#I have been severely depressed because of an event that happened recently but I'm doing a lot better now

[littlebittyhollowbugs]

so.. my plan was to have this posted by last Saturday. but a lot of life stuff has gotten in the way, and it hasn't been great. which is why I haven't been active for the past week.

I still haven't done any artwork for this, which I was planning on doing but probably won't anymore.

I want to get it posted soon.

So I'm compiling all our mantis tribe/mantis lord hcs and backstory rn. Will be posted before the week's over 👍

[overandundertarot]

PAC: The embarrassing situation;what was it really like?

This pac aims to take a look at an embarrasing situation you experienced and how it was actually perceived by the people around/involved versus how you perceived it. Inspired by my late night thoughts lol.

Please pick a pile(1-4, left to right)

Pile One.

Cards; 6 of wands, Queen of cups, The World reversed, Knight of Swords reversed.

I'm seeing that this wasn't even an embarrasing situation for you, Pile One. It's more of a source of anxiety. You were very much inside your head the entire time. The situation was very public, there were a lot of eyes and alot of people. It was an event/gathering celebrating a victory/achievement. Maybe with family/friends or even coworkers who you've developed a bond with. These are people who are able to have an impact on your self esteem/inner child. During the event you felt stagnant. I just heard; "They're handing out scraps." Whatver praise or achievement you received felt hollow, you felt like you didn't deserve it. Either you didn't work hard enough, the quality of your work was not good enough, you weren't where you wanted to be. "I could do so much better than this, I am capable of more." A general dissatisfaction and dissapointment in yourself and anything that you were able to produce with your hands. I'm also getting the sense of you settling. You had much higher ambitions for yourself but you didn't tell anyone, so no one could reprimand you for failing thus you doubled down on the self loathing as a self inflicted punishment. You were way too hard on yourself, Pile 1. Regardless of what your aspirations were, a win is still a win. You managed to accomplish something so be proud that you were able to do that. Other people saw you as the queen of cups in this situation. Someone passionate and incredibly creative. They felt that you deserved the praise and were very much happy to see you get your flowers. They feel that you are a team player who is dedicated to seeing everyone thriving and being happy.

Pile Two.

Cards; Page of Pentacles, Ace of Pentacles, Queen of Wands.

Pile 2, for some of you this situation happened when you were younger, for others you are on the younger side and this happened more recently. But it is a situation where you were inexperienced and expressing eagerness and fascination; excitement. It was a situation where this eagerness went against you and you experienced a backlash because of your inexpirience/poor skills. With the abundace of pentacle cards, I'd say that this was involving your career or something you were organising and planning to bring into fruition like a project/party. Whatever you were planning, it didn't work out. There were many issues with poor planning/execution. Some of you had tried to go for a cheaper option, cutting corners etc that severely undermined the result. Some people didn't believe in you from the get go and were like 'I knew they'd fail.' Despite this, you felt very inspired and in your element. You might have actually been feeling vey timid and hesitant, I think at one point you realised that you had bit off more than you could chew. All in all, it was a learning experience. I think its very commendable that you tried to jump in and try your best anyway!

Pile Three.

Cards; Death reversed, Knight of wands, Ace of wands.

Pile 3, the situation was an emotional one. You could have had an emotional outburst/reaction. Someone told you something and you burst into tears and denial. This can range from emotional breakdowns like falling into a depressive state to outbursts such as erupting into tears, hysterical shouting, arguments and confrontation, attacking someone in anger etc. You were not in your right mind and were reacting to news/information that greatly upset you and would mean a change in your life. Like a break up, maybe you were fired. The path presented did not please so you chose to act in denial in hopes of reversing that. It seems that your reaction was not taken as negatively as it could have been. For the people who threw the tantrums, they had the desired effect and you were placated in the moment, but it was only for the moment. Temporarily. For others who went into depressive states etc someone around you or you took action towards healing/making you feel better. However, other people mostly perceived you as someone unstable, who chooses to use weird methods to get what you want. You felt accomplished though, your reaction had the desired outcome. It was a messy/uncomfotable situation but it had a favourable ending for you.

Pile Four.

Cards; 3 of cups, 10 of swords reversed, Ace of wands.

Pile 4, this embarrassing situation was more of a collaboration. You used to hang around some problematic people/were in a group with some people or you had a collaboration with them. You are embarrassed to be associated with these people. There could have been some drama, or just poor quality work as a result of whatever you were doing. Nothing you feel proud to call you own or say you stand for. A lot of people talk about what happened between you and those people, people like to talk about the drama that could have occurred. Either way, whenever they or your association with them is mentioned you feel embarrassed. Other people don't really perceive your association with them quite negatively though. It seems they are willing to give you a chance, look at your better qualities and judge based on those. In regards to how this association has personally affected you, aside from the embarrassment, is that you are not willing to abandon your instincts in trusting people. You follow your own intuition and rythym rather than going with the flow that feels wrong. Also, you've grown. You recognise that you could have held destructive/detrimental beliefs and are open to changing your point of view.

*************

That's it! If you liked this pac and would like to book a private reading with me, you can do so here.

[immoralimmortals]

Assigning the Akatsuki movies that tend to really disturb people, because they are a disturbing bunch.

A word of caution: the films mentioned are very intense, some of which closer to endurance tests than narratives. These pairings are not recommendations to see these movies. If you seek any out, research the content. I am not adding individual content warnings for the films themselves since I'm only pairing them with characters (you are free to inquire for those or for spoilers if you want to know more)

General content warning for the post itself for unsavory mentions of various kinds of violence.

Pain: Come and See

Lauded by some as the only war film that is not accidentally pro-war or pro-military propaganda. It is a story about children, children who are vessels of the narrative to, as the title says, show you the horrors and agony of warfare on the human spirit.

Konan: Martyrs

A French extreme horror film that breaks your heart as you watch women's spirits get broken. It is painfully empathetic and gut punches you over and over. It relies on you caring about the characters for its impact and it succeeds. What is the great worth of having suffered?

(Despite having a very spiritual aspect l, it is too heartfelt of a film to give Hidan, though considered)

Obito: Perfect Blue

Twisty, turny story about identities and lies. Plays with the idea of innocence and self control like how a cat plays with a butterfly with a broken wing. It's a beautiful movie but it's also going to make you really unhappy.

Zetsu: Beyond the Black Rainbow

This is a slow, methodical film about invasiveness and brainwashing. The color pallet is stark, contrasted mostly by bright whites and dark shades, with the occasional blood red thrown in to throw you off. Some of the imagery is very unnatural-seeming and nightmarish. This is the sort of movie you'd like to put on if you want to do the opposite of whatever meditation would be.

Hidan: Mai-chan's Daily Life

If you know this movie/manga at all, my reasoning is what it says on the tin. Girl gets dismembered and killed over and over as an immortal. She kind of likes it? It's a really nasty one that jumps to being so over the top and silly. I haven't seen this one and have no deeper thoughts on it.

...I guess if I really want to keep with the theme of movies I've actually seen, I'd then go with The Devils, which is based on a real life event. It's about the interplay between religion, sexuality, and political freedom, and it gets really, really violent and makes me go

Kakuzu: The Night of the Hunter

This one is actually just legitimately a very good movie that happens to hurt you deep in your soul. Two kids of the Great Depression are confided to by their dad before his execution that he stole several thousand dollars from a bank. A priest he meets in prison tracks down the children, worms his way into the love of not only their widowed mother but of the community, and tries to convince them to give the money to him as God intended.

This is a very influential film from the 1950s that while not often recognized by name, has been cited as inspiration for some of the most notable filmmakers in recent time. It is less traditionally disturbing and more that you are made to walk alongside these children as they enter a money-hungry nightmare.

Deidara: Tetsuo the Iron Man

This film is an art piece. I don't mean that in a way which denotes that it is pleasant but in a way where I appreciate and recognize every choice was very, very purposeful. This is a movie with such industrial, inhuman sound design. It is loud and visceral and made to make you feel like you got in a car accident. It's also deeply homoerotic??? So bonus points! Also has some genuinely incredible visual effects. I am sick to my stomach.

Sasori: Audition

I love this movie. Ohhhh it hurts me. It makes me sick. I'm never watching it again. The premise is a man lies about the purpose of an audition, which is not a movie role but to select a potential wife. It doesn't strike him as possible that an actress might catch onto his script that plays out.

The ending scene. This is why it's for Sasori. Such a sweet smile and soothing voice while dismembering someone with piano wire.

Kisame: Ichi the Killer

I'm setting aside the very, very overt sexual text of this movie to focus on what it's trying to say about the enjoyment of violence. It is a bizarrely lighthearted film about two opposites. As YouTuber NyxFears (May Leitz) has put it:

Guy 1: This is a party, I love killing people! Yay! :D

Guy 2: I'm terrified, I hate that I'm violent! Why are we doing this!

It is an incredibly fun yakuza film that also makes you frown really hard at some bits as it becomes really morally questionable.

