#Anxiety Treatment Chicago

[mparkmed1985]

Anxiety Treatment in Chicago: Where to Get Help

If you're struggling with anxiety, finding the right help in Chicago is crucial. Anxiety treatment in Chicago offers a range of options, from therapy and counseling to medication and holistic approaches. Experienced mental health professionals in the city specialize in treating anxiety disorders, helping you regain control of your life. Whether you prefer individual therapy, group sessions, or a combination of treatments, Chicago has numerous clinics and specialists ready to assist. Don't let anxiety hold you back—explore your treatment options today and take the first step toward recovery.

[lakeshoredentalstudio]

Chicago, IL residents looking for a sedation dentist have a variety of options to improve their dental experience. You may handle oral sedation dentistry with confidence and ease if you know what to eat, talk to your dentist, and prepare accordingly.

[ammiraticounselingil]

Is incessant worry preventing you from putting your best foot forward? We can help you! Our anxiety therapy gives you a chance to feel in charge and at peace. Our therapists are skilled in a range of evidence-based modalities and therapeutic techniques. Depending on your particular needs, we will utilize the treatment methods that are best for your situation. With the help of these approaches, you will learn the skills to manage your anxiety outside of therapy. Book your appointment today!

[sysmedsaresexist]

Today we're once again reminded of the levels of cruelty people are capable of.

I missed most of the drama with the bait accounts, but I want to offer some positivity and solace to those affected.

Many of you actually cared about the fake child behind the screen. You wanted to help, you sent kindness and support, and I watched many of you worry in private on discord-- everyone was very realistic about the claims. Obviously they were probably wrong, but goddamn, they needed help.

Don't be embarrassed or ashamed that you fell for it.

You are a good person, who sees good in the world.

You aren't gullible or easily manipulated.

You are still capable of trust, and you should be so proud of yourself for manging to hold on to that trait after everything you've been through.

Don't let this do further damage to you. Don't be angry with yourself, don't lose that faith in the good of humanity.

Don't let sick people trick you into thinking the world is full of only horrible people. Don't let yourself become more skeptical, because that's what they want.

Continue to believe survivors

In Canada, we have a saying.

"Better that someone abuse the system, than for someone who needs it to not have access."

Stay with me, I'm going somewhere with this.

When we talk about Universal Healthcare with Americans, this topic comes up a lot. "But people will abuse the system."

Yes, but more people actually need and use the system appropriately. You can't allow bad people to harm everyone. Everyone loses in that case.

As proof:

We pay less in taxes than Americans, and still get free Healthcare. I take home more money than you, and still get more out of it. The myth that our waitlists are months long is fake and orchestrated by American insurance companies.

Consider, for a second, how your background plays into your beliefs and skepticism regarding these topics. Maybe I was just raised to be more trusting, I don't know.

But I certainly don't think the mindset is harmful.

You can read interviews on the isstd website with clinicians that were working during the satanic panic. One interview stood out to me in particular.

Imagine for a second that you have a patient sitting in front of you. They tell you that they have dreams about being abused by a satanic cult. They give you details of these dreams and you talk through them together. For now, you're focused on how these dreams affect them. Are they losing sleep? Is their daily life affected? Anxiety? They begin to tell you about their paranoia, and how people they recognize are in the dreams.

You probe a bit deeper.

They wonder aloud if maybe it happened in real life.

How do you respond? Really think about how your response will come across.

This was the satanic panic.

The ISSTD didn't find their patients themselves. Doctors from across the world referred their patients to the ISSTD's treatment program in Chicago. The doctors at the ISSTD trusted the referring doctors, who had already done the majority of work and background gathering (meaning the ISSTD met these clients long after they had made their claims, rather than "implanting" those memories themselves). Police were involved trying to sort through all the information to find real culprits. Everyone was terrified. No one knew what was happening or who to trust or believe. It looked real.

In the back of every doctor's mind was the question, "What if they're telling the truth?"

Many doctors didn't believe their clients, but telling them that to their face would be bad practice.

This large scale hysteria was something no one was prepared for. They were flying by the seat of their pants, hoping for the best and that an answer would fall from the sky.

Yes, many of the claims were fake. Whether they were consciously made up, or stand-in pseudomemories for real abuse (a well-documented thing), and the rare cases mixed in that were genuine-- doctors tried to take their clients' claims at face value.

