#Clinical Psychology on the Internet

[riding-with-the-wild-hunt]

a whole bunch of gazan mutual aid projects and nonprofits. if the decision of which individual fundraiser to give to feels too daunting, or if you just want to help as many people as possible in one go, these are great initiatives to support.

care for gaza - focuses on providing food and essential supplies. donate here or here.

connecting humanity - securing internet access via donations of virtual sim cards (esims). if you can't afford a whole plan yourself, crips for esims is a communal pool that will use your donation to purchase and maintain esims

gaza soup kitchen - provides food, medical care, and classes for children. also has a gofundme

glia gaza medical support initiative - provides medical care through field clinics and tents at hospitals. donations can also be sent through their website.

ele elna elak - provides clean water, food, clothing, and shelter. they also have a gofundme

life for gaza - raising money for the gaza municipality to repair water and waste management infrastructure

taawon - partners with local civil organizations to provide food, water, medical care, shelter, and basic supplies

the sameer project - running various initiatives providing tents, medical care, and necessities. they have their own encampment project focused on sheltering families with children, sick and disabled members, or members in need of perinatal care

islamic relief worldwide's gaza emergency appeal - provides food, water, hygiene kits, medical supplies, and psychological support

baitulmaal - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, shelter, and medical supplies

gaza mutual aid fund - distributes food, hygiene products, water, and other essential supplies, including financial support. run by @/el-shab-hussein's amazing friend Mona. updates can be found on her instagram.

hygiene kits for gaza - provides hygiene supplies including menstrual products, wipes, and toothbrushes/toothpaste

anera - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, hygiene supplies, medicine, blankets and mattresses, and psychological care

palestine children's relief fund - provides supplies and support with a focus on children. also has an initiative for lebanon

dahnoun mutual aid - provides water, food, tents, baby supplies, financial support, and other necessities. updates can be found through their instagram

certainly this is not an exhaustive list, so please feel free to add on other projects or organizations that i didn't include. and as always, please take the time to donate if you can and share. it truly makes all the difference.

[nathaslosthershit]

How Old? (LH44) [Blind Items AU]

(Part 7 in the Blind Items AU [can be read separately]) Summary: A driver, unknown to the public, seems to have found himself a younger girlfriend. There isn't anything morally (nor legally) wrong with the relationship, and the pair are doing quite well in their private bliss, but the internet likes to insert itself in other's business. Luckily, Lewis is doing too good to care about what the internet has to say.

‘Young, dumb, impressionable girls who don’t know any better’. Lewis laughed at the thought. 

He had met his girlfriend 3 years ago when she was 24, because no, she wasn’t 25. They had immediately clicked, being introduced by a mutual friend. His girl had just finished getting her PhD in child psychology, because she was far from a ‘dumb girl’. She had accelerated in her schooling from the time she started school. She worked with special programs to continuously learn at her level, not her age level. The party they met at was her graduation party that Lewis’ friend had invited him to, thinking the two would go well together.

Lewis would be lying if he said her age wasn’t something he considered when they both began to like each other. But it was more so that they were in very different stages career-wise. She was in a transitional period from school to practicing, and with the upcoming move to Ferrari, Lewis didn't know what his future looked like. How could they make a relationship work when their careers were their highest priority?

So they didn’t date, remaining ‘friends’ and seeing each other whenever possible. 

That was until around a year after they met.

One night, after Lewis had been having one of the best racing seasons in a while, and after she had been succeeding in her clinical trials, proving just how much this was the perfect path for her, Lewis came over to celebrate. 

Tensions had been building up since they had agreed to keep it friendly because they simply couldn’t commit to a relationship right now. That night though, it reached its peak.

Neither had been drinking, drunk purely on lust. After two hours of dinner and good conversation, one experimental kiss led to another, which led to a longer kiss, then full on making out, until the two were in a frenzy of trying to take the others’ clothes off as fast as humanly possible. 

That night then led to a weird period for the two. They cared for each other deeply, talked like a couple, acted like a couple, but when asked by friends on the status of their relationship, it was simply a friendship with ‘hot and passionate’ sex on the side. 

Nothing more, even though they both wanted so much more. But they refused to talk about committing again. 

That was till she found out she was pregnant. 

They had been careful, condoms and birth control, but it was just some freak accident, or a blessing.

She couldn’t tell Lewis for about a month, as he was on a triple header in F1 which thankfully ended in summer break. 

By then, she had enough time to sit and think about what she wanted. It wouldn’t be easy, both their careers are demanding. If it was anyone but him, she would have had way more doubt in her partner’s ability to balance both, but she had no doubt Lewis would be anything but an amazing father. 

She was about 9 weeks when she saw him again. They had made plans to go on vacation for a week during the break (supposedly as friends, even though Lewis had booked them a honeymoon suite), so she knew she had to ask right away, before they went on vacation. The last thing she needed was things going wrong and being stuck in the South of France, pregnant, with a man who didn’t want to be a father.

“I’m pregnant.” She blurted out the moment she opened the door. 

They both stared at each other wide eyed. She hadn’t meant to say it straight away. 

Instead of clarifying, she immediately turned around and went to the kitchen. Lewis reluctantly followed, confused as to if she wanted to talk to him at the moment. 

She refused to look at him, busying herself with getting plates and utensils for the takeout Lewis had picked up.

“Are we- are we going to talk about it?” He asked. She turned around to finally look at him, seeing as he slowly walked towards her with his hands in the air.

“God, Lewis, I am pregnant, not a kicked puppy, I'm not going to bite if you come near me.” He quickly put his hands down. 

Silence fell as they both looked at each other, wishing the other one would talk first. When that didn’t happen, they both gave in, speaking over each other. “No- sorry you first.” He said.

“No, no its okay you can go.���

Once again they were both silent, til they both chose the exact same time to speak. It was thankfully what the situation needed. They laughed, immediately severing the tension and awkwardness in the room. 

As they finally calmed down, Lewis said, “So… what are we going to do?”

No ‘what are you going to do’, no immediate shut down. She was once again grateful that out of all people in the world, it was Lewis who was by her side.