Itachi: The Handmaiden

Another genuinely excellent movie where the point of it is to throw your soul into a rock tumbler so you can experience the full spectrum of human emotion! It is not only gorgeously made and pleasing to the eye, but it also relies upon your attachment to the regality and poise a character holds, which I think is a similar feeling I give to Itachi when I think about him. It is a cathartic tale that makes you believe love is real by making you, as the audience, suffer to get there as the characters do.

[lunathejediknight]

okie uhh

I do have a seroius question uhm..

what if...

Kiki finds out that Desert cheated on her?

(what is the worst thing that would happen?)

kiki (through her fucking tears after finding this out):"ofc he would....he doesn't love me does he...*sniff*...I thought that he could love me like he used to...even tho I'm...different (arcane reference lol)....it's my fault isn't it...

that's sad ngl, kiki is still going through her own personal hell due to another event that happend so this would actually destroy her and shatter her heart (she is super loyal). you wanna know something kiki was still super sweet to desert even after he found out that she became an assassin. she feels so betrayed.

Here is the recent event that happend and some more lore

kiki's family recently decided that it would be better if she wasn't a part of the family so they cut her out of their lives. so she's lost her family

she's tired of living, kiki has been struggling a lot with *ahem* suicidal thoughts, plus she unfortunately wants to be dead (but she can't really die because of her regeneration ability, she's also severely depressed, think jinx from arcane the second to last episode of season 2 yeah it's that bad)

she's losing her fucking mind (it's been mental breakdown after mental breakdown)

here's the worst that could happen kiki breaks up with him and seriously tries to find a way to end her life....or she just loses it and becomes a villain

also this is for another ask, the ask was "what song do you think best describes kiki" and unfortunately it's this one (I be too lazy to answer it seperatly lol)

[l-e-morgan-author]

my current wip list

Hands Made for Gentleness is about my two dear idiots Vaniah and Anneka, who get married to dodge an arranged-marriage law. Vaniah is incredibly traumatised by events in his past. Anneka discovers this as time goes by. It's a story of healing, mainly, and mental health. Boatload of trigger warnings (Vaniah is severely depressed, suicidal and all that goes with that, while Anneka is in recovery from anorexia) but I love them so much and I love the energy that's between them. At this moment I'm writing a scene in which they're arguing because Vaniah abruptly shut down a kissing scene without explanation and the conversation afterwards got mildly heated. Also they basically end up in a QPR more than a traditional romantic relationship and I love that for them. They're late twenties or so during this novel. First draft.

Patience, Changing is about Patience and her adopted sister Rhona. Patience is my autistic darling, Rhona is my current Discord pfp and anyway I love them. They have interpersonal conflicts that form the nucleus of the novel, but they work them out in the end. Teenagers, and absolutely no romantic relationships in this story which I love. Also it's set in my home city of Melbourne. First draft.

To Kindle a Flame is the first book of an embarrassingly big series. I first wrote the earliest draft for camp nanowrimo or nanowrimo itself, 2017. It started out as one book, in fact started out as a simple response to a concept outlined and failed to bring to a satisfying conclusion by a Christian book by someone in my denomination - In Search of Life by Anna Tikvah. I loved the concept (girl has questions about life, turns to the Bible and reads it, things happen), but then Verity never questioned that the Bible was true, which seemed wack to me. So I started writing a story in which my main character (Adira) found a copy of the Bible and then began to read it, but the whole time she's questioning it. It turned into about 300k of messy drafting (I've drafted it uhh three times by now and am gradually working on overhauling it, grabbing what bits I can and then finishing the draft, ideally this year) and has become a story about mental health, choices and the way people figure out beliefs. In the Gospels there's a line in which Pilate says "What is truth?" - that's basically the tagline of To Kindle a Flame. It's also dystopian. It's my beloved baby. Anyway I'm normal about this story. Also Adira is autistic. Oops. I didn't intend that. I just looked at her character one day and went Yet Another Autistic Character Ay. xD It's also set in Melbourne, but aforementioned dystopia renders Melbourne unrecognisable. I've done a bunch of worldbuilding on her. Also features the character who was the first openly queer character I ever wrote - Tom, who's bi, though he ends up married to Adira and never has a mlm relationship during the story (has prior - in the story he's side B). Somewhere between first and second drafts.

Do Roses Cast Shadows? was the most recent nanowrimo, and I got a grand total of 12k into it. I uh. Don't know what's going on really. I don't recall much, but I'd like to get back to it someday. My characters are Wren and I can't recall the male main character's name.

They Told Me To Name My Demons is a poetry collection I'm working up to publication someday. It's about Christianity, suicidality, depression, autism and identity. I plan to include 100 poems and 7 prose pieces, of which I've so far written and somewhat edited 84 poems (might have a few more, I haven't crossreferenced with my phone lately) and 4 pieces of prose. The title is from a blog post I read years ago and then wrote a poem in response to. Most of the poems have been written in the last year or two. I chase inspiration where I see it. First draft.

Sparks Under Heaven is a collection of five short stories/novellas, all connected to To Kindle a Flame (one features Adira, two her grandfather, one someone another character knew in his youth and the other focuses on an event from To Kindle a Flame but from someone else's perspective). I've had it professionally edited but the edits are sitting there still waiting to be touched, largely. Second-last round of edits before I self publish.

Through Lightning, Through Thunder was nanowrimo 2022, the happiest novel I've ever written and absolutely beloved. It features Taira (rabbit), Paddy (fox), Sheba (lynx), and various less important characters. It started out life as a Narnia fanfic, focused around my original characters with occasional mentions of the Four. It was 15k. Then I fleshed it out into a full original novel, 100k-and-counting. Oopsie. The good guys are trying to stop an evil dragon being resurrected (based on the Witch scene in Prince Caspian). In the end everyone lives happily ever after. Yay. Second draft.

[Inklings story] is about Hadassah, autistic darling of my heart who is thrown through a portal and discovers a found family on the other side, essentially. Downtrodden autistic but becomes happy and confident. First draft.

The Time Travelling Midwife is about Felicity, ALSO autistic (surprise!). I haven't got very far with this one either, it exists mostly in vibes in my mind. It's best summarised as the story with the time travelling midwife, who travels in time, is an angel, tries to stop evil from prevailing and when it does eventually through the building of the tower of Babel (mainly facilitated by one of her colleagues), her time travelling powers are taken away and she ends up settling somewhere in the 1900s and having a happy life. First draft.

Only the first and second are in active development right now. Please ask me about any part of any thing of this post. I copied and pasted directly from the Discord in which I rambled about them.

If I've forgotten any wips that you know about please tell me, lol. And this is only about full length novels or collections, not shorter stories.

[furiousgoldfish]

I have a question: So like uh... how can you be sure if you are traumatized? My mind keeps swapping between thinking I'm traumatized and thinking I just had a slightly weird childhood and I'm simply over-reacting like I always do. Also second question that is more optional and you might not know: If your parents are unable to save you from an unfortunate circumstance like say... a sister that is violent loud and angry to both you and the parents.... and you often were in distress from say... a sister that would scream hit and punch and took all the parent attention to them and left you alone and hiding in your room... then could that lead to you growing up with the same effect of neglect? I'm guessing you would want a more clear picture of what happened to answer either one of these question so here it is: My sister was and is (but way more stable) mentally ill. I spent most of my years in elementary from 2nd and up living in a house with somebody who can harass, mock, and sometimes hurt me at any moment. She did mostly calm stuff like only say "retard" to me for a stretch of time that feels infinite because I was autistic, and almost punch me but stop and make fun of me getting scared. Very rarely she would go above and beyond by trying to drown me over a dipute and locking me in her room and refusing to let me out because I couldn't fix her computer. I adapted though, I pretty much avoided my sister as much as I can until recently when she calmed down. One thing I could never escape though was the yelling, the screaming, the crying. Every time my sister would have a mental breakdown, which was a whole, whole, whole lot, she was loud and sometimes violent about it. I was hardly ever in the middle of it, I usually just hid in my room while being forced to hear my sister's screams and my parents trying to get her to stop with as little force as possible. It's hard to describe the emotions, and I can try all I want to make you understand what this was like but I won't ever succeed so I'll stop. My sister also tried to kill herself a lot and been in and out of the mental hospital a whole lot so there is that too. Also my parents were amazing, don't worry. The worst thing about my parents is that my dad is a bit emotional but he usually didn't engage with my sister when he could get angry so it hardly came up in a bad way but he did escalate a lot of situations. My Mom was understanding and calm and didn't really fight back against my sister but like... in a good way, it's hard to describe without you knowing my sister. Sorry for the slop of words, I was thinking about like 2 other things at once while typing this and I don't have the energy to correct anything.