Imagine you tell your doctor about your abuse and they say, "that sounds a bit extreme, I don't think that's possible."

Programmed DID existed before the panic, it exists to this day. Just because you can't find the research doesn't mean it isn't there.

By claiming something specific isn't real, you also discredit the abuse leading up to it.

Let me put it another way, who cares if programmed DID is possible? Organized and ritual abuse is real. Trafficking, CSA films, war crimes, conversion groups, churches. DID is real.

Grey Faction and TST want you to stay in the mindset that it's more important to weed out fakers and malingerers than to trust people in the hopes you help just one person in a real way. They want you to be skeptical of everyone and everything in order to maintain their public image, because if you look too hard, you'll see the terrible things they have done.

GF has a bad habit of being like, "The TST doesn't take part in LARGE SCALE MURDER AND CANNIBALISM, that's not even real, it was debunked during the panic," as if to say anything less severe isn't worthy of note and also must not be real. It's surprisingly effective, and by connecting more absurd ideas with RAMCOA and the ISSTD, they manage to discredit huge swathes of the field.

Some people like to think they took the red pill, and that they've ascended to a higher level of intelligence with a new, better ability to look at things impartially, when they're really just assholes falling for bullshit. They hurt real survivors and still think they're in the right.

It's vile behavior done for cheap kicks and internet brownie points. Even 4chan types wouldn't go that far or be that pathetic.

Who else could look someone in the face and say, "I don't believe you."

They want you to think they're better than you, but which is better?

Outward and vocal skepticism and dismissal, or quiet, thoughtful reflection with the longterm goal of helping this person find their truth?

Some of you would make much better doctors than others.

The bad people aren't the ones "faking" or lying. Those people at mentally ill and still deserving of help.

The bad people are the ones who want to dismiss every claim because one person once lied about it.

Don't lose your faith. Don't let this set you back. We need more people like you.

I'm proud of you for caring about people.

What happened will further stigmatize survivors, it did real damage to people. You're not alone.

Don't let them win, you did the right things.

Stay safe, everyone.

We survived this kind of discourse once on a much larger scale. We'll do it again.

[arowitharrows]

God how I wish there'd been articles like this years ago when people were tripping over themselves to deny any and all struggles asexual people face. The amount of times people demanded "proof" when we talked about our experiences. Well, there's certainly more research being published nowadays, if that counts as "proof". I hope they read it.

Today “asexuality is widely accepted as a sexual orientation in the literature,” Hille says, but cultural awareness remains in its infancy, especially compared with other orientations under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella. Saying you don't experience sexual attraction is still like saying you don't eat, Hille explains, and “if you don't eat, there's something wrong with you, and you're hurting yourself.” Asexual people sometimes get this message not just from family and acquaintances but from their health-care providers. Shelby Wren, a health equity researcher at the University of Minnesota, published a study in 2020 in which 30 to 50 percent of respondents who had disclosed their asexuality in a medical setting said a therapist or doctor had attributed their asexuality to a health condition. The proposed diagnoses included anxiety, depression and, in one case, a personality disorder. “You don't know what's going to happen when you disclose your sexual orientation,” Wren says. “And for a lot of people, that stops them from talking about things that could be relevant to their health care.”

[...]

Refraining from disclosing one's asexuality to a mental health provider is often a “very rational decision,” Chasin says. “It's always much worse to be actively rejected and misunderstood.” For instance, asexual people are sometimes subjected to conversion therapy, a practice aimed at changing someone's sexuality or gender identity. It is banned for minors in 22 U.S. states because of its well-documented and extensive harms, including increased rates of suicide. A 2018 U.K. government survey of LGBTQIA+ people found that asexual respondents were the most likely to be offered conversion therapy and as likely as gay and lesbian people to receive it. A recent survey by the Trevor Project found that 4 percent of asexual youths in the U.S. were subjected to conversion therapy, on par with bisexual respondents. On the legislative level, bans on conversion therapy should explicitly reference asexuality, Benoit says. So, too, should professional associations of health-care practitioners, says Samantha Guz, a social work researcher at the University of Chicago. “Asexual people are made to be so invisible in our society that I don't think just having a broad call against conversion therapy is specific enough,” Guz says.

