#im both ill and sleep deprived what a combination

[capow02]

hi hi hello hi I think you're my only sio mutual that's active anymore (': I looked up the welcome 2 elsewhere site because I just randomly remembered it earlier and honestly am I the only one who misses that era? like the bright and colorful aesthetic with the super trippy and horror visuals? the arg they put together? the dyed hair? like maaaan don't get me wrong I'm happy about the new era but elsewhere was taken from us too soon </3 maybe I need to make more art of it lol

Hi!! I'm so glad you sent this ask because I love the elsewhere era so much, I could genuinely talk about it for hours. So here, have this extremely long essay about my experience.

I discovered set it off in early 2021, so the elsewhere era was the first full album cycle I experienced. And my god it was perfect! I was on holiday when the website went up along with the teaser for skeleton, and I remember so clearly trying to figure out all the puzzles before retreating alone back to our hotel room to figure out minesweeper. The feeling of excitement as the discord was going crazy trying to figure everything out was unmatched!

And then skeleton came out, and I was genuinely obsessed. I had just moved into an awful shared house for my second year at uni, so I drowned all my sorrows by putting the song on repeat, drawing the band almost constantly and of course, making the lyric video that would start my channel! The hype was so massive, the dyed hair was iconic, I genuinely lived and breathed the multicoloured aesthetic. I bought every single merch thing I could (my room decor and t shirts still reflect this.) I got a switch that year, and immediately named my island elsewhere.

Every time the website changed, the excitement was so palpable that I dropped everything I was doing when it happened. Of course I had projector and who's in control on loop when they came out, and while I didn't like them as much as skeleton, they built so much hype for the album it was unreal. I even attended an online concert a couple months before the album came out, and it took place so late at night that I went to sleep at 5am while having to get up at 8. I was that committed.

And remember the teasers they posted to instagram and twitter? The ones they posted at 5pm every wednesday and sunday, where unscrambling the code revealed the next song title, the ones I based my elsewhere lyric videos off? I actually set an alarm on my phone so I could catch these as soon as they appeared, I was that desperate to know the next title! And of course the discord went crazy each time, the energy was unmatched. And when the album actually came out, oh my god. It was on loop for over 6 months. I thought taste of the good life was a gift from god, the amount of times I listened to it.

The hype continued throughout 2022, as demos kept coming out through the fanclub (which I paid full money for, getting one of my favourite ever hoodies in the process) and each demo seemed to be better than the next. I still have no idea how the truth about lying was cut from elsewhere and playing with bad luck stayed.

Also, I was so excited for my first ever sio concert that november. And the day 100% lived up to the expectations! I gave the boys some stickers in vip which they loved, and even got a hug from zach after explaining an obscure talk it off reference on one of his stickers. I made some great friends in line, even though I got seated tickets so I had to be separated from them, but I did still get great seats. And the concert itself!! I'm so glad I can say I've seen third wheel live, even if it was in the medley. And I still remember the pure joy I felt when I waved at cody and he waved back at me during uncontainable.

By the start of 2023 and all the "scandals" and stuff started happening, along with their slow retreat off of all social media, I could tell the era was gradually ending and I was really sad. It fully sunk in when they stopped dying their hair, and I was devastated, I almost forgot what they looked like with natural hair. Although I will say I probably got more closure on the era than you guys in america, because I actually made it to one of the end of elsewhere shows here in the uk.

I have to say, that was probably the best night of my life. I paid full price for the vip this time, so I got to actually hang around and talk to them before the show. I also got standing tickets, and managed to get barrier, which was so close to the stage I could've reached out and touched cody countless times. It was wild, and I enjoyed every second. Of course, 4 days later punching bag released, marking the proper end of elsewhere. (And they haven't toured the uk since.)

I miss this era so goddamn much. I have so much nostalgia for it, even though its barely been a year since it ended, and I really wish the current era's branding was as strong. I always felt so close to the band during elsewhere, with all the talk it off episodes and them noticing me on social media. The sense of community was strong, and I miss it a lot now they've stopped posting anything. Idk, I might be biased because it was my first time experiencing a full era.

Anyway, if you actually read all that, thanks! I really needed a good reminisce. And yes, you should make more art of elsewhere! The visuals were unmatched, especially in the music videos 💜💜

#oh my god i actually spent an hour typing all of this out #can you believe elsewhere is my favourite sio album? shocking right #i definitely shouldnt have written all that #i just felt like i needed to get it off my chest #lol its 3am now i should probably go to bed #someone asks me about elsewhere and i just black out #im both ill and sleep deprived what a combination #set it off #set it off band #sio #pow asks #elsewhere

[scripttorture]

Sleep Deprivation

It’s really past time we talked about sleep deprivation. It’s a mainstay of modern torture and it’s been used for hundreds of years.

