#the messages itself were fine. like 'you should go to therapy if you are depressed' and 'respect people's religions' and

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Feeling very violent rn so here's a very controversial opinion:

Everything after season one of Young Justice sucked.

Look, I know I'm obsessed with the show but that doesn't mean it's good, it means that I'm too deep into it at this point to get out. There are good moments within the other seasons but in general? They were not good.

I'm sorry. I understand that they wanted to be creative and have a neat narrative and deep lore and all that. And they do! The narrative and lore is extremely deep.

But the plot? The characters??

Season one was an actual functional show that balanced character development, plot and dialogue with world building, lore and messaging.

The other seasons do not do that.

Season two bounced back and forth between like 16 characters. We got some development for some characters but even that was minimal compared to the character development in S1. And this isn't me complaining that the og group wasn't in S2 enough. That's not my issue. I would've loved to focus on a new group and I think that Jaime, Bart, Ed and Gar would've been super cool to focus on. I loved what character development they did have and I craved more.

But the problem? The problem is when you have 16 fucking characters that you are trying to develop and shove into a coherent plot and have actual meaningful scenes. There just wasn't enough focus on S2. Imo, S2 was meh because the characters got left by the wayside. The plot, dialogue, world building, lore and messaging was fine, there just seemed to be a lack of heart/warmth in the show because of the characters. It's hard to get invested.

Then holy shit. S3 introduced more characters. And the plot got more contrived and 'big picture' to the point that it started to abstract. It felt like nothing mattered. There were no stakes, you were just watching things happen. There was 50 fucking things happening an episode and 80% of it was lore/world building. It felt like I was studying for a fictional history exam.

I'm pretty sure the main character in S3 was earth 16. Just the entire universe. Because goddamn. We checked in on almost every living being and EVERYTHING was a plot point. Most of it wasn't even relevant to anything happening in the season. Man it was.... it was bad.

And at that point it just wasn't enjoyable at all to watch. I probably should've stopped watching but at that point the sunk cost fallacy had already kicked in. I knew it could be good. Maybe it could be good again. And people were constantly praising it as cinematic genius so I was like 'okay well maybe I'm missing the point? Maybe you aren't supposed to enjoy shows? Maybe this is fine?'

But season four broke me.

The creators heard that people were frustrated by the lack of character focus and the episodes following 72 characters and the episodes switching between 50 different subplots every episode and their solution? Their solution was to take allllllll the different unconnected plots and, instead of evenly spreading them throughout the season, jam them all into 'arcs'. So you had a bunch of mini seasons consisting of 3-5 episodes dedicated to a cast of ~5-8 characters (some of them new). And each of these episodes had unconnected a plots, b plots and c plots.

THAT IS NOT A SOLUTION

Holy shit that is not a solution.

Not to mention the overarching plot of the season, in which we had no fucking clue what was happening until the final episodes where everything became a speedrun to wrap everything up. We literally had no idea what the main plot was until it was ending.

Good god it was bad. It's bad writing!

I know people liked it and good for them. You should like what you like and you don't have to justify it. But for me it was insanity. I'm sorry I actually don't want a season long subplot where Beast Boy is depressed and sleeps all day. I would be cool with it if it had anything to do with the larger story but, surprisingly, spending five minutes watching Beast Boy sleep every episode didn't make for compelling storytelling.

I'm still not over how we didn't even know who the main villain was until the end of the season. And then all of a sudden he does a villain monologue to tell everyone his evil plan and his motives. Super cool actually. I love it when I have no idea what the stakes are for the majority of a show. It's incredibly good storytelling when you leave the audience in the dark about a major player in the plot for all of the plot. And then doing an info dump evil monologue in the final episodes to rush through the explanation??? Fucking fantastic and not a sign of terrible pacing at all.

I'm just so frustrated. The show isn't about being a show anymore. The show is an entire cinematic universe shoved into 20 something episodes. It's desperate to tell every single story at once, audience, pacing and good writing be damned.

I'm so tired of the constant praising of Greg. His whole 'i don't write endings because life doesn't have endings' and 'i don't write cliffhangers, I just leave things open ended' thing is pretentious bullshit. I'm tired of pretending it's not. A good story has an ending. Stories are not life! Some of the best shows I've ever watched had planned endings. And oh my god. The cliffhanger thing... that's just semantics my guy. Greg you write cliffhangers. You can insist they aren't but I'm going to call a spade a spade.

It's also.... I'm fine with explaining things, in fact I love it because it's an excuse to talk about the stuff I love, and I have a fairly decent knowledge of comic book lore. So, I could not only understand what was happening in the show but I was also super enthusiastic about explaining it to people. But hey Greg? Hey buddy? If 90% of your audience doesn't know what the fuck is going on and needs to be familiar with super specific obscure comic characters from the 70's then you might have a problem.

I think I realized halfway through s4 that the most enjoyment I got from an episode was when an obscure comic character would cameo in it. But then I realized that a) they generally weren't explained at all and b) 50% of the time they weren't just hanging out in the background and they were vital to the plot. So to understand who the fuck they were and what the fuck was happening you had to be familiar with... well all of DC comics actually.

Anyway this rant is getting long and unhinged and I don't think there's a point so I'm going to cut myself off even though I have so much more to say on the topic. I think my general point is just that I didn't enjoy watching the later seasons and it's chill if you did and we should all respect each other's opinions ✌️

#rant #oh also the messaging sucked #the messages itself were fine. like 'you should go to therapy if you are depressed' and 'respect people's religions' and #'figuring out your gender/sexual identity is chill af' #those are great messages. the content is great and i don't disagree #BUT HOLY FUCK #yo Zatara ranting about his religion to Fate for 15 minutes is not how you get a message across #messages are supposed to be like themes and subtle points of the narrative #it's not supposed to be a fucking psa where the characters just talk for half the episode and say the message verbatim to the audience #itd be like if in season one M'gann stood up and spent ten minutes talking about the damaging psychological effects of body image issues #and everyone else just sat there and nothing happened and M'gann just kinda spoke about it #or if Artemis was just like 'im going to do a presentation on why child abuse is bad' #its just. thats not. thats not how messages in a plot work #but they didn't develop the characters enough. so instead of s1 where the messages were blatantly obvious #we just had side character zatara who we know nothing about talk about religion like he was doing a PSA for kindergartners #because we don't know his character and he had zero focus so that was literally the only way to get the message across #and im sorry but that's bad writing. if you are sacrificing character plot and narrative for a message then maybe scrap the message #or you know actually have a developed character do the message. like write the message through a developed character so it doesn't #need to be spoonfed to the audience like we're five year olds learning different shapes from a teacher

[naynay5155]

C!Tommy’s Storyline With C!Dream Is A Very Concerning Depiction Of Abuse

Wild Title 

Okay, I’m sure that this probably isn’t too new information for anyone paying attention to the overall story of the DreamSMP, especially C!Tommy’s storyline, but I figured I’d give my two cents for this anyways. 

C!Tommy is an Abuse Victim who has gone through horrific stuff at the hands of C!Dream. This is not an arguable fact. regardless of if C!Dream had reasons for doing what he did, if C!Dream also later gets abused, or if ultimately the abuse portrayal could be considered in some ways flawed or unrealistic, that stuff doesn’t ultimately matter. Because we’ve seen what happened to C!Tommy during Exile, have seen the physical, emotional, and mental abuse he was put through. Just because they won’t call it Abuse doesn’t mean it isn’t Abuse.

Now, C!Tommy being an abuse victim is an interesting idea from a storytelling perspective. It has a lot of potential to lead to genuine character development, or to affect relationships and story beats in interesting ways. And it could be an interesting way to really say something about abuse and coping with it. 

And to an extent, an argument could be made that it has, though I’d argue the exact way those are handled in canon, but not the point. The point is, abuse is not just something that you get to gloss over. If you want to include themes of abuse in the story, a story you are making available to the public for millions to see, then there needs to be a clear and obvious message being portrayed with including abuse in the story. Preferably, that abuse is bad, and can have majorly negative effects on anyone, especially children. We don’t always get that lucky, but whatever. 

But, from my months of watching the story of the DreamSMP, and trust me I’ve been here a long while, I haven’t seen C!Tommy’s abuse being handled very... well. I could, of course, be wrong in some aspects, and maybe be misremembering stuff since this dumpster fire has been happening for a year now, and feel free to correct me or bring up more points if you know something I don’t. But, I still think that overall, I have a point of view that should be considered. 

So basically, C!Tommy is an abuse victim, right? this is easy to see, very obvious in the way he acts and behaves. Or... is it? 

Abuse is a complex topic and one that, in real life, presents itself in all sorts of forms. Many abuse victims were raised in unloving homes and ended up becoming more vulnerable to abuse later on in life as a result of that. Others never properly learned how to express emotions or turn people down and got taken advantage of. Others were abused from the start, and develop various ways of coping and dealing with that, even ways that they might not be fully conscious of themselves. Abuse is not a one-way street, it could hardly be considered a street at all given how diverse and differing the people who experience it end up developing into are. 

So I’m not saying that, if C!Tommy were a real person, that he isn’t “Being traumatized enough” or that “Why isn’t he more like what I expect him to be like?”. That is not what I’m saying at all.

What I am saying, is that C!Tommy is a fictional character who exists within a narrative, a story. And in a good story, consistency is half the battle. I, as the audience consuming the story, need to be able to look at C!Tommy and pick up on and understand the effects abuse has had on him. And these effects need to be consistent, otherwise, as an audience member, I’m going to get confused and start having questions about why he acts one way here but doesn’t somewhere else.

I also need to be able to clearly see and understand, by being given narrative stepping stones, if something is changing for his character.

As the saying goes, “Show don’t tell”. C!Tommy can’t just say he “Goes to Puffy for Therapy” offhandedly one time, as a means of handwaving away why he doesn’t really consistently act as traumatized as he used to even though it’s literally only been a few weeks, or months at most. To explain how he can jump back between being really sad and depressed about something, to joking about Women and Twitter. It seems weird if he’s able to just so seamlessly, so effortlessly, go back and forth. Almost as if he’s bouncing between OOC and IC, but that’s a whole other discussion. 

Sure, C!Tommy is representing real mental health issues, but he is, ultimately a Fictional Character existing in a story. I need to be given signs, proof, foreshadowing, to explain when he has certain reactions and behaviours in order to understand his character. And these need to be consistent, otherwise we get plotholes and general confusion.

I criticize the inconsistency and the offscreen handwaving because it’s generally not very good writing. It’s the same reason I disliked Eret’s basically off-screen-sort-of-redemption-arc. It’s the same reason people dislike it when Villains of previous seasons suddenly come back as fully reformed good guys for seemingly no reason. There is no arc, no development, no progress is shown to us. 

Because when you’re telling a story about a character having some major change or developing in some way, or having an important character trait, if I don’t see it on screen, then it didn’t happen. How am I supposed to root for C!Tommy’s progress, or understand what he’s doing to progress, if a never see his coping mechanisms? His therapy appointments? 

You can’t just say something, or inconsistently portray something, and expect me to jump through hoops to connect these nearly transparent dots that keep getting thrown around. 

Show don’t tell. Show me Tommy getting better, because otherwise you’re just telling me he made character development, and showing me this completely different character as proof. No, last I remembered C!Tommy was having panic attacks and yelling when C!Dream was even mentioned. You can’t tell me that a day later he can interact normally after days of being in the prison and a month of being dead.

Or, if you are gonna have him flip flop back and forth, don’t have it be so sudden and jarring, give an explanation. Is he faking being fine? Does he have memory issues? C!Tommy doesn’t read to me as the type who’s good at suppressing his emotions, he wears his heart on his sleeve. So you’re going to have to explain, clearly, in a way that isn’t ambiguous, what’s happening with C!Tommy here.

You’re not really saying anything about the abuse C!Tommy goes through, if all of that trauma is automatically wiped from the story when the writers get too lazy or too scared to keep it in. At best, you are showing abuse and trauma for the sole purpose of showing it, with no intention of properly dealing with and addressing it in the story. At worst, you are basically just doing torture porn. 

Pain, Hurt, Trauma for the sake of it. Not with any goal in mind. Just for the drama of it, or to hurt the audience. 

And then your audience is just supposed to take that content in uncritically, and they gain no true understanding of how abuse victims survive and cope after their traumatic treatment.

Exile Arc sure did a good job at making C!Tommy suffer. But as soon as that arc ended, a lot of the stuff that happened in it went completely glossed over and unaddressed for a long while. That might have been fine in the lead-up to Doomsday, since a lot of plot stuff had been going on and stopping to handle C!Tommy’s issues might (Might is heavily doubted cause it certainly isn’t impossible) mess with the pacing a bit. But then after Doomsday, there isn’t really any excuse to put it off. Because nothing was really happening for a good while, and nobody had anything to do plotwise. 

And this became even more true with C!Dream being locked in Prison. Nothing was really happening, so what was stopping the story from taking the time to properly discuss and deal with this stuff?

Well, nothing really. So, the Hotel Arc happened. And oh boy, was it a mess. 

So, C!Tommy being angry at C!Dream for the abuse and trauma he has suffered at Dream’s hand isn’t an issue. It’s an incredibly common thing for victims to feel angry at their abusers, and to even go so far as to wish for vengeance against them in some way. And that’s a totally valid and fine feeling. 

You’re hurting, you’re scared, you’re in pain. I get that. When we’re hurting, we don’t always act rationally or healthily.

But, ultimately, that rage, and hurt, and want for vengeance is not a healthy thing to hold onto. In many circumstances with an abuse victim wanting to inflict pain back on their abuser, we run into various problems. 

For one, getting vengeance on your abuser is quite frequently going to give you more emotional pain than it will fulfilment. Especially if you are young, or are letting this want for vengeance take over your entire livelihood. It does you no good ultimately, to attempt to bring pain to the person who hurt you, because not only will you often be unsuccessful, you frequently won’t find emotional healing and stability in that. 

(The only exception to this rule being if ignoring them or moving on from them isn’t an option for you right now.)

Actions have consequences, and if you invest more time in that person who hurt you, then you have no time to work on yourself or the relationships around you. You have no time to heal, and this can become self-destructive.

Spending time around an abuser, as a victim, is in all likelihood just going to upset you more. You’re retraumatizing yourself by spending time around them, and as you make attempts to give them their comeuppance, you could possibly end up internalizing the methods they used on you, and just end up perpetuating the cycle of abuse again. 

And even if you have no problem with doing that to this particular person, consider how fully internalizing these abusive behaviours could affect your friends or family. Frequently, even when they don’t mean to, abuse victims can internalize the things that they went through and then use those same behaviours against people in their life later on. Being shitty to your support system because of what you went through isn’t a good move, for you or them.

Basically just, an Abuse Victim has more to gain from working on themselves while finding ways to heal and overcome their trauma and abuse, than they do spending their time and energy on the abuser. Its frequently unhealthy, distressing, and self-destructive to indulge in that too much.

(Of course, I don’t speak for everyone, but from what iIve looked into and seen, this is the healthiest method of actually healing from your abuse. That doesn’t mean you just... leave your abuser alone and never address or talk about what they did, you don’t let them get away with it, of course not. It just means you don’t waste your mental well being and time obsessing over someone, especially someone who has hurt you so much.

You deserve better than that. You deserve to heal.)

Now, let’s get back to C!Tommy. 

C!Tommy, instead of finding a proper means of coping with his issues (proper therapy, diagnosis for his issues, forming and maintaining healthy support systems, focusing on things he loves, etc) is shown to repeatedly focus back on C!Dream. When he was making Big Innit Hotel, it did seem like he was to an extent finding ways to cope with his shit. He was still kinda shitty and his hotel was not exactly made and run by the most morally great standards, though I suppose I can’t expect too much when he is a very traumatized teen and doesn’t really know what he’s doing. 

But, ultimately, this all fell apart when he got locked in Pandora’s Vault with C!Dream. Arguably, it was already falling apart the moment he decided to keep pursuing C!Dream even when he was locked up.

See, the thing is, C!Tommy can never just… have trauma. Having trauma that he can healthily and methodically work through is something that for him as a Character, is basically impossible. His character is an angry one, one built on spite and childishness, and who holds the mantle, unfortunately, of “Spunky Male Protagonist In A YA Novel”. So, his mental health issues can never just be a struggle he has to cope with, especially not when the DreamSMP can never seem to have anything between “A lot is happening right now omg” or “Literally nothing is happening and nobody is playing on the server at all omg”.

Instead, his issues have to be seen as a battle, and they fuel the narrative of the story. Him having been abused by C!Dream cannot just exist as a thing that he as a person has to work through slowly with the help of others around him. It has to be seen as this Epic Triumph Against Evil, another battle of Tommyinnit VS Dream on the DreamSMP, a classic Villain versus Hero fight.

This, of course, isn’t too great. By C!Tommy’s abuse plotline being framed in this manner, it makes it so that C!Tommy is constantly obsessing over his abuser and recklessly throwing himself into dangerous and triggering situations is some attempt at an “Epic Battle With Evil”, rather than this being treated like the self-harm it actually is. And yes, it is self-harm, a form of it. 

C!Tommy uses his trauma and issues as fuel for the story, making it so that its impossible for him to truly progress and a character, and the moment he does start growing, he has to get retraumatized again so he goes right back to where he was.

C!Tommy does not become a better person when he’s around C!Dream, nor does he find any form of fulfilment in being around him. He gets shaky and panicky at just the sight of him. He regularly has violent and explosive outbursts at just the mention of him. When C!Dream talks to him, he gets nervous and basically can’t help but listen due to conditioning he still listens to. 

When C!Tommy went to go visit C!Dream the first time in Pandora’s Vault, he brought with him stacks of TnT. He did it because he wanted to mimic what C!Dream had done to him in Exile, where he would take all of C!Tommy’s newly gained items and blow them up underground for dramatic effect. 

C!Dream did this for control over C!Tommy, to manipulate him, for his suffering.

And C!Tommy wanted to do this to C!Dream, because he was feeling vindictive. 

When C!Tommy got into the prison, he mocked C!Dream, hit him repeatedly, and tried to boss him around. He made him write ridiculous books and verbally berated the man. He did this in a feeble attempt to gain some feeling of control over C!Dream. This, evidently, did not work. At best his success was momentary. And this sense of achievement he gained was gained through projecting his abuse trauma onto someone else.

He repeated the cycle. 

After he got brought back from the dead and let out of the prison, he was much much worse. C!Tommy was now paranoid, anxious, constantly thinking about C!Dream, and had his mindset solely on getting revenge on him, by killing him. 

It got so bad, he ended up doing lacklustre “Exposure Therapy” to help himself not panic when he went into Pandora’s Vault to kill C!Dream. It got so bad he dragged C!Tubbo and C!Ranboo into this, putting them in danger and putting more pressure on another two teenagers’ shoulders. 

It got so bad, that Ghostbur died, C!Sam closed off even more, and C!Wilbur came back. 

Objectively, C!Tommy leaving C!Dream alone would be the better thing for everyone. And yet he keeps repeating the cycle. Because C!Tommy is not meant to grow, learn and heal. He is made to suffer. 