Even well-meaning doctors might unwittingly harm their patients. To a clinician, a patient who is worried that they should feel more sexual desire—and who does not know they are simply asexual—might initially look similar to patients who want sexual intimacy and could benefit from treatments aimed at increasing or restoring desire. Treatments for certain types of sexual dysfunction do help some people whose level of sexual desire leaves them distressed and unsatisfied, Brotto says. For some people, though, this distress may be coming not from an intrinsic desire to want sex but from external pressures such as partners or society as a whole. “I have worked with folks where it's taken us many, many months for the person to really understand how well asexuality fits with their identity,” as opposed to having an issue that is rooted in a health problem or a situational condition, Brotto says. Most doctors, though, don't know that such a distinction exists or is necessary, she adds.

[livfastdieyoung69]

I’M NOTHING, I’M NOWHERE

(mcintyre!gn!reader x cm punk)

Your brother was going insane. There’s simply no other way to put it, he was just going crazy. For instance, now. He let Punk get to him so much that he lost a title match, after so much hard work, again. And this time, in Scotland. Your home!

“Drew, I get that this is tough, but maybe…maybe you’re letting him get to you too much.” You spoke, exhausted of both of their antics as he paced back and forth in your dressing room. Why he was in your dressing room anyways, you didn’t really know, but he’d pushed right through the door and wouldn’t stop grumbling. ‘CM Punk’ this, ‘CM Punk’ that, you were a little worried he had a crush on the man.

Not like you didn’t, you’d been in a bit of a relationship with him for who knows how long anymore. Especially Drew- he didn’t know at all.

“I just lost in front of our people, and it’s my fault after he did this to me?” He glared over at you, towering over your sitting from as if none of this could possibly be on him.

“I’m just saying-“ Your not allowed to finish before he cuts you off with a scoff and a shake of the head, turning to leave your locker room, no trace left behind.

You don’t see him or even talk to him, he won’t pick up your calls, until you tune into Raw the next Monday, only to find out he’s up and quit. Your brother, who you worked side by side with for years, quit his dream because of your situationship. What the hell.

And he still wouldn’t answer your calls! You’d gone all week stressing about him, even going as far as texting Phil about it, threatening to punch him in the face if he ever did this to your brother again. (You wouldn’t, but you’d give him the silent treatment long enough that he’d fold and leave Drew alone completely if worse came to worse.)

Friday had already been tough not just from the week of no Drew, and the weeks jet lag of Scotland to your home to Chicago, but also the anxiety of an important match- a money in the bank qualifying match. If you didn’t have as much going on you’d have no doubt you’d win but you also had to face Phil for the first time since Clash at the Castle. It was hard to stay mad at him, especially in person. You knew he’d give you the big dumb puppy dog eyes and a sweet smile, maybe even a kiss to the forehead and you’d do nothing but fold the same way he does to your silent treatment.

Luckily, you hadn’t seen him in the building. The longer he stayed away the longer you stayed winning. You were a little worried he might no show when the time started getting close, to the point where you watched the screens in the gorilla and asked the camera men if anyone had showed up while you waited for your opponents.

Of course, you won. It felt eerie though, without having your brother to call and celebrate by screaming excitedly at each other. This was such a big moment, but all you could think about was Drew. Hell, you started reminiscing Covid when you got to be on the same roster together. It wasn’t like you could celebrate with Phil either, you were supposed to be mad at him, he wasn’t here, and that’d just make you think even more about Drew. Who knew winning a qualifying match for what could possibly be the greatest moment of your life would suck so much? You scurried off to your locker room to change into comfortable clothes and sulk by your lonesome, maybe send Drew a passive aggressive text or two.

After growing bored of sitting in your misery after about half an hour, you huff and puff your way to the door, tugging the heavy thing open. The sight of the hallway stops your heart. Nearly shatters it, really.

There, in front of nearly half the damn roster, your fucking brother is scowling his way through the hallway with a bloody and blundered half to death CM Punk thrown over his shoulders, practically skipping towards the gorilla.

“Drew?” You ask, stumbling from the door as you watch him move further ahead. “Drew!” Your pace picks up, quickly following after your brother but somehow he still held room over you with a man on his shoulders. “What the hell are you doing, Drew! Drew!!” The tactic of getting louder in hopes that he’d stop ignoring you doesn’t seem to be working. Drew disappears from your sight and a crew of staff rushes in front of you, trying to reach your brother before he makes it out of the curtains.