You can be sure you're traumatized if you have trauma symptoms. Trauma symptoms can range from feeling low self worth, fear and anxiety around people or specific circumstances and events, struggling with feeling normal around people, struggling with thoughts of self doubt, self hate, severe guilt and shame for everything that was done to you, or what happened, to the more recognizable ones: flashbacks, nightmares, emotional flashbacks, panic and anxiety attacks, losing control over emotions, not being able to regulate emotions at all, feeling unstable, desperate and terrified of the past and feeling low feelings or even complete despair about the future. It's also visible in struggling to have close relationships, feeling like you have to keep secrets, like nobody would love you if they truly knew you, feeling uncomfortable with people being near you or touching you (non-threateningly), running into isolation to keep yourself safe, or finding safety in substances, obsessions, addictions. Trauma can also manifest in development of disorders like eating disorders, anxiety disorder, panic disorder, ocd, depression. There's a lot of more subtle symptoms, you can check this list to see if any of this applies to you: Link.

It's often that traumatized people feel like they might be over-reacting, which is caused by the low self worth mentioned above; people who have normal self worth and are not self-conscious about how their emotions might inconvenience others, thus they don't stop to think if they're over-reacting, and take their feelings at face value. If a feeling is there, it's there for a reason, and the reason is unlikely to be something you made up. Sometimes what people will see as over-reacting is simply reacting to a trigger; even if you feel like your reaction was exaggerated, it's because something in your brain reacted to prior trauma and felt the need to evoke strong reaction so you would protect yourself against this event repeating, as it traumatized you in the past.

For example, if someone reacts with terror to a dog, we'd call it an over-reaction, but if you then find out they were bitten as a child and almost died, then terror is completely appropriate. It's like that with emotional trauma too, if something damaged you so badly as a kid you felt like you would never recover, your brain will react with terror or very strong emotions, to make sure you stay away and keep yourself protected. So it's really just a logical reaction, if you consider the past event and what it did to your life.

The circumstances you lived in as a child definitely warrant a lot of trauma. You describe your sister's presence as an 'unfortunate circumstance', but I don't see even one hint that your parents put actual effort in protecting you. Two adults are absolutely able to pay attention to more than one child at the time, and it sounds like you got completely neglected, and left to make your own conclusions to why that is. And you decided that parents cannot be at fault, because they couldn't do any better. I believe they could, because no child has deserved to be ignored and left to endure insults, slurs, screaming, yelling, punching, mocking, harassment and hurt at any moment, without any protection or care. Your parents were responsible for protecting you, and caring for you at any moment that you might have gotten hurt. It doesn't matter if they had 'a lot on their plate', because you are a human being they were responsible for protecting, and they failed you.

I can think of many things that could have been done differently to protect you, your sister could have been put in a place where she couldn't reach you, you could have been in a presence of a parent or a caretaker at all times to make sure nobody can hurt you, you could have been put in someone else's care as soon as it was obvious that your sister was hurting you, you could have been asked about it and comforted and a different solution could have been reached in order to make sure you live your childhood protected from all this.

Having one child that is a lot to manage does not mean you can now ignore all your other children and leave them to be hurt consistently because 'you cannot be bothered to pay attention to all of your kids' Also it sounds like instead of handling the child that was causing violence, they were escalating the situation and making it worse for you. Leaving one child to lash out at another is unacceptable, and it is both neglect and abuse. Protection from abuse is a part of what your parents are responsible for, and they failed you. And I can see you care so much for their good image, you're protecting them even as you're trying to talk about how they left you to fend for yourself in a world where you were harmed. Imagine if they felt that kind of compassion for you, and ran to protect you whenever you were alone with someone who was hurting you. You're showing more care for them in here, than they did for you in your childhood.

This had to be really hard for you to read, and I'm sorry for being so blunt. I'm not trying to tell you how you should see them, I'm just angry that you were put thru so much, and it didn't have to be like that. You know your situation better than I do, and if I'm completely wrong about everything, that's completely possible and you do not have to accept my opinion, your own is more important. I hope you're never left to fend for yourself in a world where others are likely to hurt you, that's not okay for a child to go thru, and it's painful and traumatic to an adult as well.

[metrovaliz]

Hello everyone, I haven't been here for a long time, I just don't know where else to tell everything that happened to me I mentioned in some posts that I have a girlfriend, or rather I was In general, I recently turned 18 and I went to my girlfriend's city, we had a good time , then I had to take the train home and everything seemed to be fine until they started ignoring me, disappearing at work , and then she tells me that she wants to take a break from social networks , I'm waiting for her return, in principle, I understand that what- it's not like that, but I'm not as worried as I was later. her friend writes to me, merges a lot of messages, it turns out that she had some kind of experiences and she does not know what to do with the relationship, I hear about it all for the first time as a result, I am very upset I was hysterical because of all this, I had restless dreams about her where she also does not answer me what happened in the end, the next day she appears and tells me that she saw me as a friend all this time and I'm like, why didn't they tell me about this before Like I'll get over it, I was rather sad because of the uncertainty and silence in which I was kept . In the end, we remained friends with the friend who leaked the messages, she decided to stop communicating, because of the drain and, in principle, he was obsessed with her and did not understand the concept of love only obsession and hated me because of jealousy, he also told her to die jokingly and when in response she said something like that, he said that he would kill himself in the end because of her desire to stop communicating with him, he swallowed a lot of pills trying to take his own life, as a result, he vomited them up And she decided not to end her communication with him because he had changed Every day it's so fucked up Basically, when I went to see her, I didn't feel any pleasure. As a result, I just want to go to a therapist. I did not go to a psychologist or a psychiatrist, because I already went to a psychiatrist and I was canceled a course of antidepressants because I drank them for a year But depression has not completely left me, I just feel like I usually have a neutral mood, like I can still feel negative emotions, but not positive ones. Honestly, I'm just tired. Tired of constantly plowing and not getting any praise in the form of positive emotions, tired of failures in my personal life Now, in principle, it is difficult for me to perceive my otp after parting, i think look at my otp "love seems to exist only in fictional universes" or "is it for sure that my otp will not part as well?" Because of this, it is more difficult to draw pictures And in principle, I do not know what to live for, I have not received any reward for my efforts as emotions for many years, it also seems pointless to draw pictures I just want to be happy, at least to drown out the bad moments in my life with positive emotions that I don't have. I don't even hope that I'll ever meet a soulmate anymore. I don't even know how to react to this whole situation with a girl and her friend. I did everything according to the method that was advised to me in a mental hospital, but a year later I still can't get out of depression and the funny thing is that I have a mild but lingering depression, I can't imagine how difficult it is for people with severe depression, if I'm not so bad, but it's still hard for me In fact, relationships often end in breakups, these are my fifth in a row, and in principle it would be strange if the relationship started at my age of 17 and lasted until the end of my life, like this is a very unlikely outcome of events, in fact, my whole life is still ahead, but I have not felt any pleasure from life for a long time and the problem is that my depression was caused by loneliness, in principle, there was a series of very bad events in my life that led to this And in fact, I remained that hunted outcast Unfortunately, while I was being held in silence, I received letters with death wishes from a "fan" who had been friendly to me before

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Miriam Grossman

Published: Aug 2, 2023

I was contacted by lawyers in Salt Lake City about a 13-year-old boy whose divorced parents were in litigation over his social transition. Zach had recently declared himself a girl, and his mother was 100 percent on board—new name, pronouns, dresses. His father wasn't going along with it.

I reviewed the records from Zach's recent psychiatric hospitalization. Staff listed gender dysphoria as one of his diagnoses and consistently used his girl's name and female pronouns, but the reasoning for those clinical decisions was absent. The hospital records indicated Zach heard voices and saw "ghosts." I searched for more information about the voices and the ghosts but found none.

Was it possible no one had asked? Psychotic symptoms such as auditory or visual hallucinations always warrant further questions. An obvious one: what did the voices say? Was Zach hearing voices telling him he's a girl?

These were questions that demanded attention from his clinicians prior to affirming a new identity. Maybe Zach's gender dysphoria was related to his disordered thinking and hallucinations. Perhaps instead of lip gloss he needed Risperdal (anti-psychotic medication).

I found similar problems in the care of 17-year-old Nicole in Boston. Nicole's life had been chaotic; her father left when she was two, her mother had five other kids with two other men, she was sexually abused by a neighbor, and her family had been homeless for months on several occasions. She had an IQ of 68 and was on three psychiatric medications to treat hallucinations, ADHD, and depression. When she discovered her mother was pregnant, Nicole came out as a boy.

At the time I was consulted, Nicole was in foster care due to charges of physical abuse by her mother.

Nicole wanted testosterone. I was asked by the court to provide my professional opinion regarding "gender-affirming" care, including testosterone, for her.

Having read this far, I trust you can figure out what I said. No testosterone for Nicole.

Zach lives in Utah and Nicole in Massachusetts—both states that ban "conversion therapy" for minors. That means any approach that fails to immediately affirm a child's new identity is prohibited.

I put myself at l risk when I argued that Zach and Nicole should not be affirmed but instead have their long-term mental health issues treated.

At least with those two consultations, my role was to provide my professional opinion. But that wasn't the case with David, a patient in Colorado with whom I worked directly.