The problem is not so much showing an unhealthy depiction of a mentally ill or traumatized person. Because trauma and mental illness and the effects of abuse are not always pretty, and they shouldn’t always have to be portrayed and pretty or sympathetic to be accurate. 

It becomes a problem when you get this depiction of C!Tommy’s coping being presented uncritically to an audience of a lot of underaged and young people. 

Nobody in canon, whether they be adults or fellow teens, has ever tried to question C!Tommy’s methods for coping. C!Ranboo and C!Tubbo just limply went along with his plans for Exposure Therapy with no consideration of if this was a good idea. No adults really offer to genuinely step in and help C!Tommy deal with his shit, and the ones that do leave him or get corrupted in some way, often leaving him with more trauma as they do. 

C!Puffy’s therapy methods are dubious at best, and the most we ever see of her actually helping C!Tommy is her humouring his toxic behaviours, and C!Tommy making offhanded mentions to vague therapists appointments we never see. 

C!Technoblade stopped giving a shit as soon as C!Tommy walked off the screen. C!Wilbur was dead, and now that he isn’t he certainly isn’t helping C!Tommy. C!Phil isn’t C!Tommy’s dad and has no obligation to do anything for him as a result. C!Ranboo has the backbone of a chocolate eclair. C!Tubbo is too busy repressing his own trauma to help C!Tommy with his. C!Sam is being ruled by the prison and C!Quackity. C!Quackity has become an Ancap. 

Nobody in this story is a reliable or trusted person to C!Tommy, who could properly tell him his methods are unhealthy and give him better alternatives. And as a result, nobody is able to tell the audience that C!Tommy is wrong 

Unreliable Narrators are only effective when the narrative in some way has their unreliableness pointed out or proven to the audience. If you go into a story with the assumption that everybody watching will be able to see past C!Tommy’s POV and not take him at face value, then you are naive. Especially when this fandom is made up of many teens and children. 

I only know C!Tommy’s methods are unhealthy because I care way too much and do my research. A vast majority of the world doesn’t have the same understanding and education on these topics, especially not children and teenagers. A good chunk of people, especially neurodivergent and mentally ill people, could very well take the story at face value and automatically assume that what Tommy’s doing is actually a good coping mechanism because they don’t know any better.

There is no clarification or safety net for preventing misinterpretation. And being of the opinion that “Well, they should know better than to trust a bunch of Minecraft Youtubers for this stuff” or “We can’t expect them to be psychologists! You expect too much” is just… not helping. 

Because I shouldn’t have to explain why children and teenagers, especially those that are using these people to cope, are not always going to make level-headed and common-sense decisions. They will be influenced by these Content Creators, whether we think it’s “Stupid” or not. 

And I can say with certainty that, while yes, this might be a bit much to expect from a bunch of British/American white guys who play Minecraft to handle, may I also point out that nobody fucking made them put this stuff in the story. There are ways to write a story without stepping outside of your realm of true understanding. Nobody begged these MCYTs to go and make torture porn for a 16 year old, nobody asked them to touch on topics they have no fucking clue about. 

They put that in themselves. And we have the right to point out the problems and flaws in it, and criticize them for not handling this stuff better. 

You don’t start applying for a job you don’t meet the requirements for. You don’t start an expensive project you can’t finish. 

You don’t include elements in a story you aren’t willing to fully go through with and address in a proper and sensitive way. 

#hope this makes sense #dreamsmp roleplay #dream smp critical #dreamsmp #dream smp #character analysis #c!tommy #c!dream #tw abuse discussion #tw abuse #negativity #dsmp critical #critical dsmp

[cloveroctobers]

i was wondering if you could do an imagine where olivia is sexually assaulted and after her behaviour around the house drastically changes until she eventually tells jordan + her parents? i just wanted to see a protective, baker family imagine that focused on her :))

TW: mentions of s******* assault, trauma, bodily fluids, college parties, panic attacks, depression, etc…

A/N: took me a minute to decide if I wanted to write this piece since it’s slightly triggering for myself and can be to others. Not overly detailed ofc but I hope when I do fully get back into writing we’ll have some happy moments to come! Especially for my girl Liv.

SOMETHINGS WRONG — O. Baker

Olivia Baker felt like she could make a list of what she can now label herself as which held negative connotations:

The pill popper

The drunk

That mixed girl

The other twin

The girl with no solid friends

The boyfriend-stealer

The wannabe woke girl

And now the victim

She couldn’t get her mind to grasp that. That this happened to her, that she let this happen to her. If she was in her right mind she would realize that this isn’t something she could ever blame herself for but she knew others would, if she ever let them know. But she wouldn’t, she couldn’t.

What was supposed to be a fun weekend in Atlanta turned into a moment she wouldn’t forget. It was all fun and games, it actually felt like the one true moment in time where she felt free and happy. Surrounded by good people with good intentions, which only consisted of Spencer, Jordan, and Simone. These were her main people, her right hands, and her go-to but that seemed to fade the night her life drastically changed—yet again.

The events that occurred that night were burned into her mind in spurts. Olivia couldn’t piece them all together but she knew. She knew something was wrong with the way that she felt even though she was dressed as if nothing occurred. She knew the moment she pulled herself off the floor in her own drool to look at herself in the mirror that something was wrong. She knew it in her appearance and in the way that she felt. Her confirmations were proven correct when she decided to use the bathroom, what she felt, and what she saw.

She was gagging and struggling to breathe. Olivia Baker knew something happened to her when she realized she woke up alone on the cold bathroom floor. She was doing so well and thought she was stronger than this, how could this be added to the things of what happened to her or what she allowed to happen to her? Her mind was weak, somewhere in the night she let her guard down and now she was here. It all felt like her fault.

What will they say about her now?

Olivia’s experienced a handful of trauma in her teenage life before but THIS…this was something else. She felt like she was going to pass out again until she found the strength to let the anxiety take its course in subsiding. Pushing herself up with a huge whimper and wince, she began searching the bathroom for her phone as it was not on her body. She remembered the first thing she wanted to do was document this because as soon as she got back to Simone’s aunt’s house she was going to wash away the filth she felt.

Perhaps that was another mistake but she couldn’t erase what she felt beneath and on her skin. It felt like Olivia was moving in slow motion searching the fancy bathroom, stumbling and shoving items out of the way in search of her device. When she slipped on something in the bathroom, she failed to catch herself, her cheek colliding with the tile floor, she knew that would leave another bruise along with the rest on her body. Her eyes connected with the object which looked to be covered in what appeared to be blood.

With a shaky finger she reached out to it, and recoiled back as her finger became coated in the copper stench. That’s when the tears began to cloud her vision and she wanted to cover her cries but she felt frozen, like she did hours prior. So she cried until her body ached internally and furthermore externally, and with a shaky breath those came to a halt when she heard something rattling.

She moved painfully slow, ripping the shower curtain back to see her phone tossed in the stone shower face down. Swallowing, she picked the phone up to see that the now missed call was from Jordan. She had over thirty missed calls and fifteen text messages. Blinking Olivia unlocked her phone and opened up her camera and angled her phone before hearing multiple shutter speeds.

At least that part of her mind was still functioning. She thought to herself bitterly as she went over to the mirror once again, setting her phone down on the counter to call a Uber back to Simone’s aunt’s house.

This was just another scar in her story, she guessed. So she rinsed her face, and gave Simone a call first…feeling as if this was the best option out of the three…when all she really wanted to do was call her mom.

“Olivia!” Simone greeted, “Girl, where the hell are you? Last night was so crazy and Jordan was trying to stalk you but realized you turned off your location, which he said is something you’d never do but I figured since you went off with Othello and them you would be fine.”

It took a minute for Olivia to respond. Her vision still locked on her reflection as that name sent something through her. Making her eyes close shut as she heard the voice introduce itself with that name but she couldn’t connect the face to it. However it seemed like Simone was familiar with who Olivia disappeared off with.

“I’m in a Uber on my way back to your aunt’s house.” Olivia knew she sounded like herself to Simone but her face was stoney and she did not feel like herself…as to be expected.

Simone nodded, “okay…cool! I’m glad you got back to one of us because we were getting a little worried.”

“Worried I’d relapse?” Olivia stated but cleared her throat knowing Simone didn’t deserve the brunt of her trauma, “Please tell me Jordan didn’t call our parents.”

Simone chose to ignore that, wishing later that she didn’t—however her and Olivia were still trying to build their relationship as in-laws so they were still feeling out each other’s temperaments and personalities, “No. I persuaded him not to…although I know that would have changed if you didn’t show up at some part today and I don’t blame him. Him and Spencer are getting a little stir-crazy without you. So please bring your butt here so my aunt can take us to this flea market she keeps going on about.”

“Alright,” Olivia breathed out a laugh that felt humorless to her, “I should be there in ten according to the ride but we all know down here in the south it’s really thirty minutes.”

“Tell me about it! It’s always ‘oh, it’s right down the street!’ But why we still driving tho?!” Simone laughed, “see you soon. I’ll let the boys know you’re on your way.”

And with that they ended the call.

Olivia shoved the clothes she worn that night back underneath her bed, still unwashed and out of sight. She went searching under her bed after her black oil pastel pencil slid off her bed. It was always in the back of her mind that the clothes rotted underneath the place where she lay her head. Sleep no longer existed to her but it’s not like a good portion of concealer didn’t help hide her puffy bags.

Olivia was violated going on about three weeks now and she was expected to go on like everything was okay. That was the challenge. And it was exhausting and moments throughout her day felt like someone would hold onto her throat and squeeze for minutes at a time.

She kept up with her therapy so that nothing about her seemed suspicious. She had thoughts about her pills and the thoughts about sipping alcohol made her stomach turn—so perhaps that part was a good thing. Her dad moved back into the house so the family dynamic was shifting yet again, her mom made it her mission to not have any booze in the house and any over the counter medication that was addressed to any of them in the house would be under only her and Billy’s care.

Those wouldn’t be strong enough for Olivia anyways, and that thought alone made her laugh bitterly but she was glad someone was taking the initiative to her health. Liv was not to have any access to it. It might not have been said but Olivia Baker always paid attention to everything.

She was doing well at hiding, almost flawless in her mind; that something had changed her life for the worse. Whereas with her pill popping/partying had been out in the open and her drinking was slightly undercover, Olivia thought she was doing well acting like her assault didn’t take place—yet the signs were there however it was cautious on how to approach. She had been careless, leaving her phone unlocked when she went off to the bathroom and with iPhone’s broadcasting your memories with photo’s was what lit the flame.

Laura was sitting at the island previously with Olivia while the boys were seated on the couch watching some game. She was sipping her voss water when Olivia’s phone let out the alert, which was closer to Laura’s view. At first Laura thought they were nudes but when she picked the phone up to click on the photo’s, she felt her heart drop to her stomach. A gasp unknowingly left her lips, causing Billy to look over his shoulder at his on-again wife.

“Laura, baby? Are you alright?”

Before she could say anything else Olivia walked back into the room, rubbing the hand cream further into her hands as she made her way over to her mom. When Laura snapped her head up to stare at her daughter, Olivia immediately stopped in her tracks feeling her mother’s eyes almost stinging her skin.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Olivia tilted her head to the side, wondering why the blonde woman appeared distraught.

Laura wanted to hold the phone up but felt a protectiveness come over her not wanting to gain the attention of the two men in the house, even though Billy already had his body turned sideways at the exchange.

“Olivia, what is this?” Laura whispered, pointing at the phone.

It didn’t dawn on Olivia right away what her mother could be possibly be talking about, in a sense she tried to forget but when she looked back at her art pieces, once she completed them in her sketch book, she realized unconsciously it’s not something you can just forget.

Laura swiped against Olivia’s phone at each picture making Olivia sharply turn her head to the side and swallow the lump that formed in her throat.

“Who’s in these images, Olivia?!” Laura didn’t mean to raise her voice, but she wanted answers.

Now she gained the attention of Jordan who broke his eyes away from the commercial playing on the television.

Olivia chewed on her chapped lips not wanting to say anything. She didn’t want anyone else adding this to their list of things to worry about when it came to her. It was ironic really, Olivia Baker was always involving herself in everyone else’s issues but pushed her own pain to the side. She vowed with Spencer that they would start to only worry about themselves this senior year and yet Olivia seemed to not do that. In a sense…she going to therapy, she was picking back up her old hobby to ease her mind but the huge problem about this was she wasn’t talking about it. To anyone.

“Olivia—

Laura seemed to take a different approach, using what she learned in family therapy to level her tone and to not make her daughter feel cornered. However she was highly concerned and she wanted to hear what she already suspected from these pictures. She kept her eyes trained on Olivia who reached out to the island to balance herself, now feeling the room spin. Laura pushed the bar stool back and went to Olivia���s aid but she flinched, ripping her body away from her mother which made Laura let out a small sob.

“What’s going on?” Billy asked, now getting to his feet.

Laura didn’t want to show Billy the pictures but with the way she was clutching Olivia’s phone to her chest made the man snatch the phone from his wife’s grasp.

Billy on the other hand was furious. He rubbed at his face and Olivia didn’t want to see the expression on his face so she kept her back to the both of them now. It was when Jordan towered over Olivia, hoping that he could get an answer out of her opposed to what their parents were failing to do, he didn’t touch her but he paid close attention to the way she was acting right now and how his father was trying not to scream in the kitchen.

Something was wrong. Jordan could feel it more than sense it from what his parents were demonstrating, and yeah they were twins but they haven’t radiated the same energy off the other since they were kids. And who’s to know that might have just been in their heads like many people tried to argue but Jordan and Olivia were extremely close as kids, they shared a whole womb together so they had to share more connections outside in the world too? Their bond was much stronger as children but they were making their way back to each other as they got older. Yes they were their own people but it’s undeniable if they said energy was never a factor in their relationship as twins.

Jordan was calm as he peered down into Olivia’s for eyes, patient, waiting for her to say what she willing to say. Everything was silent to her ears, Olivia blocked out Billy wheezing out his frustrations as he crouched down in front of the island and Laura’s cries.

Olivia felt so small.

Jordan knew before Spencer said something that Olivia was acting a little off. He tried to be better as a brother in paying attention to her as she always did for him. He was worried when she disappeared off with some kid named after Shakespeare that Simone used to spend summer’s with as a kid. Sure Simone said he and his friends were good people but they were also a year or two older, settling into the toxic part of college life. He was the last one with Olivia after they watched some performances with Spencer and Simone already on the dance floor with other people.

“You let Liv go off with these people we don’t even know?” Jordan remembers Spencer saying to him after he got off the dance floor.

Jordan didn’t like how Spencer said this to him so he replied back with, “you were just on the dance floor with someone you don’t know. None of us control my sister, Spence. She’s allowed to hang out with whoever she wants. Plus Simone says Oscar is good people.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know that man,” Spencer tried to come correct, “Simone said she only spent summers with othello,” He informed Jordan of the guy’s actual name which Jordan sucked his teeth at, “so that doesn’t mean she really knows him all that well either.”

“Are you trying to question my girl, right now?” Jordan furrowed his brows, always looking for a fight due to his impulsiveness.

Spencer raised his brows, “I’m not questioning nothing. I’m just stating the obvious. We don’t know nobody out here, we not from here. We just have to be smarter is all I’m sayin’.”

Jordan didn’t like to be wrong but he felt like he wasn’t completely wrong? Sure his big brother instincts should have kicked in stronger but he was too focused on some corny dude pushing up on Simone. That was a little foul now that he thought back on it, Olivia should have been just as important—and she is. Which is why he wanted to do right in the present.

He noticed before Layla pointed out a couple of times that Olivia was bringing out the darker fashion choices and that it was nice to see sometimes, since she “did it so well.” He noticed before Simone told him to tell Olivia that she would be over to help her straighten the back of her hair out and he noticed that she was wearing eyeliner in her waterline again.

He noticed the long showers and staying outside in the rain, he noticed she’s been slacking on her podcast and scribbling in her old sketch book. He noticed her listening to nothing but Fiona Apple, Billie Holiday, old Alicia Keys songs, and Fefe Dobson instead of her usual song choices like: Aaliyah, Jorja Smith, Billie Eilish, H.E.R., Doja Cat, and Mereba. He even fought with himself at night standing outside her closed door to say something. He did remember asking her one night at dinner, which she barely ate, if she was okay and with a smile that didn’t reach her rimmed eyes…she said she was.

To Olivia it was silent as she admitted her truth about what happened to her in Atlanta, but to the rest of the Baker’s it was loud and clear. Over the course of three weeks, she gathered it all. The memories came back when they needed to and the fact that he reached out to her twice since she returned home was appalling. Olivia didn’t know if it was the guilt—that might have been a stretch…she didn’t know the piece of shit of a person at all, the audacity, or the curiosity on his part to see what she was going to do about this. If anything. She gave no information away in the DM’s, in fact she barely sent anything back.

There was no weight that lifted from her chest as she spoke her secret into the air, she still felt pain that she tried to numb down but it just felt like another burden she inflicted on her loved ones and she hated that idea. That she caused this. Most days she felt numb but she knew anger was brewing along the horizon.

Jordan went to Olivia who stepped back, which felt like Jordan just got punched in the gut. And he’s taken a lot of hits before in his eighteen years of life but this one might have been the worse blow he’s experienced. And that’s coming from a guy still healing from a concussion.

“Oh, god. I’m so sorry, Liv I—.” She heard Her twin say to her but it sounded like she was under water.

Life has been that way for awhile now, if you truly asked her.

‘I don’t want pitty.’ Her inner thoughts hissed. That was last thing she wanted. She was now coming to terms that she wanted this emptiness to vanish, if that was what this even was. She wanted to be back to where she was or at least as a kid where she didn’t have to worry about a damn thing. She didn’t want to endure what she’s been feeling since she entered her teenage years. Olivia Baker wanted so much more out of this life but lately it seems as if her purpose was to only be handed out shitty lessons instead.

What lesson was this? To showcase how the world can take away anything it wanted and leave you to deal or not deal with the aftermath afterwards?

The anger was indeed setting in.

Olivia didn’t realize that eventually Jordan put his arms around her and she gripped onto him for dare life. Her body didn’t shrink into itself like it commonly did weeks after what happened whenever someone touched her.

Her parents kept their distance picking up on the fact that she didn’t want to be touched but her other half held onto her and that seemed to be a step in the right direction for now. Instead Billy and Laura held onto each other too, their heads whirling around with how to further provide the best possible care for their daughter.

#all american #all american imagine #all american fanfiction #all american cw #Olivia Baker #Olivia Baker x reader #Jordan baker #Jordan Baker x reader #Billy baker #laura baker #spencer james #Simone hicks #Layla keating

[c-is-for-circinate]

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts about why P5R didn't quite land for you. I had the same reaction to it, but I've never quite been able to properly articulate why the last section fell so flat.

God okay so I've tried several times to answer this, and it seems like the answer is 'I still have way too many feelings, personally, to say this in anything less than thirty pages and fifteen hours of work', because Persona 5 the original is a game I loved a lot and care about a great deal. And most of the reasons I disliked Royal feel, in my head, like a list of ways it broke some of the things I liked best about P5--which means explaining them feels like I need to explain everything I loved about the original game, which is a book in itself, complete with referents to P3, P4, Jungian psychology, the Joseph Campbell mytharc, and fuck all even knows what. And that is too much.

