#mention of conditioning

[kindnessoverperfection]

Please, if you can, take a moment to read and share this because I feel like I'm screaming underwater.

NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) stigma is rampant right now, and seems to be getting progressively worse. Everyone is using it as a buzzword in the worst ways possible, spreading misinformation and hatred against a real disorder.

I could go on a long time about how this happened, why it's factually incorrect (and what the disorder actually IS), why it's harmful, and the changes I'd like to see. But to keep this concise, I'll simply link to a few posts under the cut for further reading.

The point of this post is a plea. Please help stop the spread of stigma. Even in mental health communities, even around others with personality disorders, in neurodivergent "safe" spaces, other communities I thought people would be supportive in (e.g. trans support groups, progressive spaces in general), it keeps coming up. So I'm willing to bet that a lot of people on this site need to see this.

Because it's so hard to exist in this world.

My disorder already makes me feel as if I'm worthless and unlovable, like there's something inherently wrong and damaged about me. And it's so much harder to fight that and heal when my daily life consists of:

Laughing and spending time with my friends, doing my utmost best to connect and stay present and focused on them, trying to let my guards down and be real and believe I'm lovable- when suddenly they throw out the word "narcissist" to describe horrible people or someone they hate, or the conversation turns to how evil "people with narcissistic personality disorder" are. (Seriously, you don't know which of your friends might have NPD and feels like shit when you say those things & now knows that you'd hate them if you knew.)

Trying to look up "mental health positivity for people with npd", "mental health positivity cluster bs", only to find a) none of that, and b) more of the same old vile shit that makes me feel terrible about myself.

Having a hard time (which is constant at this point) and trying to look up resources for myself, only to again, find the same stigma. And no resources.

Not having any clue how to help myself, because even the mental health field is spitting so much vitriol at people with DISORDERS (who they're supposed to be helping!) that there's no solid research or therapy programs for people like me.

Losing close friends when they find out, despite us having had a good relationship before, and them KNOWING me and knowing that I'm not like the trending image of pwNPD. Because now they only see me through the lens of stigma and misinformation.

Hearing the same stigma come up literally wherever I go. Clubs. Meetings. Any online space. At the bus stop. At the mall. At a restaurant. At work. Buzzword of the year that everyone loooves loudly throwing around with their friends or over the phone. Feels awesome for me, makes my day so much better/s

I could go on for a long time, but I'm scared no one will read/rb this if it gets too much longer.

So please. Stop using the word "narcissist" as a synonym for "abusive".

Stop bringing up people you hate who you believe to have NPD because of a stigmatizing article full of misinformation whenever someone with actual NPD opens their mouth. (Imagine if people did that with any other disorder! "Hey, I'm autistic." "Oh... my old roommate screamed at me whenever I made noise around him, and didn't understand my needs, which seems like sensory overload and difficulty with social cues. He was definitely autistic. But as long as you're self-aware and always restraining your innate desire to be an abusive asshole, you're okay I guess, maybe." ...See how offensive and ignorant that is?)

Stop preventing healthcare for people with a disorder just because it's trendy to use us as a scapegoat.

If you got this far, thank you for reading, and please share this if you can. Further reading is under the cut.

NPD Criteria, re-written by someone who actually has NPD

Stigma in the DSM

Common perception of the DSM criteria vs how someone may actually experience them (Keep in mind that this is the way I personally experience these symptoms, and that presentation can vary a lot between individuals)

"Idk, the stigma is right though, because I've known a lot of people with NPD who are jerks, so I'm going to continue to support the blockage of treatment for this condition."

(All of these were written by me, because I didn't want to link to other folks' posts without permission, but if you want to add your own links in reblogs or replies please feel free <3)

#actuallynpd #signal boost #actuallyautistic #mental health awareness #narcissistic personality disorder #people also need to realize that mental health professionals aren't immune from bias #(it really shouldn't come as a shock that the mental health field has a longstanding pattern of misunderstanding and mistreating ppl who ar #mentally ill or otherwise ND) #the first therapist i brought up NPD to like. literally pulled out the DSM bc she could barely remember the criteria. then said that there' #no way I have it because I have low self-esteem lmaoooooo #anyway throwback to being at work and chatting with a co-worker. and the conversation turning to mental health. and him saying that #he tries to stay informed and be aware and supportive of mental health conditions & that he doesn't want to be ignorant or spread harmful #misinformation. and then i mentioned that i do a lot of research into mental health stuff and i listed a bunch of things. which included #several personality disorders. one of which was NPD. #and after listening to my whole ass list he zeroed in on the NPD and immediately started talking about how narcissists are abusive and #he knew someone who had NPD and how the person who had it had an addiction and died from the addiction in a horrible way and he #was glad he did #fun times #or when i decided to be vulnerable and talk abt my self-criticism/self-hatred bc i knew my friends also struggled w that and i wanted to #support them by sharing my own coping methods. and they both(separately!) started picking and prodding at my npd through the lens of stigma #bc i'd recently opened up to them abt having it. they recognized self-hatred as a symptom and still jumped on me for it. despite me #trying to share hurt vulnerable parts of myself to help them and connect with them. #again..... fun times

[ventiswampwater]

POSSIBLY IN MICHIGAN (1983) dir. Cecilia Condit

happy pride to these lesbians in particular

#sharon and janice supremacy #they were really out there doin the damn thing #u cannot talk abt romantic cannibalism without mentioning these two. u simply cannot................. #possibly in michigan #cecilia condit #mine

[clouvu]

