Nomadic

(including schizoid and avoidant features)

Drifters; roamers, vagrants; adventurer, itinerant vagabonds, tramps, wanderers; they typically adapt easily in difficult situations, shrewd and impulsive. Mood centers in doom and invincibility

Malevolent

(including sadistic and paranoid features)

Belligerent, mordant, rancorous, vicious, sadistic, malignant, brutal, resentful; anticipates betrayal and punishment; desires revenge; truculent, callous, fearless; guiltless; many dangerous criminals, including serial killers.

Covetous

(including negativistic features) Rapacious, begrudging, discontentedly yearning; hostile and domineering; envious, avaricious; pleasures more in taking than in having.

Risk-taking

(including histrionic features) Dauntless, venturesome, intrepid, bold, audacious, daring; reckless, foolhardy, heedless; unfazed by hazard; pursues perilous ventures.

Reputation-defending 

(including narcissistic features) Needs to be thought of as infallible, unbreakable, indomitable, formidable, inviolable; intransigent when status is questioned; overreactive to slights.

(It should be noted: the features listed above are simply what each presentation is most likely to display if disordered. A reputation-defender may not display narcissm, a risk taker may not be histrionic. A malevolent [what a terribly judgy name...] could be negativistic, or avoidant, or histrionic. And so on.)

Now, ya may be going, "wait, hold up, narcissism is on there! We still have that! Schizoid is on there, we have that! Sadism, paranoia, we got all those things!"

Flash quiz: do you know what a personality disorder is? It's a series of learned behaviors that require moderation and unlearning.

Why yes, they did spin multiple neurotypes off into diagnoses that require behavioral therapy to "fix." Why on earth would you think they wouldn't? They're still trying to use reparative therapy on auties. Hell, near as I can figure, histrionic got spun into Borderline Personality disorder. You know what the therapy for that is? DBT, aka, "it IS your fault and you SHOULD feel bad."

Beyond knowing there used to be different flavors, did you know that there is about a millionty scare articles about how psychopaths are everywhere? Guess why.

What do you get when someone has an absolute need to see what's on the other side of the hill and no real fucks to give about how you get there? You get scientists, explorers, people utterly driven to find out. Think about how many of our science and exploration heros are noted as deeply weird and off-kilter. We have whole stereotypes about this. There are books and articles devoted to the transgressive personas and behaviors of famous scientists and explorers.

What do you get when someone is belligerent, paranoid, truculent, violent, fearless? Snipers. Literally. The army has openly stated they like psychopaths quite a lot. Someone that can look at a map of human lives and commit calculus with the phrase "acceptable losses" makes a damn fine general, wouldn't you say? Hunters, too. Make a good king? Or bounty hunter. Or, if we're going to be honest, a martial artist. Hell, think of all the ways our society accepts violence in real terms and symbolically. Management. Video gamer. Espionage. Actuary. Pest control. There are THOUSANDS of of societal uses for people like this.

Covetous? Well, banks are openly quite loving towards psychopaths. CEOs are indicated here. Businessmen. Fandoms with collection as a function have any number of anecdotes of individuals who have an intense drive to get more. "Focused on the chase, rather than the victory, to the exclusion of all else" is considered a positive, laudable personality trait. To put it in other terms, "can't stop, won't stop, never done." Sports players, yes? Football, rugby, hockey...

Risk takers are the real standouts, in terms of societal love. Doctors. Firemen. EMT's. Skydivers. Extreme sports players. Equipment testers. The list goes on. Society loves risk taking psychopaths. Hell, look at the diagnostic criterion up there: it's mostly traits with high positive connotations.

Reputation defending? Politics. Law. Advertising. Acting. Writing. Religion. Leadership of any kind.

I'm not talking out my ass here. All those fields have been noted as friendly towards, attractive to, and having a high representation of people who fit the behavioral model of psychopath.

But only if they're useful. Like literally every other non-normative neurotype.

Society loves ADHD and autistic people when they're displaying savant abilities or when they can mask well enough to use their sensory and cognitive differences to societal ends.

And if they're a problem for people around them, that's treated. The underlying difficulties? The societal structures that punish and harm them? The pain of adapting their entire neurobiome to do all the work of interfacing with different neurotypes while being driven to harness anything useful and discard the rest of their brain? No, we don't treat that. That's just the price of doing business. "Pull yourself up and don't be a problem."

And here's the problem, in plain terms: psychopaths who learn to cope, to mask, to adapt like I did are never diagnosed. I have spent most of my life fairly concerned about the fact that I seem not to have emotions or compunction, that i am always consciously working to figure out and connect to people around me on the most basic level, that I am constantly working to keep an active model of social norms going at all times. And I don't mean "shake hands, eye contact." I mean I have the same mental conversation regarding "don't shoot that person" and "use a turn signal." All prosocial behaviors, all social behaviors period, are a struggle to understand.