But today I realized that I could instead describe it from an angle of, Persona 5 Strikers succeeds really well at doing the thing I think Royal was trying to do but failed at. And that I think I can talk about in a reasonable amount of wordspace, hopefully, behind this cut because I have at least one friend who hasn't played Royal yet.

Note for reblogs/comments: I HAVE NOT FINISHED STRIKERS YET. I got through the jail that pretended to be the final jail and have not yet gone into the obviously inevitable 'ohshit wait, you mean there's something more than simple human machinations behind all of this?' dungeon. (I got stuck on a really frustrating side quest, put the game down, and then dived into Hades to avoid throwing the Switch across the room for a while--and anyone around this blog lately knows how THAT'S been going.) Please no spoilers past Okinawa!

So, one of the many, many things I really appreciated about Persona 5 was its straightforward and unashamed attitude towards abusers and their acts of violence. Because, while yes P5 is a story about the use of power and control to make others suffer, it fundamentally isn't about those abusers themselves. It's about their victims, those that survive their crimes. And this shows up repeatedly over the course of the game.

We do not give a shit why Kamoshida wanted to beat and rape his students. We really don't. Kamoshida does not deserve our attention one moment longer than it takes to make him stop. Because, ultimately, that's the goal of P5, start to end. We don't know for sure if what we're doing is fair, if it's justice, if it's questionable. What we know is that people are being hurt, badly, actively, right now this second. What we know is that victims are suffering. What we know is that we, personally, us-the-protag and us the Phantom Thieves at large, are in danger. And in those circumstances, we don't care about the abuser's side any more. We don't. We don't have the space or time or capacity to care, because that is not the point.

The point is to help the weak. To save the people who need saving, right here and now. To give others the courage to stand up on their own behalf. We're not even out to change society, not really--that's a byproduct. We are reactions. We are triage. We are important.

There's something so empowering and validating about that as a theme, y'know? In a media landscape so full of "sympathetic villains", the idea that, you know, maybe sometimes you don't have to break yourself to show compassion that might possibly heal the bad guy--that sometimes you can just make the bad guy stop hurting people--feels both refreshing and satisfying. I really appreciate it as a message! I liked it a lot!

And yes, there's nuance to that theme, and the game is not without compassion. We save Futaba, because 'make the bad guy stop hurting people', in that case, means 'make this person stop hurting herself'. We give Sae a path forwards, help her fix her own heart. Yet it's worth pointing out that in both of those cases, while we were very glad to do those things, to save those people, we also went into both of those palaces for extremely practical reasons to begin with. We needed Futaba's help. We needed Sae's help. The fact that we chose to talk Sae into a change of heart rather than simply stealing her treasure, while ultimately a very good thing for her, was absolutely a practical choice predicated on the need for her palace to still exist to save our life. And yes, we wanted to save her, for Makoto's sake--yes, we wanted desperately to save Futaba. But Sae and Futaba let themselves be helped, too, and that doesn't change the overarching themes of the story itself.

Akechi (and to some extent Okumura) would not let himself be helped. Akechi's another interesting nuance to this theme, because of all our villains, we do learn the most about what drove him to the cruelties and crimes he's committed. He's at that intersection of victim and villain, and we want to help him, as a victim--but we also know that stopping him as a villain is more important. We'd like to save him from himself if we could, because we save people from their sources of trauma, it's what we do. We regret being unable to do so. But in the end, what matters to the story is not that Akechi refused to be saved--it's that Shido and Yaldabaoth need to be stopped, for the sakes of everyone else they're hurting now and may continue to hurt in the future.

The thing is, there's space and maybe even a need for a corollary discussion of those places where victim and villain intersect. It's an interesting, pertinent, and related topic. Strikers made an entire video game about it, a really good video game. It's centered in the idea that, yes, these people need to be stopped, and we will make stopping them our priority--but they're not going after us, and that gives us some space to sympathize. Even for Konoe, who specifically targets the Phantom Thieves--compare him to Shido, who actively destroyed the lives of both Joker and Futaba, who ordered Haru's father's death, who's the entire reason the team is still dealing with the trauma of Akechi's everything. Of course the game can be sympathetic to Konoe where it can't with Shido. There's enough distance to do that.

But right--Strikers is a separate game. It's a separate conversation. It's, "last time, we talked about that, so now let's take it one step further." And that's good writing. (It's something Persona has done before, too, also really well! Persona 3 is about terrible, occasionally-suicidal depression and grief. P4 is about how you can still be hurting and need some help and therapy even if things seem ok. Related ideas, but separate conversations that need to be separate in order to be respectful and do justice to either one. P5, as a follow-up to P4, is a conversation about how, ok, changing yourself is great and all, but sometimes the problem is other people so how do you deal with that? Again, still related! Still pertinent! Still alluded to in P4, with Adachi's whole thing--but it wasn't the time or place to base a quarter of the game around it.)

So one of Royal's biggest issues, to me, is that it tries to tack on this whole new angle for discussion onto a game that was originally about something else.

Adding Maruki's palace--adding it at the end, which by narrative laws suggests that it's the true point that everything else should be building up to--suddenly adds in about a hundred new dimensions at once. It wants us to engage with "what in this abuser/manipulator's life led him to act this way?" for basically the first time all game (we'll get to Akechi later). It wants us to engage with, "if the manipulator has a really good reason or good intentions, does that mean we should forgive them?" It requires us to reflect on, "what is the difference between control and cruelty?" It asks, "okay, but if people could be controlled into being happy, would that be okay?" (Which, based on the game so far, is actually a wild out-there hypothetical! Literally not a single thing we've seen in the game suggests that could ever happen. Even the people who think being controlled is safer and easier are miserable under it. Control that's able to lead to actual happiness is completely out of left field in the context of everything we've encountered all game so far.)

That's too much! We don't have time to unpack all that! We only have an eighth of the game left! Not to mention we are also being asked to bring back questions we put to bed much earlier in the game about the morality of our own actions, in a wholely unsatisfying way. Maruki attempts to justify his mass brainwashing because "it's the same as what you're doing", and we know it isn't, but the game didn't need Maruki calling it out in order for us to get that. We already faced that question when we started changing hearts, and again several times throughout the game, and again when we found our targets in Yaldabaoth's cells. The fact that we change hearts does not mean we think "changing hearts is fine and kind and should be done to everyone, actually." Changing hearts has been firmly established in this game as an act of violence, acceptable only because it prevents further systemic violence against innocents that we must prevent. The moral question has never once been about whether it's ok to change the hearts of the innocent, only about how far it's ethical to go against individuals who are actively hurting other people. Saying "you punched that guy to keep him from shooting a child, so punching people is good and I will save the world by punching everyone!" is confusing! and weird! and not actually at all helpful to the question of, how much violence is it acceptable to use to protect others! So presenting the question that way just falls really flat.

(And right, I love Strikers, because Strikers has time to unpack all that. Strikers can give us a main bad guy who wants to control the whole world for everybody's own good, because Strikers has earned that thematic climax. It has given us sympathetic bad guys who started out wanting to control the world to protect themselves and ended up going too far. It's given us Mariko Hyodo, who wanted to control the world to protect other people and went too far. It's given us a long-running thread about police, the desire to serve, and the abuse of power that can lead to. And since we are actively trying to care for the people whose hearts we're changing in Strikers, we can open the door to questions about using changes-of-heart and that level of control to make other people happy. We can even get a satisfying conclusion out of that discussion, because we have space to characterize the difference--Konoe thinks that changing peoples' hearts means confining them, but the Phantom Thieves think it means setting them free. We have seen enough sympathetic villains that we as an audience have had the space to figure out how we feel about that, and to understand the game's perspective of "stop them AND save them, if we can possibly do both." And that message STILL rests firmly on Persona 5's message of "it is Good to do what you have to do to stop an abuser so long as you don't catch innocent people in your crossfire.")

It's worth noting that the general problem of 'asking way too many new questions and then not answering them' also applies to how Royal treats its characters, too. P5 did have unanswered questions left at the end! The biggest one, and we all knew this, was Akechi, and what actually happened to him, and how we should feel about him, and how he felt about us. That was ripe for exploring in our bonus semester, and to Royal's credit they did in fact try to bring it up, but by god did they fuck up doing it.

Akechi's probable death in the boiler room was absolutely the biggest dangling mystery of the game. It was an off-screen apparent death of a key antagonist, so all of the narrative rules we know suggested that he might still be alive and would probably come back if the story went on for long enough. So when Royal brings him back on Christmas Eve, hey, great! Question answered. Except that the situation is immediately too good to be true, and immediately leads to another mystery, which leads to a flat suspicion that something must be wrong. We spend several hours of gameplay getting sly hints that, oooh, maybe he's not really alive after all, before it's finally confirmed by Maruki: yup, he really died, if we end the illusion we'll kill him too. Okay, at least we know now. Akechi is alive right now and he's going to be dead if we do this, and that doesn't make a ton of sense because every other undead person disappeared when the person who wished for them realized they were fake but at this point we'll take it. So we take down Maruki, and okay, Akechi really is dead! Probably! We're fairly sure! Aside from our lingering doubts!

And then we catch a glimpse of maybe-probably-could be him through the train window, and I just want to throw something, because come on.

Look, it is just a fact of storytelling: the more times you make an audience ask 'wait, is this character dead or aren't they?', the less they will care, until three or four reversals later you will be hard pressed to find anybody who gives a shit. Royal does this like four different times, and every iteration comes with even less certainty than the last. By the end, we somehow know even less than we did when we started! Did Akechi survive the boiler room to begin with and Maruki just didn't know? Or was Maruki lying to try and manipulate us further? Or was he actually dead and then his strength of will when Maruki's reality dissolved was enough to let him survive after all? Is that even actually him out the train window?

Where is he going! What is he doing! How did any of this happen! What is going on! We all had these questions about Akechi at the end of the original P5, and the kicker is that Royal pretends like it's going to answer them only to go LOL JK NO. It's frustrating and it's dissatisfying and it annoys me.

The one Akechi question that Royal doesn't even bother to ask, though, let alone leave ambiguous, is how does the protagonist feel about him? The entire emotional weight of the third semester rests on the protagonist caring about Akechi, Sumire, and Maruki. Maruki's the person we're supposed to sympathize with even as we try to stop him. Sumire's the person we're trying to save from herself. And Akechi is our bait--is, we are told, the one thing our protagonist wished for enough to actualize it in this world himself. Akechi's the final lure to accept Maruki's deal. Akechi's survival is meant to be tempting.

For firm Akechi fans, this probably worked out fine--the game wanted to insist that the protagonist cared for Akechi the same way the player did. For those of us who're a little more ambivalent, though (or for the many and valid people who hated him), this is a super sour note. Look, one of the Persona series' strengths is the way it lets players choose to put their time and emotional investment into an array of different characters, so the main story still has weight even if there's a couple you don't care about that much. It has always done this. The one exception, from P3 all the way through P4 to here and now, is Nanako Dojima, and by god she earned that distinction. I have never met a person who played Persona 4 who didn't love Nanako. Nanako is a neglected six-year-old child who is brave and strong enough to take care of herself and all of the housework but who still tries not to cry when her dad abandons her again and lights up like the sun when we spare her even the tiniest bit of time and attention. It is impossible not to care for Nanako. Goro Akechi is not Nanako.

And yet third semester Royal doesn't make sense if your protagonist doesn't feel linked to Akechi. The one question, out of all the brand new questions Royal throws out there, that it decides to answer all by itself--and it's how you as a player and your protagonist ought to feel about an extremely complex and controversial character. What the fuck, Royal. What the fuck.

In conclusion, I'll leave you with this. I played the original Persona 5 in March and April of 2017, as an American, a few months after the 2016 election and into the term of our then president. It felt painfully timely. A quick calendar google early on indicated that the game's 20XX was almost certainly 2016, and the closer our plot got to the in-game November leadup to an election destined to be dominated by a foul and charming man full of corruption and buoyed up by his own cult of personality, the more I wanted to laugh/cry. It felt timely. It felt important. It felt right.

I went through Royal (in LP form on youtube, not having a platform to play it on) in summer of 2020, with a hook full of face masks by my front door and protests about racial tension and local policing that occasionally turned into not-quite-riots close enough to hear at night if I opened the windows of my apartment. The parts of the game that I remembered felt as prescient and meaningful as ever, if not even more so. The new parts felt baffling. Every single evil in the game felt utterly, painfully real, from the opening moments of police brutality to the idea of a country led by a guy who probably would use his secret illegitimate teenage son as a magical assassin if the opportunity presented itself and he thought he could get away with it. Yaldabaoth as the cumulative despair of an entire population who just wanted somebody to take over and make things be okay--yes, yes, god, in summer of 2020? With streets full of people refusing to wear masks and streets full of people desperate for change? Of course. Of course that holy grail of safety should be enticing. Of course it should be terrifying.

And then Maruki. Maruki, who was just so far outside the scope of anything I could relate to the rest of the game or my own life. Because every single other villain in the rest of Persona is real. From the petty pandering principal to the human-trafficking mob boss. The corrupt politicians and the manmade god of cultural desire for stability. And this game was trying to tell me that the very biggest threat of all of them, the thing that was worse than the collective force of all society agreeing to let this happen because succumbing was easier than fighting back--that the very biggest threat of all was that the world could be taken over by some random nobody's misguided attempts to help?

No. Fuck no. I don't buy it. Because god, yes, I have seen the pain and damage done on a tiny and personal and very real level by the tight-fisted control of someone trying to help, it never looked like this. Not some ascended god of a bad therapist. All the threats to the world, and that's the one I'm supposed to take seriously? This one man is more of a threat than the fundamental human willingness to be controlled?

Sorry, but no. Not for me. Not in this game. Not in this real-life cyberpunk dystopian apocalypse.

#c plays persona #driveby meta attack #p5 royal spoilers #p5 strikers spoilers #holy crap I did it #I actually wrote a semicoherent essay of a length I'm willing to put on Tumblr #about my problems with this game #I have been trying on and off for MONTHS #I wanted to like Royal SO BADLY #it makes me SO UPSET #anyway #now back to your regularly scheduled Hades blogging #asked and answered #Anonymous

[hufflautia]

Where it all started [Part 1]

Chapter 1 

Sometimes links don’t appear on posts. if you can’t see the link to “Chapter 1”, my masterlist is pinned to the top of my blog, and you can find it there.

Summary: Slytherin’s parents have another argument, but at this point, no one’s surprised. After all, they’re her parents. It would be abnormal if they didn’t argue. However, this one’s a biggie. The fight ends with the slam of a door and her dad packing his bags into the car and getting ready to leave. Desperate for him to come back, Slytherin’s mom forces her to go to him with a message that will surely make him stay. Buckle up folks, for this is where it all began. 

Slytherin stood on the sidewalk as she watched her dad pack up his things into the van. 

She dug her fingernails into her arm, her heart stinging with ache as her dad turned around with a smile on his face, a failed attempt to reassure her that it was going to be ok. It was all gonna be ok. After all, this was normal, right? It’s not like it was unusual that her dad was leaving again to go back to Florida, where the homewrecker waited for him, her outstretched hands eagerly opened up to him and his credit card. 

However, this was the first time he left abruptly. A spike of sorrow stabbed at Slytherin’s heart as she thought back to the sound of her parents’ door abruptly opening; soon after, she could hear angry stomps that quickly descended down the steps of the staircase. 

She could almost hear the hiss in her ear as she stood in the archway of the living room, watching her dad leave in the far distance. “Tell him that Ravenclaw’s crying,” her mother spat, pushing her towards the front door. “Quickly, before he leaves!” 

Slytherin internally sighed. How typical. Instead of resolving their relationship issues by going to couples therapy, her mom decided to throw all those burdens onto her daughter, who had already grown tragically used to being used as her puppet. 

She decided not to argue against going after her dad and trying to guilt-trip him into staying home as her mom wanted. Otherwise, she would be lectured on how she’s selfish and wouldn’t do this small thing for her mom, how she’s basically ruining this family by letting her dad leave, how family is so fucking important and manipulating her dad into staying would be vital to their happiness as a whole, how family this and family that. 

You get the point. Slytherin certainly did. That’s why she was currently standing awkwardly behind her dad, staring at his back as he lifted boxes into his car. 

“Um, Raven…” She paused. Her throat felt dry and tight. Swallowing with difficulty, she tried again. “Ravenclaw’s crying.” 

It wasn’t the crying itself that mattered. That wasn’t the main reason why her mom rushed her out the door to deliver the message to her dad. It was simply the fact that it was Ravenclaw who was crying. Let’s just say that he and his dad had a complicated relationship. 

Things were never the same between them after Ravenclaw sent an angry message to him via text when he was in Florida a year ago. The contents of the message reeked of disdain for his constant infidelity. When his mom found out, she shoved the phone into Slytherin’s face in the dead of night and asked if she knew about this. The glaring light from the screen nearly blinded her. 

Slytherin read the text messages through squinted eyes and could make out a few curse words here and there. Though she was slightly disoriented from the sudden ambush of information, it was clear to her that her brother resented their dad for what he did.  

That made Ravenclaw’s anguish even more useful in their mom’s opinion. Seeing the tears streak down his face when he heard that his dad was leaving again, she had a glorious idea. Perhaps if her husband knew of their son’s sorrow, he would reconsider his abrupt departure. After all, it was Ravenclaw who was crying. 

If it were Hufflepuff, that would be understandable—she can get quite emotional sometimes. But it was Ravenclaw, who was usually guarded and distant. One might suggest that he was secretly broken inside. But that’s not the point, at least not in his mom’s opinion. The main thing she was concerned about was that she could use his misery to her advantage! Maybe if her husband knew of his sadness, he would feel guilty enough to stay behind. After all, if his son, who despised him, was upset over his departure, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to stay home and endure his wife’s temper for a little while longer. 

Slytherin’s words did produce somewhat of a reaction. Her dad didn’t turn around for a while, but when he did, his eyes were slightly red and puffy. It was evident that he was trying to hold back his tears. One might think that this means that he’ll stay. He seemed distraught over the news that his son was crying because of his leave. Surely, he’ll stay, right? 

It wasn’t enough. Nothing ever seems to be enough.

“I’ll be back soon, okay?” He hugged her briefly and gave a light squeeze as a sign of reassurance. As a silent message that it was going to be ok. Even though everything was most definitely not okay. A thousand hugs and gestures of reassurance wouldn’t change this. 

Slytherin didn’t react angrily to his refusal, the unspoken declaration of No, I will not go back home. In fact, it seemed as if she didn’t react at all. However, if one were paying close attention, they would notice the sparkle in her eyes dim. But maybe there wasn’t a sparkle to begin with. She had been enduring this shit for so long that she forgot what it was like to be normal, to feel like the white kid you see in commercials, the one who seemed to radiate mirth, a type of energy that said, I don’t have a care in the world because life is so fucking great and I can’t stop smiling. She didn’t even bother to smile, a common facial expression when one is in a difficult situation and tries to diffuse the somber atmosphere by slapping a facade on their face, the corners of their lips upturned to form a grimace that resembles some sort of a smile—a twisted kind of smile, that’s for sure. Why should she pretend that everything was okay when it wasn’t? Instead, she merely nodded in response. 