The fans reactions tells you they didn’t make it. The yelling for a medic tells you Drew is really, fully going batshit.

Pushing your way through the crowds of people and the curtain you see your brother first. Relief that he’s okay fills you, he’s still your brother after all, but it leaves when your gaze moves to Phil- unmoving, hair caked in blood, and dumped on the ground.

You look back up to your brother, your older brother you idolized for so long, and back to the man you’ve loved for maybe even longer.

“What the hell the did you do, Drew?” Your voice cracks, raw with emotion, as you walk towards him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? What did you do?!” You push at him but it doesn’t do much. He doesn’t even look at you, just stares down at Punk and the medics cluttering the space around him. You turn from him and tumble down to your knees.

“Phil? What’s-what happened? What did he do?” He doesn’t answer, doesn’t look at you either. Doesn’t seem like he can do much but breathe. “He’s gonna be okay, right? He’ll be fine.” You turn to the closest medic, assuring yourself before they even answer and scoot closer to Punk. “Everything’s gonna be fine, baby. You’re gonna- you’re gonna be okay!” You grab a hold of his hand, standing with the medics as they start pushing the stretcher up and out. Suddenly they’re pushing you away, trying to tell you that you can’t ride with him but you don’t hear them over your own screaming voice telling Phil everything will be fine.

The doors to the ambulance close, the cameras shut off, and Drew is long gone. The world moves on, another segment plays, but you’re still here. Alone, covered in your lovers blood and the accidental betrayal of two siblings.

MWAHAHAHAHHH ANGSTT (the titles from broke back mountain teehee) didn’t wanna do it under a specific request cause i believe this fits two or three but either way i gotta go snooze i got work in like three and a half hours 🥲

[isabelle-spray]

Euphoria S3 theory/fan fic

Rue - attending community college, working at the diner in the evenings, living with Mom, sponsoring a kid at NA

Gia - just graduated high school with excellent grades and has a place to study psychology at a good school in the city. She is suffering with severe anxiety and PTSD from the events of s1&2. Her relationship with Rue has become strained.

Leslie - is a couple of years into a new relationship with a guy that both girls like. She announces that once Gia heads off to college he will be moving in, and suggests that Rue may want to get her own place.

This makes Rue feel rejected and angry and pushes her towards a relapse. She starts hanging out more with the kid from NA - but eventually avoids relapse after she encounters a crack-addicted Eliot living in a trap house, and is reminded of her experiences with Laurie. She visits Fez-co and Ashtray’s graves and promises him she will not let herself or him down again.

She also visits the grave of her father and tells him that she is doing ok and how proud she is of Gia, even though Gia kind of hates her now.

Lexi - fresh out of her masters in screenwriting at NYU, Lexi is in LA working as a runner on a TV show. After the artistic triumph of her play we all expect her to be flourishing - but she is now grappling with the realities of life in the film and TV industry. Feeling frustrated creatively at having to work at a movie theatre to make ends meet - not the glamorous life she had in mind.

Cassie - the Howard’s mom has liver cancer. After dropping out of college (which she never wanted to go to anyway) she began working as a host at a gentleman’s club, but has now moved on to working as a high end escort - which pays for her mom’s treatment much better, but she is maintaining the facade of her job at the club. She has also become an alcoholic.

Lexi hardly ever comes home because she does not want to face her mom’s illness. Cassie is mad at Lexi for not helping care for their mom or financially contributing, but her mom assures Lexi that she wants her to follow her dream, so she plays up her role on the TV show. Cassie and Lexi both eventually find out about each other’s lies.

Rue supports Lexi in facing the reality of her mom’s illness.

Jules - living in a loft in Chicago and working on her art and gaining a biggish following on her instagram. She caught the attention of a LGBTQ art foundation with her college artwork and is now interning with them. Jules has a new group of artsy friends but after a traumatic experience of transphobic harrassment she finds that they are more interested in coat tailing her than caring for her. This makes her reminisce about her friendship/relationship with Rue - because Rue’s love - whilst toxic in some ways - was authentic.

By the end of the series they have reconnected and will never be as close as they were but have forgiven one another.

Lexi and Jules connect over their frustrations of the creative industries, but Lexi is envious of Jules’ success.

Maddy - married to a 35 yr old realtor she met through her babysitting work, Maddy is seemingly living the dream. Stay at home mom, twins, sitting by the pool drinking rose. But she finds out that he has been cheating, and so she goes into a tailspin of affairs.