“Its… hard and most would say it is not the right time for either of us. But I want to be a mother, and I want to do so now.” 

“Okay, do you still need time to think or-”

“No, no- I have had a month to think and my decision hasn’t changed since the moment I found out.” 

Now was the most stressful part, waiting for what he would say, how he would react.

“Then we can make this work, we can find a way around any complications. There is no one I’d rather do this with, honey.” 

The two of them sat in silence, but it was a comfortable silence, both envisioning the future they were going to work for, a future they were going to achieve no matter what. 

That had been almost two years ago, and they had been happy and in love ever since. Even more so when their healthy baby girl was born. 

A content smile covered Lewis’ face as his girlfriend walked in, holding their daughter. 

“What’s got you so happy?” 

“Just my two wonderful girls.” He responded.

She rolled her eyes, “Such a sap you old man. Will you please come help me build the chair for the baby’s room now?”

Happy to oblige, Lewis shut his phone and got up to help his girlfriend, completely forgetting about what the internet had to say about his private life.

[marticoresims]

Custom career - Psychologist!

I edited LientebollemeiS2I's Psychologist career, changing nearly everything about it. What stayed are links to uni majors, the icon (which is also a uni major) and some inspiration for chance cards. IMO this career has a strong Maxis vibe, with "start from nothing" first levels, NPC references and silly chance cards.

Each level title has a number added to it, like in this mod.

The 4 skills required for this job are: Logic, Charisma, Cleaning and Creativity.

IMPORTANT EDIT: With LientebollemeiS2I's guidance, I also edited the GUID of the career and changed PTO (paid time off) back to default. Now you can use both our careers at the same time! The GUID is: 0xC6A05A9D. In case you need to check if you have something that uses the same one (it was generated, so might repeat).

DOWNLOAD (SFS)

List of levels with descriptions:

Psychology Books Enjoyer Lvl 1 You'll take any book that has anything to do with the topic of psychology and devour it instantly, hoping this knowledge will be useful some day.

Internet Mental Health Advisor Lvl 2 You dive into web forums to find the most interesting psychological cases and comment on them. Your aspirations are high, but you don't have the skills or degrees yet to become a real therapist. One can dream, though!

Social Bunny Lvl 3 You've actually made it to a real mental health institution, and not as a patient, but as an assistant… sort of. Don't forget to be the fluffiest bunny out there because what you're doing here is really helping other Sims. And all you ever wanted was to help others, right?

Therapist in Training Lvl 4 It's been hard, but you've made it to an actual psychology path. Just stay strong and you'll definitely open your own private practice office one day.

Social Worker Lvl 5 Whether it's leaving children home alone for too long, starving them or not dressing them appropriately to the weather… you'll be there to collect them and find more responsible families for them. It's a tough job, but it's something you have to get through in your training.

Private Counselor Lvl 6 You've finally made it! You're officially a therapist and working in your private office. Now, your mission is to care for your clients in the best way that you can. So don't stop educating yourself!

Psychology Researcher Lvl 7 Your passion for psychology is never-ending. You've decided to take it to the next level and do important research to contribute to the science. Good job!

Personality Specialist Lvl 8 During your research, you've grown very interested in the depths of Sims' personality. What can change it? To what extent is it genetic? What's that thing about werewolves?

Clinical Psychologist Lvl 9 Regular therapy practice and deep research were not quite enough for you. Now it's time to make real diagnoses, assist psychiatrists in their work, and make the world a better place. Keep on learning and you might become the ultimate Therapist.

Therapist NPC Lvl 10 It's time to deal with the real Wretched Outcasts and Doddering Deadbeats. In order to do it, you needed to learn teleportation, hypnosis and partial invisibility. If someone is in crisis, you're the Sim they'll always turn to.

As for clothes and cars (or lack thereof 👀), you'll have to see for yourself in game 😎

DOWNLOAD (SFS)

Hope you like it! I've always wanted a therapist-like career in The Sims 2.

Made with Bidou's Career Editor (now part of SimPE).

[sophieinwonderland]

Debunking r/systemscringe's DID Lies!

For those who aren't aware, r/systemscringe is an ableist hate subreddit, and is one of the greatest sources of misinformation about dissociative disorders and plurality on the internet.

Today, I'd like to go over some of their most prominent excuses for fakeclaiming DID and OSDD systems, and why those reasons are contradicted by actual research by actual psychiatrists.

"Alters Can't Talk To Each Other"

This is one of the most easily-debunked lies I've seen to excuse fakeclaiming. It can take a few different forms. But generally, when a system talks about speaking to their alters, r/systemscringe users will say that it's impossible and that DID doesn't work like that.

This isn't just a little false. It completely contradicts all known research into DID.

Hearing voices of alters is directly mentioned in the DSM-5 as a symptom.

This isn't even uncommon. Voce hearing is more common in DID than in schizophrenia, experienced in about 80% of cases of dissociative disorders.

Now, it does need to be noted that just because 80% do, that doesn't mean it's true of everyone. 20% is still a big number, and systems who can't communicate internally are still valid.

But the fact of the matter is that most systems can communicate this way.

"You Need (Years of) Therapy to be Able to Communicate With Alters"

Failing the first one, another popular claim is that alters can't possibly communicate without therapy. Usually, people will claim this requires "years" of therapy to build communication.

So is this true?

Turns out, not in the slightest. In fact, in a study comparing DID voice hearers to schizophrenic voice hearers, it was found that 90% of the DID voice hearers started hearing voices before the age of 18.

This is in comparison to a Schizophrenic group that consisted of 28% without maltreatment and 38% with maltreatment that started before the age of 18.

Given that DID notoriously takes years to get correctly diagnosed with and most patients aren't diagnosed until adulthood, it should be obvious that most of these 90% didn't have to undergo years of therapy before being able to hear the voices of their alters.

"Alters Can't Be Friends"

Let's be 100% clear here. Dissociative Identity Disorder is absolutely a disorder. It couldn't be diagnosed if it didn't come with some level of distress or impairment. That's a fundamental part of the criteria.