One day David told his parents that he is transgender and asked to be called Zoe, "she," and "her." He wanted blockers because the hair sprouting over the corners of his lips and his cracking voice reminded him he's a boy. If only he could take estrogen, he told me, having breasts and wider hips would make him feel confident and secure.

The medical establishment, the DSM-5, and the state of Colorado say the only permissible response is to act as if he was a girl. David must be in the driver's seat—forget about "do no harm." If he picks a different gender identity, name, and pronouns next week, I must use those. I am to instruct parents to tell everyone—family members, school staff, his piano teacher and dentist—to do the same. His mom, dad, and I are all supposed to celebrate what doctors at Johns Hopkins call David's "evolving sense of self."

Celebrating an evolving sense of self sounds fine and dandy. But I happen to know that when David first appeared at a family event in a dress, his mother—a strong feminist and lifelong liberal who supported gay marriage and survived 9/11 and breast cancer—had to flee to a restroom, where she had the first panic attack of her life. I also know puberty blockers might be followed by estrogen and perhaps even orchiectomy—castration. He could end up disfigured and infertile and still not be satisfied with his body.

When David is ready, I must share those dangers with him. I took an oath to prevent harm, no matter what the gender medical establishment or the state of Colorado might say.

For refusing to validate the opposite-sex identities of David and many others, I risk an investigation, but I'll live with that. I'm going to do what's best for my patients.

Miriam Grossman MD is board certified in child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. The author of five books, Dr. Grossman's work has been translated into eleven languages. She has testified in Congress and lectured at the British House of Lords and the United Nations.

[curseofthebloodcountess]

Blood Countess: A Summary

It occurred to me that other CoS blogs do great jobs at summarizing their campaigns and I never managed to sit down and say what on earth is happening in mine. I'm running a gender-swapped CoS that I call "Blood Countess". It explores Strahd not only as a woman, but as a bereaved mother, a weapon in her mother's quest for godhood, and as powerful a mage and general as "I, Strahd" envisions the character as. I'm going to put the summary below, but also invite people to ask me anything! I've been developing this version of the game for a long while now and I'm dying to talk about it! Thanks for reading!

When my “Blood Countess” game started, I had six players. It was far too many and not everyone’s play styles meshed. Two of the players left after the first session due to scheduling conflicts. Another left after fewer than ten sessions because he caused inter-party conflict. My three remaining players have been phenomenal. I will make a note to say that the player who left after approximately ten sessions left a lasting impression on the game, so he will be referenced as “Aarakocra Ranger”. The others, I will name by their characters, as well as character race and class. 

The premise of this campaign is deceptively simple. What if Strahd von Zarovich was a woman? In the CoS community, a very popular fan module, "She is the Ancient” already exists, which does a similar reimagining. However, I excel at reinventing the wheel. I read “She is the Ancient” and found the author’s commitment to avoiding problematic representation simultaneously impressive and bothersome. Although I own it, I set it aside to build “Blood Countess”. The characters who began the game were the aforementioned Aarakocra Ranger; a Reborn Celestial Warlock named Sister Theodora, who was created by the Abbot of Krezk as a potential bride for Strahd; a Half-Elf Grave Domain Cleric named Alistor, who is the grandson of the dragon Argynvost and the love-child of Strahd von Zarovich (here reimagined as a Half-Elf) and Alek Gwilym; and a Human Spirits Bard, who was Actual Zak Bagans from the Travel Channel, who was meant as a short-term character and who would later be replaced by a Human Monster Hunter Ranger, Tam Mantigieri, who is the reincarnation of Sergei von Zarovich.

The party first encountered Ismark Kolyanovich in the woods outside Barovia Village, as they were under attack by a truly ridiculous amount of wolves. Accompanied by several villagers, including a grown Thorn Durst (who is Ismark’s ex-boyfriend and political rival), Ismark helped the party dispatch the wolves and uncover the body of his friend, Dalvan, who was trying to deliver a letter to the outside world on behalf of Ismark’s recently deceased father, Kolyan. The characters convened in the Blood on the Vine Tavern where Ismark and Thorn briefed them on the situation in Barovia Village: Ismark’s father, the burgomaster, recently died of a heart attack while the Kolyanovich manor was under siege by Countess Strahd von Zarovich. The countess has been attempting to woo and/or kidnap Ismark’s younger sister, Ireena, for the last year. She has attacked Ireena a few times, but never successfully seduced her or turned her into a vampire. Ismark wants to take Ireena to the next town over, Vallaki, which is a two-day trip, but there have been mysterious deaths in Barovia Village for the last year and he feels obligated as the burgomaster to put his people at ease before prioritizing his family. He and Ireena also need help burying Kolyan, which shouldn’t be a hard task, but a year ago, Doru Donavich led 75% of the village’s young adults in a rebellion against Strahd and all were slaughtered. Finding strong backs to carry the coffin has been a challenge. The party agreed to help Ismark with all three of his tasks. The funeral led the party to a church in utter disrepair, with a depressed and half-mad priest, Father Donavich. The event was also “crashed” by the countess herself. Strahd offered funeral gifts to Ireena and Ismark and insisted that she would come back to check their progress on solving the murders. During this meeting, several other things of note happened. First, the Aarakocra Ranger demanded that Strahd give him a gift. She cast “Suggestion” on him and commanded him to fly as high as he could for his gift. He flew into the mists, which give levels of exhaustion for each minute spent in them. This led to him falling out of the sky, very nearly to his death, and being immobilized until Thorn’s sister, Rose, used her druidic magic to heal him. It was a terrifying power move. Strahd also scored a Nat 20 on insight checking Alistor, thus realizing the uncanny resemblance between him and his father, Alek Gwilym, and realizing that he was her son. Lastly, when Strahd left, Theo discovered that Father Donavich was keeping his son, Doru, under the church as a vampire spawn. She allowed him to drink from her and the two bonded over being monstrous against their will/nature. Thorn also told Zak about the March of the Dead: the parade of the fallen villagers who reenact their failed rebellion every night. 

The party decided to investigate the Donaviches and their role in the mysterious deaths in the village, but they also checked out the Durst Pie Emporium and learned that Rose and Thorn ran a pie shop under the patronage of their godmother, Morgantha. An investigation led them to learn that Morgantha was a hag and the pie flour was made of the ground bone dust of humans. Now that they had two leads, the party had to decide which to pursue when reporting to Strahd. Further complications ensue as Theo, who wears a full habit and veil, grapples with the fact that she was created to perfectly resemble Ireena to placate Strahd. Alistor spent his time trying to hide his holy magic as well as his kindness, which he failed to do. His selflessness impressed Ismark a lot. Theo spent more time at the church, bonding with Doru and the two briskly tripped into something like love… which is complicated by the fact that Theo is both promised to the countess and has feelings for Stella Wachter in her adopted hometown, Vallaki. The Aarakocra Ranger got kidnapped by the hags and Alistor rescued him. Then, the group devised a plan to stage an attack by Doru in Durst Manor to summon the hags and Strahd. They turned the hags over to Strahd for justice and she swiftly killed them. After she departed, Ismark turned leadership of Barovia Village over to Thorn. However, Rose insisted they should bury the hags by the family windmill. Since they would be traveling in the same direction, the party and the Durst siblings traveled together. They made it to Tser Pool and camped with the Vistani. There, Madam Eva insisted upon reading for the characters. She indicated the locations of the treasures they would need to defeat Strahd and hinted at character deaths to come, future allies, and secrets the player characters were trying to keep. Morning arrived and so too did a flood. The Dursts fled in one direction; the party in the other. They took the high road to avoid the swollen river and were ambushed by Rahadin and dhampir soldiers. While they could not defeat Rahadin, they dispatched the dhampir soldiers with surprising swiftness. However, Zak Bagans perished in the fight and the party pushed his body into the river. They continued to Vallaki. 