The funny thing is, it also makes antisocial behaviors difficult. Shooting someone seems remarkably inconvenient in many cases. Regardless of whether I care about getting caught or not, shooting somone will interrupt my day.

Not shooting them also seems remarkably inconvenient in many cases. Yes, it'd be a pain in the ass to shoot them, but then again, if I do it correctly, I only have to do it once.

But again, "correctly" is a wildly unfixed variable, and the whole question won't come up if I always ensure I fail the "do i currently have a firearm" step. And I don't. Ever.

That's how my brain works. Y'all go on about moral and ethical and legal reasons. That's an exhausting conscious mental conversation to have every other day, so my shortcut is:

"Should I shoot them? Oh, right, I don't have a gun. Guess not. Should I get one? No, cause I might shoot someone, and that'd be a pain in the ass. Welp, no shooting people."

And so it goes. I don't understand any social norms. Good or bad. I have all the problematic issues still, mind you. Environmental factors. I mimic and I was raised in an apocalypse cult in Oklahoma. I spend a lot of brain space sorting between prosocial behaviors and the violent antisocial behaviors I was taught were prosocial.

Because, you see, I can't really understand the prosocial behaviors, but I can see they work. And antisocial behaviors don't, really. Have i impulsively pocketed something? Couple times. Even got away with. Can't steal a house, though. And theft gets boring, for me.

Ok, except piracy. I may quite enjoy piracy.

Cooperation with a larger whole can and does yield benefits. Forcing myself to sit through mind numbing gratification delays does seem to yield results that are beneficial, though I really try to keep that one to a minimum. I refuse to be bored if I can help it. Making nice talky sounds gets me shit faster than making angry talky sounds.

Possibly this is a result if being raised manipulative. No idea. Kinda don't care.

Point is, I'm one of the psychopaths that, while not immediately useful, is also not actively a problem. So no-one will listen when i talk about everything being gray and cold and exhaustingly complicated because people make no sense and almost all my emotions are dialed so far down it's a joke i lack the ability to laugh about.

No one has believed me that the one emotion I have in spades is rage and that i have to literally consciously work out from first principles why violence is a bad option as my sole method of controlling that, my ONLY EMOTION OF ANY STRENGTH, which I cannot allow myself to feel for any length of time because I start losing sight of that consequence model and I worry i'll make a mistake I can't unmake. Or that it took me two decades to learn not to smash things I need when someone looks at me funny. Or just smash them.

Or that i have to keep my hands in my pockets and chant "don't steal" in my head some days. That I wear tight clothing with shallow pockets to make stealing harder so that, like guns, I simply can't do it easily and therefore short circuit my behaviors.

People are more than happy to hurl me at any problem that requires a lack of emotion, but if I dare to be less than appropriately emotional on a date? At a wedding? Funeral? If I make an error and don't diagnose it myself and perform contrition appropriately, regardless of if I knew there was a social or personal rule there? Well, I'm fired/broken up with/punished/evicted.

But I am not actively a problem for society. So none of those things are worth diagnosing. Or helping in any way.

And those that are useful? Are often fed utter horseshit and encouraged to break society. Bankers creating recessions. Generals commanding useless wars. Cops. Doctors that uphold a broken system. Politicians that pursue a broken society.

I know, I can see, that ASPD people catch a shit ton of shit cause they get blamed for "useful" psychopaths mistakes, and none of the benefits when said same psychopaths are lionized. Looking back at what it was, and what it is now, pathologically speaking, it makes perfect fucking sense for the asshats that designed a diagnosis to only include the people they don't like as the "sick" ones, and label the "good" ones as "heroes." Makes a nice distinction there between people we want to demonize and people we want to lionize for having the exact same chemical imbalance, and neatly creates a fall group when any of the "heroes" trip up. Silence those who can't cope, elevate those that can, treat neither effectively, and if an elevated one stops coping, we can just "realize" they were "sick" all along, and oh, yeah, those sick people are so bad, you guys, nothing like those heroes at allllllll.

I am...so tired of this society bullshit.

So anyway, I'm a psychopath. Paranoid, some schizoid. So whatever grains of salt you feel like taking, grab 'em, I guess. I'd mostly like for people like me to stop being weaponized, lionized, or punished for having a different neurotype. I'd like to be able to talk to a doctor about that and for there to be some options beyond "stop that," "get locked up," "have you considered the army" (yes, a doctor actually asked me that as a teenager) or "you seem fine, tho."

And if you resonate with this, well...I'm 32, never been arrested, mostly managed to avoid terrible shit, and I've got a life, couple partners, and I'm surviving, so like. You can do this. Lotta people wanna tell you you can't have this or that cause "you're not bad, tho." They're stupid. Y'ain't evil, just different. Don't let them get to you.

And (this is a joke) if you decide to shoot someone, do it once, correctly. Saves time.

#actuallymentallyill #vent #tw violence