But when that same study I posted above asked the DID and Schizophrenic groups if they would miss the voices if they were gone, a huge 69% of the DID group said they would.

The truth is that DID is more complicated and nuanced than "having alters bad."

Sometimes the distress or impairment has less to do with the other alters and more to do with the other dissociative symptoms, such as the DP/DR and the amnesia.

And sometimes, you can have positive relationships with some alters and negative relationships with others. And yes, there is that 31% who say they wouldn't miss hearing their alters if they no longer heard them. That's valid too.

But this does show that a majority of DID systems do feel a close attachment to the other alters in their systems.

"Systems Can't Control When They Switch"

Like above, this is nuanced. The truth is some systems can't control switching. Others can only control it some of the time. And some have full control.

There has actually been a study on a DID patient voluntarily switching in and MRI machine:

This study literally couldn't have been done were it not possible to voluntarily switch.

"Fictives Aren't Real"

Okay, now let's tackle one of the biggest lies to justify fakeclaiming. Fictional introjects or "Fictives" are alters or headmates based on fictional characters. r/systemscringe and other fakeclaimers love to fakeclaim systems for being fictive heavy or even having any fictives at all.

And like most of r/systemscringe's claims, this is nonsense. Here is one account of fictives from 1988.

Furthermore, in the book The Haunted Self, which is responsible for the Theory of Structural Dissociation of the Personality, one case study is referenced of someone who had many fictives based off of Start Trek characters.

This also serves to debunk other reasons for fakeclaiming I've seen from r/systemscringe. That a system has too many fictive, is all fictives, or that their fictives all come from the same source. Because as we see above, this is a very real documented presentation of dissociative identity disorder.

Closing:

I'm likely not done with this post. I plan to add to this list of misinformation that I've seen repeatedly peddled by the hate subreddit and used to justify attacking systems. There is A LOT there!

But here's the bottom line. r/systemcringe is a hate sub peddling division and bigotry against systems... often for normal system things that have been well-documented in academic literature.

If you're here from r/systemscringe, I'm sure you've seen all or most of the above lies I debunked above posted there. And if you're a system, I would ask you why you would stand by a subreddit that so blatantly spreads misinformation about other systems with the intent of hurting them? With the intent of hurting people like you?

Because if you think that they're your friends, I have watched them turn on systems that joined in with their fakeclaiming so many times, and fakeclaiming fellow members of that subreddit. And I can promise that they will turn on you too.

Click here for my debunk of their claims that endogenic systems are a "conspiracy theory."

[rageprufrock]

I had to write this down so it would stop being inside of my brain--devil judge stupidity

I have a clinical dx that proves I lack the emotional self regulation to stop myself from doing stupid things and I just really really want to write something funny okay!!!! No clue if this is going anywhere. I have approx 100 ideas right now and can't be held responsible for my actions.

Actually, the whole thing is Elijah's fault, because if she exercised any of the restraint she used on the Korean-speaking internet for her English language shitposting accounts, they wouldn't be in this mess at all.

That said, she'll argue to the death that if her shitty uncle is going to subject her to his sweaty, old man chest and walk around the house after one of his workouts dripping sweat with his workout pants half-hanging off of his ass, she's going to shame him like truth coming out of her Instagram.

Unfortunately, the general reaction to her caption ("god my uncle is so gross") turns out to be a tsunami of absolutely unhinged horny commentary from a community she'd previously believed to be upright, clear-minded young women with promising careers in STEM. There's a run on eggplant emojis. There are so many eyeballs. Prayer hands left and right. People are calling Yohan "daddy" in sixteen languages.

It's funny in an absolutely repulsive way, and here, even Elijah has to admit to culpability, because in retrospect, when someone had commented, "so can your auntie fight?" she absolutely should not have posted a picture of Gaon from his army service, sun bronzed with his arms out, and said, "lol yeah."

Yohan works approximately 18 hours a day with breaks for the gym, to psychologically torture her over dinner, and an hour where Elijah puts on her noise canceling headphones and assiduously does not listen to whatever the fuck is happening down the hall in his bedroom. But he's also the nosiest, most intrusive person on the face of the earth with a squadron of terminally online assistants so it's only a matter of time before he's going to find out he's now internet famous and that there's an AO3 tag for "hot uncle/soldier boy (not The Boys)" and destroys all of her electronic equipment.

Gaon, who hasn't logged into social media in like three years, could feasibly go to his grave not knowing--except that he works in the juvenile court system which means she's not totally surprised when he comes home on Tuesday with a weird look on his face and says:

"Elijah, I think we've been hacked," he says, because he's a genuinely nice person who must have committed some kind of heinous crime in a past life to attract Kangs left and right. "I think someone got into our phones, or our wifi. One of my clients showed me a post today that looks like someone stole a CCTV picture of Yohan, and then posted some old picture from when I was in the army."

Elijah is listening with an active grimace on her face, trying to decide what to say and how to say it, when the SmartHome speaker crackles to life and Yohan's voice echoes out of it, saying:

"Kang Elijah, did you out Gaon and I with your fake instagram."

[maream2636]

Hello everyone, how are you? I want to discuss a topic with you..

Since I was a child, I aspired to do a lot and I used to escape from reality by imagining the future of a proud, intelligent, beautiful girl who had everything. This was beautiful and comfortable compared to my toxic home at that time.

I wanted to grow up fast because I thought this was a solution to be hit by reality with expectations, grades, money, restrictions and hopes. I just didn't think about these things.

It was a difficult situation with my negative mindset and low confidence. It caused me a lot of physical pain and what hurt me the most was my unrealistic expectations.

I thought this was pain part of the journey. They always say the road is rough, right? But no, this is not the kind of pain that was meant. It is not the pain that makes you want to die and end it all. It is not the pain that makes you wonder what the point of doing is. It is the pain that pushes you to do more and improve yourself and shows you how much you have accomplished. And most importantly, psychologically, you are happy.

When I failed to enter medicine and entered pharmacy instead, I found myself in a reality and a place that was not what I had planned for, what I wanted, and what I had dreamed of throughout my childhood. I was shocked and hurt and wondered why I always ended up in a place and with people that were the opposite of what I wanted?