Offering lil doodles of them bc my eyes have been opened

#genshin impact #furina #clorinde #furinde #furina's character story 5 and her voicelines about clorinde has left me so mentally ill in the head #THE WAY FURINA FELT THAT SHE WAS NO LONGER WANTED AND ALMOST IMMEDIATELY CLORINDE POPPED UP TO INVITE HER TO A LIL GATHERING AMONG FRIENDS #NOT TO MENTION THAT CLORINDE IMMEDIATELY OFFERED TO PAY FOR HER TO HAVE BETTER LIVING CONDITIONS #EVEN WHEN DECLINED SHE STILL HELPED FURINA TIDY UP HER NEW APARTMENT BEFORE THEY WENT OUT FOR DRINKS TOGETHER #the way clorinde was no longer bound to any sort of contract but still went to visit furina and help her out of her own volition is so????? #AND the fact that little miss stonefaced 24/7 clorinde actually SMILED at furina???? chewing on aluminum foil #oughhhh they scratch at my brain so nicely #ALSO!! ALSO!! THE LONGING IN FURINA'S VOICE WHEN SHE SAYS HOW MUCH SHE TRUSTS CLORINDE AND MISSES HER IS SO!!!!!!!!! #crawling on the walls and howling as we speak #4.2 had made me already so deranged about furina to the point where she shot up from being just a funky lil guy to straight hyperfixation #I just thinjk;;;;;;; she deserves to be happy for once in her life (and have her lil emotional support bodyguard gf w/ her to smooch)

[martyr-inthedark]

Make your Whumpee tired.

Whumpees that have been deprived of sleep by Whumper, so much so that they don't remember how to walk in a straight line and can't figure out whether the recent appearance of little black bugs in their cell are real or a hallucination.

Whumpees that can't get a full night's rest. They doze off, only to be jolted awake by their own anxiety of not knowing when Whumper would come back. Perhaps they are awakened by phlegm-coated coughs induced by their illness. They are awakened by nightmares, or by Caregiver who is worried they may succumb to hypothermia, or by a thunderstorm, or the rough blanket scratching their open wounds, or so on.

Whumpees who pull all nighters to protect their friends or lovers.

Whumpees whose eyes burn when they finally can close their eyes. Whumpees whose muscles twitch, who can't stop yawning no matter how hard they try to stifle it. Whumpees with dark, glassy eyes. Whumpees who are slow to react or have a hard time keeping up with the conversation. Whumpees with throbbing headaches. Whumpees with brain fog and memory loss.

Whumpees who have been on the run and have over exhausted their bodies. Their muscles and joints continue to scream long after its over. Whumpees with extensive blood loss. Whumpees who are malnourished.

Whumpees whose survivor's guilt keeps them awake, wondering what they might have done differently, whether it was all their fault, or why they were the ones to live.

Whumpees whose bodies are in chronic pain or illness and who have to hide it, causing muscle and mental fatigue. They keep going with a smile until they collapse or pass out.

Whumpees who break down in tears, begging to be left alone so they can rest. Whumpees who sob when they are told that the bed in front of them is theirs to use whenever they want.

#whump #whumpee #whump prompt #caretaker #whump conditioning #tw sui implied #exhaustion #exhaustion whump #hypothermia whump #tired whumpee #injured whumpee #survivors guilt #malnourished whumpee #implied character death #implied character suicidality #tw bugs mention #hallucinating whumpee

[prokopetz]

I read a thinkpiece that characterised not identifying by your assigned gender as being equivalent to refusing an inheritance, and I'm thinking shit, imagine if it actually worked that way. Some weird old relative you only ever see at Christmas dies under mysterious and implausible circumstances and leaves you their gender in the will.

#gender #transphobia #death mention #swearing #naturally it turns out the gender is haunted #but you have to live in it for a year as a condition of inheriting their ill-gotten fortune

[scintillatingshortgirl19]

gee i wonder if the issue could be at all related to the fact that the current treatment plan for his chronic pain consists solely of FUCKING IBUPROFEN

#i get that they're trying to make the point that house's pain flares with emotional distress #which is true! he does have psychological problems that need to be addressed! #but also. also. in addition. #there's this other little tiny minor factor worth mentioning which is #there is muscle. MISSING. from house's THIGH #ibuprofen and hobbies are not a suitable treatment plan for this condition #i'm not very knowledgeable about chronic pain but there have to be more options than this or vicodin #yes house has addiction issues #but what's happening here is not about that!! #he literally needs MEDICAL TREATMENT and he's being denied it! #house staying clean from the specific drug he was addicted to AND being on a proper pain management plan #are not mutually fucking exclusive #house md #house season 6 #house 6x2 #i need a tag for #house's chronic pain #house pain management #op

[uncanny-tranny]

The first mistake I see people make is assuming there are completely "nonviolent" ways to be transphobic. It seems like some people conceptualize transphobia as being either violent (which is always physical in some way) or nonviolent (which is "simple" emotional, verbal, or psychological abuse)

It seems, also, that people presume that when somebody has "noble" intentions for their transphobia - "I'm trying to save you!" for instance - it is suddenly nonviolent. Consider, though, how a transphobe would "save" a trans person. Would they allow that person to exist unadulterated (including being able to transition), or would they prefer to put them through conversion therapy, or revoke their access to bodily autonomy, or force them to have children, or anything that will prevent them from transition or even identifying as trans or otherwise tying them down with the obligations that prevent transition or identifying as trans?

There is no true "nonviolent" way to be transphobic because being transphobic relies on denying one the ability to autonomy and personhood. Fundamentally, even the transphobes who "want to save us" only do so in their own self-interest to save them from the horror of knowing that more people than they are alive and thriving.