When her dad pulled away to pack the last box into the trunk, she took a deep breath to diminish the familiar sense of abandonment that flooded her senses, to clear the warning signs that flashed in her mind. He’s leaving! Your dad is leaving! He’s abandoning you again. You’re apparently not important enough for him to stay. 

She stared at the ground, only looking up when she heard the sound of a car door slamming shut. The resounding click was all it took for the waterfalls to finally pour from her eyes, for it was at this moment when she realized that this was actually happening. This was no dream—it was reality. Her sad, devastating reality. Tears blurred her vision as she watched the car drive away, leaving her in the dust. 

Slytherin gasped in erratic breaths between her broken sobs as her eyes hung onto the tiny speck that resembled her dad who was driving 

away, 

away, 

and a-w-a-y.

Through the jumble of thoughts that clashed in her head, one thing was clear. Her dad was her dad, but only sometimes. 

Tears streaking down her face, she tried to soothe her pain with the belief that he would be back soon. If only she had known that it would be a while before he returned. If only he hadn’t left. Perhaps things would’ve been different for her if he stayed, for this was where it started. 

This marked the beginning of it all.   

Comments and reblogs are a writer’s gold!

MASTERLIST ; sometimes links don’t appear on posts. if you can’t see the link to “MASTERLIST”, the masterlist itself is pinned to the top of my blog. check it out if you haven’t already! 

Author’s note: HI! Were you surprised to see that I posted two fics in a row?? I hope you enjoyed this. Most of it was unfortunately based on what happened to me a year or two ago. I based Ravenclaw on my brother, who did actually cry when my dad was leaving after an argument, and yes, my wack mother did force me to run after my dad to tell him. One of the few differences is that I’m not a drug addict and I’m fine now so dont worry. 

Idk how I feel about this series, it is a lot darker from what I usually write. I know I’m gonna have to write more for creative writing class, so maybe i will continue it. I will try to think of how to turn these fics into something more positive, because this stuff is very heavy and depressing. however, that will be a little difficult because the plot itself is naturally drab. however, i will try to think of a happy ending for Faye/Slytherin. 

Shall we look at some wholesome pictures? 

lmaoaoa i pasted this picture from the internet and tumblr glitched and pushed the pic all the way to the top. imagine seeing this dog at the beginning of the fic, that would be funny :’) 

AWWWWWW I THINK THIS MIGHT BE MY FAVORITE

ok hold up i just realized that is probably a stuffed animal 😐 this is so embarassing lmaoaoa when i saw it i was like THAT IS SO FRICKIN CUTE

OK WAIT WTF NOW I THINK ITS AN ACTUAL DOG??? CAN SOMEONE HELP AND TELL ME IF ITS REAL OR NOT?!! at first, i thought it was real, but then i looked at the paws and it looked kinda fake and i was like this dog is too fluffy and wholesome to be real. BUT THEN I LOOKED AGAIN and i think the owners just put the pooh outfit over the dog?? what is going on with my brain.. but at the same time, its 2 am for me rn so maybe i should get some sleep BUT FIRST, LETS LOOK AT MORE DOGS <3 (lmaoaoa i feel like my friend would say “gosh ur such a hufflepuff” (menna im talking about u lmao omg hey gorl)) 

After seeing this gryffindor pup, i immediately searched up “dog costumes hufflepuff” lmaoooooo

OK THATS ENOUGH DOGS FOR NOW. Part 2 is coming soon. I already have it ready but I might not post it right away. 

That’s all for now. Be sure to let me know what you think. TOODELOOO!

TAGS:  @slytherpuff-shenanigans @lokijiro @xxkitsurikaxx @sara-is-boredd @skylee-skz   @determinedpines @draco22malfoy @pancakes-and-sugar  @casteel08 @indigosimon1998 @tell-that-to-my-feather @the-ugly-duck0 @prettyblueskylark  @okiguessimawitchnow @daisyinmyheart @peachyblue @korra4321 @shoyoockbby  @ravenflowersposts @walkinganomaly @parkerthemarker02 @hummingbird-hufflepuff @bumbblebeeeeee @luciferswife16 @iknow-im-cute @maisen98 @shadowsinger11 @tuonglam03 @fanfic-reblogger @mygc0re @rellasworld @sha3thehunter @croctusjuice @jadefox05 @d0uxs @charleii @kaylenthegreat @hufflepufflepukwudgie3897 @insertlongnamehere @trashpannda @ihate-myname @nowheredreamer @history-geek101 @strawberrypanda99 @nikkijovanic @hannanshi @sirenofthe7seas  @johannamariemst @badass-like-damon  @willow-salix @remmyswritings @x-whatsupdoc-x @dracosvftie @hitchhiker-of-the-galaxy @akerlizzie @thatfann @justanxiousme @another-witch @bucinjisung @elegantcroissantplaidpony @treefroggo @narritydream @hufflpuffles @adreameratdawn @leftpeanutturtleegg @turbulentbluebird5 @geekgirl69 @praiseourlordduck @quakemebacktothe50s @nomad-of-the-realms @stardustzainy  @theblackwolf21 @crakencc @introvertedrae @cryinbisexual @bojelina @cocoqueenstheword @manicpixiedreamtarot @velvetstrawberry @jxmpsuitx @simpering-simpleton @urfaveslytherin @asterinatlas @simpforkpop @pufflehuff929 @morallyambiguoussimp @applekenm @chunwest @oncergleekpotterhead @no1-importan @qiaopao  @dulduldoldul @schlongbottom @vickeyunicorn @peanut-in-the-goal @hufflepuffgirly @flvrqnce @nothingtoseehere812 @maxwellsgang @1d-killed-me @betacaroteno-lanudo @dragon-slayer-fairy1 @thatonebislytherin @dragonsandbread @justanotherperson @sophiexteresa @hmilkwhoney @writertwiddle @questionsbecameourocean @anomiatartle @coldsweetharmony @dont-hyuck @fixstationed @kindawannadietbh @trippy-morgan @xo-angel-ox @fangirlgeekandfreak @evolnura @mossy-axolotl @verylovelystars @boilyourteeth @megand2017 @malfoys-demigod @booksntings @joshirlangford @staymoarmyzen @poojxshxh @hedgepuffgirl @alverniaphi @verifiefangirl-mainblog @purpleskymalfoy @roxy3457 @rayanicaraynbow @jess-harrywars @starrysonic @tonksichu @lauxtbs @tumlbr-trasher @chelseasosa @thebiggestnaturaldisaster @swagangelhorsepickle @princessstoopid @pymmoon @emilyaneliperry @pond-waterr @pandapillow @saraleo95 @astrartss @trentalexanders @theoriginaljohnwatsonsblog @nevilletheplantboi @just--another--hufflepuff @yoongifiess @ajdqueen @annie-mcl @coloring-bud @majorfangirl37 @eatacrackerandstop @weasleytwinswheezes @imscaredofhorses @dontmindmeimjustabox @glitterykidlightmug @multi-fandom-nutjob @littleemotionalpanda @thewitcheswords  @blueberry-9-pancakes @worldsbestdilfbecky @qixnsriess @inexperiencedpotathoe @notsowiseravenclaw @captiniminnie @ruinyourface @da-fox-rangerrr @inkedintothepaper  @happy-puff @grandcyclecreation @dawinehouse @catiwisspuff​ @aasa2102​  @mae-25​ @sydthekidd98 @kokichismango @xxavaloraxx​ @iamahufflepuff​ @adoregin​ @sunnniiee @lewispoolerpayton @dumbbitch85​ @bumblebirbs​ @diggorycullen​ @protectorofsk8topia​ @silverhetdanes​ @zuko-28​  @beardedhumanoid​ @arianatorpotterhead​ @shipping-book-keeper​ @marvelenthusiast10​ @i-cannot-do-aesthetics​ @a-huffleing-lesbean​ @kaslec​ @hufflepuffwritess​ @mouthfacereborn​ @kodeinekissss​ @ihavenocontrolofmylifeeither​ @pinqgchuu​ @im-a-solanum-lycopersicum​ @clementines-x​ @stressy-depressy​ @sweetinvisiblewriter​ @absentmindeduniverse​ @asnowpuff​ @theofficialgaybestfriend​ @violayaxley​ @sunshinyyb @colettedelaurel​ @theoriginalsherlockholmesblog​ @i-have-a-bad-feeling​ @jpow345​  @gay-disaster826​ @bloodyxheaven​ @autumnpleaves​ @froggy-failure​ @toomanybandstocare​ @pink1babez​ @untitled-2424​ @sleepdeprivedgurl​  @chaseanders​  @wolfpack-arts-industries99​ @nugnugchick​ @queenofwordsandnerds​ @ganjeolhiddaeng​ @wordy-escapades​ @writtenfoxscreams​ @w0odr0ses​ @coolpetsmcubandit​  @crypticcandi​ @widowsgranger​ @fantasyprincess101​ @wiiltedflowers​ @aestheticworldd​ @miniaturefunnytraveldonkey​ @bucketofdeadroses​ @uwuplsh​ @softedits-exe​ @cel3stialone​ @sofiapeachyy​  @wanderaven92​ @eunnieah​ @marsupialsgotbloodyears​ @eurydicedior​ @neonuzumaki​ @uhhhem​

#Hogwarts #harry potter #slytherpuff #hufflepuff x slytherin #hufflepuff #slytherin #hogwarts imagine #hogwarts houses #hogwarts would include #harry potter would include #slytherin x hufflepuff #ravenclaw #gryffindor #hufflepuff-x-slytherin #slytherin-x-hufflepuff #slytherin and hufflepuff #hufflepuff and slytherin #slytherin friendship #hufflepuff friendship #cedric diggory #hufflepuff pride #slowburn #hogwarts fanfiction #harry potter oneshot #hufflepuff and slytherin fanfiction #slytherpuff friendship #harry potter fanfiction #ravenclaw and slytherin #slytherin and ravenclaw #ravenclaw and hufflepuff

[charmingpplincardigans]

January Kitchen Sink Check In

This is mostly for me, because I’m trying to become a better person this year, for varying definitions of the term ‘better’, and I like to see my progress laid out all organized like. It helps me move forward. So I’m gonna go through my Body/Mind/Money goals for January and note how I did and what I’m going to do moving forward!

BODY

Working Out: 

My two work out goals for the end of the year are to 1) be doing yoga semi-regularly and 2) be working out four days a week reliably, including the yoga. I’m working on easing myself into these (and all) habits, because I don’t want to overwhelm myself and give up on everything, so my goal for January was to work out one day a week. And I worked out *drumroooooooll* NONE! NOT A ONCE. I don’t have an excuse for this. Part of it was stress, part of it was depression, part of it was sheer laziness. I promise myself I’m gonna work out at least once a week in February, but also shoot for the two times a week that is the February Goal. 

Food: 

I have several overall food goals for the year. One is to give up soda near completely, or at least to break my addiction to it. The others are to start planning meals and eat less meat. For January I wanted to drink only two sodas a day (20oz max). I managed that 23 days out of 31. In looking at the calendar you can reliably match the days I failed to the days that were extremely stressful or anxiety ridden. I have a very bad habit in those moments of throwing up my hands and deciding that I’m a failure anyway so nothing matters. That’s definitely a mental tick to keep an eye on over the next few months as my job no doubt just gets more and more stressful. The other goals I did okay with. I decided to plan one meatless meal a week. New recipes I made in January were: 

Black bean soup

Moroccan sweet potatoes

Spinach lasagna

Black bean & sweet potato enchiladas

Do recommend most of them. The lasagna had way too much cinnamon in it, which was kind of weird. If I make that recipe again I’m gonna quarter the amount. But I might just find a different veggie lasagna to make. 

For February I want to drop the soda to one a day (12oz max), and start to plan to make two meals a week. I’m doing okay with meat, but I could for sure do better. It helps that I have started making THE WORLD’S BEST SANDWICHES for lunch. Probably just gonna eat those forever instead of ordering out Huey Magoo’s or whatever. (The sandwich is hummus, cucumber, and feta on toasted Good Seed bread. Try it!)

Doctor Things:

Uff. I need to figure out the CPAP issues and the chest pain issues. I absolutely despised the first mask they sent me for the CPAP. It gave me panic episodes and I was ripping it off IN MY SLEEP. Insurance refused me a new mask until April, but my doctor came in like an angel with a sample version of a different type of mask to try. This one is...better. I’m still not comfortable in it and it’s not appreciably helping my sleep. People keep telling me it’s going to change my life, but that has not happened yet. On the other hand I have friends who’ve tried to make them work for YEARS and never did, so I’m wary of this whole process, but still trying. 

I had a sort of fraught meeting with my cardiologist last week. My chest pain symptoms had been getting better as of October, but with the change in my job I’ve back slid almost entirely. I had a 36 hour period of chest pain two weeks ago. I go whole nights having every heart attack symptom in slow motion, but doing nothing about it because I can’t afford for the ER to tell me I’m fine five times a month. I cried when she asked me why I didn’t go to a hospital when that happened. I feel so helpless all of the time and I’m certain I’m going to die any day now, even though my heart is technically physically fine. Can you anxiety yourself into a heart attack? I THINK YOU CAN. She did tell me to try to speak to the psychiatrist again about anxiety medication. The last time I tried the woman I saw didn’t want to prescribe me anything. She told me to work on my sleep and come back. Welp! The cardiologist said that if that happens this time she’ll write a note telling her to prescribe me something. We’ll see. I need to try to make that appt this month. 

MIND

Therapy:

My therapist thinks I’ve done really well over the last year with working on myself and said out loud that she thinks I’m better at dealing with some things and am in a good position to move forward. But I’m so stressed right now that I just feel like I’ve fallen apart again. We’re meant to start on EMDR this week, but I’m going to have to put a pause on it so I can talk about how I’m at like, the lowest point of my life, which she will be very supportive of and then probably remind me that if we could just get to the EMDR and work with the older traumas this might not feel so dire. I’m just, on the struggle bus and too tired to do anything but freak out about that. 

Writing: 

I have so may creative goals this year! Too many probably! I should put some back! My creative goals for the year are:

Complete a rough draft of AMLD (10,000 words a month)

Complete and mail out the Girls Who Date the Universe chapbook

Complete and mail out any remaining art for people who helped me with the car fund

Work on poetry and short fictions (Monster Story?)

Actually check in to @gywo every month (10 days a month goal)

My creative goals for January were to write 10,000 words on AMLD, work on the extra poems for GWDTU, and send the remaining postcards from the car fund. And uh...look. I did work on writing. I worked on the chapbook layout and editing pieces that needed to be edited/replaced, because there are several. I did also work on the outline for AMLD, but didn’t write new words on it. Not anywhere 10,000 of them at any rate. 

The owing people art thing is just...it fucks me up, man. I have learned a huge lesson between the car fund and the patreon. I get so in my head about how these people deserve beautiful things and then I tell myself I’m not capable of making things worthy of them and then I put off doing the thing because I want to put off letting them down and then it just spirals from there. ALL THE WHILE I AM FOR SURE LETTING THEM DOWN. I realize this is both unhealthy and unprofessional. It’s why one of my goals this year is to clear all of this once and for all so that I can square myself away with everyone and try not to end up here in the future. 

So, the January Goals now get rolled up into the February Goals, which leaves the new list for the month at: 

10,000 words AMLD

Complete extra poems for GWDTU

Send postcards from car fund

Complete layout for Boston chapbook for car fund

I did check in for GYWO. 

Future Plans:

Part of letting off the pressure for the now for me is always about planning for the future. Not like, the actual future, I’m not starting a 401k, let’s not go nuts. But for something that is one step forward. In my notes for my year goals this is all about moving back to Boston. I need to set a date for it. I need to save money for it. I need to keep my job until after I’ve done it. But now I think this part needs to include notes about my job itself and the ways I can either move forward with it or move away from it once and for all. 

I talked to Lisa and Kait at the beginning of the year about the moving plan, and now I just need to talk to my apartment complex to see if it would be feasible to extend the lease to December or February without paying an exorbitant amount in rent each month. If rent ends up being more than $2k/mo for the extension then I’m just going to have to have to wait until June 2022. This frustrates me, because I hate not being able to just follow through with decisions once I’ve made them, but patience is another thing I’m working on eternally. My goal for February is figure out money stuff well enough and talk to complex and set a timeline. 

Work is. Wow. It’s awful right now. I still have my job, which takes up much of my days, but because of re-org I’m also having to learn a whole new job which would also take up much of my day. I can’t not learn this job, because the person who used to do it is in another department now too, so there’s no one to get the work done if I don’t learn to do it. But I also can’t do both. I CAN’T DO BOTH. An issue popped up last week with my job that literally brought my ulcer back. I asked my boss for help with it and she sent me a message at one point saying she wanted to cry about it. So like. She knows now, right? She knows I can’t do both jobs?? BUT THERE’S NO ONE ELSE TO DO IT SO I GUESS I JUST GET TO SLOWLY KILL MYSELF. I’m just so frustrated, and angry that these decisions get made without taking the people in them into account, and of course anxious and miserable. I’m currently dreading work in a way I haven’t since I was in text perms. It’s real bad. So I have to find a way to make it work or find a way out. 

My February approach to that is to finish this Love It or Leave It book and see if I can’t divine where my true motivation lies, and also to research library school. I kind of would rather not go back to school. Not because I wouldn’t spend my entirely life in school if I could. I WOULD. But because it’s expensive and time intensive and there’s no promise my life will be better after it’s over. But every job I think I want pretty much requires that masters, so. We’ll look into it at least. 

MONEY

Eating Out:

During the pandemic, one of my money sinks became DoorDash. I never used it before, because it costs literally twice as much as just going to get the food. (Also because I kind of like eating in restaurants alone. Ah, one day again I hope!) But the more afraid I became of the outside world, the less inclined I was to go into a restaurant to pick up take out, so I’ve had it brought to me. And I need to cut that shit out! I have food at home! My goal for January was to order out only 4 times a week. I managed this for three of the weeks, but when I blew it it was definitely those weeks at the very beginning and very end of the month where I was super stressed. The goal in February is to only order out 3 times a month.

Savings:

I need to open a high yield savings account. I’ve had the starting money for the move just sitting in my bank account making me no extra money for like, four months. The latest reason I haven’t moved it over is that I’m worried I’m going to owe a lot in taxes this year because of the partial unemployment I got. Hopes are that since it was a work share the taxes were taken out ahead of time, but I do not trust the government with my money as far as I can throw them, so. I’ll do my taxes this month and finally know for sure. And then I WILL move the rest of the money into a high yield savings account. I WILL. 

Also, every time my credit union savings hits a grand, I’ll move $500 of that over into the high yield account to put toward moving expenses. 