Do you know what's funny? I wanted medicine because it was guaranteed, not because I loved it. It was a better choice for the life I wanted so badly. But after my castle was destroyed, I found myself in front of a vast, bare land. For the first time, I asked myself who I was, and I found myself shamefully hollow inside.

I wanted to heal my painful reality with what people call passion. I wanted this.

The passion that makes your life meaningful, colorful, purposeful, fulfilled, inner peace and a better vision for yourself. So I started looking for my passion that will save me from my misery. I tried writing, drawing, cooking, singing, speaking, being a web page owner, programming and many other things. I watched a lot to know what my passion is. I was desperate to know it.

You may wonder why you are so desperate to know? Because I don't know who I am without a goal because I don't want a life drawn for me by others because of my ignorance of myself. I want to be the master of my story and the captain of my ship. Without a goal, you are just waiting for death or a day that is a little different from the rest of the days of the year.

So I kept searching until a video appeared saying what are your values? Write down 30 important values in your life and then click on five values and here you will know who you are and what suits you according to your values and I knew that my values are freedom, influence, giving, money and peace and I sat thinking what might apply to these values

In the end, I discovered that the most important thing for me is helping others. It makes me feel proud of myself and comfortable when I see people better off. This is really important to me. Looking back at my childhood, I always wanted to improve the situation of the country for the sake of people. I always wanted to give money. I always had in my head that I am a hero who saves children. I always feel proud when I see people doing that. I always think of ways to make people live in better homes and better jobs. But life, people, and the Internet make money and a job more important than your soul. Here, I was slapped with the fact that a pharmacist can do that. There are about ten specialties in pharmacy. I found that clinical pharmacy is direct assistance to a patient, and the rest of my values apply to it.

I found myself and I knew why it took so long. I had prioritized money and fame, but when I prioritized my comfort and my mind, things changed a lot and I felt much better about myself! What good was money if I was going to keep feeling this way?

After searching for a year, the answer was what was in front of me and what I wanted to escape from through my passion, only to discover that it was what I was searching for from the beginning. I changed my mentality, contemplated myself, and found answers... So, what is your passion?

[gatheringbones]

[“I want to spend a moment reflecting on exploitation: I’ve been eyed for social work since I was in my mid-teens. A racialized, mentally ill, gender queer youth, I was also remarkably articulate, psychologically precocious, eager to help and to please. The adult service providers whose orbit I floated in were quick to notice and take a shine to me—I was one of those once-in-a-blue-moon clients, the kind it feels both easy and rewarding to work with because I was so traumatized yet seemed to “improve” so quickly. The adults I trusted always seemed to want me in their empowerment initiatives, they were eager to put me on youth councils and committees, they gave me leadership roles despite the fact that I was in way over my head. I was brilliant and gifted, they said. I had so much to offer, they said. Helping was what I was made for.

I came to identify my worth with helping, my lovableness with how much I was able to give and please. It didn’t matter that most of my early jobs and roles involved some significant risks—for example, facilitating antihomophobia workshops in high schools as a high school student myself might have required a rather enormous amount of self-disclosure and vulnerability to strangers, but it was all for the cause, wasn’t it? And how proud my youth workers were whenever I came back from another successful outing. And if the honorariums they paid me were less than minimum wage, well, it was more money than I’d ever made before, wasn’t it? And how lucky was I to get paid to do something that did so much good for other people?

When I got to college age, I knew it was my purpose in life to help and heal other people. In my darker moments, it sort of seemed like that was all I was good for—and all the trusted adults, the wise youth workers and therapists and psychiatrists who mentored me, said I was gifted. They said I was special. My diversity made me fashionable. So “interesting” and “textured,” one psychotherapy supervisor called me. A wealthy white psychologist said I was an “ambassador for my people.” (She didn’t specify which people.) This was how, at twenty-two years old, I began an internship that involved doing therapy with adults who had survived childhood sexual trauma. Although I had no real clinical training, I held sessions for them at night in the windowless basement of a hospital in Montreal. I learned therapy techniques quickly, from videos on the internet and by practising on the job. People were counting me. I had to help.

Some quick number-crunching tells me that I gave over 4,000 hours of unpaid therapy in order to get to paid work as a clinician. By contrast, the very first sex work gig I got paid me $100 for some nude cuddling and a sloppy hand job that I completed in twenty minutes. I almost never think about that first gig now. I still dream about the stories my clients told me in that first unpaid therapy internship I took at twenty-two. Occasionally, I still cry, wondering how they are now, if I’d done enough to help them.

My social work experience isn’t every social worker’s experience, so I can’t claim to speak for the whole social work community. What I can say is that the people around me saw something useful and beautiful that they liked in me, so they took it and used it and I allowed it to happen because I wanted to feel loved and I didn’t think I really had choices. What I can say is that my sex work practice started out rough and frightening, but it blossomed into a decent learning experience and a business that paid me lots of cash up front, usually with no strings attached.”]

kai cheng thom, do you feel empowered in your job? and other questions therapists ask sex workers, from The Care We Dream Of: Liberatory & Transformative Justice Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health, edited by Zena Sharman, 2021

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Chris Williamson: "Some ways pop psychology lies to you: Everyone you dislike is not a narcissist. Every unpleasant experience is not trauma. Having needs does not make you codependent. Disagreement is not gaslighting. Conflict is not abuse. Taking offence is not being triggered. Everything does not need to be normalised. Speaking like an HR memo is not self-awareness."

One of my favorite posts from you. Are these, sort of the 9 horsemen of psychology?

Seerut Chawla: These are definitely some of them. It's a dialogue around narcissism. It's creating this strange, you know, fan-fiction version of narcissism that only lives on the internet. Anybody you don't like is a narcissist. Any form of abuse or poor treatment is narcissism. Words mean things, especially when it's clinical language. And we've taken this therapy-speak, which is a part of therapy culture, and you use it to inflate every little thing. You're not just offended or you don't like something or you're uncomfortable, you've been triggered. You haven't been triggered. You don't like this so it's cause cognitive dissonance.

-

Pop psychology is not psychology.