Around this time, the Aarakocra Ranger player had caused problems with every member of the group. He demanded solo sessions, sold the party out, complained that his character was not narratively tied to the game despite not attempting to tie into the story, and refused plot hooks I offered him. He was not invited back. When the party arrived in Vallaki, I ruled that Izek Strazni shot Aarakocra Ranger out of the sky and killed him, believing him to be a spy from the city of Immol. The remaining characters (Theo, Alistor, Ireena, and Ismark) were welcomed into Vallaki with ease. The first person the party encountered upon arrival was Victor Vallakovich, who presented them with exposition about the town: the Festival of the Blazing Sun and Feast of St. Andral were due to fall on the same day in three days, but, more importantly, Theo’s adoptive father, Father Lucian Petrovich, had died during Theo’s absence from town. The funeral had already happened and Lucian’s former acolyte (and suspected biological daughter), Zinnadia Swilova, had taken over the Church of St. Andral. Theo, grief-stricken and rage-fueled, immediately booked it to the church to take over the services. It was awkward, but a very powerful moment for her. The party also met Tam Mantigieri at the Blue Water Inn. Before this - and don’t quote my timeline - Tam was making his way from his home in Mount Baratok to the town of Vallaki. On his way, he discovered a kidnapper with two children he intended to drown: a Vistana girl named Arabelle and a Dusk Elf boy named Kian. Arabelle is the daughter of the Vistani leader, Luvash, and the Vistani offered Tam a reward for his service. Kian is the first Dusk Elf child anyone has seen in three hundred years. Tam returned him to his mother, Patrina Velikovna, and though grateful, the Dusk Elves have little to offer him. Tam, modest by nature, insisted there was nothing he wanted from them. He immediately charmed the party and volunteered to help them solve the mystery of Lucian’s death, which seemed to be foul play. Because Tam and Theo are from Vallaki, they didn’t meet NPCs so much as interact with neighbors, friends, and enemies. Tam revealed that he had been in love with the coffin maker’s daughter, Valeria, before she left Vallaki to marry a wealthy man in Immol named Vasili von Holtz; before that, he had been romantic rivals with Nikolai Wachter over Elizaveta Vallakovich, the Vallakoviches eldest child who disappeared two years ago, right around the time Nikolai Wachter Sr. died of a mysterious illness. Tam also enjoys teasing Victor, who is Theo’s best friend and adoptive cousin. Izek Strazni has a crush on Theo that won’t quit. The Wachters, local menaces, were showing their out-of-town cousin, Lavinia around Vallaki, which prompted suspicion from characters who hailed from Vallaki. Theo sent letters to the clergy of Barovia to inform them of her father’s death. She did not expect to hear back. 

The party began their investigation of Lucian’s death at the Church of St. Andral. There, they discovered that the bones of St. Andral were missing, signs of a struggle (not a suicide) in Lucian’s office, and a vampire spawn in the coffin in which Lucian was meant to be buried. They at first suspected Zinnadia of the death, but after she helped them fight the vampire spawn, they figured they should do more research. They went to the coffin maker’s shop. There, Theo discovered some (but not all) of St. Andral’s bones and Alistor discovered a room filled with vampire spawn. Panicking, Alistor set the building ablaze and evacuated. The coffin maker, Mr. Vander Voort, did not escape, but Valeria did and reported to the burgomaster immediately. The party, who received invitations to various events, including “craft time” for the impending festival at Vallakovich Manor, used it as an excuse to come in and begin exploring. Alistor really enjoyed it! The other characters? Not so much. Alistor also caught the eye of a local nobleman, Rafael Buckvhold, which inspired the first stirrings of jealousy in Ismark. Meanwhile, Theo discovered that Lucian was alive and being held prisoner in a makeshift jail cell in an upstairs closet of Vallakovich Manor. She asked Victor to distract everyone (which he did, using Hypnotic Pattern), while the party smuggled Lucian back to the Blue Water Inn. There, Lucian revealed that for all his and Vargas’ political differences, the final nail in the proverbial coffin was Lucian’s discovery that Vargas was having an affair with Zinnadia Swilova, Lucian’s daughter, with the intent to promote her within civil service (possibly to baroness if Lydia met an unfortunate demise). The brothers-in-law fought and Lucian lost, ending up as a prisoner in his sister’s home. The party planned to stage Lucian’s return from the dead as a miracle and sought to find the remaining holy relics for the church.

The next day, they spent time at Wachterhaus and learned the details of Stella’s condition. Victor (accidentally!) made her think she was a cat. Fiona wants retribution for her poor Stella. Nikolai and Lavinia watched the party closely. The party decided to snoop and broke into Stella’s room and discovered her state was worse than they thought. They knew they would need a “remove curse” spell to put her right. Ireena and Theo also stole into Fiona Wachter’s room and stole an iron lockbox. Theo tried to open it, but it was trapped and so it knocked her unconscious. Ireena was able to put her right, using her paladin abilities, but Nikolai Wachter caught them. They admitted to wanting to help Stella. He said that if they could do that, he would help them with whatever they needed. What the characters didn’t know was that Fiona and Lavinia both heard them stealing the lockbox. Moreover, what the party suspects but does not know is that Lavinia is Strahd in disguise. She wants to get close to Alistor and/or Ireena for vastly different reasons, but cannot bring herself to speak to Alistor for fear of getting him killed. He is her last scrap of humanity that she didn’t know she still had. The party smuggled the lockbox out of Wachterhaus and returned to the Blue Water Inn. They discovered the remaining bones of St. Andral inside and a letter from the burgomaster of Immol, Dagmar Olyavna, proposing an alliance with Fiona if she takes over Vallaki, as well as thanking her for the item exchange. It is now clear that Dagmar has the Tome of Strahd. Theo relayed what she and Ireena discovered about Stella to the party and Alistor announced that he has a brother in Barovia (specifically Argynvostholt) who may be able to help cure Stella. They resolve to go to Argynvostholt after the festival.

That night, the characters have strange dreams. Tam dreams of being a man called Sergei von Zarovich and meeting a beautiful woman named Tatyana, who looks just like Ireena. Theo has her first dream ever of a blond man smuggling babies out of a castle. Alistor has a nightmare vision of his goddess, taunting him. Alistor and Ismark, who are sharing a bed, are awoken suddenly by Alistor’s night terrors and the party assumes they are having sex. This becomes a running joke but it’s painful because Alistor and Ismark would very much like to have sex with each other. 

On the day of the Feast/Festival, the party stages Lucian’s reappearance in society as a miracle, and the townsfolk believe he is a saint. The festival itself is… odd. The party overhears the bard Rictavio telling a gruesome story about Strahd’s defeat of the Order of the Silver Dragon, which makes Alistor doubt that his brother and grandfather (Grand Paw) are alive. Izek meets Ireena and Theo at the same time and cannot tell who is his “true love”. He and Ismark almost come to blows because Izek will not stop harassing the girls. Vargas calls him off. Because Alistor killed all the vampire spawn in the coffin maker’s shop and Theo reconsecrated the church, they circumvented a larger attack. They accomplish some tasks in town for a day and then set out for Argynvostholt. Along the way, they come across Valeria von Holtz’s impaled body in the woods and are ambushed by one of Strahd’s brides/generals and her lieutenants. Alistor goes down but is revived. The characters barely escape with their lives and they reach Argynvostholt… which is in ruins. Undaunted, the party continues. There, they see a time- and war-ravaged castle that was once beautiful and briefly encounter Argynvost’s ghost. They seek out the fallen knights and Alistor is reunited with his twin brother, Godfrey, who has become a revenant. Godfrey explains the fall of Argynvostholt and the sorry state of the Order. Still, it is a bittersweet reunion, as neither thought they would see each other again. They spend the night catching up while the other characters explore the ruins and meet other fallen knights. 

In the morning, there is a delivery to Argynvostholt: a coffin with Tam’s name inscribed upon it. Upon opening it, a swarm of bats fly out. When they fly away, a horse and rider, pursued by Vistani on dire wolves, appear. The woman on the horse rides with an attache, who turns out to be a very frightened Victor Vallakovich. His teleportation circle worked! And it teleported him to the gates of Ravenloft as Ezmeralda “Ez” D’Avenir was fleeing the vampires inside. She rescued him and rode a stolen horse to Argynvostholt. The Vistani who pursued her are led by Arrigal, Luvash’s brother, and he claims that he has come to mete out justice for Ez’s horse theft. The party refuses to give her up to Arrigal and in exchange, she reads their fortunes (a refresher course for the players). Stressed, Tam angrily hacks the coffin to bits, which alerts the hostile revenants to the party’s presence. Godfrey kicks them out for the time being to protect them. On their way back, the party examines Valeria’s corpse and discovers that she is a dhampir in the service of Strahd’s army, as evidenced by the brand of the von Zarovich crest on her side… in the same place that Alistor was branded with it as punishment by a commanding officer during his time on the Material Plane. 