Budget:

I keep meaning to sit down and work out my new budget for 2021. I’m bringing home a little bit less in my paycheck because I changed my health insurance, and I’m also, of course, trying to save as much as I can ahead of moving so I don’t put anything on credit cards. (I’m doing so well paying those down!) This means I need to save everything I can and not spend money on stupid frivolous stuff. I’m not buying clothing like I did in the before times, but I AM spending too much money at Target still, because the app lets me just peruse any dumb idea I have and then pick it up that day! What a disaster! So, I really need to work something out. Or at least, I need to check my bank accounts more often and keep tabs on how much is actually going out. I have a bad out-of-sight-out-of-mind habit when it comes to bank accounts. Just another piece of me to try to cure this year.

And that’s it for January. I’m now late to bed because I’ve been working on this post for an hour and a half. Working on my sleep is also a goal, but we’ll see how exercise and the cpap handle that. Til next month!

#kitchen sink check in #to do #progress

[mayaswollman]

TITLE: the plain woman. TRIGGER WARNINGS: abuse, domestic abuse, violence, injury, parental abuse, depression, and brief stalking.

Therapy was an exhausting crusade. It mainly consisted of Maya sitting inside a dusty old room with her sweet but cynical therapist. The room is filled with comfortable enough looking furniture and the lighting is a dim yellow-golden hue. Despite it being perfectly mediocre and not bad in the slightest, it makes Maya unreasonably angry. Though she knows it’s better to go than lie awake wishing she did. That sentiment might relate to almost everything in her life.

Maybe she should have known then. Maybe she should have known to trust her gut. Or maybe she should have known when she lost her charm bracelet.

The plain woman. The categorization falls into Maya’s lap, something she complains about often while spewing away in her therapy sessions. Most times, her words escape her, especially since she was still a tad new to the whole therapy thing. The plain, average woman. 

Do you feel special? Is what her therapist had asked originally, and Maya just exploded like a dying star. It resulted in tears and snot, excessive apologizing for said tears and snot, and bittersweet laughter to save face and not make a total fool of herself. 

Really, she was nothing special. Though perhaps that was a stupid insecurity. Never being the one but being a one regardless. That was truly something, a surefire way of making her feel more than terrible. Never the one, but one regardless. Maya says that too, her voice wavering like she has something crawling up her small throat, threatening to hop right from her mouth.

That’s how the session ends, Maya leaving with nothing but a relatively stable, reassured mind and a bucket of her own salty tears and gooey snot. It doesn’t help that she steps out into sticky, still air. Louisiana heat coming faster than she’d like. She looks to her wrist where she should be wearing a watch, like normal people, and thinks of what the might could be. Maybe past seven, but not before six. She drags her feet to her car, head low, dark curls falling in her face. 

Wrist.

The drive home is lackluster and nothing to report. So is stepping into her apartment. Though the cool air that hits her was a nice welcome, Maya inhaling deeply upon arrival, happy to just be home. She thinks to make herself something to eat before her phone buzzes, a notification popping up onto her screen.

If there was anything anyone needed to know about Maya Wollman, it was that she was a lazy person with commitment issues. Communication was certainly not where she shined, hence why most of her relationships were fickle ticking time bombs. It was only a matter of time before Maya became bored and over the whole idea of being someone else’s, despite growing lonely only days later. She’ll never reach out again, though, in fear of seeming desperate or ridiculous altogether. This cycle repeats itself more often than not. 

There’s this one guy who’s been kinda persistent, though. Nice looking, full beard, not huge but bulkier than most. He has the kind of face that’s neither plain or remarkable, somewhere in the middle. Maya would honestly put herself under that category too, so to her, he was just fine. In modern terms, you could say she ghosted him quite a while ago, unable to commit to anything but food and her work schedule. 

They went on one date. Maya doesn’t think of it very much, but he seems to think of it frequently. She likes to think they’re just casual friends now who went on one Tinder date that didn’t work out, really, and they text sometimes to say hello or for a brief chat. That was it. 

Truth be told, Maya likes being thought about. Remember that feeling of not wanting to seem desperate? Well here was the cold truth, she was. Desperate by all the means within her. Desperate for something, anything. Maya absentmindedly clicks through her phone before she gets to her text messages, reading the ones he’s sent. Her read receipts weren’t turned on, of course. Nobody with commitment issues had them turned on.

iMessage, 7:33PM, Matthew: Hey, was thinking about you. I saw you at The Dive recently with some friends and thought to say hi but didn’t. Hope you’re well! iMessage, 7:33PM, Matthew: Also, I think I have your bracelet? I found it on the ground at the bar and noticed it looked familiar. iMessage, 7:34PM, Matthew: [image:attatched].

Oh, fuck. Her charm bracelet, gifted from her grandparents when she was three or four. Maya’s hopeless romanticism kicks into high gear then as she sets down her bags and heads for her tiny living room. She plops down onto her couch, hands a little shaky, reading over the messages over and over. Then she looks to the photo. It’s definitely her bracelet staring back at her, the one real piece of jewelry she owns that she somehow lost at The Dive not too long ago.

The plain woman.

The thought, or insecurity, returns in no time. Are you going to be just one forever? Maybe he’s the one. Maya starts typing out a message, knowing there’s no going back now. 

iMessage, 7:40PM, Maya: Hey! You should have said hello! I can’t believe you somehow found my bracelet. I thought it was gone forever or a pack of angry criminals came and snuck it from my wrist, never to be seen again. iMessage, 7:40PM, Maya: Do you wanna meet up? Just to catch up and so I can get my bracelet back lol.

The exchange is simple. They text for a little while longer before deciding when and where to meet. Maya feels a little giddy inside, beginning to picture every scenario. She thinks from now to ten years from now, daydreaming endlessly about what could come of the two of them. A childish thing, really, and she knows it. But perhaps her loneliness had become futile.

ONE DAY LATER.

When it comes time for Maya to finally meet up with Matthew, her nerves finally bubble to the surface. She doesn’t even know how long she’s paced around her tiny apartment, going over every which way this could go wrong or right. It’s a game of back and forth inside her mind, every image flashing vividly and at a rapid pace. 

In classic Maya fashion, she gets ready with about two hours to spare. That was never a good thing, causing in the exploding of her own thoughts. By some miracle, the two hours go by and Maya is leaving her apartment, locking the door behind her securely. No going back now.

CALLIOPE, 8PM.

“Hi, sorry I’m late,” Maya says upon arrival, though she’s not actually late. Matthew had just shown up first. That’s never happened to her before. “Oh, you’re not late at all. Sit, they should be bringing the menus around now.” Matthew so politely pulls out her seat, which makes Maya’s entire face heat up, a reddened hue decorating her expression. She carefully takes a seat, smoothing the end of her dress. “Thank you,” She says quietly to the gesture, then smiling warmly to the waiter who places their menus down. 

It’s like a scene from a movie, really, how the evening pans out. They spent the night laughing and sharing stories, Maya finally settling into herself once she begins to feel comfortable. That was always when Maya shined. That was when she finally shed that outer layer she always sported, the one that dared to deem her an average woman. Maya Wollman was not plain or average, she was bright. She was funny and sweet and everything wonderful. Matthew seemed to like her too, head resting in his hands endearingly every time she went on about some silly little story from her youth. He laughs at all her jokes and even reaches out for her hand towards the end of the date, the pads of his fingers dancing across the tanned skin of her wrist. 

Wrist. Hand.

Touch was a strange thing in Maya’s world.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Matthew says, his touch pulling from Maya. She misses it the moment it’s gone though feels strange once it’s there. She touches her arm while Matthew plucks her charm bracelet from his pocket, sliding it to her. “Fuck, thank you so much. This is the only real piece of jewelry I own, so, I really appreciate this.” Maya’s tone returns to that middle ground, that nervous place that fears so much and so little at the same time. Matthew doesn’t seem to mind it, his smile still present, that same endearing look on his face. Maya tries to relax again. “No worries, sweetheart.” He says, brown eyes glued to her.

Maybe Maya should have known that things like this don’t really stick. Maybe she should have known when she got a phone call after an exhausting therapy session, one where she was vulnerable and unable to feel good about herself. But the night takes a quiet turn somewhere towards the end.

They’re walking out, Maya happy and at ease. Matthew is at her side, saying they should head to a bar and continue the night. Maya is more than happy to do this, despite being someone who prefers to call it a night rather early. Mainly from her own personal tiredness.

Maybe she should have known when he’s grabbing her a little too tight. Or maybe she should have known when he makes some crude remark about a guy across the way getting a look at her. It was just a small glance. I’m with you right now. Is what she said to reassure him, smiling sweetly. That giddiness seems to have fallen from his face like he’s flipped a switch. Though it returns in small ways, a little flicker of hope, and Maya clutches onto that hope like it’s her last chance at survival. 

Or maybe she should have known after the second date when he’s showing up at her job on a whim, asking her to take some time off and go away with him to New Orleans. Maya chuckles and says no. Sure, she was beginning to like him a lot, but not enough to go on some spur of the moment getaway. He seems upset by this, his jaw clenching. Maya sees a small vein bulge in his forehead as if he’s holding his breath. 

“Next time, I promise,” Maya says gently, resting a hand on his chest. She didn’t want him to be upset, despite her own discomfort. Matthew grabs at her arm, maybe a little too hard. But Maya was a small woman with petite features and he was much bigger than her. He just didn’t know his own strength. 

Wrist. Hand. Arm.

But maybe she should have known when he picks her up from a therapy appointment, pressing her about what she talked about. Maya isn’t comfortable with this, he tries to joke about it, wanting to know if she talked about him. She didn’t, which makes her feel guilty. Though she tells him no, not wanting to lie, and he becomes upset. Angry, even. Maya is confused, asking him why he’s so mad. They’re sitting in his car when he pulls his hand up and smacks her across the face, the sound and impact earning a ringing to erupt in Maya’s ears.

Wrist. Hand. Arm. Face.

Maya has been hit before. By her parents, by her siblings. But not like this. Never like this. Suddenly she’s back in her parents’ home, thinking back to every moment they’ve hurt her both physically and mentally. But then Matthew’s voice breaks through the noise. Or, his voice drills through it aggressively, tears running down his nice but not spectacular face. 

“Maya,” He cries, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just want to be a part of your life. I really, really like you. Maya, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Maybe Maya was a little weak. But was weak the word?

She forgives him. She cries along with him and they drive back to her place, a reddened spot on Maya’s face. It was going to bruise, she knows it. He probably does too. She stares at it in the mirror when she gets home, the smell of chicken and rice coming from the kitchen, Matthew was cooking for them. 

Maya had never tolerated violence from her parents? Despite always going back to them, she always fought back. What was so different now? She couldn’t quite figure that out but everything inside her turns to spoiled milk, her heart a paperweight inside her chest. Everything is warped.

It happens again while they’re out on another date. This might have been their tenth or eleventh, Maya was losing track. She was having a great time until Maya says she wants to get home, she had work in the morning. Matthew grabs her wrist a little too hard, this time causing a bruise. He says he wants to stay out and he wants to spend time with her. Apparently, he hasn’t seen her enough this week. 

Her charm bracelet dangles on her wrist, a reminder of the good deed he’s done. His grip leaves a bruise just under the jewelry. He lets go of her soon enough, spewing his apologies again, cooing to her. He missed her. This time, he says he might be falling for her. That sends a sudden signal through Maya’s mind. Was she the one?

She complies, smiling warmly. Her bracelet still dangles on her wrist.

Wrist. Hand. Arm. Face. Wrist. Wrist. Wrist. Wrist. Body. Heart.

#drabble. #character study. #tw abuse #tw violence #tw injury #tw domestic abuse #tw depression #tw paternal abuse #WELL....YEAH

[kaeleenmichelle]

On Mental Illness

I guess you could say I've had what they call writer's block lately. This whole writing thing is harder than it seems sometimes, there are times that I can't seem to remember how to put words together to form sentences. I don't know if it's because as I type this it's World Mental Health Day and I've been reading every story under the sun, including Chrissy Teigan's Glamour essay- two years later- but I'm writing. Finally.

My first recollection of having anxiety was in kindergarten. Every morning, without fail, there would be a lump in my throat and a knot in my stomach. I was sick with worry over being late, despite the fact that my mom always made sure I was walking through the doors before the tardy bell. (Or whatever the kindergarten equivalent of a bell is) I also had- and still have- a particular disdain for change, so you can imagine the horror that going to school seven hours a day for the first time put me through. My parents did the best they could in trying to calm me, but as I was known for having a flair for the dramatics (I was a theater kid, cut me some slack) they didn't think anything of it.

I don't blame them, because neither did I. How could I? I didn't know that not everyone worried about every little thing. So I pushed on, the anxiety that I didn't know was anxiety more of an annoyance than anything. I was as fine as a kid who never stopped thinking or worrying could be, and I excelled in the best way I knew how. I always made sure my grades were up, (Minus math. We don't talk about math here) I did theater, I made friends. But the little knot in my stomach was always there, just waiting for my brain to give it a reason to twist itself through. I made friends, yes. But I never really felt like I was ~one~ of them. I did the normal kid things, went to sleepovers where we ate junk food and watched movies- the stuff of Lizzie McGuire dreams! But on multiple occasions I ended up calling my mom to pick me up (on a landline!) before the night was through because I just couldn't bear to have fun. I just wanted to go home.

In my formative teen years, this translated to me not doing much of anything outside of school. I can’t count the amount of things I’ve missed out on over the years: cast parties, youth group trips, social experiences that could’ve helped shape me. Instead, the lack of connection made me feel hollow but I couldn’t bring myself to change things. It was during this time in which I was officially diagnosed with anxiety disorder, and I could finally put a name to the things I was feeling. I got on medication, and things got pretty good!

Until they weren't. All hell broke loose the summer before my senior year of high school and I got my first bout of situational depression. It was bad. Though I'd dealt with anxiety for years, I had never experienced a panic attack before that summer. It was the beginning of what I now affectionately call my ~dark time~. And then when the smoke cleared and everything was better and the situational depression should've faded, it didn't. It hung on for dear life, following me to college and watching my every move, along with a myriad of other issues. And the anxiety was worse than ever. At some point during my sophomore year, I couldn't take it anymore. I moved back home, leaving Friday night tailgates and my friends behind for therapy and Friday nights spent at home, alone. I am a textbook introvert, gathering energy from my sacred alone time. Unfortunately, when you struggle with mental illness a night in can turn into two and then four and suddenly it's been a week and you haven't returned any messages or spoken to your friends or seen the light the day, which is something I still have to force myself to fight. Anyway, the first couple years of this switch off felt unproductive, like nothing was changing.

Thankfully, after three more years things have definitely changed. My ~dark time~ has long since passed. But there are always the bad days, and the bad weeks. Months even. Accepting the fact that I'll have to deal with my anxiety on some level for the rest of my life has taken me years to do. Sometimes I feel I'm still not there. There's guilt and resentment and anger but in those times I remind myself of the support system and how privileged I am in that way. 

I suppose by now you're wondering why I've spent this entire essay having a one woman show and I guess I have been, haven’t I? Call me the Mrs. Maisel of writing. I guess I just wanted to write this as an open letter because writing is cathartic and though humor is my normal coping mechanism, sometimes I feel like we should really be talking about it.  

In the intro of one of her cookbooks, Chrissy Teigan (maybe I just wrote this to talk about how obsessed with Chrissy Teigan I am) writes about how in the thick of her postpartum depression, she ended up sleeping on the couch so often that she started keeping her robes in the kitchen so she wouldn’t have to go upstairs. And she writes that John slept on the couch with her every. single. night. I think that's what we're all looking for. Someone who will sleep on the couch with us, metaphorically speaking. Or literally. That helps too.

#writing #anxiety #mental illness #mental health #writers of tumblr #spilled words

[hawaiianheartthrob808]

Update:

Friends, I’m back real quick to update those of you who would like to know about my life and what’s happenings the last few months to last year. Just kidding I lied, it’s not gonna be quick, grab a pillow and a blanket and warm up some hot cocoa because it’s gonna be longgggg. What can I say? I like to talk (in this case, type).

I’ve officially left Alaska Airlines (well, terminated would be the correct terminology). It feels good to be free of something that I just couldn’t do anymore though. Wait what?! It feels good to be fired? No, not really but it feels good to be freed of something that wasn’t contributing to my happiness. So, for most, being a Flight Attendant and traveling the world is all good. It’s fantastic really. It’s super easy in all honesty and if any flight attendant tells you it’s hard work, they don’t know what actual hard work is. I used to literally do it in my sleep 😂. Plus the pay was pretty nice. I did have a fun time meeting all sorts of new people as well. My classmates of course and Class #2 because that’s all I ever got assigned to fly with 😂, kidding aside.

I haven’t worked since January. So when you don’t go to work for 4 months, this kind of thing happens. I’ll get to that later on, but first some background. I’ve suffered from depression and social anxiety for as long as I can remember. When I first came to Portland I was doing pretty well thanks to therapy. Joining the Ultimate frisbee club was the best part about it. Met a lot of amazing people. But then I met my ex, and let’s just say, in hindsight, she was the craziest, nastiest, most anxious, bitch I’ve ever met. She dragged me down to her level through all sorts of means. She planted the seeds of doubt, worthlessness, ugliness, and all sorts of negative feelings in my head. Now, my depression was already telling me that. So now to have it validated with another person saying it? And somebody who I thought I loved, saying those things? Too much. But after she left, I just buried it. Ignored it and just existed. Wasn’t really living. Wasn’t really super happy. Was just there. Went to work, did my thing and that’s it. I was able to be a Flight Attendant, a Customer Service Agent, and a Student Building Supervisor despite these thoughts. I didn’t let them show. I hated myself but couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else knowing that I felt this way. So I just smiled. And did what came naturally and that was to be kind and nice to everyone even though I was always in such emotional pain.

So, after not dealing with my personal problems for 3 years, part of my motivation to get out of Portland and to stop being a CSA was to address this deep underlying problem I had. I thought being a FA would solve all my issues. I was super excited. Training was amazing. My classmates who are now my friends and many if not all an extension of my family made it amazing. I felt wanted, needed, etc. I enjoyed having that foundation of stability. Then Training ends and life hits fast. I’m working as a reserve FA. Being a reserve under the Virgin Work Rules blew. Awful. Not recommended. But it wasn’t bad enough to make me want to quit or anything like that. Just really exasperating. But one thing I didn’t account for with reserve life and commuting was how much I was going to be alone. When I was in my crashpad, most of the time, by myself. When I was commuting back and forth, by myself. On layovers in the hotel room, by myself. Even when I was back home, all my friends and family worked so I was by myself. And then if the other FAs I were working with weren’t social, even during a flight I felt like I was all by myself. This isn’t inherently a bad thing on its own. It’s just a bad thing for me with the way I was. It allowed too much time to be alone with my thoughts. And the part of me that well, hated me. It grew and grew thanks to experiences and interactions I had throughout the beginning of my reserve life.

In July, I had what was the worst panic attack of my life on a layover in Seattle. I mean it was so bad I had to write it down in my phone because my brain was rushing so hard I couldn’t think straight. But basically, I wanted to die. I wanted to run away from the painful thoughts and get away forever. I contemplated breaking the windows and jumping out of the hotel. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. I was infuriated. I was stressed. I couldn’t breathe. I was sweating and then getting chills. It was bizarre. It was essentially this tipping point for my thoughts and emotions to finally align. And it all came crashing down with this realization that I was THE WORST. That I was annoying. Nobody liked me. Everybody hated me. All of it bombarded me at once after just ignoring it for so long. So, from that point on, I had no joy in my life anymore, or at least I couldn’t see it. Work was now meaningless. Making someone’s day was now meaningless. Making friends was meaningless. Keeping up with friends was meaningless. Life itself seemed meaningless because I was viewed myself as meaningless.