• Everyone you dislike is not a narcissist. • Every unpleasant experience is not trauma. • Having needs does not make you codependent. • Disagreement is not gaslighting. • Conflict is not abuse. • Taking offence is not being triggered. • Everything does not need to be normalised. • Speaking like an HR memo is not self-awareness.

==

"Therapy speak" is a great way to figure out who you should simply ignore.

[sysmedsaresexist]

News Flash ⚡️

Formation and Functions of Alter Personalities in Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Theoretical and Clinical Elaboration

Ozturk, Sar 2016

This is a super interesting article, especially this part about manifestation of symptoms.

Sar and Ozturk propose that the clinical syndrome of dissociative disorder becomes manifest after the “traumatic turning point” which does not need to be the worst traumatic experience in the life of the subject. The postponed process may take start in any age; usually becoming clinically manifest in early twenties of age.

The article is from 2016, and I've talked extensively about discovery around early twenties. I very much expect to see this age slowly become younger and younger as internet-savvy systems enter the clinical population. The internet made it so much easier to see the symptoms in yourself, so people are recognizing the signs at a younger age.

More interesting tidbits:

Each alter personality has independent and different judgements about these internal and external processes because an alter personality is associated with a particular group of perceptions of the individual about oneself that was experienced in the context of a limited aspect of reality. Each alter personality recognizes its own existence and the traumatic experiences in a “single-minded way” rather than utilizing self-reflection.

#mood 😞

I don't fully agree with everything in the article. There's a lot of hard wording about how alters must work that don't feel like they fully apply to us, but maybe it did when we were younger, or maybe, as above, I suck at self reflection. It doesn't explicitly state so, but this article appears to be about those with heavy and severe amnesia, in the very early stages of discovery and treatment.

I do like the way they suggest categorizing alters.

Several authors have described alter personality types: Child, persecutor, helper, opposite gender, memory trace, and suicidal alter personalities are among them. In our view, a classification of alter personality types should take into account their functions rather than its mere appearance. One classification may be based on their relationship with narratives: Normalizing, exaggerating, sociological, memory type, confabulating, etc. A second way of classification takes into account the relationship between alter personalityand the“sociological self” which is defined as the aspect of the individual devoted to adjustment to the social environment and to protecting one’s psychological self (i.e. one’s unique aspects): Claiming, polarizing, competing, abusing, distorting, cruel etc.

[thenightling]

Willy Wonka misconceptions

As Charlie and the Chocolate Factory / Willy Wonka has become weirdly popular lately because of the successful prequel film and most recently that really botched / rip-off Wonka event in Glasgow Scotland, it felt like a good time for this post.

Here are a list of popular misconceptions about the book and films.

1. Much of the Internet thinks of Wonka as a "Serial killer of children." I pointed out that at the end of the 2006 film and novel you see the children alive, though altered. And in the 1971 film that version of Wonka says that they will all be fine, but a little wiser. Someone tried to argue with me that he was just trying to placate Charlie. Really!? Since when did that Wonka ever lie to make people feel better?

Based on his previous behavior we have no reason to believe Wonka would lie just to make Charlie feel better. It's just a dark, edgy, annoying headcanon to pretend Wonka killed those other kids when every version tells you they survived.

____________________________

2. Grandpa Joe was not "Faking it" or "being lazy." It seems ironic to me that so many rant and even get genuinely angry about the character Grandpa Joe. It is especially odd to me when the rage is in regard to the depiction in the 1971 film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory.

The reason it is odd to me is because in the 1971 film Grandpa Joe very clearly was suffering through severe depression, possibly a long bipolar depression phase.

The depression is clear in his "I've got a golden Ticket" song.

"I never thought my life could be Anything but catastrophe"

"I never had a chance to shine Never a happy song to sing"

It seems weird to me that today people shame characters like Cinderella for not being assertive and empowered when she's a live-long abuse victim. And then you have the people against Disney's The Little Mermaid who say she gave up who and what she is for a man but ignore that she had a song number from before she ever saw Eric, where she expressed body dysphoria and made clear she wanted to be human even then.

And you have a large part of the Internet shaming Grampa Joe for being "lazy" and "faking being sick' while he's literally telling us that he he's been in a severe depression.

It's almost like watching a generation that supposedly respects mental illness and understands depression in ways previous generations didn't... suddenly having a justification to shame someone for having all the symptoms of clinical depression.

Hell, even the song "I've got a Golden Ticket" kind of indicates Grandpa Joe is entering a manic phase. If Grandpa Joe's illness is psychological why do we treat it as not-real? I get so annoyed at how many people mock the character or act like he's a con artist exploiting Charlie.

________________________

3. The Oompa Loompas were not slaves.

It's true that the earliest depictions of the Oompa Loompas were little African people (before the novel was revised) but in all versions he tells the kids that he pays them in coca-beans. That might sound like he pays them in fallen acorns he found in his garden but it's made clear that to Oompa Loompas, in their society, coca-beans are worth more than gold.

Try to imagine you got a job working for aliens who offer to pay you in large bars of gold if you just help him make some gold jewelry. But because gold isn't worth THAT much to these aliens they think you're a pathetic slave, even though Lofty (the Oompa Loompa from the new Wonka movie) probably now has a palace on Loompa Land that he uses as a summer house.

Interesting bit of trivia: Charlie was originally going to be black.

___________________________

4. Wonka (2023) is NOT a remake. A lot of people mistakenly think this is yet another remake. No. It's a musical prequel to the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie from 1971. ________________________

5. Lots of fans have "figured out" that the shoe shine boy Wonka sees early in Wonka is Charlie. One small problem with that. This is twenty-something Willy Wonka. Wonka was supposed to be pushing fifty or sixty when he went looking for an heir. The timeline wouldn't work. The director has confirmed that for this reason the shoe shine boy is NOT Charlie Bucket.

And there you go. A list of popular Wonka misconceptions debunked.

[cherriiramen]

To those of y’all still posting art, headcanons, clips, screenshots, 3D models, and even little ramble blogs of Morston, I love you.