Whilst leaving a hotel where she has met a guy, she finds Cassie waiting for a cab. One of her clients has brutally beaten her and she is visibly hurt. Maddy’s memories of her assault by Nate make her soften towards Cassie. She takes her to the emergency room. The two begin spending time together and Cassie finds healing in getting to know the twins. Maddy offers her a job as a nanny.

Nate - Nate attended North Western on a football scholarship - however he is suspended as he is embroiled in a legal case of sexual assault against a female student. He visits his Dad in prison but Cal has not forgiven him for turning him in. He does however, tell him to get help and explains that he has accessed therapy and can see how his treatment of Nate has affected him. Nate does not listen and is further aggravated by this.

Nate asks to meet with Maddy on the pretence of apologising for his actions in the past. She turns him down. Instead he turns to Cassie and offers her cash to sleep with him in order to make Maddy jealous. He is the client who beat her. Maddy finds out and decides to expose Cassie’s escort work to humiliate her.

However before she can do this, Cassie’s mom passes away. The funeral sees all the characters reunite and temporarily set aside their differences to support Lexi and Cassie. Maddy and Cassie later reflect in the way that Nate manipulated them both. Maddy encourages Cassie to go to the police with the evidence of her assault and press charges against Nate, but Cassie is too afraid.

As Nate’s trial for the allegations of sexual assault at college draws near and attracts media attention, Lexi discovers what he did to her sister. She, Jules and Rue hatch a plan to stage a protest against violence against women, including an art installation made by Jules, outside the courthouse which Jules uses her instagram to promote. Cassie is too afraid to attend the protest but gives Lexi her blessing.

The final episode:

The protest is at first a roaring success but then is mobbed by TERFs claiming Jules cannot organise for women since they don’t believe she is a woman. Lexi throws a heavy book at them and is arrested. Rue and Jules later go to collect her after she is released and ask Lexi when she got so badass.

Nate is acquitted of his charges due to a technicality and due to his lawyer being expensive. This prompts Cassie to go to the police. She meets the other 3 who are on their way out. They joke that no one ever thought Lexi would be the one getting arrested and not Cassie. In the end Lexi and Cassie have not fully resolved their differences but have been brought closer by the events.

After all this is done, Rue goes back to the crack house to check on Eliott and finds the kid she is sponsoring there has overdosed. She calls the ambulance and watches her own life flash before her eyes in a coup d’etat, full circle moment as they try unsuccessfully to resuscitate him. She realises that she was lucky to get out when she did and the full extent of Gia’s trauma. She goes back to her Mom and does not tell her what happened, but they hold one another and Leslie tells her she loves her.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

Do No Harm, a nonprofit organization established in 2022 to combat what it calls ”wokeism” in medicine, has quickly emerged as a formidable force in the anti-transgender movement. With substantial financial backing from a conservative network led by conservative legal operative Leonard Leo, the group has focused on opposing gender-affirming care, posing a significant threat to the LGBTQ+ community. But what is the group really up to? Leo, a key figure in the conservative legal movement, is known for his instrumental role in shaping the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority. According to ProPublica, Leo built the machine that remade the American legal system, advising former President Donald Trump on the nominations of now-justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. He previously helped pick or confirm the court’s three other conservative justices: Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito. Leo’s influence extends beyond the judiciary, as he now channels considerable resources into various conservative causes, including Do No Harm.

Leo’s machine extended to influencing state-level judicial appointments and elections, utilizing groups like the Judicial Crisis Network to fund campaigns and advertisements supporting conservative candidates. This meticulous planning ensured a pipeline of conservative judges who shared Leo’s ideological commitments, significantly altering the judicial landscape in the United States, ProPublica reports. In its brief existence, Do No Harm has already crafted model legislation to restrict gender-affirming care, which has been enacted in at least two states. According to an Accountable for Equality report, Do No Harm established a political lobbying arm, registering to lobby in nine states. This rapid expansion and legislative impact underscore the group’s potential to influence national policy on transgender rights.