It’s also one of the clean (non-scarring) tortures that’s most regularly dismissed. The damage it causes is downplayed. And we often don’t even recognise it when it’s shown in fiction.

Sleep is a physiological need, like eating, drinking and breathing. Deprived of it we start to become ill and eventually die.

I’m breaking this down into sections, we’ll start with ‘normal’ sleep, talk about what sleep deprivation does to physical and mental health and then talk about how torturers deprive victims of sleep.

I’ll finish up by talking about how the long term symptoms of torture can impact sleep.

How much sleep is enough and what is normal sleep?

There is some variation in sleep patterns between individuals but if you let someone sleep for as long as they like most people sleep for around 7-9 hours a night. When we’re ill we tend to sleep more.

If you plot life expectancy against average hours of sleep a night you get a sort of U shaped graph. People who routinely sleep less then 7-9 hours a night have shorter lives and so do people who sleep more.

But there’s no evidence that sleeping too much actually causes poor health. People who sleep more on average may have underlying health conditions that shorten their lives.

And we have a lot of evidence that sleeping less causes poor health.

Sleep is divided into two types, REM and NREM sleep. That stands for Rapid Eye Movement sleep and Non Rapid Eye Movement sleep. Most people know REM sleep as dreaming sleep. Both are essential for human health.

All animals that have been tested sleep but only birds and mammals have been shown to dream. There’s also considerable variation in how long different species need to sleep for, most animals seem to need more than humans.

We sleep in cycles, chunks of time roughly an hour and a half long when we go through different stages of sleep. The initial cycles focus heavily on NREM sleep and as the night goes on we have more REM sleep, but every cycle contains a little of both.

The time of day we’re most likely to naturally fall asleep and naturally wake up varies with age in a non-linear fashion. Young children wake up early and tire early. Teenagers famously stay up late and sleep in late. The elderly wake up incredibly early and sleep incredibly early. This variation, along with individual variation, is thought to serve a protective function: humans are pack animals and varied sleep patterns within a group ensure that someone is awake most of the time in case of emergency.

It’s perfectly healthy for the time we want to go to sleep to vary, but the amount we need to sleep is more or less consistent after infancy.

Drugs, including caffeine, may effect our ability to fall asleep or our perception of how sleepy we are but they do not fulfil our need for sleep.

Keep in mind that even a character who is voluntarily depriving themselves of sleep will feel the effects. Repeated experiments have shown that we can be consciously aware we’re sleep deprived and aware of the effects of sleep deprivation but can not compensate for them.

Your character can’t get around the effects of sleep deprivation by willpower any more then a drunk can get around the effects of alcohol. Stimulants might keep them awake and raise their reaction time but they don’t effect other symptoms and may make some symptoms worse.

We need sleep after roughly sixteen hours of being awake. After that point our ability to function well starts to drop.

Effects of sleep deprivation

We’re still in the process of pinning down all the effects of sleep deprivation. Some of these effects are things we know happen but we don’t know why.

The more sleep deprived a character is the more symptoms they’d have, both physical and mental. Some of these symptoms are apparent after just one night of poor sleep (for the purposes of this post five hours sleep the previous night). I’m going to mark these early symptoms with an asterix (*) so you can easily recognise them.

Keep in mind that these effects are cumulative.

A character who gets into a pattern of not sleeping enough will get worse rather then staying at a steady level. The longer the character isn’t sleeping the more symptoms they should develop.

Physical symptoms

Shakes

Headaches*

Muscular pain

Increased blood pressure*

Reduced alertness*

Lower immune response leading to:

Increased infections

Longer recovery times

Longer reaction times*

Worse reflexes*

Lower natural testosterone levels and lower sperm counts

Abnormal menstrual cycles and lower fertility levels

Hunger*

Poor coordination*

Increased chance of accidents*

Subtle changes to physical appearance that cause a character to appear unhealthy*

Microsleeps (short periods of unconsciousness)

Psychological symptoms

Agitation

Reduced ability to interpret other people’s emotions*

Increased feelings of distrust towards other people*

Paranoia

Hallucinations

Increased chance of substance abuse

Confusion*

Memory loss*

Impaired ability to learn*

Increased risk of developing false memories

Suicidal thoughts and urges

Delirium

Markedly reduced concentration*

Consistently underestimating their level of impairment*

Impaired ability to think logically*

Increase in depressive and anxious symptoms, possibly inducing depression and anxiety

Reduced creativity*

Reduced problem solving ability*

Reduced ability to plan*

Increased risk of violent behaviour

Symptoms similar to psychosis in the long term

Long term effects

These aren’t symptoms exactly, these are a list of conditions people who are chronically sleep deprived are more likely to get. They develop several years later, usually in the 40-50s at the earliest.