You’re carrying this tiny little ship on your shoulders despite the constant harassing in your inboxes, and I hope the hate doesn’t get to you. People still think we’re pedophiles, transphobes, racists, terrorists (yes unfortunately), child groomers, r*pists and god knows what else. Unfortunately most of us can’t even address the situation without getting violently mocked, and it’s STILL ongoing.

I think people never consider the actual psychological pov of the shippers, they’re always quick to jump that we’re.. child predators?? For shipping something they headcanon as ‘incestous’?? Some of us are literally still minors, and believe me when I say none of us shipped them for incestious/predatory reasons as you all suspect and blame us for. We NEVER had intentions to make it incestious NOR paedophilic, but hey ho, just because one person claimed so, everyone had to throw in the same accusations. I wanted to avoid speaking of all this but at this point it’s just becoming cruel.

If you found out a family member or an irl friend of yours shipped something you hate, would you also cry about it? Wouldn’t you THEN consider that attacking them would be inhumane behaviour? But nahhh, we can be cunts on the internet just ‘cuz we aren’t free enough to do so away from the screen in fear actual human beings would call us insane, right?

Morston is not problematic, but you all gaslit yourselves into thinking it’s a severe issue in the fandom and that we’re horrible people. Is it? Isn’t our ‘problematic’ behaviour natural when we’re constantly getting harassed? So we can’t defend ourselves and our friends when they’re getting straight up bullied? Are you so clinically online to think it’s perfectly okay to go and harass people over what, two fictional characters? What’s worse is that there’s enough proof to make it acceptable, but you all just HAVE to disagree just to prove yourselves right. And then you get all sensitive and whiney when it leads to consequences or when people stand up to you. You not ONLY harass the shippers, but you forcefully drive people away from us. You harass anyone innocent who does as little as reblog our art. And what’s worse is we’re expected to sit down, zip our mouthes and watch you shit on us on a daily basis.

No Emily, we don’t want to hear your one millionth weekly rant blog on why Morston shippers should stay away from you. Neither do we need a reminder that we’re crusty.

And to know that almost the entire fandom claps for this kind of behaviour honestly disgusts me. Besides, I thought THE Roger Clark HIMSELF told y’all to cut the bullshit. Or did y’all completely disregard that just to fit your desires?

[sundasystems]

2. The Footprint of a Giant

I've said before that Sunda Systems was a global company, but I don't think even I understood the scale of the investigation I was undertaking. The first thing I needed to do was get a sense of the scope. To do that I needed to understand the corporate layout.

To start, Sunda is an umbrella company that has quietly (and not so quietly) purchased a lot of technological companies.

Sunda Systems had complete ownership or majority stake in things I'd never imagined.

Some things I would have anticipated. For example, in 2021, they purchased the internet radio company Re:Mx and they had controlling interest in a broadcasting technologies company called Ressepont. For a corporation focused on wireless connectivity, these things made sense to me.

Engineering and satellite companies? Sure. Even the three laser research companies kind of made sense. I could talk myself into the idea of using lasers for fiber optics.

But then there was the medical research. They outright owned Brainwire, a tech start up that wanted to create a human-computer interface. They also owned Lotus Clinical Research and it's subsidiaries.

What on Earth would that have been for? A sideways purchase in the name of portfolio diversification?

It got stranger when I found court documents of Lotus trying to fend off a hostile takeover. Brainwire seems to have gone smoothly. If you started tiny company in your back shed and a giant like Sunda approached you with a truck of money, you're not going to turn it down. But Lotus appeared to be functioning well on its own and the CEO, James Pepper, did not want to sell.

Until he suddenly did.

Hundreds of documents and depositions were attached as exhibits to this Order.

When Mr. Pepper first files his injunction to stop Sunda from buying Lotus, it was because the swing vote on the board, John Delphine, began behaving strangely. Here is testimony from his initial October 1, 2008 filing:

It appears that John has lost his mind. Years we spent building this company from the ground up. We wrote protocols together late into the nights. We found medical equipment anywhere we could. We found doctors willing to work with a couple of scrappy upstarts. And god damnit we did it. We made this company profitable. And now? Sunda Systems waves a couple dollars at him and he's ready to sign the company over? No. No chance in hell. No amount of money is worth the work we put in here, and he knows it. I don't believe he's in his right mind, and I would like him assessed by a professional. It had to be some kind of nervous break or an addiction or something! There is no other reason he would come into my office in the state he was in. Talking so fast about the wonderful multinational conglomerate that wants to buy us out. I was only catching every three words. He was maddened! That wasn't the John I knew.

Mr. Pepper fought tooth and nail against the sale of his company by his partner. The suit lasted three months. Mr. Delphine never got his psychological evaluation. Instead, Mr. Pepper simply gave up the fight. This is a retraction that Mr. Pepper gave on December 21, 2008, leading to the closing of the case:

I now see what John saw back in October, and I apologize for thinking what I thought about him. I'm still worried about the zeal with which he approached me, but the points he made were valid ones. Ego kept me from seeing the truth. It is my wish to retract my claim of mental incapacity and move forward with the sale to Sunda Systems and I am very excited to work with them in a subordinate position so that I can continue to shepherd out company to greatness.

The recorder who took Mr. Pepper's retraction noted in the filing that the man appeared tired and defeated with red eyes.

Mr. Pepper and Mr. Delphine are now high ranking executives in Sunda's Clinical Research Division, and both have offices in the Eden Springs Campus.

I reached out to them, posing as a reporter following up on the sale years later. I asked if they'd had any regrets selling Lotus to Sunda. Oddly, they both answered the exact same way, verbatim:

"It is a wonderful opportunity to work for such a forward thinking company. I wouldn't leave it for anything."

It sounded obviously rehearsed; even more so after I heard it the second time.

During my call with the men, the webcam light on my laptop came on again, only turning back off after I had hung up. That seemed far too much of a coincidence. I don't want to believe that someone in the company is keeping tabs on me, but a company dedicated to the internet has to have someone who can hack a webcam.