The party returns to Vallaki and receives letters. Theo receives sympathy and tenderness from Doru about Lucian’s death, so she writes to him to clear the misunderstanding up. She receives a strange, doomsday-esque letter from the Church in Immol as well. Alistor receives an invitation from Rafael Buckvhold to join in on making masks for the next festival: a masquerade. He agrees to come and Rafael kisses him in the garden and invites him to bed after arts and crafts time. Upon noticing Alistor’s brand, Rafael assumes Alistor is on the same side as the Buckvhold family. Tam confesses his dream to Ireena and they have a conversation about past lives and nightmares, which brings them closer together. Alistor comes back to the inn and tells Ismark he slept with Rafael, which Ismark tries to act normal about. Alistor also hears a creepy song from Rictavio that reminds him of his nightmare. At the church, Izek proposes to Theo. Theo writes to Doru to ask him to either pretend to be (or really be) her fiance to deter Izek’s advances. The next day, Alistor buys Godfrey a costume for the masquerade, so they can smuggle him into town to heal Stella. Tam and Theo go to lunch at Wachterhaus and learn Lavinia has left for the time being and Lady Wachter thinks the party should aid her in “getting rid of” Izek. Ismark receives a letter from Thorn detailing the situation in Barovia Village: people are getting weird without cannibal pies and Doru is refusing to feed, which means he is acting erratic. Thorn confesses to missing Ismark and tells him that Rose abandoned him. Ismark is conflicted about this letter. Meanwhile, Theo gets two letters. One is from the Abbot, Lucian’s father and her creator, expressing detached remorse for Lucian’s “death”. The other is from Doru, over-enthusiastically accepting her proposal. He writes her the horniest, most vampiric love letter and she is smitten. Ismark is uneasy but unsure how to tell her. Alistor and Ismark talk and are interrupted by Victor Vallakovich, who tells them something weird is happening at his house - that he thinks he heard his mother talking to his deceased sister. They join his investigation and discover that Lydia’s study is a cover for a Ba’al Verzi assassin’s headquarters. They find ciphers and letters, an eerie mirror that reeks of conjuration magic, and a dagger that, upon unsheathing, they realize is cursed. Alistor devises a plan: he teaches Victor the “spare the dying” cantrip and asks Ismark to stab him. It turns into a profound (and horny) bonding moment between Alistor and Ismark, which Victor takes as confirmation that they are sleeping together. Ismark stabs Alistor to death and Victor brings him back. Covered in blood, Alistor and Ismark return to the Blue Water Inn. Theo is at the church, which means Alistor and Ismark interrupt a nice moment between Ireena and Tam. Urwin draws them a bath (they take turns) and the two groups fill each other in on what they are experiencing. Sensing unresolved tension between Alistor and Ismark, Ireena elects to stay in Tam’s room with him. Alistor and Ismark have an intimate and vulnerable moment where they talk about how much they trust each other and how relieved they are that Alistor is okay. They embrace and the only thing that keeps them from kissing and falling into bed together is their certainty that Ireena will come in any moment. She doesn’t.

The characters are again plagued with weird dreams. Theo dreams of the blond man again, this time in a war tent, but the dream warps and twists every time she breaks immersion to talk to him. Tam has a nightmare of his and Ireena/Tatyana’s death, narrated by the same voice that tormented Alistor’s nightmare before. Alistor, however, dreams of his grandfather’s ghost. Argynvost tells him how proud he is of him and how grateful he is that he is home. Morning finds Ireena at the window, charmed and bitten by Strahd. Tam is freaked out and tries to keep her safe as the party ventures back to Argynvostholt to deliver Godfrey’s costume. Along the way, they are attacked by needle blights. Once back at Argynvostholt for the night, Tam insists that Ireena should sleep in a windowless room. When she thinks that’s odd, he announces that the whole party should sleep in a windowless room! He, Ireena, Ismark, and Theo do so. Alistor goes to sleep in his childhood bedroom. While Theo sleeps, she hears the voice of the blond man ask, “Ilona? Are you at Argynvostholt?” He tries to ask if Argynvost is there if there are children there, but she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The dream fades out. The voice of The Morning Lord comes through and speaks to her. Theo is momentarily certain she is speaking to her god, but he slips up and sounds a little too human. She’s aware she’s in the presence of something holy, but something feels off. The conversation is cut short. Unable to sleep, Theo goes to find the knights, only to learn that Vladimir Horngaard keeps a night watch. Godfrey and the other nights help defend her. This occurs every time someone comes up the stairs during the next hour. Vladimir clearly does not remember Godfrey, only referring to him as a “soldier”. Theo joins the revenants and learns to play dice games from them. Godfrey sends the resident squire, Arthund, to hunt game for breakfast for their guests. Alistor gets up, has a confrontation with Vladimir, and then goes to the roof to talk to one of his old friends, Damian, about what happened between Godfrey and Vladimir and also to help him repair a broken ballista. While talking, Damian asks Alistor to deliver a wedding ring he fashioned for his beloved, Dame Almathea, to the memorial crypt for the Order of the Silver Dragon in Immol. Alistor agrees. Meanwhile, Tam comforts Ireena, who is cured of her charmed condition and is angry with herself. Arthund returns with a goat he killed and he is determined to impress Godfrey with his kill. He then confesses he doesn’t know how to cook and so Tam, Ismark, and Ireena take over. Ismark gathers everyone for breakfast. Over roasted goat, the knights tell the party their unfinished business. Sir Erich wants to hunt the roc of Mount Ghakis. Sir Robern wants to find out what became of his family. Dame Ragnelle wants her art returned from Ravenloft to Argynvostholt. Arthund just wants to be a hero. Godfrey takes Alistor aside and tells him that Argynvost’s skull has been taken as a prize by Baba Lysaga and he wants it restored to the mausoleum. The party agree to help all of the knights. On their walk back, Tam discovers a bundle of clothes, which the party surmises belongs to a werewolf. In leaving it alone, they are allowed to pass safely onward. They agree to visit the Dusk Elves because they are meant to have one of the items they need to fight Strahd (the Icon of Ravenloft).

Upon arriving at Huldefolk, the Dusk Elf settlement, the characters realize they are being watched oddly. The guards outside Patrina’s home ask Alistor who his mother’s clan is. He does not know his mother, but he can name Alek Gwilym as his father. This causes gossip to kick up and the elves search for his mother. Tam insists upon speaking to Patrina. She reluctantly allows the party into her home, where the other characters meet her ten-year-old son, Kian, who is studying to be a mage. Tam tells Patrina that he and Ireena are having unsettling dreams about lives together and Patrina confesses that one of the reasons she took to Tam is because she believes he is the reincarnation of Sergei von Zarovich. She declares that Ireena must be Tatyana and she is very sorry. Theo and Alistor examine the religious statues Patrina keeps and learn of the Lady of Shadows, also known as The Raven Queen, who was Queen Ravenovia von Royen von Zarovich in life. Alistor hates this, but Tam hates all of it so much that he goes outside to throw up. Ireena follows him. Patrina explains how Ravenovia ascended to godhood and the party detects resentment, maybe even hatred in Patrina’s voice. She tells Alistor that if they do not find his mother, out of respect for his father’s memory, she will claim Alistor for clan Velikov to give him permission to visit and remain in Huldefolk. As the conversation unfolds, it becomes clear that Patrina knows who Alistor’s mother might be but will not say. Theo asks Patrina about the prophesied item. Patrina eventually confesses to having the Icon of Ravenloft and needing it to protect Kian. She admits she has a dangerous mission at the Amber Temple she intends to complete to save her people, but that she cannot bequeath the item to the party until it is done because it is her only insurance for Kian’s safety from Strahd. The party agrees to help her with her mission in the Amber Temple in exchange for the item.

They return to Vallaki and Theo tells Ireena she has something important to tell her. She takes a drunk VIctor as moral (or “amoral”) support as she confesses that she looks identical to Ireena. Ireena seethes that the Abbot created Theo without considering her as her own person and she seethes that Strahd wants to harm them both. She insists that Theo is still her friend and that it isn’t her that she is mad at. Meanwhile, Ismark shares his letter from Thorn with Alistor, asking what to do. Alistor insists they should tell Theo. Tam sits in the bar with a bottle of wine and tries to ruminate on what he learned about Ravenovia. On a Nat 20, he accesses Sergei’s memories of Ravenovia: how hard it was to secure her love, how she pushed her children, how she drove her children apart. He feels sick. The characters decide to call it a night. Tam and Alistor stay at the inn. Theo, Ireena, and Ismark go to the church, which is now Hallowed ground. Ireena and Theo decide that everyone in the party should match someone else in the party to throw Strahd off everyone’s scent. 

That’s where we ended tonight. It’s been WILD and it continues to get more and more interesting. There are a lot of miscellaneous facts I’d like to share, but they are spoilers and it’s almost 6 AM as I type this. I’m DELIGHTED by this game! Thank you for reading!

[exyugoth]

Luck, misfortune, acceptance

I try to pinpoint the pinpoint the first time I felt an overwhelming sense of bad luck, misfortune, evil eye, whatever you want to call it. Was it when I started losing more friendships than I can count in the same way that made me feel inadequate over and over again, every year since I was 11 ? Was it when we kept discovering that some illnesses ran in the family ? Was it when I understood that what I had experienced as a child was abuse and that I might not have been the only one ? Was it when we lost several family members in a short timespan and we were robbed of goodbyes ? Was it when the fridge broke down that one time ? And then the car. And then my computer. And then the sink. All in the same week.

Did it start with me - they did, after all, take me to some sort of witch because I refused to sleep and they thought someone had given me the evil eye the first few weeks of my existence - or is there some truth in my parents' words when they say that we have been cursed ? I recently learned that, in 2001, my parents were ready to move us back to their motherland. Everything was set up. Clothes and furniture were packed and ready to go. They eventually had to give up on the idea after nationalists violently attacked Bosniaks again in their hometown. To me, it felt like yet another unfortunate tale that could only happen to us.