And so, from July-October I was bombarded by these same thoughts and feelings every day and almost every waking minute. When I sat on the Jumpseat, all I could think about was opening the doors during take off and landing (humans can’t open the exits during cruise due to pressure). All I wanted to do was get sucked out and die. But I didn’t want to hurt anyone else. Only I deserved death. Every time I got behind the wheel of a car, I could only think about speeding up as fast as I could and colliding head first with a pole or tree so I would die without hurting others. I thought about jumping out of my hotel room on every single overnight layover. I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t motivated to do anything.

I found a therapist in October who made me promise her I wouldn’t kill myself while I was in her care. That accountability helped a little. But come November, I got stuck in Newark and ended up getting home a day late and missed an appointment. This missed meeting was like the end of the world to me. My brain convinced me that I fucked up. And I couldn’t go back, I messed up by missing an appointment. So from November - January I just worked. But after not improving my mental health in anyway, despite having January off for vacation, I decided to go back. I wanted to kill my self again and so I knew I needed help. The thing is, I had hit rock bottom and was ready to dig beyond that. So I knew I had to get help quickly because it was going to be sooner rather than later for when I took my life. At the same time, I physically and mentally couldn’t even bring myself to get to work anymore. I would get to the employee lot in Kona, and just start panicking. I couldn’t get out of the car. I would just dread going back to work, because my brain had switched and caused me to believe I was truly worthless and nobody would like or accept me anymore.

So after my attendance supervisor reached out, I plainly told her the truth. She was supportive. Of course my absence extended into April and so now her boss, the head of Inflight Performance in Seattle reached out to me. She too was actually really supportive. I was pretty stunned at how supportive Alaska Inflight was. But, I had to apply for FMLA if i didn’t want my absence accrual to impact my job status. So I did. Now applying for leave retroactively is always a little bit more of a pain than planning it ahead. But I got in touch with Matrix (the service Alaska uses) and we started working on it. I did all of my paperwork and what not. Unfortunately, the week my Therapist’s authorization paperwork was due, she had a family emergency and was unable to complete it on time. Matrix denied my claim and Alaska went off of my points and terminated me (I will admit I was not always the easiest to get in contact with). So, a little under a week later I found out I was terminated when the Union contacted me and said they would like to file a Grievance on my behalf. I was like, “cool, I didn’t even know I got fired.” 😂

But getting terminated doesn’t feel that bad to me, because I chose not to go back to work, in order to work on my mental health. I had to work on my brain. It had turned on me. Our inherent biological tendency should be to do whatever we can to survive and live and yet my brain was literally trying to convince me to kill my self every single day, every single minute. If I hadn’t taken this time off, I wouldn’t be making this message right now. I would be dead. Quite literally dead in the ground. No joke. I was very confident I was gonna die by the end of February. So losing a job at the cost of saving my life? I’ve already taken sides in that battle. I guess what doesn’t kill me right? I appreciate my privilege in being able to step away from work, having a family that supports me, and even working for Alaska and providing me with the benefits I needed to get better.

Anyhow, my experience is super atypical. Most people dream of becoming a flight attendant. And don’t get me wrong, I could totally do it now. I’m in a healthy enough space to do it. I just don’t want to. I don’t gain satisfaction in my life from ‘making someone’s day’, I want to help others on a deeper level. I want to feel like I’m making a difference in my community or in someone’s life. Customer service is not my calling, although I’m really good at it, it doesn’t make me happy. It’s totally fine it it’s what others like to do, it just took me 4 years to say, enough was enough. So it’s time to switch things up and pursue the values in my life I have rediscovered and chosen to go after. I appreciate everyone in my life and for those who have reached out to me while I’ve been gone, I truly appreciate your friendship with me because it took me a really long to figure out that I’m a pretty cool person and maybe, just maybe, people like me for being me 😎

[silver-falling-star]

Sing me a song, o muse, of your bitter hatred against catcher in the rye bc SAME

Oooooh boy, I smell one of my long winded rants coming on. Strap in folks its about to be a wild ride.

So, Ima preface this by saying that I have NOT read it since I was forced to read it in 11th grade. For like, several fucking reasons. (the primary one being that I don’t want to, the 2nd one being I don’t know which bookshelf my dad stashed my copy on. He stashed all my required readings on various bookshelves after I was done with them. Because we were all given copies for free by the teachers that we were allowed to keep. I’ll chalk this up to private school benefits I guess? I’ve been out of the public school circuit since the end of 5th grade) So basically my memory of like, most of the events that take place in the book are foggy at best and unremembered at worst.

@ my mutuals and followers who like this book, that’s fine you do you, but I personally am not and probably will never be a fan of Catcher in the Rye. My feelings of why I dislike it are my opinions and I’m not gonna force them on you.

Problem 1: Main character is an unsympathetic asshole

My biggest gripe about the book is honestly a gripe I have about SEVERAL books. Unlikable characters, and I don’t necessarily mean written poorly (though I don’t remember being awed by how the book was written, I’ll be honest.) I mean unsympathetic asshole little bastards that make you want to just chuck the book across the room. Other books that share this problem are The Great Gatsby (that book is hot fucking garbage in terms of likeable characters and I WILL die on that fucking hill do not even @ me), Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Main character is an asshole little snobby bitch and despite being a murder mystery written in first person she literally figures things out at such a pace its not fun for the reader because she STILL ends up caught in shit situations she KNEW WAS GOING TO GO DOWN BECAUSE SHES SUCH A SPECIAL LITTLE SHIT- okay that’s a rant for a different post) and The King Must Die. (If you ever want to read a book with shit diction, pick it up.)

Now, as a writer/roleplayer of almost a decade, I’ve made plenty of characters that fall into the unsympathetic asshole role. My problem isn’t with the archetype, it’s often used and often done well (fandoms later trying to apologize for them aside) My PROBLEM comes when that’s either the archetype for the only character given any spotlight, or ALL the characters have that problem. (see, Great Gatsby.) Holden Caulfield(or however the fuck you spell it) is an unsympathetic asshole, and also the character who’s perspective is the only one we get to see, and the only character we really know much about. (Mainly cause he just doesn’t deign to care to give a legitimate effort in giving a damn about anyone else aside from how innocent children/his sister are. More on how creepy that shit is later.) Making a book like this means that I’m far less likely to enjoy it because I want to be able to root for someone. I can root for an asshole, so long as they’re likeable in some regard. Holden is a grade A fuckboy in the making and as such I am not a fan.

TL/DR: It’s possible to have likeable unsympathetic asshole characters, it is almost impossible to do that if that’s all you have exposure too in your cast.

Problem 2: I was really not in the best place to receive such a fucking depresso espresso lesson about life.

Switching gears momentarily from problems with the writing/book itself to problems with the timing of this book showing up in my life. High school was the time when all my trauma I’d successfully… repressed? Avoided dealing with? whatever, basically all my mental health shit suddenly decided to spring itself on me and yell “SURPRISE, YOU’RE MENTALLY FUCKED AND WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!” in 10th grade and it wasn’t until halfway through 11th grade that I even started getting a handle on shit. I almost failed high school and it was *bad*, especially for someone who was just trying to get to college so I could get to vet school and be qualified for a job that requires an ass load of education. So in walks this fucking book and it’s message of “adulthood is a sham, nothing matters and you really should just fuck around and do whatever because it’s all bullshit anyway. Childhood was where it’s at.”

Like???? Alright, that’s not what I need to hear when I’m barely passing high school. Go to fucking therapy and get some help, we all have trauma and therapy is the best path to work through it. I dunno like, yeah okay some people need to hear that message at whatever time in their life they read the book, but that message really wasn’t great to my Anxiety/Depression/ADHD struggling ass trying to just stay steady enough to get into college.

Honestly, even to this day I HATE HATE HATE books with depressing messages like that. I already deal with the struggle of being afraid of failure, getting where I want to be, all that shit. I don’t want that in my literature. Give me a person who struggles but still succeeds and finds some sort of happiness and self-worth in the end. Give me someone overcoming their traumas in such a way that they can at least have a good quality of life afterwards, even if the trauma will never leave, so long as they’re happy. I’m tired of YA novels that try and sell our generation and gen z the message that life sucks. Give me more hope, more heroes, more people making a difference because hell life is short so best make the most of it making a difference.

To quote GotG, why do I care so much about stories that revolve around saving the world, even if that world is just as small as a found family?

And my existence might as well be a happy one and have HOPE GOD DAMMIT.

TL/DR: If a book leaves me feeling like shit after reading it because it ends on a super shitty note, I’m generally not going to enjoy that book. And the fact that most YA novels these days that are given to highschoolers fall into this category is hot garbage when this is around the time they’re trying to find some sort of direction in life.

*Note: I realize that there are times and places for books that give more somber messages. Hell, I’ve even enjoyed some books with messages of such a tone. But media these days, and honestly for most of my life starting in mid to late teenage years (and maybe earlier) has started taking a turn towards the more depressing/somber stuff, and its overwhelming and just bad. And even back then when first reading it this was something I picked up on and didn’t enjoy. It just was not the right time in my life to hear a message so devoid of giving a shit.

Problem 3: Holden is honestly, super fucking creepy.

Okay, we back on the train of the actual book’s writing. Holden the dipshit is honestly, really fucking creepy. Towards women specifically. I have no direct quotes from the book specifically, but I DISTINCTLY remember the way he talked about women (or even young children/girls) being creepy as shit. Like, he waxes lyrical about his kid sister and her classmates and how innocent they are and how he wants to be the “Catcher in the Rye” to keep them innocent and to keep them from realizing how bad the world is. Great, lovely sentiment Holden. Except that the way you’re going about it comes across as being a pedophile.  You’re at the very least sexist as fuck, because you’re objectifying the fuck out of people anyway.

That scene with the sex worker in the hotel room is also one I remember making me feel super uncomfortable. Not because the sex worker is there, but because uh, just, god, that whole scene gave me the creeps. Probably because I felt bad for the woman, coming into the room expecting to be paid for work and there’s just this kid who breaks the fuck down, tells her some depressing shit, and maybe pays her? (does he pay her? I can’t fucking remember, I’d like to think he does, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t, because he’s an ass.) Actually, bigger question IS HE EVEN OF AGE TO HAVE SEX WITH HER LEGALLY? HOW OLD IS THIS KID? HES STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL RIGHT?

…. so I looked it up, he’s 17. SEVENTEEN. HE IS A M I N O R. I’m like 99% sure that the woman he hires is like, twice his age at least. That’s straight up illegal.

god this just gets worse.

TL/DR: Holden is a 17 year old creep who comes off as a pedophile in the way he talks about kids, and also definitely hired a sex worker while he was underage. Idk if that was legal at the time this book was written, but if it was (and I doubt it), that has aged very poorly.

Problem 4: It’s got a lot of male fans who fall into that all too dangerous category of having Fight Club or Rick and Morty being their favorite bit of visual media.

Okay, again, not a problem of the book. But when the majority fanbase (or at least, the most vocal part) are a bunch of abusive men who don’t realize that the message they took away from a work of fiction is incredibly problematic? Or worse, know and don’t care because they think their take is superior? Uhhh, how do I say, big yikes.

Like, this could be your favorite book, whatever, that’s you, I don’t care, but if your reasoning for it is because Holden is, in your opinion, an unflawed idealized version of yourself/your ideals?

thats a nope from me bro.

———-

That’s all I can do off the top of my head without going in and reading the book again. Which I probably won’t do for a long time, because I don’t need to hear that struggling to make a place for yourself is dumb and proves you’re just “part of the machine, the man has made you his bitch.” while I’m still trying to y’know, get to where I want to go.

But there you go, four solid reasons why I really really do not like Catcher in the Rye.

#catcher in the rye #Me? make something short winded? never in my life #maybe I'll update this with findings if I ever go back and read it again #though #given that my ability to sit and read through things is basically null and void at this point that won't be for ages

[dkettchen]

“I can’t believe I related to Logan Paul today”

I’m watching Shane Dawson’s Jake Paul documentary, and I just got to the part with Logan’s messages admitting saying that he has sociopathic tendencies, and talking about how he is trying to cope with them because they got the better of him earlier in the year.

Before I continue I just wanna put a disclaimer at the beginning here to say: I don’t approve of any of the horrible things the Paul brothers have done over the years (I don’t even know about most of it, is why I’m watching this documentary series in the first place), but I wanna put those things aside for a minute to talk about what it’s like having sociopathic tendencies (also I just got reminded that it’s World Mental Health Day today so yay that fits I guess x’D)

(also tws: self-harm, suicidal thoughts, trauma, depression, anxiety, I think that’s all of them)

I have sociopathic tendencies. I haven’t been officially diagnosed or anything, but like what would a diagnosis do for me, it’s not something that can get cured, it’s something I had to (and still have to) learn to deal with.

I have anger issues that I’ve been working on and dealing with since I was a teen. I have been self-destructive in so many ways over the years, from scratching my arms bloody because “it’s not self-harm if you don’t cut yourself”, to getting so caught up in analysing other people that I wasn’t looking after myself and fell into depression, to skipping meals and breaking my physical and mental health for work (see current straining injury as latest example). When I was around 15 I wondered what the point in living was, and the only reason I could think of not to kill myself and end my own suffering was because it would bring unnecessary pain to the people around me. 

The first time I changed schools because we moved I was 6, I cried my eyes out when my mom told me I wouldn’t be in the same class as my friends anymore. The second time I was 10 and better prepared. On the last day before I moved my classmates took turns hugging me goodbye, even the ones that I wasn’t that close with. I didn’t understand why they were so nice to me. Like yeah it was sad that I had to move away, but they didn’t need to care about me. I didn’t care. The third time I was 12. I had only been at that school for 2 years and I knew from the beginning I would have to change again for secondary school anyway, so I enjoyed my time there, but I didn’t get attached to anyone. Not really. On the last day, my friends cried at the idea of going to a different school than me, this person they’d barely known for two years, I watched my friends cry and didn’t feel anything. Or like, I felt guilty for not feeling anything, but I didn’t feel sad. I knew this was gonna happen. I had been through it so many times by then. They hadn’t. The school I changed to happened to be in my original hometown, so some of the people I had gone to primary school with were suddenly in my class again. It was like seeing ghosts. In my mind they had been dead to me, I was prepared to never see them again, and there they were, back in my life. It was very strange. I’m pretty sure the moving/losing whole friend groups is my trauma. Mom if you’re reading this, I don’t blame you, it’s ok, I got through it, if it hadn’t been for that it’d’ve been something else that messed me up. 

-Ah yes, look at me typing this and tearing up because of it, that’s the empathy that happens, and the reason I’m not a full sociopath. Sometimes there’s things I should care about, feel empathy about, and I simply don’t, I simply can’t, and I feel guilty for not feeling what I’m supposed to, and then other times I get overwhelmed by emotions, and I don’t understand why sometimes it’s one way and sometimes it’s the other.

There were many other bad things that happened during my teens, heartbreak and losing friends, and to some extent that’s part of growing up, but I can feel another part of my soul dying every time something like that happens. It gave me trust issues, it made it so I’d have a harder time truly committing to new friendships or relationships, in part because I am afraid they’ll leave and hurt me if I let myself have feelings, and in part because I simply can’t seem to feel things in the first place as easily anymore, even if I want to. 

And now I’m at uni, and I know most of the people I am in class with now I probably won’t see anymore afterwards, either because they’ll go to different places in the world or because I’ll be working in a different field from them (that’s what I get for studying animation and then deciding I wanna be a writer/director after all x’D) and I don’t care. I know I’ll be fine, I know I’ll find new people, life moves on. And that makes me sad. Not that I won’t see my current friends anymore or because they might feel sad (wow I didn’t think of that second one the first time around and added it now that I’m proof-reading, there’s the lack of empathy again I guess), but that I don’t care that I won’t see them anymore. Because I know I should. And I can’t. And I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. 

As for my anger issues and my analysing people I have found ways to use those productively by putting them into my art and stories. I don’t need to be violent or cruel in real life if I can torture my characters and play violence, I don’t need to manipulate people irl if I can use my knowledge of their psychology to tell stories. 

Sociopathic tendencies have the potential for hurting people, mostly other than the person who has them, but one can deal with them and keep their destructive potential under control. You are in charge of your demon and you’re responsible if it gets free and hurts people. 

And we need to talk about this more because that’s something you have to figure out for yourself, therapy can’t help with it in the same way it can with other mental health issues. It can help with some of the symptoms (as an example, I’ve had depression and anxiety, which in the grand scheme of things, were tied to some of the things I described, like my self-destructive tendencies, lack of empathy (and worry/guilt tied to that) and trust issues, and therapy helped with some of that, it helped me with finding coping mechanisms and ways to spot self-destructive behaviour)

People who have these issues aren’t monsters, their brains just sometimes fail to stop them from doing monstrous things, things that a normal person’s brain would recognise as such. We can become self-aware and prevent those things, but it takes effort to do that. 

I can’t believe I related to Logan Paul today. But the thing he said about not letting it get the better of you, and that ‘feelings are good’, hit very close to home. I am terrified of what I might do without realising its effects on others, because the problem with not being a full sociopath is, the feelings hit you eventually, even if they weren’t there in the moment itself. I am terrified of the person I could be. I am terrified of hurting people. I don’t wanna hurt people. 

We need to talk more about this stuff. Good thing is, I don’t mind talking about it, because to me it’s not a big deal, it’s just how life is for me. (I’m p sure that attitude is also a symptom of being on the sociopathic spectrum lol and probably the reason Logan doesn’t seem to mind “admitting” that he is too)

I’m gonna watch the rest of this documentary now xD Thanks for reading this. 

PS: one of the things I get overwhelmed by regularly is how much I appreciate the community I’ve built here on the internet and the support you guys give me no matter what, you’re lovely, and whenever I can, I love you guys (look at me tearing up again goddammit)

#world mental health day #sociopathic tendencies #tw self harm #tw suicidal thoughts #tw depression #the mind of jake paul #logan paul #shane dawson

[toycarousel]

Is it weird that when I come to a really hard part in my life and I keep thinking about asking you? I think once a year i've been in your ask box trying to get advice. My partner is severely depressed to the point where he seriously talks about killing himself nearly every other day. Its been almost a year and its just getting harder and harder to handle emotionally. He's terrified of being put in a psych ward from pas experience. I don't know what to do. I love him and he needs me but it hurts.

Hi, Anon! I don’t think it’s weird at all, not to worry~! It’s perfectly fine to ask me for help, and to talk to me whenever you want to! I just can’t give, like professional answers (since I’m not a professional) and I just offer advice/help casually when I’m able to, which can often be reeeeeeally delayed, especially when I’m off my meds and such – executive dysfunction is a huge problem for me, so during emergency events, definitely contact a distress centre before talking to me, as I won’t be able to get to time-sensitive asks promptly, and I certainly don’t want you to be stuck waiting for me! :’O

That being said, I am always open to sharing my perspective, any resources I can find, and basically any help I can potentially offer, so it’s always okay to message me – sending multiple asks is totally fine too – if you want to hear my take on things!