I'm proceeding with the assumption that I'm being monitored. I wondered if I should try to get a new router, but every time I think about it, it seems so overwhelming. My provider uses Sunda equipment exclusively so I'd have to find a new provider and cancel my service and it just all seems too much. I'll just keep it. What harm could it really be doing?

The last piece of information I found today was an old classified add for the home of the Delphine family. They listed their Eden Springs home in early 2009 and it sold for $349,000. Quite the windfall for that era of history.

Out of curiosity, I looked up John Delphine in the Avery County Tax Assessment records and found he and his wife's new address.

They live on-site at the Eden Springs Campus in an apparent outbuilding on the same property as the offices.

Perhaps it's time for a visit to North Carolina so I can get a real look at Maple Hall.

[tallerthantale]

@kittynotakitty-blog You're very welcome!

Unfortunately no. But I can explain a bit more about why not.

My academic background and a sizable chunk of my professional background is in cognitive research psychology. My aspirations for this blog are to communicate and explain certain aspects of cognitive psychology that are well established by the field, but very deeply counter intuitive to people outside of the field. (Taller than tale is a play on 'truth is stranger than fiction.')

Because I am identifying myself as a person with academic knowledge of psychology in order to do that, certain ethical principles kick in. The first issue is that I am not assessing anyone's behavior with clinical or scientific means. That is not possible to do based off of a person's public statements / actions. There are some people who claim to be doing it scientifically, (IMO) they are hacks.

At the same time, I am a person with eyes. I form the same sorts of regular opinions that anyone else does. Those are just the same interpretations anyone else might make and they should have the same weight that would be given to any other person.

However, even with all the disclaimers in the world, most people are going to have an inclination to be like "a psychologist said this is what they were thinking / planning / intending, so that must be what's happening, a psychologist said so!"

I can't stop people from doing that. People can't stop themselves from implicitly doing that, even if they wanted to. So what I will do, is comment on what it looks like to me, point out things that might be worth paying attention to, and where something is glaringly obvious that anyone with eyes can see it, invite people to form their own opinion.

The second issue is that a big part of what we are talking about here are the particular psychological mechanics of how a person might come across as a helpful mentor figure to a vulnerable person, exploit them for years, and be paid, praised, and thanked for it.

I am not going to publish a guide to the internet on how to do that. Much like a person teaching about the law needs to be careful about not accidentally teaching people how to get away with crime better, I feel I need to be careful about not accidentally teaching people how to exploit, manipulate, and gaslight better.

My hope is that I can strike a balance where the information I give is more useful to victims than it is to perpetrators by teaching people how to recognize that exploitation is happening to themselves or to the people around them, and to teach people to not see the predictable impacts of being exploited as reasons to disbelieve victims.

It isn't simple to strike that balance. If you see a pop-psych video that's like, these are the 5 easy signs this person is being exploited! Guess who also sees that video. Guess what they are going to do to make sure bystanders think they are the victim.

So what I say will remain pretty heavily filtered.

[sonicattos]

Ok I apologize for how long this is but I read your post about npd and I have some thoughts I want to share. First, yeah that screenshot is gross and ableist. With ya on that. Making fun of someone for having a disorder is wrong, full stop. Also, I agree that it's wrong to call someone narcissistic just because they're abusive. Not all abusers are narcissists and vice versa.

HOWEVER. Many of the symptoms of clinical narcissism relate to how people interact with others. And the reason they are regarded as "symptoms" is because truly narcissistic folks relate to others in an abusive way. If people with narcissism did not typically display abusive and/or manipulative behavior they would have nothing to be diagnosed with.

I'm a victim of abuse by a narcissistic person. (Notice I don't say they have NPD. I'm not "armchair diagnosing for sympathy" here.) That person was not simply abusive for no reason. They were abusive BECAUSE they had narcissistic traits such as having little regard for others. I genuinely fail to see how saying this would be hateful or ableist. I can tell that you feel very passionate about this, but as someone who has been on the receiving end of abuse by a narcissistic person, I feel that your post is implying that this kind of abuse doesn't exist, or worse, that people who say they have suffered it are making it up. I know there are a LOT of people who throw around the term narcissist and don't know what they're talking about. But there are also people who truly have been abused by narcissists. And they're not lying for attention.

Don't feel pressured to respond and I apologize for the wall of text. I just have strong feelings about the subject and wanted to share.

1) please don’t take words from my mouth. i never. EVER. said that the abused are making up being abused. i come from a very abusive household that i STILL live in. my mom and my sister used to fucking beat me. i was starved. i was denied any medical help for illness. im isolated. i was groomed into believing that i was more mature than i was and wasn’t treated with the care a child could have. i was and still am constantly told how useless i am and how my mental/physical issues are my fault. my parents never cared and only did things that benefit themselves. i would never deny that someone could hurt someone and i never had. jesus fucking christ.

2) i study psychology. i know i can’t just prove that by saying it but you have to take my word for it i genuinely look deep into this stuff, as it’s a special interest of mine. you come from a place of ignorance of the situation as a whole. never call someone with “narcissistic traits” (aka abusive traits) a narcissist. it’s a medical term. again. call it what it is: abuse. there are other ways to describe that abuse than labeling it as such. narcissism is supposed to be a neutral term to describe traits of npd, not how someone is acting.

3) no. you don’t have to be abusive to be diagnosed with npd. there are many symptoms and tendencies that come with the disorder and it’s also a spectrum just like any other disorder.

npd describes a disorder of someone who has an inflated self-importance. besides putting others down to lift themselves up, they can also try to lift themselves up in a way that’s unrealistic or may seem “prideful”, try getting other’s attention by doing something good or dramatic. narcissism comes from a place of abuse from their elders, either emotional neglect or lack of teaching of responsibility. it affects those who lack empathy or even other mental illness’, which again, doesn’t mean you are an abuser or a bad person.

how would they get diagnosed? perhaps they’re hurting themselves. maybe they have constant breakdowns for not getting attention. etc. a dramatic event of abuse doesn’t have to happen for a psychologist to figure out someone has npd.