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #transphobia #transphobia tw #it's just very frustrating when i see people act as though some transphobia is more acceptable than other forms... #...simply because it isn't overt with how much it wants trans people eradicated... #...transphobes will do whatever it takes both for their comfort and also to wipe the world clean of trans people #in some cases it looks like infantilism ('youre so young! poor thing you're being MANIPULATED😭') or... #...it could look like outright cut-and-dry violence (conversion therapy or physical abuse). it all depends on the situation... #...what stays the same is the sheer level of hatred and scorn for trans people and the trans condition... #...and it is in that hatred and scorn that you find that ALL forms of transphobia are united... #...so it is just as important to combat ALL forms of transphobia #abuse #abuse tw #abuse mention tw

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

"witches are EVIL they steal men's SEMEN" nadja you eat people

#wwdits #what we do in the shadows #nadja babe you're my favorite protagonist but your hypocrisy is breaking through the roof/glass ceiling/stratosphere #...which may well be why you're my favorite protagonist #in conclusion #GIRLBOSS (murder your (undead wraith) employees at the first sign of unionizing) #GATEKEEP (make your familiars serve for decades knowing they will die from hazardous working conditions #WAY before u actually have to follow through on the whole promise of eternal life thing) #GASLIGHT (you're a vampire who is presumably vulnerable to fire and yet u still somehow light your dwelling with gas lamps? #not to mention the MANY AND MULTIPLE exposed candles flames nadja what the f

[ihavealotoffeelingsaboutyoi]

I remember years ago after YOI had come out, I started looking up more MAPPA anime and suggesting them to my friends. I felt like MAPPA was doing something different with anime and their shows were beautiful and unique. I really wanted to support them. Looking back just makes looking at how far down they’ve fallen all the harder.

#yuri!!! on ice #yuri on ice #yoi #yuri on ice movie #ice adolescence #to all the dudebros like ‘no one knew who MAPPA was before AOT and JJK’ #everyone I knew who liked YOI knew MAPPA and looked up more shows from them #I would excitedly tell my friends when I new MAPPA anime was coming out because I expected it to be good #I have watched multiple shows just because they came from a studio I liked and knew made good shows #NOT EVEN TO MENTION THE WORKING CONDITIONS AT MAPPA NOW #FUCK MAPPA

[bamsara]

You got drugged!!!??

Yeah it wasn't great lol

I spent most of that day in the medical tent (I went as soon as I felt *off*) and the health workers took great care of me and were super nice so it worked out in the end. First time going to a music festival was really an experience huh

#ive already typed out what happend in some chats so idk if i want it on tumblr fully but uh yeah #ill process that trauma later or not at all im pretty chill about it #more like it just sucked #but i was given food water medicine and air conditioning and a cot so i was taken care of for those hours #they also gave me a blanket #i was alone but the workers checked up on me consistantly and were super non judgemental and sweet and one held my hair back as i threw up #so those online things talking about trusting medics at festivals are no joke they were 100% #tw drug mention #tw vomit mention

[dunkalfredo]

hi i haven't kept up with coroika at all i fell out around when the x rank team was introduced but by god i love my special little guy and i want him to experience the horrors (cruel_cisyphean_eight-shaped.floor hackless luna blaster run lights out + ink coating)

#rider coroika #coroika #splatoon #splatoon 3 #splatoon 3 side order #side order spoilers #tagging just in case #i saw the cover i know goggles goes in with hachi and not rider #but consider: i want rider to wear this gay little outfit with a popped collar #im like plotting out my own version of coroika side order in my brain just so that i can rotate rider in my brain a bunch #anyway side order rider be upon ye #art tag #also the floor i mentioned isn't really that bad if you play it right but if i was playing it in those specific conditions i would cry

[jacksprostate]

Treatise on why No, the doctor just giving the narrator of Fight Club (full name) his requested sleep medication or sending him to therapy would not have Fixed Him

Firstly, saying giving him the insomnia meds would’ve fixed him ignores the reason he has insomnia in the first place. He is so deeply upset by his place in society that he literally cannot sleep. Drugging him to sleep would not change that. That, of course, is the easy, quick response.

But with regard to therapy? The biggest flaw is that it ignores a central tenet of the book. Part of what tortures the narrator and drives him to invent Tyler is that his feelings about this collective, systemic issue are constantly reduced to a Just Him thing. His seatmates ask what his company is. He’s the only one upset at the office. He gets weird looks if he says the truth of what he does. People will do anything in their power to pretend he is the issue, as an individual, because it is far scarier to consider the full implications of the systemic issues implied by what he is saying. Everyone treats it as if the issue is him, so he goes insane. He does anything to get someone to say, holy shit, that’s fucked up, what you’re a part of is wrong. In an attempt to feel any sort of vague sympathy and catharsis, he goes to support groups to pretend to be dying, because then at least people don’t habitually blame him for his anguish. 

Saying therapy would fix him ignores that his problems are not individual. They are collective. It’s the reason the entire story resonates with people! Something deeply, unignorably wrong with society, where people would rather blame you for bringing it up than try and address it, because it feels impossible. I don’t blame people for this, really, because it IS scary. It’s terrifying to sit and feel like you’ve realized there’s something deeply, deeply wrong, but if you say something, people will get mad at you since it’s so baked into everything around you. Or, even if they agree, it’s easier to deal with the dissonance by pretending it’s individual.

And it’s not like that’s not the purpose therapy and medications largely serve, anyway. Getting into dangerous territory for this website, but ultimately, the reason the narrator was seeking medication was because it’s a bandaid. A very numbing bandaid. For these very large, dissonance causing problems, therapy does very little. Medications do what they always have, and distract you with numbness or side effects. It’s a false solution. He is seeking an individualized false solution because he has been browbeaten with the idea that this is an issue with him alone, when it's plainly clear it's not. 

Don't get me wrong. Obviously he has something wrong with him. But it's a product of his situation. It is a fictional exaggeration of a very real occurrence of mental illness provoked by deep unconscionable dissonance and anguish.  There is a clear correlation between what happens and his mental state and his job and how isolated he is. 

The thing is, even if he were chemically numbed, I do think he would’ve lost it regardless. Many people on meds find they don’t fix things. For reasons I’ll get into, but in this case because even if numbed or distracted, once you’ve learned about deep, far reaching corruption in society, it’s very hard to forget. Especially if, in his case, you literally serve as the acting hand of this particular variety. He’s crawling up the walls. 

