#....slightly less than two years

[bittsandpieces]

i havent gone on a date with someone new in literally two years im so fucking nervous

[aquanutart]

[chalkrub]

super fun trade with @charseraph !

[sysig]

maybe you should doodle however many or few starcon/helix/damned characters as you like (in human or alien form) in cute halloween costumes! imagine... ZEX dressed up as Ariel thelittlemermaid...

Day 26 - "I hadn't realized humans also had aquatic subcultures!" "Oh, well, uhm..."

[mariocki]

Shadows of Fear: At Occupier's Risk (1.3, Thames, 1971)

"I happened to look into one of the other rooms and there were dust sheets."

"If there were other guests, you would have seen them."

"I once lived in a flat for six months and never saw anyone in the house. Heard them, yes, but never saw them."

"No. There's no one else here."

"Good."

[abirdie]

Gael García Bernal in Letters to Juliet (2010, dir. Gary Winick)

(these gifs also feature Amanda Seyfried)

Gifs are all 540px wide so you can click to see larger.

[other gael filmography gifsets]

[mzminola]

Tim & Bruce both had an unspoken countdown to when Tim turned, not fifteen, not sixteen, but fifteen and nine months.

They don't talk about it. Not with each other, not with anyone else, but they are both very, very aware of when Tim has officially lived longer than Jason ever had the chance to.

[fbwzoo]

I gave in to a Craigslist ad that had been up for a couple weeks & met the person yesterday, to take 3 hermit crabs. I thought they were likely pretty small from the ad picture, but two are VERY small - 1/2" to 3/4" shell openings. The biggest is about 1" opening. And of course I JUST gave away all my smaller shells at Crab Con. 🤦 So I already placed a couple orders online, and I'm running to some craft stores after work today.

Despite not being prepared with shells like I should've, I am glad I have extra space and containers. The big baby is quite active and already changed shell once. However, the smallest just molted, and I set them up to finish eating their exo in their original tank. The other small baby has yet to move since I got them, which worries me. But I have 2 more small tanks available if I need to isolate them too! I'm anxious to get home and check on them today.

[damndude69]

.

[monster-noises]

I FORGOT THEY MAKE SUGAR FREE ICED T E A

BEST MOST SPECIAL IMPORTANT TREAT OF THE DAY

[aquanutart]

I absolutely LOVE the Squirtle/Wartortle illustrations by kantaro in Pokemon 151!

The Squirtle jumping so joyfully from the rock into the ocean, the colors are STUNNING! I love the contrast of the Squirtle's aqua blue framed in the vivid orange sky, the soft bit of blue reflecting in its shell and its tail just catching the sun, how little and squishy its body looks as it launches itself towards the water with such tremendous excitement!

The lineless style of the background gives me the feel of a travel poster and I sense the tropical environment around it from the rocks and trees framing the corners, the waterfall splashing with as much energy as the Squirtle!

The layered blues on the surface of the water and the bubbles rising at the corner make me FEEL the liquid rising to meet the Squirtle--I can just feel how the next moment it's going to break through and be immersed in a cool island swim!

And the Wartortle running along the sunset beach, this is somehow everything I always imagined for Wartortle! I adore the way the rich purple melts into the warm red/orange sky, the matching purple clouds and shadows in the foreground, and how the dimming sunlight glows red on Wartortle's deep blues!

I love how the yellow and orange of the sky illuminate the lapping waves, I can just feel the gentle motion of the sea at dusk. The aqua color of the ocean matches Wartortle's ears and tail and sets off the red-orange sand, I just love how the colors are here!

Wartortle looks so round and squishy, I love its happiness as it goes frolicking through the shallows, chasing the bubbles caught in the setting sun! The shine and deep shadow on its shell give it an almost jewel texture like real tortoise shell; I love the silhouetted splash Wartortle leaves as it goes running across the shore. It's so full of energy and delight at the end of a gorgeous day! The colors in these are SO vivid and harmonized and the style is so cute and bursting with energy and joy. I just LOVE it (also Squirtle is my starter)

[dandelionjack]

he's gonna go into the rift for 70 years isn't he. that's why he didn't tell bill his plan. you cannot keep doing this sir

[july-19th-club]

one thing about getting sick for me is that before covid (the first time) my colds and flus and whatnot all went in a very specific pattern: i would get a sore throat for a day or two, then violently congested for three or four days, then a runny nose/drainage for three or four days after that, and finally a cough, which was my favorite part of the cold (if a person can be said to have a favorite part of a cold) because it meant it was almost over AND that the problem was largely not in my face and neck anymore. but any illness i've had since that first covid has been all over the map - either i don't get the sore throat at all, just straight into the congestion, or the sore throat happens at a different time, or longer, or worse, or i have to spit a lot because otherwise i get so nauseous from sinus drainage that i throw up, or the congestion and the runny nose happen concurrently with not just each other but ALSO the sore throat (which is what's happening right now and i hate it) and like. because it doesn't follow the pattern i spent twenty-six years of my life getting used to, i'm always freaked out. which i would be anyway because ever since i had the first covid getting sick freaks me out. and it should freak more people out if im being honest. but this is a weird one bc like. i dont know how it did that but it disrupted MY trusty sick pattern

[mariocki]

Edward Woodward stars as The Man (named Frank in dialogue), a neurotic adulterer in midlife crisis, in Play for Today: Evelyn (BBC, 1971), Rhys Adrian's adaptation of his previous radio play

[sheliesshattered]

The sequin fabric for my I-am-determined-to-make-this-happen cosplay arrived the other day, and since I am still up to my eyeballs in handsewing for my Rhaenyra dress, all I did was open the plastic bag the fabric shipped in so I could check the red color against a few other pieces of the costume. Didn’t even take it out of the bag, just unfolded it a tiny bit so I could see the front of the fabric.