4) the entire point of the post is to tell fucking people to stop using a word that they learned on the internet and didn’t look up what it meant maybe besides the fucking saneist articles vilifying narcissistic people instead of educating one what the disorder actually is.

people with npd deserve sympathy as much as any other person. they deserve help and awareness as well. narcissism isn’t a word to pass around like table salt. it’s a real thing that people suffer with. they’re hurt. they believe if they don’t do something that they’re not worth anything. yes a lot of them become abusers because people who are abusive have most likely been abused. but not every person who’s been abused is abusive.

[schuylerpeck]

Hey hey, I saw your post on hypnotherapy. I don’t know if this kind of thing matters to you (it’s okay if it doesn’t), but as some random internet stranger who cares about you I just wanted to pop in to say that it’s not an evidence-based treatment and I wouldn’t recommend it. Sure some people can still experience some basic benefits as with a lot things but there are much more effective options for your time and money. Just my two cents! You can obviously do whatever you like, no judgment.

Signed, someone with a clinical psychology degree who also has PTSD and has been in therapy

Hi hi!! <3 yes, for sure am suuuper aware and am completely reluctant about it. I’ve tried different treatments and medication for nightmares, and have been consistently in therapy for a number of years. My therapist asked if I was interested in looking into it yesterday and I was honestly surprised it’s still around, so was mostly curious if anyone had experienced anything with it. I wish I could get rid of ptsd nightmares, as I’m sure you’ve experienced their intensity, but I don’t believe hypnotherapy would be a cure. Just coming more from curiosity. :) thank you! I so appreciate your message. <3

[nothing0fnothing]

when i post things about narc abuse on my blog i occasionally get ppl being like "don't classify all ppl with npd as abusers!!!" when i didn't say that? tbh on the whole "is narc abuse ableist" thing i defer to my best friend's wisdom, he recently graduated with a BA in psychology (im so proud!!!) and he said smth to the effect of "if you're trying to diagnose them with npd to demonize them then yeah not good but also narcissistic is a word independent of that diagnosis so context is important" its like how ppl without depression can still say theyre depressed or someone without anxiety can say theyre anxious yknow? context matters! i call my parents narc abusers bc it "fits the bill" as in from the medical studies ive read from professionals, all this criteria fits their behavior, not bc i actually believe they have npd. their actions are narcissistic but actually having npd is a question i can't answer.

the point being: im sure you get a lot more comments like that on your blog than my own. the few i get make me upset for a while bc it feels so invalidating (or maybe im just chronically online lmao.) how do you deal with it all? i'm sure the answer is just "block" but does it go deeper? it must feel awful to be called ableist when all you've done is try to spread awareness about a very real thing that happened to you. i could use some of your strength bc your blog is still going strong even amidst the hate 🙏

This ask was actually so lovely to read. You're eloquent and educated and if you'd like to dm me please do any time I'd love to chat with you and check out your blog.

You're absolutely right about narcissism and NPD. Narcissism is a personality trait. One that most healthy people posses. You can't diagnose someone a narcissist, because "narcissist" isn't a disorder.

There's a misconception that NPD is the clinical diagnosis for excessive narcissism. Actually, the diagnostic criteria for NPD is very clear that one does not even have to have narcissistic traits to be diagnosed with it. And it has nothing to say about abusing others, so how recognising abuse is considered a drive by diagnosis of NPD is beyond me.

Saying your abuser is narcissistic doesn't mean you think your abuser has this specific disorder. We know this so to us it's common sense. Unfortunately common sense isn't so common, especially in the narcissistic positivity side of this app.

It's so easy to feel provoked when you know all this, and you're educated and you just want to make content that will connect you to a community of other survivors. Only for some asshole who barely knows what NPD is, decides they're going to make your trauma all about it. It's not chronically online to be made upset by behaviour like that. People like to tell us the Internet isn't real, but when it's our connection to communities of people who share our niche experiences, it is real. Don't undermine yourself when you feel upset like that. Words can hurt anyone, even when they come from an ignorant low life who thinks they can clean up the internet, one trauma support blog at a time.

Me personally? I like to wait to hit the block button till after I've goaded them into an absolute breakdown. It entertains me to no end to watch them rage like toddlers as they start to realise they know next to nothing on a topic I've absolutely schooled them in. It sounds cruel but I have no sympathy for arseholes, especially when they're intentionally spamming random accusations and slurs on my vent posts in hopes they can get a rise out of a vulnerable person. I might make a "narcissists rage at facts and logic" compilation for my own amusement... But that's not really helpful advice to anyone who isn't a bitter hag, like me.

When I first started on this platform I kept my most common response paragraphs in my notes and clipboard to paste and post when I got the same asks day in and day out. It really helped me to reply in a measured way I knew was proof read and edited without having to exert the mental energy it takes to type out a whole reply every time you get one. This of course is if you're so inclined to engage with them.

I also have a limit for how long I'll engage. Usually my rule is I stop responding when they stop asking questions, because my blog is here to be supportive, not to receive criticism from the pro narcissist community. When they stop being coherent and and start being belligerent, that's when will always I block them and that's usually the end of it.

I did have one guy who I'd blocked on 3 or 4 seperate accounts for being belligerent. He was making new accounts every time to spam my asks and reblogs with increasingly ridiculous, heinous and obviously ragebaity shit. I just reposted his replies onto reddit where the crowd is, let's say, more critical of behavior like that. He had an epic meltdown and I've never seen his username ever again. If you're not comfortable doing that, let me know and I'll do it for you. You'd be doing me a favour because I'm a little shit and I love to watch the fireworks.

My last bit of advice to you is to make mutuals and make them friends. I struggle with being sociable in any consistent way, but a few messages back and forth to foster a good relationship with the community is so helpful. It makes your blog feel like an actual supportive environment. It puts your content across the dashboards of more sympathetic people and less losers thanks to the algorithm. Most importantly, when you have friends on this app they're more likely to back you up when an absolute cretin who snuck onto earth decides to pick on you for no reason. Having that back up is invaluable to blogs like ours and it's so important to have it when you're just starting out, especially if you're already getting the narc apologists in your notifs.

That being said, I genuinely do hope you reach out to me. I'd love to be able to send you some more of my strength when you need it. 💛🤎💛