So why do people say this?  Well, it's funny I guess. Maybe the first time or whatever. But also, often, they believe it, to a degree. Maybe they've just been told how effective therapy and meds are for mental illness, they believe wholeheartedly in The Disease Model of Mental Illness, maybe they themselves have engaged with either and have considered it successful. Maybe they or someone they know has been 'saved' by such treatments. 

But in all honesty.... What therapy can help with is mentality, it's how you approach problems. For issues on a smaller scale, not meaning they are easier to deal with my any degree, but ones that are not raw and direct from deep awareness of corruption; these are things that can be worked through if you get lucky and get an actually good therapist who helps build up your resiliency. But when your issue is concrete, something large and inescapable? It's useless. At best it can help you develop coping mechanisms, but there is a limit for that. There is a point where that fails. To develop the ability to handle something like this requires intense development of a comfort with ambiguity and dissonance and being isolated and a firm positioning of your purpose and values and and belief in wonder and all the other shit I ramble about. The things that the narrator lacks, which lead him to taking an ineffectual death knell anarchist self-destruction path. Therapy, where the narrator is, full of the knowledge of braces melted to seats and all the people that have to allow this to happen? It fails. 

And meds — meds are a fucking scam. We know the working mechanism of basically none of them, the serotonin receptor model was made up and paid its way into prominence. We have very little evidence they're any better than placebo, and they come with genuinely horrific side effects. Maybe you got lucky. I did, on some meds. On others? I don't remember 2018. The pharmaceutical industry is also known for rampant medical ghostwriting, and for creating 'off-label' uses for drugs that have gained too many protests in their original use, then creating a cult of use to then have 'grassroots' campaigns for it to be made a label use (ie, legitimize their ghostwritten articles with guided anecdotes). 

The DSM itself is basically a marketing segregation plot. It's an attempt to legitimize the disease model by isolating subgroups of symptoms to propose individualized treatments for subgroups that are not necessarily all that separate. But if the groups exist, you can prescribe more and different medications, no? Not to mention, if you use the disease model, you can propose that these diseases are permanent, or permanent until treated, considered more and more severe to offset and justify the horrific side effects of the medications. Do you know why male birth control doesn't really exist? Same reason. They can justify all the horrible side effects for women, because the other option is pregnancy. For men, it's nothing. 

And they're not bothering to invent new drugs without side effects. When they invent new drugs it's just because the last one got too bad of a name, or they can enter a new market. Modern drugs don't work any better than gen1 drugs. They still have horrific side effects. At best, the industry will shit out studies saying the old one was flawed (truth) so they can say this new gen will be better (lie). They're doing it with ssris right now. 

Fundamentally, the single proposed benefit of any of these drugs is that they numb you. To whatever is torturing you. It's harder to be depressed if you can't feel it, or if you just can't muster the same outrage. Of course, there is people who find that numbness to be helpful, or worth it. But often, it's stasis. For the people who have problems that can be worked on, it serves as a stopgap to not actually work on said problems. The natural outcome of the disease model is stagnation for those whose need is to develop skills and resiliency. It keeps them medicalized and dependent on the idea that they're diseased and incapable. Profitable. Stuck in the womb. 

I’ve been there. It’s easier, to wallow, and resist growth because it’s difficult and painful and unfair and cruel and you can think of five billion reasons to justify your languishing. But don’t listen to anyone who tells you you’re just permanently damaged, no matter how nicely they word it, no identity or novel pathologization, no matter how many benefits they promise, especially if they swear up and down some lovely expensive medications with little solid backing and plentiful off-label usage and side effects that’ll kill you. Some days it feels like they want us all stuck in pods, agoraphobic and addicted to the ads they feed us to isolate the markets for the drugs they’ve trained us to beg them to pump us with. Polarization making it as easy as flashing blue light for go, red like for stop, or vice versa. I worry about the kids, for fucks sake. That’s a bit dark and intense, and I apologize. But I want you (generic) to understand, there is a profit motive. Behind everything. And they do not mean well. They do not care about your mental health or your rights or your personhood or your growth. They care about how they can profit off of you.

For those struggling with immovable, society problems, like the narrator grappling with how his job fits into and is accepted by society while his rejection and horror in the face of it does not, it can work about as well as any other drug addiction. Your mileage may vary. From what I've seen, recovering from being on prozac for a long time can be worse than alcohol. They put kids on this shit. They keep campaigning for more. Off label, again. A pharmaceutical company’s favorite thing to do has to be to spread rumors of someone who knows someone who said an off label use of this drug helps with this little understood condition. Or, in the case of mental illness, questionably defined condition. And like, damn, I know I'm posting on the 'medicalization is my identity' website so no one will like all this and has probably stopped reading by now, but yall should be exposed to at least one person who doubts this stuff. Doesn't just trust it. Because I mean, that's the thing right?

It's so big. What would it mean, for this all to be true? Yeah, everyone says pharmaceutical companies are evil and predatory and ghostwriting, but to think about what that really entails. Coming back to the book, everyone knows the car lobby is huge and puts dangerous vehicles through that kill people. What does it mean if the car companies all hire people to calculate the cost of a recall and the cost of lawsuits? No one wants to think about the scale that means for people allowing it or the systems that have to be geared towards money, not safety like they say. Hell, even Chuck misses the beat and has the narrator threaten his boss with the Department of Transportation. And shit, man, if every company is doing this, you think Transportation doesn't know? That they give a fuck? You're better off mailing all the evidence to the news outlets and hoping they only character assassinate you a little bit as they release the news in a way that says it's all the fault of little workers like you, not the whole system. Something something, David McBride, any whistleblower you feel like, etc. 