I wonder how much of these feelings are cultural, how much of it is born out of superstitious beliefs. How much of it is rooted in having collectively experienced unspeakable and unfathomable life-changing violence that has spanned multiple generations, without ever taking a break. It makes sense that, if we cannot truly make sense of something, it is easier to conceptualize it as some uncontrollable power that comes to crush us and continues to strike repeatedly.

It also seems rather self-centered to believe that we are special enough to be cursed. That these horrible occurrences must be someone or something else's fault because it never should have happened to us. That our lives are so bad that we must have the evil eye. As if thousands on this planet were not experiencing much more difficult and traumatic life events at the exact same time. When I start thinking about that, I feel guilty.

Then, I think about how lucky I actually am, despite everything. And how lucky we are. "If the war hasn't killed us, neither will this." That's a sentence I've heard my grandmother, my mother and my aunt say before. And it's true since none of our relatives, as far as I know, have died in the war. We've been lucky enough to visit my family every summer since I was born, unlike million of others in the diaspora. I was lucky enough to meet my grandpa. Hell, I even met my great-grandpa. That doesn't sound like being cursed to me.

My therapist often congratulates me on how well I cope with things and how well I self-reflect. When I read about how to recognize that a child may be undergoing sexual abuse, I did not find myself in the signs. Was that luck? I felt proud of that, even though I knew it was wrong to feel pride. I was a happy child. A bit too talkative at the doctor's. Bratty and spoiled. Energetic. Cheerful. Sometimes a bit rude to my peers when I felt like I had to protect myself. It was only years after the abuse stopped that I developed anxiety and depression, and I'm still convinced that it had more to do with my fear of failure and disappointing my loved ones than it had to do with anything else.

Although when something bad happens to me, it's always a devastating and troubling wave of bad things happening at the same time, deep down I don't think I'm truly cursed. But I do need to accept that it's just this thing called life. And life sometimes really fucking hurts. But that shall pass too.

[beaujagr]

oof.

context/content warnings: relationships, bipolar I disorder, mania, depression, conflict, communication, disability, house repairs, plumbing problems, car accident mention, illness mention, PTSD, money mention, mention of insects (bees/yellow jackets) in housing structure, self loathing, healthcare

I've been manic for around a month I think now, and I'm sick of it, and I'm sick of myself

My health search for answers to the issues I'm having still has not come to fruition. I got several negative results this week, but no information or answers or progress. I'm running out of ways to justify the medication to help reduce the symptoms I'm experiencing, and yet have no way to confirm or treat those symptoms, and I am struggling to communicate with my doctors and terrified of what will happen if we can't find an answer - whether it turns out to be "nothing" or it just gets worse.

At the beginning of the week, my weekly meeting with my spouse was mostly composed of him explaining to me that my conversational tendency (clear in this post) to put multiple problems or items in a list at the beginning of a conversation before anyone can respond, combined with my inability to tell the length of a pause in conversation meaning I often don't wait long enough for others to respond and accidentally overlap or start talking before they can, is making it virtually impossible for us to communicate without him becoming very overwhelmed and frustrated. I do not have a solution yet. Later this week, my partner (other person) was sick with a sinus infection and went to pick up something at the store, and on the way, got rear-ended and it caused notable damage to his car, the involved law enforcement were negligent at best, and he ended up having to to the ER the next morning because of a messed up shoulder and whiplash. It was all really triggering to me due to my own accidents, and I was concerned about him & wanted to ensure he could get all the paperwork and stuff done so I have been helping him where I can, but he's been super irritable because of the discomfort and stress, so our communication has been rough.

We had a leak in the same water pipe that recently was repaired for almost $1k, and it followed with an additional leak yesterday, and I have been managing contact with the insurance partially. I was talking with my spouse about the expenses, and in his stress, he decided to withdraw from his 401k (something I agree we had to do) but didn't confirm the amount or the final decision with me, and it made me feel left out. He apologized, but the stress surrounding house issues and finances is tied to communication struggles.

Multiple delays and failed communications led to us getting a nest of yellow jackets in our casement window that I've been trying to clear out now because my partner is allergic, and it's been a nightmarish and exhausting process and I'm very sick of it.

The disability office fucked up my paperwork and I had to redo a whole bunch of stuff and resubmit it, and the communication surrounding it has been really confusing and stressful.

Someone I've been talking to and spent some time with expressed to me that my overwhelming level of communication and use of multiple platforms to communicate, especially on a daily basis, has been stressing them out and making them unable to build the energy to desire seeing me in person (the opposite of my intent) and asked that we reduce our level of communication. I respect and understand this, but I realized I can't really tell the correct amount of time to wait between sending messages, whether this means I should not go to events we would be at simultaneously, and whether I shouldn't communicate in shared chats, and even asking them about those boundaries made me want to throw up because I don't want to bother them more than I already have but I so much want to be able to be connected to them and continue having good experiences and a good time. I feel like an asshole and I'm also stressed and confused.

On top of all of this, my therapist called me out in therapy for inserting myself into my partner's lives too much and doing too much labor beyond my energy levels and faculties related to things like paperwork, scheduling, logistics, house maintenance, and healthcare. I explained initially that they sometimes do need help, and while some of it is because I don't want to see them struggle, and because I don't trust systems or authorities or service people to actually be helpful and I don't want the consequences of them failing to execute those things to have fallout on me, that's not all.

My biggest struggle is that I know that when I had to deal with all those things and didn't have people helping me, especially when I was struggling a lot, it only made things worse for me. What I want is to ensure that no one I care about ends up like me. I don't want them to have to experience failures and losses over and over again, burning out and losing everything repeatedly, and ending up a burden to everyone they know and love and feeling permanently and constantly unworthy of even asking people to respect their boundaries or help them meet their needs. No one should be like me. I don't want to be like me. It was a really rough session.

What I've learned basically is that when I'm manic, I'd be better off locking myself in a box and tossing myself in a river than trying to engage with other people, and that my experience of the world has only taught me that I should hate myself just as much as the world and other people so often make me feel like they do.

The idea of someone I care about ending up like me because the system and other people failed them makes me hypervigilant in concern for their wellbeing and ability to do things like necessary paperwork, get care, meet daily needs, and so on, because I know that the consequences of not achieving all of those things has any potential that they might end up being like me, and I'd rather run myself to the ground and die than have more people having the experience of life that I have had so far.

The worst part is, this entire week has only reinforced all of these feelings for all of those reasons and events above, and has left me in a state that I don't know what to do. I hate myself so utterly and inexorably, and every day gives me new reasons to hate myself more and also confirm how I am constantly and unendingly just disappointing and stressing and overwhelming and failing everyone I care about and many people I don't care about so much.

I don't know how to keep being this person. Mania is bad, but it's not like I'm better when depressed or apathetic or hypomanic or burnt out. I'm never just okay, and I never will be, and the world is never going to stop finding new ways to reverse every ounce of progress I make. I don't know how to do this anymore, and I'm not allowed to stop existing, so I feel like I'm stuck forever. I hate it, and I hate myself for making it so much worse every time.

[ramblingvents]

This is kinda a vent but also a request for advice from anyone who knows about memory loss from depression, anxiety, ADHD, or a dissociative disorder.

Does anyone else with extreme anxiety experience some form of dissociation like all the time? Like always feeling not like yourself, not recognizing yourself, not feeling real/like life is real or like recognizing yourself in the past etc.

I've been feeling this pretty much everyday for the last year and when I'm really stressed it causes memory issues sometimes (like when I was doing a musical last year I had a minor part but would dissociate so badly due to stress that I couldn't remember essentially 2 paragraphs worth of lines on stage. Recently, I dissociated during an exam and couldn't remember anything about Electricity and Magnetism, a subject I've been learning about in college for 2 years.) I also have trouble remembering everything completely that happened during my internship (which ended a month ago), have only bits and pieces of last year, and also only bits and pieces of highschool.

I have both severe anxiety and depression and am in the process of treating/getting diagnosed ADHD but am wondering if this is normal for those disorders or if it sounds more like a dissociative disorder or a physical medical problem.

I never feel like I forgot the last couple hours or anything, but sometimes when I try to think about something in the past (even recent past) I only vaguely remember the events of it and not the details and I feel like the rest of the memory is in there somewhere but I haven't triggered it/ can't go deeper into it. I also feel dizzy like all the time and super tired and have a hard time concentrating on anything for more than 20 minutes and get migraines several times a week (the migraines started more recently - in March of this year).

I'm just worried because it's really starting to disrupt my life and it scares me and I don't know if I should go to my doctor about it or a therapist or I'm overthinking it because I have hypochondria. I definitely don't sleep enough or drink enough water so that could be contributing to it.

[ladookhotnikov]

Revival of the Crypto-loan Market on New Principles

Today I want to talk about the crypto-loan market. After the cascading bankruptcy of leading platforms such as BlockFi, Celsius and the Genesis division, many thought that this segment would never recover. However, there is now a revival, but in my opinion, the construction of a new crypto lending market should be based on new principles.