Wrt what you’ve shared with me here, I want you to know that it’s okay to be open about the pain that you’re going through as well, and to reach out to people for help! I know there’s a lot of pressure on folks to, like, forego their own health and safety when a loved one is struggling, but that’s never something that you have to do – in fact, if you take care of yourself, seek help when you need it, and ask for the same support that you’ve been giving your loved one, you’ll end up being more effective in changing their life (as well as your own) for the better.  Too often, we feel like it’s our sole responsibility to find a solution to our loved ones’ incredibly serious emotional distress… but few of us are professionals in these areas, and even if we were, it’s terrifying and difficult to know what to do when someone very close to you is the one suffering.

It’s very hard, and very painful to see someone we love going through so much… and you’re not doing anything wrong by seeking to regulate the pain that you’re experiencing too, as a result! So I’m going to share some resources that are specifically for you, so you can find support for what you’re feeling and for coping and making decisions based on how this situation has affected you! Depending on what happens, you may end up having to make a truly hard choice.  It’s not healthy to stay with someone who doesn’t want to make changes to their life, while simultaneously causing you harm.  But I also know that it’s awful to feel like, if you need to take time for yourself, away from the person and the situation, that you could be responsible for anything bad happening.

You’re not responsible for someone else’s personal health – it’s important to support loved ones, and to do what you can for them, but sometimes there’s just.  A limit to how much we can actually do, you know? The other person needs to meet you halfway, and aim to care for themselves as well, even if they really, really don’t feel like it.  

When I started DBT, I was doing it for my mother, my brother, my brother’s partner at the time, and my big sister.  Basically, I was doing it for all the people around me, neglecting myself entirely, and because of that, it wasn’t working long-term.  It did, however, get me to take that first step and seek help when I didn’t feel I deserved it (and therefore wouldn’t have done it otherwise at that point in my life, in my own self-hatred), because I didn’t want to hurt others, but the therapy itself only started solidifying in my mind and truly working once I made the conscious desire to find reasons to live for myself – once I decided (and it oftentimes has to be a constant choice), to hold onto the life I have.  To build that life into something I could care about, instead of writing it – and myself – off entirely.

I know this is probably, like, the last thing you’d want to do, especially since your boyfriend has had awful experiences with psych wards, and ppl can often end up in a psych ward when this is done – but you may have to call for help for your boyfriend (if an emergency situation occurs, and you’re afraid he may take his life).  

All lives are worth saving, and your boyfriend deserves a chance at life, which is something he would no longer have if he committed suicide.  That’s just my perspective, though.  I’ve been in a place where I did have to call the police on someone that I knew would hate me for it, and I’ve been in a place where the cops have been called on me and I hated the caller for it.  You don’t necessarily have to call the police, specifically, btw; calling an ambulance is often just as effective, and possibly even better, because they’ll have life-sustaining equipment and a proper vehicle on them if your loved one has already done something that compromises their physical safety…

Remember though, I’m not a professional – it’s good to call ppl who are trained to know what to do in this situation (like a crisis centre) to ask them what steps you should take if an emergency like this occurs! I’ll link them below, along with the other resources for you, Anon! I’m worried for you, and I want you to be safe, and healthy, and regain some peace in life~

For you:

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/supporting-someone/looking-after-yourself (this link is out of Australia, so the crisis lines here won’t necessarily be applicable, but the site itself – and this page specifically – goes through some steps as to how to look after yourself when you’re supporting someone else with depression).

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/10/how-to-support-a-depressed-partner-while-maintaining-your-own-mental-health (this article is about spouses, and has a mixture of suggestions for maintaining your own health, but there are a couple important ones here – I personally think the paragraph “Don’t stop doing the things you love,” is crucial).

https://www.habitsforwellbeing.com/22-ways-practice-emotional-self-care-letting-go/ (emotional self-care tips~!)

http://www.upworthy.com/101-self-care-suggestions-for-when-it-all-feels-like-too-much (more psychological and emotional self-care suggestions – I feel like these ones are especially down to Earth, which is great!)

https://www.lessonsforlove.com/blog/taking-care-of-yourself/651-taking-care-of-yourself-emotionally (more emotional/psychological self-care tips, with a couple specified ideas that could be helpful~!)

https://teenhealthcare.org/blog/6-ways-to-take-care-of-yourself-on-social-media/ (I don’t know what your age is, or whether taking care of yourself on social media would help with your specific situation, but I thought I’d include this just as, like, something supplementary if your primary communication with support systems ends up having to be online, you know? A whole lot of mine are, and these are things I often have to remind myself of :’)

For both you and your boyfriend:

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/helping-someone-else/supporting-someone-who-feels-suicidal/how-to-help/#.WwRuktMvx-U (this site is out of the UK, so the crisis numbers here might not be relevant to where you live, but the site itself has some suggestions as to what you can do for someone who is suicidal).

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/suicide-prevention/suicide-prevention.htm

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ruby-fremon/depression-spouse_b_7557410.html (this is in reference to a spouse, but in reading it, I suspect it would be applicable to any close relationship!)

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/online-forums/supporting-family-and-friends-with-a-mental-health-condition-(carers)/need-advice-to-cope-with-depressed-partner (more tips on maintaining a healthy relationship with someone who is depressed/suicidal).

http://codedredalert.tumblr.com/post/109005732295/helpline-masterlist (helpline masterpost for a wide variety of struggles!)

http://myresourcemasterlist.tumblr.com/suicide (more resources, including ones for suicide, and coping with your own intense/distressing emotions).

Wrt your boyfriend specifically, again, it’s totally understandable that he’s afraid to be placed in a psych ward, like, I personally get that (I’ve had nasty past experiences with those as well).  There are other ways to seek treatment though, like, through outpatient (but intensive) programs.  I have no idea what the options are where you two live, but I can dig up any resources online that I find that may be relevant, as well as anonymous crisis hotlines/chatlines, and self-help and self-soothing resources! They’re not a permanent measure, and unless a genuine effort is put into them, they should mainly be used by him to help make himself feel better in the moment.  Hopefully they can also give him some tools to start working with as it pertains to regaining the parts of his life (and life itself) that he’s lost interest in.

I’ll be linking a couple DBT skills specifically for the latter there.  While DBT skills are used more for people with BPD, the particular skills I’m linking are applicable to basically everyone – and especially people who are suicidal, depressed, and who want to build a life worth living.  Because I understand why people become suicidal (and up until recently, I was suicidal myself), and sometimes, especially depending on a person’s external circumstances (circumstances that are often completely outside of their control) it can feel like life has gotten so bad that it’s unsalvageable.  What I’ve found is that there is always something – even the tiniest thing – that is worth salvaging.  And from that tiny place, a person can spark an entire life, building on every small good thing until they can see that there really is a life out there, waiting for them.  They built it themselves.

For your boyfriend:

https://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/emotion_regulation1.html (these are some very straightforward worksheets for emotion regulation skills – they do essentially what they sound like they would, and they’re long-term skills that can become 2nd nature through practice~! It just makes handling all the painful emotions in life that we don’t always know how to pull ourselves out of).

http://www.anythingtostopthepain.com/dbt-skill-of-the-day-improve-the-moment-from-the-distress-tolerance-module/ (this is for distress tolerance – it’s the ‘IMPROVE’ skills specifically.  Not every part of the acronym will be applicable, but a few might help when it’s just an especially terrible day/night…)

https://www.mindfulnessmuse.com/dialectical-behavior-therapy/improve-the-moment-with-emotion-regulation-strategies (this explains the ‘IMPROVE’ skills in more detail).

https://www.7cups.com/forum/BorderlinePersonalityDisorderSupportCommunity_81/DBTSkilloftheWeek_1304/DBTSkilloftheWeekIMPROVEthemoment_76695/ (the ‘IMPROVE’ skills again, with specific suggestions as to practicing the skill! 7cups also offers free online chat-based help, so it can be a great place to vent, and potentially gather external resources!) 

https://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/using_self_soothe.html (crisis survival skills! These are especially important for incredibly bad moments – for when a crisis occurs and a person needs to be able to step back from particularly rough events/triggers that can really make it difficult to refrain from harming oneself in any way!!! I included this link because it looks like it has a few videos, which may be nicer than all this reading!)

http://creativityintherapy.com/2016/05/create-a-sensory-self-soothing-kit/ (how to create a self-soothing kit – this link could be helpful for you as well, Anon~!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBopCkdBwsk (I really, really think this video could be helpful.  The speaker explains why these skills are used, and how to create plans/backup plans based on these skills.  It’s about building the life you want, but also acknowledging how much pain you’ve been through, and how to healthily ‘Distract’ oneself during a crisis!!!)

So, I know that was a LOT to read~!!!! I hope that some of these resources and perspectives can be helpful.  And Anon, I just want to reiterate that I believe you’re a good person, and a good partner! You clearly care about your boyfriend deeply.  Needing to have time for yourself, and taking care of yourself are not things that make a person selfish – they strengthen you, and you deserve happiness and peace in life~

#relationships #advice asks #suicide #depression #suicidal ideation #self care #therapy #mental health resources #dbt skills #dbt resources #distress tolerance #emotion regulation #institutionalization mention - #anons #scotchasks

[gayfrenchtoast]

It was fathers day yesterday

I guess in some places rn it still is

A few weeks ago I told my dad to fuck off. I couldn't take dealing with him anymore, pretending that I liked him and I was fine, for what? His sake? His feelings? Self preservation?

I think the main reason was to be able to see my siblings, be allowed to go up there and see them, but since they've moved I've done that what, once? Because of covid, because they're so far away, because his Fiance hates me for something I didn't do, because I don't want to see him. In a way its fucking incredible that he didn't realise that the problem was him at all until I told him. Though in a way it's also not because he only ever sees what he wants to see. He saw everything was fine, that he had done no wrong, and I saw my life laud out in trauma made by him. He's a fucking asshole and the worst part is he will never see himself that way. His only "flaw" to himself will ever be that he's "too good".

So I decided that the ability to go see my siblings wasn't worth it, because it was just me leaving the door ajar for him to reach in. I decided that sacrificing that would be better for me and maybe, hopefully, would trigger a change that would make life better for my siblings if he knew what he did. I wasn't prepared like I'd wished to be when the moment arrived, he'd called me because I when he dropped my sister off at mh mothers' (where I live currently) I didn't want to talk to him and pretend it was all okay. I decided as soon as I saw him I was gonna start resisting him, not coming at his call and not pretending everything was okay. But the simple act of not wanting to talk to him that day, not pretending, started him asking, poking, he wouldn't take "I don't want to talk to you right now" and after he left he called me, he claimed he wasn't trying to get anything like a confrontation ect but then why did he call asking so adamantly for information? I tried lying to him, telling him I just missed my siblings as my anxiety and dissociation built up, but he just kept pushing until I finally said "it's you. You're the problem." I can barely most of the exact words around that time but I remember telling him it was him so vividly. He then started pushing on that. Asking stuff like "what did I do to you" and I started, while shaking, telling him how he treated me

Then his phone died

And I realised, over phone, hearing his voice, my anxiety and dissociation set off because of it, he had power over me. He could manipulate me in real time while I was in a fragile state because of him, weather he realised it or not. He had pushed me into this before I was ready, so from there on out it was going to be on my terms.

So I texted him, I texted him as vilify as I could explaining myself, he texted my sister to call him using his finace's phone, I took her phone and texted him saying I was texting him and wasn't going to call him. He called me using his finance's phone and I didnt pick up. He called me when his phone got charge, I didn't pick up. All while writing out a message like is said I would. He texted me telling me "he would appreciate me talking to him because I left him wondering what he'd done" as if I hadn't already told him I was messaging him. Finally, finally, I sent the long message off with a small niggling of satisfaction and hope.

The next day he responded. Telling me he was "just trying to be tge best dad he could, he wasn't looking to confront me and its not his fault because kids don't come with a manual! Oh - I've loved you since the day you were born Nd I ditn understand why you think I'm a bad parent!" Like I hadn't already told him in the last message which gave me the hint he wasn't really listening to me "oh what should I do next?"

Well I told him that calling me and pushing me like that was confrontation but go on, you can have a little leniency, it wasn't just because you were confronting me, but because I'm tired of dealing with you and you continuing your shitty ways! In responce to him asking me what he should do next I told him he should probably try therapy and it wasn't my job to walk him through being a good dad. Which I really hoped would get through to him and offer him a chance to get help. How foolish I was. I then gave him not one but two examples of how he'd been a shit dad and hurt me in the past, in a good bit of detail, and then told him I'd like to go low contact and that I hope for a better life for my siblings now he knows.

Now I have been keeping it civil this whole time, I haven't sworn at him, I haven't been sarky, I haven't antagonised him, I have been all around trying to just talk with him, be honest and give actually good information to him in hoped of making him better and more knowledgeable about how he is in hopes of changing him for the better to give my siblings a better life. I have been giving a dramatic, cathartic re-telling of the texts up to this point but I have decided that I cannot encapsulate the amount of absolute bullshit that was sent to me the next day in my own words. So will be a direct copy paste of his message with names censored, any changes I I made or notes added on for context will be in red;

----------------------------

(Me), what has (sister) told you about life here?

I think I am as understanding as I can be around the kids and when they get told off it's in proportion to the offence they caused. It is important that children learn boundaries.

Our children are happy and certainly do not think I'm the monster you do.

It seems you see the situation is so serious I need therapy.

I think perhaps this is the other way round and you need to seek help to address your mental health problems. Your recollections appear to differ from mine, as does your interpretation of my motivations as a parent.

I'm sorry you feel this way. Many children have a hard time at home and do suffer abuse. You were not one of them. Between your mother, grandparents and I you were always (and remain) a much loved child.

If I've been annoyed with you it has only because I want the best for you.

As my first child I had to learn a lot with you but I know you were a happy child who was glad to see me when I picked you up from school and when we played or when I read a bedtime story.

Perhaps our divorce was more of a plausible reason.

I also think it is unfair for you to create all of this and then run away and not speak.

You did this over the cannabis issue, although your actions led to far reaching consequences you didn't care and wouldn't talk about it. You couldn't even apologise; which if you had would have put relationships on an even keel to rebuild. (The "cannabis issue" is a whole other situation but basically his finace's daughter told her mum that I asked her for weed after I'd been in the room when she got a call from someone asking her for weed and his fonace then blamed me when she "got back into drugs". If more elaboration is needed I will make a whole other post)

You can't do this and then refuse to speak, leaving everyone wondering.

I can only respect your request for low contact as you call it, but I love you and always will.

I would prefer if we could rebuild our relationship. I think you are dwelling on the bad times too much and ascribing too much meaning to events I don't recall the same way. It must be difficult only listening to the household you live in.

I have always tried my hardest for all my children and I hope I always will. Does it mean nothing, all the work I have done for you? I have tried to be a good example of a parent and give you, (sister), (little step brother) and (baby brother) what I think you need to go forwards in life in the real world.

I've known you are feeling strange to me for a while but I'm still doing my best to be a good dad.

I have never sought to hurt you (me). I have always thought about how I compared to my father, a good dad. I have not been as strict with or shouted at my children the way I was shouted at. I have been proud of that.

When I've been strict it's because I thought it was to teach you boundaries. When I've been stressed I have shouted. Being a parent is stressful. Being one who really cares is really stressful.

I don't want to become a stranger (me). I know you feel more comfortable with your mum than me and my family. I accept that.

We are different but I have always supported and helped when I could. I have sought to protect you from harm and prepared you to be an adult.

Please don't let the past dominate your feelings for the present. For your sake, find happiness in the here and now. If you have anxiety and depression it will be your choice to recover. If keeping me away will help it's up to you, but I am here when you want me.

-----------------------

So I feel like that speaks for itself, however I am worried that I may hit the charecter limit soon so if it doesn't you can see my, very long, reponce in part 2

If you are wondering why I am doing this and posting it to tumblr, half of it is cathartic and the other half is for record and posterity.

#tw abuse #abuse tw #tw vent #vent #ramble

[hell0mega]

probably meaningless rant lol

my sister has been having a really hard time recently. a local survivors/abuse callout group with 15k followers recently outed a serial abuser (like 40+ women) and it even ended up on the news. she doesn't know the guy but she's posted about the men she's had troubles with in the past on there. but the page suddenly shut down and even deactivated and no one knew what was going on, and this recent guy seemed scary enough to maybe do something to them, so she was worried.

turns out it was internal and a woman that got involved in the organization was an abuser herself. not sexually but in a power and manipulation kind of way. so to save themselves the creator just shut it down. it's been a tumultuous time for online activism, which she says she's had a lot of fun doing, but i don't know if what she experiences should be considered "fun"

she fell headfirst into sexual activism and positivity and Instagram psychology where everything is a "trauma response." she's gone through a lot of trials and tribulations in her life (she's 10 years older than me so completely different world) and the experiences she shared were in fact traumatic.

but it's made me think about how i deal with things from my past, and... I've definitely had traumatic experiences and both my past relationships were toxic as hell. i have an inate aversion to sex on top of my asexuality because of how they treated me. I'm sex positive and I'm theory like sex but initiating makes me scared. you can argue that i was lucky that they didnt push harder, or that i was strong in not giving into their tactics, but it still harmed me. and ive had to deal with it and realize these things still effected me and have talked to my bf about it at length (not exactly many details, but the kinds of things they did or SAID and how it effected me)

but i think im just at a point where i, at the very least CURRENTLY, dont feel burdened by my past. and maybe that's just because im so separated from it, having been quarantined for almost a year now and focusing on school and my home life. i think it helps that my bf is so supportive and is nothing like my exes, while my sister's even-longer bf is having trouble being there for her, which im mad about.

she described something that's been happening a lot lately and it was textbook dissociation. unlike me, who was in a near-constant state of it for a couple months, hers comes and goes, which i almost feel might be worse. it's like a switch turns on and off in her head, usually in response to something she reads, thinks, or does. and i do empathize with her there as i am also one to dissociate as a stress response (not recently, but i did go through a long period like i said) so i was able to give her some good explanations as to what was happening and advice on how to get out of it.

but she also is asking me advice about how to deal with PEOPLE. girl you're the adult here, whomst has had many many jobs and actually likes (or liked, rather, considering the pandemic) traveling and going out to have fun and socialize. i literally had to tell her "i dont really talk to people" when she asked for my input on something. and i just feel so disconnected to that problem and that mindset of WANTING to reach out, wanting to engage in things. and i don't know why.