And yet somehow there are already sequins all over my house.

[drdemonprince]

The data does not support the assumption that all burned out people can “recover.” And when we fully appreciate what burnout signals in the body, and where it comes from on a social, economic, and psychological level, it should become clear to us that there’s nothing beneficial in returning to an unsustainable status quo. 

The term “burned out” is sometimes used to simply mean “stressed” or “tired,” and many organizations benefit from framing the condition in such light terms. Short-term, casual burnout (like you might get after one particularly stressful work deadline, or following final exams) has a positive prognosis: within three months of enjoying a reduced workload and increased time for rest and leisure, 80% of mildly burned-out workers are able to make a full return to their jobs. 

But there’s a lot of unanswered questions lurking behind this happy statistic. For instance, how many workers in this economy actually have the ability to take three months off work to focus on burnout recovery? What happens if a mildly burnt-out person does not get that rest, and has to keep toiling away as more deadlines pile up? And what is the point of returning to work if the job is going to remain as grueling and uncontrollable as it was when it first burned the worker out? 

Burnout that is not treated swiftly can become far more severe. Clinical psychologist and burnout expert Arno van Dam writes that when left unattended (or forcibly pushed through), mild burnout can metastasize into clinical burnout, which the International Classification of Diseases defines as feelings of energy depletion, increased mental distance, and a reduced sense of personal agency. Clinically burned-out people are not only tired, they also feel detached from other people and no longer in control of their lives, in other words.

Unfortunately, clinical burnout has quite a dismal trajectory. Multiple studies by van Dam and others have found that clinical burnout sufferers may require a year or more of rest following treatment before they can feel better, and that some of burnout’s lingering effects don’t go away easily, if at all. 

In one study conducted by Anita Eskildsen, for example, burnout sufferers continued to show memory and processing speed declines one year after burnout. Their cognitive processing skills improved slightly since seeking treatment, but the experience of having been burnt out had still left them operating significantly below their non-burned-out peers or their prior self, with no signs of bouncing back. 

It took two years for subjects in one of van Dam’s studies to return to “normal” levels of involvement and competence at work. following an incident of clinical burnout. However, even after a multi-year recovery period they still performed worse than the non-burned-out control group on a cognitive task designed to test their planning and preparation abilities. Though they no longer qualified as clinically burned out, former burnout sufferers still reported greater exhaustion, fatigue, depression, and distress than controls.

In his review of the scientific literature, van Dam reports that anywhere from 25% to 50% of clinical burnout sufferers do not make a full recovery even four years after their illness. Studies generally find that burnout sufferers make most of their mental and physical health gains in the first year after treatment, but continue to underperform on neuropsychological tests for many years afterward, compared to control subjects who were never burned out. 

People who have experienced burnout report worse memories, slower reaction times, less attentiveness, lower motivation, greater exhaustion, reduced work capability, and more negative health symptoms, long after their period of overwork has stopped. It’s as if burnout sufferers have fallen off their previous life trajectory, and cannot ever climb fully back up. 

And that’s just among the people who receive some kind of treatment for their burnout and have the opportunity to rest. I found one study that followed burned-out teachers for seven years and reported over 14% of them remained highly burnt-out the entire time. These teachers continued feeling depersonalized, emotionally drained, ineffective, dizzy, sick to their stomachs, and desperate to leave their jobs for the better part of a decade. But they kept working in spite of it (or more likely, from a lack of other options), lowering their odds of ever healing all the while. 

Van Dam observes that clinical burnout patients tend to suffer from an excess of perseverance, rather than the opposite: “Patients with clinical burnout…report that they ignored stress symptoms for several years,” he writes. “Living a stressful life was a normal condition for them. Some were not even aware of the stressfulness of their lives, until they collapsed.”

Instead of seeking help for workplace problems or reducing their workload, as most people do, clinical burnout sufferers typically push themselves through unpleasant circumstances and avoid asking for help. They’re also less likely to give up when placed under frustrating circumstances, instead throttling the gas in hopes that their problems can be fixed with extra effort. They become hyperactive, unable to rest or enjoy holidays, their bodies wired to treat work as the solution to every problem. It is only after living at this unrelenting pace for years that they tumble into severe burnout. 

Among both masked Autistics and overworked employees, the people most likely to reach catastrophic, body-breaking levels of burnout are the people most primed to ignore their own physical boundaries for as long as possible. Clinical burnout sufferers work far past the point that virtually anyone else would ask for help, take a break, or stop caring about their work.

And when viewed from this perspective, we can see burnout as the saving grace of the compulsive workaholic — and the path to liberation for the masked disabled person who has nearly killed themselves trying to pass as a diligent worker bee. 

I wrote about the latest data on burnout "recovery," and the similarities and differences between Autistic burnout and conventional clinical burnout. The full piece is free to read or have narrated to you in the Substack app at drdevonprice.substack.com