Do No Harm shares staff, contractors, and legal advisors with organizations controlled and funded by Leo. According to public records, the group has received $3 million from Leo’s network, which includes substantial contributions from Chicago billionaire Barre Seid, who donates to right-wing causes, Accountable for Equality reports. This funding has enabled Do No Harm to employ nearly two dozen employees and fellows, including influential anti-trans activist and detransitioner Chloe Cole. Cole, who identified as a boy, transitioned at age 12 and detransitioned at 17. The 20-year-old now advocates against gender-affirming care. The rise of Do No Harm represents a new chapter in the conservative movement’s ongoing efforts to influence American politics and policy. An Accountable for Equality staffer emphasized that Leo’s involvement in this anti-transgender agenda is particularly alarming, as it weaponizes health care decisions that should remain between patients and their doctors.

Gender-affirming care, which includes medical and psychosocial interventions designed to affirm individuals’ gender identities, is well-documented to improve the mental health and overall well-being of transgender and nonbinary youth. Research from Columbia University and other institutions has shown that such care reduces rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation among transgender youth. However, Do No Harm and its legislative efforts threaten to undermine these benefits by restricting access to essential medical treatments. Do No Harm has put forward several documents that support its legislative and advocacy efforts, often prepared by affiliated law firms. One such document is the Justice for Adolescent and Child Transitioners Act” (also known as the JUST FACTs Act). The white paper argues against gender-affirming care by claiming a lack of reliable scientific evidence and highlighting perceived risks associated with treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapy. The document provides a framework for proposed legislation to prohibit these treatments and mandates transparency and reporting requirements for schools regarding students with gender discordance.

Do No Harm, an anti-trans organization that has significant funding from right-wing dark money baron Leonard Leo, is a major threat to transgender rights, especially trans youth.

[boycritter]

10, 11, 14, 22, 29, 46!!

10. What are your future plans?

become mathematician. live in chicago and have a small apartment with a dog hopefully. get paid one million billion dollars to think about knot theory and do art.

11. Your last night out in detail

i dont really go out. at night. i guess the closest thing is when the northern lights were out i went into my backyard to try and see them and sat out there for a while

14. Something that changed your life

this maybe is weird but my fibro diagnosis. it let me get medication/treatment i wouldnt otherwise have access to and also reduced a lot of my anxiety that i was faking it all

22. Your plans for summer

step 1 get over anxiety of asking people to hang out with me step 2 hang out with people step 3 fuck off to [redacted] for a month and do math

29. Favourite style of clothing

cringe loser dude

46. Are you excited for anything?

the stuff i'll hopefully be able to do with math in the next year outside of school :3

[mparkmed1985]

Taking Anxiety Treatment in Chicago is Effective Option For Your Health

Taking anxiety treatment in Chicago is an effective option for your health. With a wide range of professional services available, you can find specialized care tailored to your needs. Whether you seek therapy, medication, or a combination of both, the expert clinicians in Chicago are equipped to help you manage anxiety effectively. Additionally, many clinics offer integrated services for depression treatment in Chicago, ensuring comprehensive mental health support. Prioritizing your mental health through professional treatment can lead to significant improvements in your overall well-being and quality of life.

[blackjack-15]

episode 6 WHY IS IT AN HOUR. WHAT ARE WE IN FOR.

i fear episodes of the bear that are different in time than normal -- whether S1E7's 20 min run time or this whopping hour. we're in for chaos and hardship i'm sure. oh dear

anxiety pillow, i need your power once more

warm lighting? flashback?

oh nat's brunette and smoking. def flashback

mikey!! mikey doesn't seem like the best guy in the world, but i do love his actor so much

"don't do that to yourself" good advice! "when you do it just does it to all of us" oh. oh this is going to be a berzatto family episode isn't it. oh noooo

the way they're outside screams family dinner? christmas? XD carmy did say his house was a "dysfunctional hellhole"...time to see how much of an understatement that was

"With her, not handling it is the best way to handle it" ah. okay. i know exactly what we're gonna get with Mrs. Berzatto (they're def talking about her). it's not going to be good.

"did you guys call me?" oh he wishes

"mikey, can you come inside and be you? i don't know how to deal with these people" yeah i thought mikey was the pseudo-father-figure, and i've never been more unhappy to be proven right. being the oldest and a parental substitute is a hard road to go even if you're 100% mentally and physically well. and since mikey isn't...