So I don't blame you, if your reaction is "but but but, that can't be right, people wouldn't do it, they wouldn't allow it" or just an overwhelming feeling of dread that pushes you to deny all of this and avoid thinking about it. Just know, that's in the book. That's all the seatmates on the flights. That's all his fellow officemates. It's easier to pretend, I know.

But think about, how the response fits in with the themes of the book. The story, as a movie too. What drives the narrator’s mental breakdown? How would you handle being in his position? How would you handle being his seatmate? It’s easy to say you’d listen. But have you? Have you had any soul wrenching betrayals of how you thought society worked? How about a betrayal by the thing that promised to be the fix of the first? Can you honestly say you wouldn’t follow that gut instinct, saying follow what everyone says, that person must just be crazy, evil, rude, cruel, whatever it is that means you can set what they said aside?

For a lot of people, they can do that, I guess. Set it aside. Reaching that aforementioned state of managing to cope with the dissonance and ambiguity and despair is very hard. The narrator made the Big Realization, but he couldn’t cope. He self-destructed. Even when people don’t make the big realization consciously, they’re already self-destructing. It’s hard to escape it when it feels easier than continuing anyway. When it feels like the only option,

Would therapy fix the narrator of Fight Club? Would meds fix the narrator of Fight Club? No. He knows too much. All meds will do, by the time he’s in the psych ward, is spiritually neuter him. A silly phrase, but really. Take the wind out of his sails. 

Is he fixed if he doesn’t try to blow up town? If he just shuts up and settles in and stops costing money? If he still can’t cope with the things he’s unearthed? Do you see how this is a commentary in a commentary in a commentary?

Fight Club is an absolutely fascinating story because of this. The fact that it addresses the fallout of knowing. The isolation. The hopelessness. The spiral that results from a lack of hope. This is, I think, what resonates most with people, even if not consciously. Going insane because you’ve discovered something you wish you could unknow. It’s a classic horror story. Should our society be lovecraftian evil? I don’t think so. 

Do I think changing it will be easy? No. Lord knows a lot exists to push people who make these sorts of Realizations towards feelings of individuality and individualized solutions and denial and other distractions and coping methods. And to prevent people who make One realization from expanding on it and considering further ramifications. Fight Club itself gets into this; the isolation of men being a strict part of the role society shapes for their sex leaves them very vulnerable to death fetishes, in a sense, and generally towards self destructive violence. It helps funnel them away from substantial change and towards ineffectual change. Many things, misogyny, racism, serve to keep people isolated from one another, individualized, angry, and impossible to work with. Market segregation; god knows even appealing on those fronts has become such a classic ploy that companies do it now, the US military frames its plundering that way, etc. 

I’ve wandered a bit but ultimately, my point is this: Fight Club is a love letter to the horrors of critical thinking, and the importance of not falling into the trap of self destruction and hopelessness in the face of it. The latter is why Tyler was an anarchoterrorist instead of anything useful. The latter is why it was a death cult. It’s important to work through the horrors of critical thinking so you can do it, and stand on the other side ready to believe in each other. It’s worth it.

#fight club #my writing #uh. sorta #If you disagree with me it's fine btw. That's a given for me but I realize that's not usual for this website #my big desire is always to provoke thought and get people to think about why they think things #not necessarily to get them to agree with me. though obviously like any person i enjoy that #it was nice to type this out #also #aside from the prozac withdrawals mention and my own experience w memory loss (hilariously not even the most major of my beefs with the #medical industry! or even just the mental health industry! but its an easy nonoffensive one so #anyway i kept it nonspecific because if you go specific it becomes easier for people to just go 'oh well its That that's the problem and i #dont need to reflect at all on my drug/condition/issue/etc' #which ppl will anyway ofc. but yk #maybe theyll find it easier to ignore without the horrific specific examples but i want to leave it broad because 1. doing research and #going past the first thing you find and confirmation bias stuff is good 4 u #second. it's better imo to leave it more open for people to try and apply it broadly #whew ANYWAY #a bonafide Rant #i shouldve put #anti psychiatry #in the first few tags. i havent really looked on tumblr to see what the community 4 that is like on here because it feels like an oxymoron #on this website #but im sure it probably exists even if its used for smth else #(please change)

[justbreakonme]

Hi! I don’t know if you’re taking asks right now, but if you are, could you maybe write some whumpee deconditioning?

Oh this is right up my alley…

Caretaker sat outside on the porch, looking out over the dry grass and gravel drive. There was no one around for miles, well, no one but Whumpee.

He still didn’t know much about where he had come from, mostly that it was not a place he ever wanted to visit. He’d found him curled up in the barn, wedged in between hay bales as tightly as he could managed, like that was gonna do much against the below freezing temperatures. Caretaker was glad he’d thought to double check on the cats, otherwise, who knows if the kid would have made it through the night.

He’d yanked him inside and ripped into him, saying his parents were probably worried sick, and only when he’d ran out of breath did he see the hand shaped bruises, the burns…the belt marks. All through everything, whumpee hadn’t managed a word, merely stared blankly into the middle distance, trembling like a leaf.

That was almost three months ago now, and snow had given way to dead grass and the beginnings of spring, and Whumpee had stayed with Caretaker.

He slept in a real bed, not in a barn, and they ate meals together at a proper kitchen table, and he helped out around the property like he’d lived there all his life. And that was where the normalcy ended.

It was like he couldn’t remember, not in his mind at least. But the things he did were a different story. As horrible as it was, he had expected the flinching. The skittishness, the way he avoided fireplace pokers and belts like the plague. But there were other things that he just hadn’t puzzled out yet.

The biggest problem was that there was something about books that set him on edge. Caretaker was an avid reader, and there was not much he liked better than cracking open a book and sitting back on the porch, but whenever he did, whumpee acted…odd.

He’d watch from the kitchen window, then duck away when he’d look back, and if, after he looked back, he got up and came inside, it would trigger a panic attack like nothing else.