Any amount of sleep deprivation is thought to increase the chances of these conditions but the longer and more consistently a character is sleep deprived the more likely they are.

Diabetes

Cancer (various kinds)

Heart failure (and coronary heart disease)

Strokes

Dementia, especially Alzheimer’s

Higher miscarriage rates

Vaccines may be less effective if the person was sleep deprived before the vaccine was administered because the immune response is suppressed. Research on this isn’t quite as thorough yet and it isn’t clear if the smaller immune response actually equates to less immunity against the real disease.

Sleep deprivation is also thought to increase weight gain. It makes people feel hungrier and crave unhealthy foods. While not nearly as serious as the other effects here it is a noted long term effect and as such I felt it needed to be included. Especially since there is a correlation between higher weight and sleep disorders.

How torturers deprive people of sleep.

Sleep deprivation is sometimes portrayed as a ‘modern’ innovation. This is untrue. Scottish witch trials used it heavily in attempts to force confessions and the Spanish Inquisition explicitly forbid its use (they thought the delirium and hallucinations would prevent victims from truly confessing and repenting their sins).

Not all of these methods would result in total sleep deprivation (ie absolutely no sleep in 24 hours). Some of them would lead to less sleep, poor sleep or disrupted sleep. This is still profoundly harmful.

Some of these methods could fit easily with a historical setting. Some wouldn’t. Some would work better in a pseudo-interrogation or forced confession scenario. If you’re planning on using sleep deprivation in your story pick a method that you feel fits your plot and setting best.

And if you’re not planning on using sleep deprivation but you see something you have used on this list take a moment to think about what you might be implying.  

Poor cell conditions including:

-Constant light

-Constant noise

-Insufficient room to sleep

-Wet cells

-Extreme temperatures in cells

-Lack of beds and bedding

Stress positions such as forced standing. These are generally used for between 24-48 hours continuously meaning they’re automatically combined with sleep deprivation.

Constant use of restraints, especially if the restraints stop the character from fully extending their limbs or fully lowering their limbs.

Forced exercise such as forced walking (this was used in Scottish witch trials).

Forced labour for prolonged periods.

Guards disturbing the sleep of prisoners. For example shaking people awake every few minutes.

Prolonged interrogation without rest such as relay interrogation. Relay interrogation involves switching interrogators regularly so that prisoners can be kept in interrogation for over 24 hours at a time.

Starvation, hunger reduces our ability to sleep well and get as much sleep as we need. When combined with poor cell conditions poor sleep becomes inevitable.

Denying medical treatment to injured characters.

Poor sleep in survivors

Most of the long term symptoms of torture have the potential to disrupt sleep.

Depression, anxiety, hypervigilance and suicidal thoughts can all prevent survivors getting to sleep and disrupt sleep.

PTSD often involves intense nightmares which can both disturb sleep and make a survivor dread falling asleep. The majority of PTSD sufferers have difficulty sleeping.

Chronic pain can prevent sleep and many of the drugs commonly used to treat it can also lead to disturbed sleep. Like commonly abused addictive drugs pain medication can lead to poor quality sleep.

This doesn’t necessarily mean every survivor will have trouble sleep or be sleep deprived. While a lot of people with mental health problems have poorer sleep not everyone does. Medication for depression and anxiety can sometimes help people sleep and this in turn can reduce the intensity of symptoms.

Think about the combination of symptoms you’ve chosen for your character and consider whether they could lead to long term sleep loss.

Our need for sleep isn’t something we can debate, bribe or drug away. It’s a fundamental part of our biology.

Losing sleep is serious, being actively deprived of it is abusive. Be aware of what your story is doing and be prepared to show the consequences.

Sources

Why Torture doesn’t work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation by S O’Mara, Harvard University Press, 2015

Why We Sleep by M Walker, Penguin, 2017 - This book contains references to a lot of sleep research papers and is a very good introduction to the subject. Walker and Jagust conducted research together on the link between lack of sleep and Alzheimer’s. He also recommends D Dinges’ (University of Pennsylvania) body of work on sleep and concentration, response time and car accidents.

The Mystery of Sleep by M Kryger, Yale University Press, 2017

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

#tw torture #sleep deprivation #sleep #mental health #insomnia #masterpost #effects of sleep deprivation

[lovelycharmingvillain]

I SWORE I WASNT GONNA POST ANOTHER “IM SORRY IVE BEEN INACTIVE”  UPDATE BUT

a lot has happened, gonna ramble below the cut

TLDR: I had to travel across the country with my two cats to stop them getting poisoned and I can't bring them home until 2 weeks have passed 

(Both cats are absolutely fine and in peak health, do not worry)

Sooooooo we got our house sprayed with flea poison because it had slowly become infested and our cats were going nuts scratching. We took both cats, Maple and Nimbus, out of the house during the day it was being sprayed, and didn't bring them back until 4 hours after it had settled (the time frame we were instructed to wait so it would be safe for them). The guy who we hired has been our decorator for years, very trustworthy man, and also specialises in pest control as that's his main job. He assured us this stuff is completely non-toxic to cats and that he's used it in many homes with pets for 20 years, and never had a single problem.