"happy you're home, bear" "would it kill you to pick up the phone?" "carm...i'm happy you're home, kay?" oh. yeah. this isn't healthy, this is a brother+father relationship and it's currently going downhill

and carmy's doing what we in my house call the Anxiety Dance, nat's hair associates her more with mikey than with carmy, and he's standing perpendicular to the shot rather than his siblings' parallel. not good.

christmas! nothing like a family holiday to bring out the absolutely insane episodes of shows, and the bear does insane better than most

okay so about 5 years ago. wonderful.

john mulaney???? i guess we're going for chicago after all XD

carmy's physical "not getting involved in this" is beautiful. i would have left the house and not come back.

drawings! carmy's?

unless i'm very much remembering wrong, that's not carmy's current number, which means he changed it. good these people are psychos.

carmy's back to cleaning floors, banished to help the Problem. this is a dysfunctional family dinner alright. no wonder he took to being abused in the kitchen so easily.

second mention of forks this season. once is an incident, twice a coincidence....

"why don't you let him help you? it's all he ever does" "what, was that a shot?" yes. yes it was. ouch.

"this is why i didn't wanna come home" "OH F//K YOU" "what??" well, if there was any doubt as to why carmen represses his negative feeling so much that they come out only when he breaks and shouts? this is why. this kind of environment. no emotion is allowed other than positivity if that's Your Job, if you're the Helper. anything else is beat out of you so fast it'll make your head spin.

and being yelled at until he says "i love you"??? there's very little wonder 1) he has trouble saying it and 2) he's almost never the first to say it. land sakes.

and all he can do is open the trash bag angrily...baby boy...

"he's too fancy for us!" my. gosh.

carmy just got back from copenhagen! nice tie-in there

having seen the effect -- not personally, but having seen it up close -- that this kind of treatment (even if not at this particular extreme) has on a person? this is hard to watch.

ah. that's richie's ex wife (current wife rn?). i'm not impressed.

mrs. berzatto is drunk. mikey is a little drunk, if i'm reading it correctly. richie's definitely a few sheets to the wind. i'm predicting....mass chaos. merry christmas.

[drsilverfish]

Dreamscape and Cash Money - The Winchesters...

How do full-time monster-hunters afford the life?

In Supernatural, credit card fraud, pool hustling and (hinted) turning tricks were Dean’s way of keeping his underclass hunter’s life on the road.

(Bar hustling - Dean in 1x08 Bugs)

In the two previous mooted SPN spin-offs, which didn’t make it:

Bloodlines - looked like a Vampire Diaries style show, but Chicago-based, where monsters were just, ineffably, rich. One of the many reasons SPN fans were bound to hate it.

(Upscale bar scene from SPN 9x20 Bloodlines)

Wayward Sisters - Jodie and Donna had blue-collar law enforcement jobs, as rural sheriffs - which would have worked just fine, in terms of being in keeping with the cultural universe of SPN:

(Work clothes - Donna and Jodie in SPN 10x08 Hibbing 911)

The WInchesters - One of the elements that feels “wrong” for an SPN spin-off, is that Lata, Losy, John and Mary seem like kids who don’t have to worry about money, even though (apparently) none of them are working, not even part-time. Ada is the only one with an obvious source of income, as a bookstore owner. 

Millie Winchester’s garage looks pretty dilapidated, and a single Mom mechanic raising her son, John, in the 1950s/ 60s, that would have been hard. She’s a tough and gravelly woman, and the “realest” most blue-collar character thus far in The Winchesters. 

But is John just... living off his Mom?

Vietnam vets faced a tough home-coming, both politically, due to strong anti-war sentiment, and financially, receiving little assistance:

https://www.history.com/news/vietnam-war-veterans-treatment  

Mary and her friends all have absent parents and yet, apparently, no need to work?

Even middle-class Buffy the Vampire Slayer (25 years ago) as the kid of a single Mom, had some money worries once Joyce died, and struggled working in a burger joint for a while. 

If it turns out that The Winchesters is indeed a dream-scape, in which Holy Ghost narrator Dean is (as the God-author of this story) writing his parents a happier beginning, then the relative lack of financial anxiety/ realness can be made to make sense. Of course Dean would want to protect his young parents from money troubles.

But, I suspect the vibe advertisers on the CW want is “product friendly” and the CW top brass think narrative money-worries are not “product friendly” enough.

A tragedy for story-telling, and in fact, I suspect, also wrong in terms of audience atttraction (who doesn’t have money worries these days)? 