Usually, when whumpee got scared, they went still, and silent, aside from quick, short breaths, his head ducked and his hands clasped in front of him. Those were…easier, in some ways, to deal with. He had worked out that whumpee was needing forgiveness, or reassurance that he hadn’t done anything wrong, or that no one was mad at him. Once that “sunk in”, he would be able to calm down, slowly, but better the others.

The “book scares” as he had started to refer to them in his own mind, would have whumpee scrambling for cover, his hands up in a defensive position, and he would beg and cry that he was sorry, that he would be better, that he didn’t mean to, but he would never say what he was sorry for, and no amount of questions, in the moment or after it, would help caretaker figure it out. It was like even whumpee wouldn’t know.

He didn’t even know how to really calm whumpee down, all he was ever able to do was help him crash safely. He’d tell him to go sit in bed and calm down, and that he wasn’t in trouble, but he would still hear him crying for hours, and would find him passed out, exhausted, on top of the covers in his bed, tear tracks still drying on his cheeks.

He just…couldn’t figure it out.

Caretaker could feel whumpees eyes on the back of his head through the open window. He fought the urge to turn around, and instead, had an idea. He faked a yawn, and a satisfied sigh, and closed his book. He stretched, and snuck a sideways glance over his shoulder to see him watching.

He looked…hopeful, but still ducked away Was that a good sign? He took a deep breath, and decided to try something else. Very gently, he called. “Hey, Whumpee? Could you bring me a pen?”

He didn’t know what to ask for, but Whumpee hadn’t had any reactions to pens or the like, and it was something he could find easily.

“Y-Yes sir!”

Caretaker winced at the eager panic in his voice, and the way he practically ran for the cup of pens by the phone. He was out the door, presenting the pen, in seconds, his hands shaking but still lucid and not lost to panic yet.

“Thank you,” he takes the pen, and gives whumpee a smile, “would you feel like joining me?”

He gestured to the other rocking chair, and Whumpees breath hitched as he darted a glance up for just a second, searching Caretakers face.

He seemed to determine it was the right answer, and nodded, quickly. “Thank you sir.” It was like watching someone held at gunpoint, the way he sat so carefully, the white knuckle grip he held on the armrests.

“It’s nice weather out here, huh? Finally starting to warm up…” he didn’t know what else to say, hell, they’d probably had less than ten conversations that weren’t about what they were going to do or how to do something.

“Yes sir, it is…” He moved his hands to his lap, still not relaxing even the slightest, but his tone seemed less…stiff.

He wished he’d thought this out a little further, thought of more to talk about than the weather. In a way, he hadn’t planned because he didn’t really expect to get this far.

He took another deep breath, figuring he might as well not beat around the bush. “When I come and sit out here and read, I can tell it makes you worried…” Whumpee flinched, hard.

“Look, you aren’t in trouble, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just want to understand why…” caretaker added quickly, shifting to turn his full attention towards Whumpee.

That proved to be a bad idea. Whumpee shrank back in the chair, eyes wide and blank like a deer in the headlights, his mouth open but no words escaping.

“Hey, hey, I didn’t bring it up because I was annoyed or anything… you’re a good kid whumpee, and I don’t want you to always feel like you’re in trouble cause you’re not. Alright?”

It didn’t seem like Whumpee could even hear him. He still just stared forward, his back pressed painfully hard up against the back of the chair.

“Hey, whumpee, you’re okay, you’re good. Can you hear me?”

The question at least seemed to trigger something, and he nodded quickly, tears starting to pool in his eyes. “Good, good, you’re doing great, kid. Look, I just want you to know that you’re okay, right?”

Whumpee nodded again, and Caretaker could tell he was holding his breath.

“It’s okay if you feel like crying, you can, you won’t be in trouble… I just was hoping to find a way to…I dunno, not scare you so much.”

There’s a moment of silence, whumpee still not breathing, then, it was like it all flooded out at once. A sob seemed to rip out of him, and he sank to his knees in front of caretaker, clasping his hands together as if in prayer.

“P-please… I don’t know what- what to do. What do you want me to d-do? I will, I will, I promise- Please, ju-just tell me, please!”

He was shaking so badly that it was making his teeth chatter, and though Caretaker couldn’t see his face from this angle, he knew it would be screwed up in fear and grief like it always was in moments like these.

Shoving his own chair back, Caretaker sank down to meet whumpee on his knees, putting a hand over his clasped ones. “I want you to be able to relax, okay? I want you to trust me. Trust that I’m not going to hurt you, that you’re safe here with me, okay?”

“I can’t!”

Whumpee immediately clapped his hands over his own mouth in horror. “I’m sorry- I didn’t- I- I-“

Caretaker could hear the way he was winding himself up, the reedy, wheezing breathing that was starting to take over, and he couldn’t let him keep going.

“Okay. Thank you for telling me.”

The tone of his voice was calm, matter of fact, but it seemed to stop Whumpee dead in surprise. He was still struggling to breathe, little hitches interrupting every breath, but at least he was still breathing.

“I’m glad that you were able to be honest, and so that we can work together, okay? That was really, really good kid.”

“R-really?” The look in his eyes was both awestruck and disbelieving, but Caretaker would prefer that over terror any day.

“Yeah. Really. Now, when you said you can’t, did you mean you couldn’t relax, or that you couldn��t trust me, or both?” Caretaker cut himself off, raising a hand gently, “It is okay, whatever answer it is. I just want to know.”

Whumpee was starting to panic again, his eyes darting from the ground then to Caretakers face and down again.

“Both.”

“Okay! Now, we can start off on the same page,” Caretaker gently squeezed his hand around both of Whumpees, “Is there anything that I can do that would make you feel more safe?”