A few hours after they're home, Maple starts acting really weird. She isn't lethargic at all, but her paw keeps hitting the ground when she's grooming, like she can't balance right, and she keeps sort of flattening herself against the floor  for no apparent reason. She was also walking strangely, with a sort of stumble, again off-balance, and keeps running off in a frantic way.

I know Maple’s every mannerism- I know what it means when she flicks her tail in a certain way, what each different meow means, when she wants food or affection or to play. I'd never seen her acting like this and knew that something was wrong, and that combined with the fact that bug poison was all over the house really concerned me, so I woke my parents up and we took her to the emergency vet. (My dad actually got really annoyed and said there was nothing wrong with her, and ohhhh boy am I glad I insisted he listen to me cause he was  about to go back to bed and he's the only one who can drive. I'm actually pretty mad about how he acted cause Maple would have died without treatment but that's a whole other rant)

The vet immediately recognises something is very wrong, basically agrees with everything I've said. She asks what chemical was used in the house and we don't know cause the guy didn't tell us, and it's about 4:00 am at this point so his phone goes straight to voicemail. The vet says that all of Maple’s symptoms fit with this poison that is super toxic to cats and potentially fatal, but she can't be sure what's going on until the pest control guy calls back, and therefore she can't use a specific treatment in case it's something else. Maple’s legs were twitching, and the vet said worst case scenario she has a seizure, but that cats who are poisoned usually decline really fast, so the fact that Maple isn't seizuring already is a good sign.

We leave Maple overnight at the animal hospital, and as soon as we're out of the building I break down in tears because the idea that she might die is unbearable. I don't exaggerate when I say we're closer than most humans are to each other, and I'd literally give my life for her. In the last two years, we've had two cats die almost exactly a year apart, and I couldn't take the thought of a third death. Nimbus is also super close to Maple, almost a surrogate son to her, and I was so scared of how he'd cope without her.

So now we have to figure out what to do with Nimbus overnight, since the house is potentially toxic. We eventually clear out a closet that wasn't sprayed, cover the floor with paper just to be safe, and set up a little room for him there. He hasn't shown any signs of illness but because it can progress so fast I have to stay up with him all night in case he deteriorates too.

Aaaaand it was the worst night of my life. I was already massively sleep deprived and now have to stay up till morning, both to make sure Nimbus is okay and to listen for a phone call from the vets. Basically I know that if she calls before 7:00am that's bad news, so I'm constantly on edge wondering if the phones gonna ring and I'll be told that Maple is dead. 

But thank fuck she calls at about 7:30 and says that Maple is doing really well- the treatment seemed to work wonders and now she's walking better and eating food. It turns out the poison the guy used wasn't the toxic one she suspected it was, and actually is supposed to be safe for cats, but Maple just had a very rare reaction to it.

I'll skip the details cause holy shit this is long already but she's given the all clear later that day and we’re able to pick her up. Problem is we've only got that tiny little closet that we can safely keep the cats in, and no one we know is able to look after them (the vet advised at this point that we wait at least a week before letting the cats back in the house, two weeks to be safe).

Since we can't keep the cats cooped up in that room much longer we have to find somewhere quick, and the only place we can think of is our holiday home, which is a five hour drive away. So I'm like “"well, guess I'm taking a holiday”, and lug my suitcase plus two cat carriers on a four hour train journey which was  uhhh not fun.

AND NOW IM HERE, OUT IN THE COUNTRY WITH TWO VERY CONFUSED KITTIES

So yeah, this was a very unexpected situation and I'm still recovering from the stress of it all, which is why I've only been getting out a handful of replies at a time. God, sorry this went on for so long, I just needed to vent

Both cats are doing great now! Maple is back to full health and sprinting all over the house, and Nimbus is his normal, goopy self. I can't express how relieved I am that they're okay, holy shit, I think I've had enough stress in the last few days to last a year

ANYWAY

Despite what all this rambling might suggest, I'm okay. I’ve got the house to myself and there's WiFi and Netflix and CATS- it's the dream holiday really, circumstance aside.

YEAH SO I DONT KNOW WHAT IM EVEN TRYING TO SAY BUT I LOVE YALL AND I HOPE THIS IS THE LAST MAJOR SETBACK FOR A LOOOONG WHILE

#cat #pet illness #pet injury #ooc #ramblings #personal #vent #death mention