So yeah, I’d like to see Carlos selling weed, Lata reading tarot for cash, Mary waiting tables in a diner, John actually working on cars with his Mom - all of them trying to fit monster hunting into the everyday scrabble for living..

[fatehbaz]

The Caribbean entered modern history “as the pawn of European power politics, the cockpit of Europe, the arena of Europe’s wars hot and cold,” wrote Eric Williams almost a half century ago [...]. Indeed, Shalini Puri and Lara Putnam argue that military operations and the political culture of militarism make for the coherence of the region [...].

Certain zones -- including Guantánamo, the subject of the collection by Don E. Walicek and Jessica Adams -- have borne special, enduring burdens in this regard. [...] The Caribbean moved into the twentieth century on a major martial note. In 1898 the United States intervened into the armed Cuban anticolonial struggle against Spain, [...] and taking on the imaginary white man’s burden. For North Americans, the many consequences of this speedy and “splendid” war included the appropriation of Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay (1903) for use as the republic’s first overseas naval base. [...] Diana Coleman, for example, locates the symbolic significance of the base and prison in a deeper past, a history that goes back to the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. [...] Walicek’s essay establishes that the very embeddedness of Guantánamo in an imperial past has been erased by official discourse. He notes that even before the post-9/11 war on terror, Haitians and Cubans seeking asylum found themselves detained in Gitmo. [...] Examining visual representations, Esther Whitfield emphasizes the struggle of local artists to show Gitmo, against the cliché as a “no man’s land,” to be a place inhabited by people. [...] The greatest physical expansion of Gitmo came during World War II, a period of profound militarization across the Caribbean  [...]. Also set in wartime Trinidad, Rita Pemberton’s essay plays up the paradox of food scarcity and insecurity in the midst of Yankee-sponsored prosperity. [...]

---

Meanwhile twenty-first-century Caribbeans have had to deal with a nominally novel form of warfare, the U.S.-led “War on Drugs.” This campaign, Deborah Thomas recounts, pushed Jamaican security forces to invade the Kingston community of Tivoli [...]. How residents have remembered this “Tivoli Incursion” and how their memories expose doubtful feelings about sovereignty in Jamaica is Thomas’s central concern. [...]

Grace Johnson focuses on the early twentieth-century U.S. occupation of Haiti, stressing [...] the way these women played a central role in the protests that eventually led to the end of the occupation. [...]

Vieques also serves as the setting for Daniel Arbino’s piece on the violent history of the U.S. military presence and the protests that led to the demilitarization of the little island in 2004.

Don Walicek brings awareness to the landing of British paratroopers and marines in Anguilla in 1969 after leaders on the island declared “independence” from St. Kitts and Nevis. Little known outside of Anguilla, this British Invasion (“Operation Sheepskin”) reminds us that in the age of decolonization tiny Caribbean societies too were caught up in militant struggles for self-government. Unlike the case of Anguilla, the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1984 has been the subject of numerous studies [...]

---.

Two other essays concerned with Trinidad also center on music.

Jocelyne Guilbault insightfully links the anxiety about armed violence to the increasing use of militarized policing at the large soca “fetes” that define the island’s Carnival season.

And Louis Regis (recently passed) turns away from the insecurity of soca fetes and toward the texts of songs to examine the treatment of military issues in calypso and soca across the twentieth century. Dealing with a massive discography, Regis stresses a range of themes, showing how lyrics have moved from warning women about predatory policemen, to condemning the U.S. invasion of Grenada and pleading for peace. [...]

---

Text by: Harvey R. Neptune. “A Force in the Field: Recent Interventions into the Military History of the Caribbean.” New West Indian Guide. Online publication date 3 June 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[ofcosmicentity]

Ever since moving to Chicago and spending more time with her father, Paris had found herself getting adjusted to living in a new city fairly quickly. Quicker than she had ever imagined. It helped that she had her father, Wallace Boden, to help her out. However, she informed her father that she didn't want the special treatment due to her being his daughter while working at firehouse 51. She was wanting to just be known as one of the guys... or girls that is apart of the family.

When she made it to the firehouse, she had always seen pictures but it didnt compare to seeing it in person. She looked around before making her way up the driveway and walking seeing everyone and immediately felt her anxiety trying to spike. She took a breath in and walked inside, "Excuse me, i am looking for Chief Boden?" @urxsavinggracex