Whumpee just cried harder for a moment, and he wondered if he had pushed too far, when he finally managed a weak “I don’t know…”

Caretaker opened his mouth to speak, but Whumpee kept going. “I want to, I want to, you’ve been nothing but good to me and I want to obey- I don’t know how- I’m so sorry…”

“Hey- Hey, kid, the last thing on my mind is obedience, I just don’t want you be afraid all the time… You’re a good kid, you shouldn’t have to feel afraid.”

To caretakers surprise, whumpee laughed, a quick short burst before seeming to get himself under control. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- I just, I doubt I’ve ever been ‘not afraid’ my whole life.” He sneaks a glance at Caretakers face, the drops his eyes to the ground again.

Caretaker sighed, feeling his heart pinch. “That’s okay… I’ve never had anyone else on this farm. We’ll just have to learn together.”

Whumpee nodded quickly, seemingly trying to get himself back under his own tight fisted control. “Whumpee, how about you sit out here with me for a bit?”

Whumpee nods, and caretaker relaxes a bit. But, he still wants to know why reading set him on such a narrow edge.

They both ease back into their seats, and caretaker looks around for a change of subject. To his delight, just at that moment, a bird flew into view and perched on one of the trees nearby.

“Hey, look at that! That’s a robin, it’s really starting to warm up. They start to show up in the spring, and that’s the first one I’ve seen this season.”

Whumpee squinted, then nodded, but, caretaker could tell he hadn’t actually seen it, only pretended to. Could he see it? The way he squinted made caretaker wonder if he could need glasses…

“Here, it’s far away, I’ve got a better picture,” slowly, he reaches for his book, and flips it open to the right page, “See?”

Whumpee still tensed up, but, didn’t panic. He looked, genuine interest showing on his face for the first time he’d ever seen.

“It’s a beautiful bird sir…” Whumpee managed, looking up again before letting his eyes fall back to the book.

“Yeah… and there’ll be more, soon.”

He nods, the slightest grace of a smile on his face.

“Is this the book you thought I would be reading? A book about birds?”

Whumpee tensed further, but still didn’t panic, thankfully. “No sir.”

“Is that…good?”

Whumpees breathing stopped, and Caretaker backpedaled. “That’s a bit to open ended, huh? Could you tell me what you thought I might be reading?”

That was better. Whumpee took a deep breath. “The Bible, sir.”

Caretaker felt his heart sink, but also relief. That explained…a lot.

He forced himself to keep the conversation light, knowing the next few questions he was going to need to ask would be hard. “No, just the bird bible I suppose…” he laughs, setting it back down, and though whumpee didn’t laugh, he did relax slightly further.

“Where you were before, after they read the bible, would you be in danger? Is that why it scares you?”

“Yes,” he takes another deep breath, then another, winding himself up once more, “We’d- We would have a sermon, after, and then… sins would be- would be forgiven.”

“Oh…” So that’s why caretaker could never figure out what Whumpee had thought he’d done wrong. He hadn’t been told yet what sins he’d committed.

“I sh-should not be afraid. Sparing the rod spoils the child, I understand, but-“ Whumpee sniffed, and tears dotted the knees of his jeans, “Sometimes I thought I was going to die…”

“Whumpee…” was all Caretaker could manage, horror taking over everything else.

“I d-didn’t want to die with- with sins unforgiven.”

“Kid… that’s- you don’t- that’s not forgiveness, that’s not fair at all…”

Whumpee just shook their head, wiping their eyes.

“Do you- do you still feel like you need to hurt to be forgiven?”

“I do. That’s- that’s what it takes.”

The uncharacteristic steadiness of that sentence made Caretaker very, very worried. “No, no that’s not right. Whumpee, have you been- when I tell you to go to your room, what do you do?”

“I-“ Whumpee had picked quickly on the shift in his tone, the underlying accusation, and seemed to brace himself for the answer he had to give, “I deal with them myself.”

“How?”

Whumpee just shakes his head again, pulling back further, and he wraps his arms around himself like a hug.

“Whumpee, you have to tell me, what have you been doing?” He needed to know, needed to stop this, stop it now.

He shook his head harder, and now Caretaker was caught with an impossible decision. He doubted he could force the answer out of whumpee, but he also couldn’t just let this go, not something like this.

“Whumpee, please, please just tell me. Please don’t make me have to ask again…” He wracked his brain for what was in his room, how any of it could be used in the wrong way, but he was drawing a blank…

“Are- are you going to make me stop?”

“Yes, I have to. You can’t- it’s not- I’ll forgive you, okay? I’ll do it, if you need to be forgiven, I’ll do it. Okay?”

Whumpee looked up, not just a quick glance but held his eyes for a moment. Fear, relief, sadness, all flashed by, but the one that held steady through it all was this bone deep, haunting sense of exhaustion… Whumpee looked defeated.

“I unscrew the top of the bed post… the screw in the bottom is sharp, but, it’s not enough. Please…” Whumpee reached forward with both hands, grabbing one of Caretakers, “please forgive me, please!”

“You have to tell me what you did wrong…” he’s stalling, trying to avoid having to deny Whumpee the “forgiveness” that he wanted so badly.

“I don’t know- I don’t know but I know I have done wrong, but I always do- I know it!”

“Whumpee-“

“You said, you said you’d do it-“

“But I have to know what you did, because I don’t think you did anything wrong.”

Whumpee let go, hitting his forehead with the heels of his hands as he sobbed. “You said! I n-need- I need to be forgiven- I need to be punished!”

“No you don’t!” Without realizing, he had reached over and grabbed Whumpee by the wrists, shaking him, “You don’t need to be hurt, you don’t have to!”

Whumpee shook his head over and over, practically howling as he struggled to free his wrists.

“Please, whumpee, please stop, stop! Listen to me kid, you don’t have to do this!”

“I do, I do, I do I do I do!”

“No, you DON’T!”

Caretaker hasn’t meant to yell, and he instantly regretted it. Whumpee stopped, his chest heaving as he tried to stop crying.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he loosens his grip on whumpees wrists, “Forgiveness doesn’t mean you need to be hurt. I need you to trust me on this. I need you to try.”