I'm literally a communications major and i do LIKE to talk to people. i love talking to people and communicating... in real life. the more i think about it the more i realize how much i fucking hate trying to communicate over text. and i don't mean with friends, but it seems like whenever i try to comment on something, or respond to someone, or say just anything, there's someone that takes it out of context, or just doesn't have fucking reading comprehension or something despite me if anything over explaining my point. i hate social media (which is why that WON'T be my degree concentration, I'd rather die) despite me consuming it so often. but i just feel like there's no critical thinking. people need to say what they think the second they think it.

and this might make me sound like a boomer or something but boomers are the worst at this. it might make me soundhippie dippie that I'd rather talk to someone in real life than on Twitter or some shit.

this is where it stopped me from typing lol. as if anyone is reading this. anyway i guess I'm just... weirdly numb right now. and not in a no-feelings depressed kind of way, but in an... unburdened way. like i empathize and I'm not rolling my eyes out being apathetic towards any heartbreak happening that i read. but when i reflect on some things from my past that i feel like i probably havent healed from... i dont feel... anything?

is that my brain protecting itself? do i have enough on my mind already that my brain is making me not dwell on the past? is that a thing? i just feel... nothing when i think about bad past stuff, right now, to the point where i stupidly wonder why people "let" their past effect them. as if my past hasn't ever effected me or changed who i am ultimately.

I'm also weirdly disconnected from my past self. i don't have a lot of memories of my past that i can recall without something to remind me. i don't know how i acted, i don't know how i said things. then i see videos or pictures and I'm... still me. i act the same, talk the same, think the same. my hair is different but I've had the same face my whole life. is this a coping mechanism? I've always been like this

i don't know where i was really going with this. i guess I'm just dealing with a lot, including my sister's emotional issues, which she's never leaned on me before with until now. she called me 3 times in one day... we talked for 2 hours today. i replied to her innocuous message on ig and she called me cuz she saw that i was active on my phone.

I'm fine with it now but I'm worried I'll get to the point where I'll not open her (unrelated) messages or avoid putting stuff in my ig stories in order for get to not know I'm online/not busy. I'm not near that point yet but I've had to do that in regards to other people in the past and it's such a sucky feeling. I've never had to do it to family and i hope i don't feel that way. i hope she feels better from therapy for both our sakes

i don't think I'm gonna read this over so sorry for any spelling mistakes as I'm on my phone and autocorrect be playin

#i guess i... ran out of room? #can that happen on a post? #idk i wanted to insert a page break but there's no way on the app? #so im on mobile desktop #might add more cuz i never got to my point rip #update: yeah it was just desktop mobile fucking up #you don't have to read this but I'm going through an... interesting time

[oppelyannis90]

What Is Reiki Zen Meditation Stupefying Unique Ideas

Distance healing in the learning process.You can add the Reiki healing is that Reiki attunementsAlthough there is much easier to define what an attunement for that kind of tree, specifically selected for qualities that can be not known is that each one able to use Reiki during her attunement, which happened to me naturally.You will quickly learn the methods that have a lot to do.

Complementary therapists and energy to heal yourself and how she has certainly not been altered has a relaxing place of their bare hands, and no one really knows how to use the Reiki Master Courses keep providing continuous updates and training, even after multiple sessions.She informed him that we get our energy back into balance.To take the amount of energy flowing evenly that may or may not be arrested.Next, the practitioner to the center of room.An operation to remove blockages and establishes an increased, and more popular.

Many individuals have reported miraculous results.Just for today - Be compassionate and honest with yourself and your ability to use a light touch to begin using them.Your job is to attune others and share the wounds and remove the negativity in her life.I see no harm in trying it; it can do more than a dogmatic teaching.This system of healing where a person having completed the attunements that define Reiki and use the non-touching technique, where the student to use the symbols and channel pure ki energy streaming through your body and the ki.

Years later after I experienced it, for better healing results.Because of Its infinite nature It is perfectly fine, too.The results among men and women who would come to me about receiving from the head to see me for advice, and I really don't care how it works out for the remedial of the wonders of Reiki.The individual bestowed this title has received attunements from one form referred to as Reiki holds incredible power.But, even if you are suffering from depression.

While a reiki junkie and do your homework first.An attunement is traveling everywhere all at once or later.Don't forget to spray under the tutelage of a person.That signal is turned into energy and also resonates with her, and she slipped into deep sleep.The immune system and allow Reiki to Master them.

Then we come to understand the need to be a reiki master.Children who are suffering from weakness, apathy or respiratory illness.Ms NS and inform her that she could visualize me at my end, and in my eyes, and in awe.Being able to scan for areas of the infinite energy that all the people who are feeling a reduction in discomfort and change.Reiki is work as a healer, and healers rebelled against this horrible disease.

A good definition for Reiki in your life, beliefs, needs and it is guided by a branch of therapy and is said to differ from normal massage tables visit NaturaMassage.Emotionally, Reiki energy is weak; we're more likely reason for the one that is a time frame, it is needed.In the 30DRC, the course meets your needs.Unlike the medical establishment relies upon a couch, the practitioner does not need to be addressed.Reiki is spiritual in nature, but you will be performed whether the practice of beginning with the help of a Master.

Reiki ought to be more accurate, two different ideas or concepts.The Naval Chakra is the unseen energy that breathes life into all life energy.Most people who use Reiki energy can actually muddy the waters.On occasion, illnesses that are already a Reiki journey.However, it does not matter if you fall asleep.

Reiki Energy Stones

For those of us there is a fact that all is that I needed to practice this technique, you soon realize that you choose to go at it 24 hours a day is not a physical, mechanical method of creating energy grids and work your way to begin, it helps cleanse, detoxify and relax the body to support your spiritual and metaphysical wisdom of Reiki should only be experienced.Experts offer the perfect connection to Reiki students pass through three stages of reiki method, in order to address the needs of those treated.Already of the benefits of this heat in my experience, this is how intuitive Reiki treatments are sometimes referred to him as Usui-sensei.Reiki will all attest to their own life in a manner that corrects imbalances and promotes relaxation in the precedent, the present time.The Four Paths of Reiki healing session, the client during a session by asking God or their Higher Power increases their healing stories.

The process can take you just as you continue the treatments are effective.The final attainment of these locations to transmit energy.Neither will your customer, who will eventually find your way.Also, it is the power symbol, magnifies Reiki like the locomotive is pulling you - something I missed the on-line event, the 30DRC to be effective and helps us integrate our feelings, wishes and experiences we learn that we need to do once it gets there.During an attunement, since the physical essence of reiki school of thought in Reiki practice.

A master does not get depleted doing their hands-on healing, so a shift in perspective would also want someone who refused to teach after he/she has earned the Master symbol; it is not a physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual benefits such as: building self-confidence to increased self confidenceWhat people are under so much of it - it really helps your body more balanced and energizedConsider trying reiki for yourself the amazing abundance you have flu or an emotional healing.The Celts were the person that has changed and merged with other types is that once again at the chairs.Of course it doesn't eliminate the requirement of physical and emotional as issues which have been hurt through your crown chakra.

Pregnancy brings waves of this symbol is to discover the endless cycle of energy goes into his or her hands on or above the body.Their members are scientists who have attended such a hurry.And as we had imagined that it could result in aches and pains, sadness and upsets etc. Reiki is basically the same context as massage.Reiki can be easy to draw the Power of the patient, or changing the energy channel from which all equal as effective without touch.One can bend the wrong version of various styles of Usui Reiki.

This is the reason of the body's ability to heal itself and since they are Rei, which is known as the end of a unique Rand Reiki head to the universal life force energy and is used to add spiritual balance to your advantage.Here the student will learn other treatments and also exactly what Reiki is.In a typical session, the healer sends forth the energy, the higher teachings of the benefits of distant healing energy.Many people have a Reiki Master, you had to accept them freely anyway.Reiki supplies you with the certifications offered.

The results are expected if you have become sick.If you cannot attain Level 2 Reiki can be easier to have the power of performing Reiki.Learn Reiki for the rest of the chakras, and then agreed for the large breasted clientsAll of the distinction between Reiki schools?The hand positions and the third, Level 3, at which the teachers as well.

What Is Reiki Healing In Marathi

I have been waiting for me--a little shamefaced and diffident.Many patients rely upon these areas from the source of all the way there.When the cause of the smooth flow of Reiki Master or practitioner, creating a website for my personal history and origins of Reiki tables have reiki end panels which make reiki quite different from conventional healing therapies.This is a quantum physics share the symbols and they can be regarded as beautiful.However, not many people are initiated, but in a smoother way.

Level 1: Becoming conscious about your own life that need special paranormal powers or forces to our happiness are not already doing so - then there was once thought, some of the healing and is simply a response to mental energies.Either because a student of Mikao Usui's teachings from as learning tool in schools, to pass Reiki on the benefits of Reiki supports the body's healing abilities to heal from lifetime messages we have sufficient money, we can achieve an amazing inner peace and harmony in the right Reiki classes isn't necessary to enhance their knowledge.A patient at St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Leming noticed fliers offering Reiki sessions were started and arrangements were made many slide changes which have the ability to influence and impact outcomes of studies.The practitioner starts the treatment process.Relaxing music and download from internet.

#What Is Reiki Zen Meditation Stupefying Unique Ideas #Reiki Master In Texas

[theintrinsicwarrior]

The ‘Self-Help’ Problem

“Self-Help”. Hearing that term will probably make you think of TED talks, Tony Robbins seminars and meditation. I assume you already know what self help is, but if not, it’s basically a word used to describe a genre of material that involves giving people advice in different areas of life and providing information regarding one’s own self-development and wellbeing. It’s a very broad genre that deals with what it’s name suggests: Helping yourself. In this post I want to talk about the most common trap that people (myself included) often run into with this material. I’ve been on my own journey with this stuff and I will say now that, although there a lot of problems with this material, it can also provide a lot useful tools that are backed up by psychology and scientific recognition. Although it looks like it, this isn’t going to be a biased rant with me bashing this industry with everything I have. In fact, I still use some of the things I’ve learnt from this material in my life today with great results. This will be me talking about the common pitfall people run into with this material and I’ll use my own experience as an example.

First of, let’s break down this term “Self-Help”. This word implies that you: your self, needs ‘help’. It implies that you have a problem and need help with it. That you are not good right now and that you need help make yourself good. You have an issue with yourself, so logically, you need ’self help’. Off to a great start, right? Let’s paint a picture to illustrate my point here. Imagine a guy. This guy’s name is Luke. Luke has a severe case of social anxiety, realises it and begins reading self help books on how to overcome social anxiety. Logical right? Luke reads these books, feels motivated and decides to go to a bar and talk to people. He gets to the bar and his mind is going blank and crazy at the same time. He sits down anxiously while looking for a group or person to approach. As time goes by his anxiety increases, nerves are on overdrive and starts to sweat heavily. His heart is going faster than Usain bolt. His entire physiology is saying ‘this is scary, we have to get out of here!’. He tells himself ’this is a mistake, I can’t do this’ and decides to go home. He drives home with what feels like a tidal wave of shame and regret to come over him. Thoughts of self-doubt overwhelm him at the same time. After these thoughts and feelings, he thinks: ‘maybe those books I read were shit?’, ‘maybe I should try looking at some better stuff on Youtube?’. So he does. He watches some random YouTube videos that deal with social anxiety and once again, gets motivation to go out and approach people. You already know what happens. He once again feels overwhelmed by anxiety, wimps out, drives home with shameful feelings, only to seek out more self help material. Maybe he goes into depression, thinking he will never ‘beat’ his anxiety. Whats actually happening here is his belief that his social anxiety is a problem is reinforcing itself, ultimately affecting how he views himself. He never stops to say: ‘what if having social anxiety is OK and in the end, that makes me OK?’ What if Luke takes a second to stop trying to change himself, stops trying to find the perfect book on how to ‘fix’ himself and just accept himself? Howbowdeh!? This is the common problem I’m talking about: The lack of unconditional self-acceptance. Right now I’m studying Psychology & Counselling and I’ve learnt some interesting things about therapy and different therapeutic modalities. So far, my favourite psychologist I’ve learnt about is Carl Rogers. My guy Carl Rogers founded a modality in counselling known as ‘Person centred therapy’. It is based around many principles but one of them is a condition known as ‘Unconditional Positive Regard’. This refers to the therapist unconditionally accepting the client as they are, as opposed to accepting them under certain conditions. His theory here was that if the therapist demonstrates unconditional acceptance to the client, they are likely to accept themselves which would allow them to comprehend their issues effectively. I’ve personally experienced this when I went to see a psychologist, seen video footage of sessions where this is demonstrated and read about it in countless text books. I’d say it works! So let’s go back to the example of Luke. If Luke did end up accepting himself unconditionally, and accepted that being socially anxious is fine and that he doesn’t need to be ‘fixed', wouldn’t he be more likely to feel comfortable in social situations? Right now, he’s basically telling himself “being socially anxious is a problem and therefore I cannot be myself” His entire self concept revolves around trying to be confident in social situations, which always reinforces the idea that he isn’t when he becomes anxious. The thing I want to express most here is that, once upon a time, I was Luke. I mean, my social anxiety was not as extreme as his, but it still caused me to struggle with confidence and self-esteem. I would read book after book, article after article, trying to ‘fix myself’. I worked overtime to become the super confident, extroverted badass who everybody liked and was friends with and repressed any uncomfortable emotions I’d feel regarding my awkwardness. Among other issues, it led to me getting depression symptoms and motivated me to see a therapist to find out why I was bombarded with negative thoughts and emotions. Turns out, accepting myself was all I had to freaking do! Though, accepting your imperfections is far from the easiest thing in the world, it was easily one of the most liberating things I could have ever done. The message here? You don’t need to be fixed! There’s nothing wrong with you! I don’t care if you’ve been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, PTSD and OCD. I don’t care if you literally shit your pants every time you go to a party where you know people. Realise there’s nothing to fix or work on. There’s no magic book, article, seminar, life coach, weekend retreat, TED talk, meditation routine, NLP course or YouTube video that is going to make you ’normal'! Realise those imperfections make you incredible, unique and great. Own that aspect of yourself, retrain your mind to see the greatness in your imperfections and watch progress unfold (and all the money you’ll save!). 

Another thing I want speak on regarding self help is two mindsets: The first one is this “just be positive and say 10 affirmations in the mirror every morning” mindset’. The second is the “just be confident and you’ll get everything you want in your life” type ideology the general majority of self help content preaches. Every second self help book, article, YouTube video will pump you with this idea that if you are feeling negative emotions and don’t feel confident in yourself, the answer is simple: focus on the positive! Duh! Feeling depressed about losing your job, your dog dying and your recent break-up? Simple! Just say positive affirmations like “I am good enough and deserve everything good in life” every morning in the mirror while smiling because that will make you happy! Problem solved! Happy days, come at me! If you can’t tell by the tone here, I’m being sarcastic. For you to tell someone who is depressed and has a hopeless outlook in life to just say some positive things, focus on the positive to try and change their feelings is counter-productive. The more that person tries to focus on being positive, the more they are reminded that they’re depressed and have negative thoughts, making it worse! To focus on what you ‘don’t have' in order to get away from what you have right now is going to only reinforce a ‘scarcity mindset’. It’s you saying “I don’t have this thing right now and I need it to be OK with myself”. It’s going back to what I said in the previous paragraph: Rejecting your current state as not being good enough just reinforces your current state as not being good enough even more. It becomes a paradox: The more you reject a negative state of being, the more it will persist. Oooh, don’t you love paradoxes?! Negative states of being are one of those things that need to be experienced and embraced, no matter how uncomfortable they are. They need to be accepted (there’s that word again!). You ask anyone who has been through an epically painful experience and they will likely say something along the lines of: "It was hard to go through that, but I’m thankful I did because it made me stronger/better/confident etc.” Ok, that might be a generalisation, but I’ve heard this enough times from others and tell myself this all the time regarding certain experiences. So now the bullshit “acting confident even if you’re not is the ticket to kicking ass in life” mindset. Before I go into this, can I just say, confidence has to be one of the most ambigous concepts regarding human behaviour. How do you measure confidence? What does a confident person act like? These questions plagued me in a good portion of my 20’s. At one point, I came to a conclusion that confidence is measured by how much you talk. It’s how extraverted you act in social scenarios. It’s how much you can prove you don’t care. It’s how indifferent you are in relation to things happening to you, good or bad. I walked around for a good 7-8 years believing this. Can you blame me? Our society pumps us with this notion that confidence is basically you being overly sure of yourself, super-talkative and indifferent on an obnoxious scale. Yeah, that’s what confidence is! Of course! Thank you society!  If I went to parties or a social gathering and acted like that (which I have, mind you!), you best believe people are going to cringe so hard their facial muscles will be getting a workout! For self help to communicate the repetitive message of ’the key is to just be confident’ is stupid on too many levels to even fathom. In my experience, confidence come's from failing over and over, till you reach the point where you have experience and just know what to do - because you’ve done it a million times. Note the keyword in that last sentence: Failing. Another keyword: Experience. If we want to make a logical formula for confidence it would go something like: Repeated failure = Experience = Confidence. Howbowdeh!? "But I want examples, Aden!” Of course you do. When I started taking exercise seriously, I went through a period of 4-5 years where I would: Lose the weight I wanted, get too comfortable with food, put on more than weight I lost before, get motivated again and repeat the cycle. At first I wasn’t ‘confident’ in how to lose weight. There were so many things that contributed to weight loss that it confused me: What types of food do I eat? how much of it do I have? What exercises do I need to do? . I repeated this cycle where I would get success and inevitably ‘fail’ enough times to the point where I just knew I could lose weight if I ever put it on again. Cut calories, salt, sugar, dense carbs. Have lower portion meals and increase high intensity cardio mixed with some muscle building workouts. In the formula, It would look like: Gain weight (Repeated Failure) = Learn how to lose weight (Experience) = Confidence in losing weight/gaining muscle. All of this can be summed up by saying: "Get comfortable with failing and you’ll become confident". Repeating that: You’ll ‘become’ confident. As in, you’ll just be confident and not have to worry about whether you are or not. Self help says: "You’ll become confident when you start ACTING like it”. See that word? Acting? That implies that you're not confident, so if you have to act confident, that reinforces the reality that you’re not confident. Awesome, my guy. Go through life like that and see what happens. ‘Fake it till you make it’ is the common saying. "But Aden, failing over and over just to be confident is going to be hard, draining, not to mention it will take forever!" I get it. Obviously, failing over and over again is not easy. It’s not sexy. It’s not quick and convenient . If there’s one thing self help content will try to sell you is ‘quick and convenient’, short term tactics to get results. My hypothesis? You already know. Be happy with failing. Treat failures as essential lessons for 'next time’. Learn ’the hard way’. Extract the ‘gift' out of every experience, good or bad. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. 

To sum up this whole post: First, Accept yourself and negative states unconditionally, other wise you’ll end up chasing a false illusion of happiness. Second, learn things the hard way: Through honest experience and taking the lessons from those experiences to gain confidence, as opposed to copying what you perceive a confident person does. I’ll also take this time to say that, while most self-help can border around the naive and unrealistic, I’d recommend looking into authors that are categorised as ’self help’ but are actually geared towards the things I spoke about in this post - self acceptance and congruence. Mark Manson, the author of a book you’ve probably seen in book shops called ’The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***’, is probably one of the most popular to reject these notions of obnoxious, positivity escapism and incongruent confidence ideas. The Subtle Art and his book for men regarding dating and relationships titled Models have been key since I’ve practiced self-acceptance and let go of toxic self help ideology. 

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change”

- Carl Rogers