Whumpee drew his hands away, hugging himself again, and nodded. Caretaker didn’t know if he nodded because he agreed, or because he was afraid not to. At the moment, Caretaker would take either, as long as whumpee would be unharmed.

“Whumpee… Just sit out here with me. I’ll get us some tea, and we’ll watch the birds. You won’t have anything to be forgiven for.”

He shakes his head again.

“What is wrong about that?”

“There should be…no joy except through God.”

“So, you think you need to be forgiven, for being happy?”

He nods quickly. “You- you’ve been so good to me, and- It means I need more forgiveness.”

Guilt settled in a heavy layer over him, even though there was no way he could have known.

“But-“ he wracked his brain for half-forgotten Sunday school lessons, “God created everything, right?”

“Every leaf, on every tree.”

Caretaker had never believed in God, but, now he knew he had to speak for him.

“Every bird? Every breeze? Every sunset?”

Whumpee nodded, eyes on his knees.

“He made every leaf of tea and every grain of sugar?”

He nodded again, eyes still down.

“Then, how could it be wrong to sit outside, and admire his creation?”

Whumpee looked up, stunned, and then out to the dry grass, the gravel drive…

“So, how about that tea?”

“Okay..”

“Great,” Caretaker felt like he could breath again, “I’ll be right back then.”

When Caretaker came back, Whumpee accepted the glass of tea carefully, and, when his eyes met Caretakers, some of the exhaustion had melted away.

They sat, and watched the birds, until the tea glasses held nothing but ice and they had looked through every picture of every bird in his book.

It would take time, and it would take work, and trust, and lots and lots of questions, but, things would get better.

#I’m trying to get to all my asks #this was written in a 4 am burst so please forgive its failings #religion mention #religious trauma #self harm #tw self harm #deconditioning #whumpee #conditioned whumpee #religious whump #whump scenario #whump prompt #whump writing #rescue

[ohitslen]

Part two of the thing and uuh also final one

Of this interaction. Because this is far from all I can give, my brain almost imploded from all the ideas

#after some very heated talks between the two brothers Vash said he would leave the house for a good time #suggesting they both needed time apart and Vash needed to learn how to live without Kni #very reluctantly Kni agreed (even if he didn’t V would have done it anyways) with the single condition of letting him know the general #details about his livings. the adress. who he was living with if he decided to room with someone and at least their phone number in case #of an emergency. Vash agreed to this and put the limit there bc Kni wanted to know more but he said no I won’t tell you about their life tf #WW who is comfortable living at the orphanage doesn’t find convenient commuting for over 2 hours everyday to get there #so he is looking for a place to stay. Vash mentioned wanting to share a rental home w someone to split the spendings #and so the stars aligned and they were already planning their moving four days after meeting each other #because that’s Vashwood for you #imagine the delight of being either WW or Kni and finding out about each other thanks to Vash again #neither of them want to tell Vash about what they think of each ither. Kni to keep some sort of face and ‘peace’ with his brother #and WW doesn’t want to leave a bad impression saying he was the cause that the brother of the guy he was planning to live with couldn’t see #with his right eye for a whole week. so they hate their guts and Vash doesn’t know the why though he can grasp a general idea. #but he always hits bullseye making both WW and Kni glance at each other silently with their eyes saying #“DID YOU TELL HIM?’’ ‘’DID-YOU-TELL HIM??’’ #trigun #vash the stampede #nicholas d wolfwood #trigun stampede #vashwood #trigun fanart #vash #wolfwood #nicholas trigun #nai saverem #millions knives #Trigun Uni! AU #lenssi draws

[wofworld]

thinking about how harrow insisted that she can only share the ninth house’s secret with gideon if they are submerged in salt water. thinking about nona’s love of the ocean and about alecto being called a ‘saltwater creature’ on two (??) different occasions. also thinking about alecto’s favor to anastasia and the irony of the saltwater pool tradition being passed down through so many generations- but only on the ninth and with no real concept of where it started…

#you see where i’m going with this #i haven’t finished nona yet. sigh. but i don’t think there’s anything to disprove this in the rest of the book #if the earth’s soul gave john necromancy then why shouldn’t she be able to take it away? at least in some sort of conditions #like say..saltwater #anyways this could just be total bullshit but i feel like there’s too many coincidences for it not to tie up somehow #maybe necromancy is less effective in the water or the water drains thanergy or something idk #forgot to mention that teacher who is a lyctor’s creation fears the ocean surrounding canaan house #he shows sympathy for alecto though? he calls her a ‘poor child’ #anyways that’s a conversation for another time #tamsyn you crazy freak. why did you need to make the river be freshwater. why can’t my posts make sense? #tlt posting #tlt #the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #alecto the ninth #ntn #tlt theories #tlt meta #alecto #nona #harrowhark nonagesimus #gideon nav #fluff’s fandom thoughts #fluff rants #the locked tomb triology #the locked tomb series #locked tomb #trending topic

[babyspacebatclone]

Fascinating article from a recommendation I got on another of my posts!

The author is Autistic, has a background in psychology, and as the link says is a professional dog trainer.

And she absolutely rips into ABA, right down to their code of ethics:

In fact, in a 24-page document detailing ethical codes of practice for [certified Behavioral Analysts] working with human beings, including children and disabled adults, the word “abuse” is used zero times.

The word “humane” is used zero times.

The word “positive” is used zero times.

[emphasis original]

To sum it up, as Millman so eloquently puts it:

[ABA] it is NOT “dog training” for children.

…I would never treat a dog that way.

[emphasis original]

#siganl boost #this is a must read #actually autistic #actually audhd #actually neurodivergent #tw aba mention #tw aba therapy #applied behavior analysis #dog training #operant conditioning #behaviorism #radical behaviorism