As you know, loans appeared along with money. Whether it be cocoa beans, shells or golden guilders, credit relations have always been one of the drivers for the financial system development.

Just recently, it seemed that Bitcoin would harmoniously integrate into the credit market. The peak fell in the years 2020-21, with tens of billions of dollars flowing into both centralized and decentralized lending platforms. However, a series of crashes in 2022 effectively buried the crypto lending market.

There is nothing surprising. This has happened more than once in traditional credit markets. Let us remember the “Great Depression,” when for several years there was no time for loans at all, because the vast majority of banks went bankrupt, and then for another ten years it was mainly the state that provided loans.

That's what I'm driving at. The traditional banking system has an ultimate creditor (for the USA this is the Federal Reserve System) which, in the event of crisis situations, takes certain measures to stabilize it.

Why not do something similar in the crypto industry? Create a single body that, of course, will not be subordinate to any state, but will be something like the Federal Reserve System.

How can it work? Well, for example, one representative from each major player will be included in the council. Startups with a smaller turnover can choose their representatives. In general, organizational issues are not the main thing here; they can be worked out.

The main thing is that the platform can develop general rules for the industry without waiting for a decision from legislators (this can be expected for years, but time requires making prompt decisions). Perhaps crypto companies will submit certain reports to this single body, which will monitor the state of affairs and respond quickly if a crisis situation arises. Participants will probably have to pay fees. You can't do without it :)

In general, I think the crypto community should work on this idea. The development of general rules, and if they also show their effectiveness, can become a guide to action for legislators in many countries.

[mydissociativediaries]

6/2/2023: Timeline pt. 2

I'm trying to figure out a serious timeline for the events in my life, so here we go:

8/7/1999: Date my sister was born.

2001: I heavily associate the song "Blood" by Abandoned Pools with my repressed memories, whatever those are. I haven't thought about that as much lately because I've been focusing on my inner child selves, but...it's still in there, and something definitely happened. I don't think it happened in 2001--seems like it happened when I was a toddler? Who knows. I don't: it's a repressed memory!

2001/2002 (maybe): My mom told me that I started doing "it" two years ago.

2002: I could not BELIEVE this happened so early. When I was in elementary school, a classmate asked me which songs I relate to. I said "I'm Just a Kid" by Simple Plan and even started singing "I'm just a kid, and life is a nightmare..." I'm sure my classmate didn't believe me because my life looked happy from the outside, but in any case, I can't believe that my childhood depression started that early. I was only, what--maybe 9 or 10? I remember hearing Simple Plan on the radio, so it wasn't long after that album came out. MAYBE I listened to it a year or two later after listening to Simple Plan's more recent (at the time) music? The abuse did start when I was around 8 years old, so it's possible that I could've been showing signs of depression at that age. I wish I could remember what grade I was in.

2003 (maybe): Bad memory associated with "Hey Ya" by Outkast. I'm pretty sure I was listening to that song not long after it came out.

8/7/2003: Mom telling me that she won't let me play any games if I don't stop [action] at Chuck E. Cheese, which is where we were holding my asshole sister's 4th birthday party.

2004 (maybe): Mom telling me "When Daddy asked me if you [action], I said 'no'" while trying to guilt-trip me. Might've been a year or two earlier, but I feel like it was around the sentence-writing period.

2004: I remember writing sentences as a punishment, so I was well into the abuse by then. I would've been around 10 or 11. I know this year because I recall the (at the time) new episode of The Simpsons that my parents were watching. I didn't remember the title, but I looked up one of the lines that I recalled and found that date. I actually remember my dad giving me shit because he thought that I was watching the episode instead of writing sentences.

2004: One of my worst days also took place in that year. I can place it because we went to see the movie Starsky and Hutch (apparently, my mom enjoyed the original show), and...yeah, a lot of shit happened in that theater. I looked up the movie and found that date.

2004/2005 (maybe): Dad giving me shit in a restaurant--possibly Culver's--while I was trying to read H-rry P-tter and the Order of the Ph-enix (censored to keep this out of the HP tags.) The book came out in 2003, but I don't think I was reading it immediately afterward. In fact, I'm 99% sure I'd read it several times before. Likely, I was reading it at least a couple of years after it came out.

2004/2005 (maybe): Parents yelling at me in a restaurant at the mall. I was trying to read one of the books in The Clique series, and I think it was Best Friends for Never, which came out in 2004. I don't think I was reading it right after it came out, though. Could've been two or three years later for all I know.

2005: I have a memory of my mom threatening to punish me by not letting me watch "Star Trek: Enterprise." I think that was during the final season.

2005: I think my dad yelled at me on/around Christmas while I was reading H-rry P-tter and the H-lf-blood Pr-nce. This memory's a little shaky, though.

2005: Listening to "Different" by Acceptance on the radio and thinking that I wanted this song to play at my funeral if I killed myself.

2005/2006 (maybe): Dad flicked the headphones off my head to yell at me. I remember seeing autumn leaves around the truck. I'm uncertain about the date because a comic that I drew triggered this memory (a character flicked another character's hat off his head), which was recent at the time, and I think I was 12 or 13 when I was drawing those comics? Maybe 14? Incidentally, another comic that I drew had a triggering scene: a character saying "He's still doing that? I thought we were DONE with that!", something that my mom had said. Was I subconsciously trying to trigger myself?

2005/2006 (maybe): Thinking about it now, that triggering event that I just mentioned must've happened around the same time. (My dad followed up my mom's comment with "We are. That was the last one," directed at me.)

2005/2006 (maybe): Me telling an online friend "I've been through more than you know" during an argument. Hmm, what do you think I was referring to?

2006: I bought a Michael Crichton book called "Next" that came out that year. A couple of lines in that book about an artificial ear (it's the word "ear" that got to me--yeah, I know, it's weird) triggered severe flashbacks. I still remember those events vividly, but the memories were REALLY vivid at the time, suggesting that they'd happened recently. Still, it might not have been in the same year. The incident could've happened a year or two previously, and I'd probably still have vivid recollections.

5/24/2006: My parents, sister, grandmother and I went to see a blown glass exhibit. The trip itself was fun, but my dad gave me shit in front of my grandma (which I didn't like) before we left.

2006/2007 (maybe): This is the last time I went camping. It was just me, my parents and my POS sister, and I think I was 13? Might've been a couple of years earlier. This was in the "writing sentences" phase, so it's possible.

2006/2007 (maybe): Mom yelling at me after a parent-teacher conference (I'm pretty sure we spoke to my seventh- or eight-grade teacher, who was the same person) and saying "I wish your teachers could see what you're really like!"

Later in life:

2007: Probably the worst day happened in that year. I remember it so intensely that I recall an art piece that I saw on Deviantart. I looked it up and found the date that an admin featured it as a Daily Deviation, which is how I saw the piece (not when the artist originally posted it.) March 9, 2007. A song that came out that year--"I Still Remember" by Bloc Party--was also playing in my head at the time. Yep, I remember it that clearly.

2007: Miiight have happened a year earlier? But I think I was about to graduate from elementary school. Memory of my mom yelling at me before a Quiz Bowl tournament.

2007: During an incident while I was in my parents' truck, I started dissociating and thinking about how I wished I were back in one of the high schools that my class toured in elementary school when we were on the verge of graduating. I don't remember the exact incident, but it was obviously bad if I have a vivid memory like that attached to it. I believe it took place in autumn--in my memory, I see autumn trees outside the vehicle.

2007: Telling an online friend what my dad had told me: "You used to be a sweet little girl, and now you're turning into a brat." 99% sure I was a high school freshman at the time. I also mentioned the abuse to her without giving specifics sometime around that period.

2007: Sitting miserably in the theater with my mom and POS sister after watching "Shrek the Third," not realizing that I have major depression. I don't think I even considered that until college, which is crazy.

2007 (maybe): Dad screaming even louder than usual and scaring the shit out of me. I'm pretty sure I had just started high school.

2007/2008 (maybe): Mom telling me I didn't do "it" at all while I was on Prozac during my freshman year, which my doctor gave me to help me deal with my high school anxiety. Should've stayed on that shit, huh?

2008/2009 (maybe): Mom yelling at me in the car and unsympathetically saying "You look like you're about to cry!" right as my POS sister was triggering me. When we went inside the house, Mom turned on the movie "Fred Claus," which came out in 2007. However, this incident happened after the film was released--maybe or year or two later? I can't verify that, but that's what it feels like.

Post-high school:

2010: Last photo of me that my parents have in their house.

2011: Memory of my dad yelling at me on (probably) the same day that I posted a picture of a cupcake that my parents bought me on Facebook. November 6, 2011.

2012: Wow, this was super late. Feels like it happened earlier. My dad yelled at me during Madonna's Super Bowl performance. I would've been 18 or 19. February 5, 2012.

2012: Maaaybe the year my sister graduated from elementary school, but it could've been a year or so earlier. I remember her saying "Ew, no" when my mom suggested adding pictures of me to her memory board (God, I hate that worthless piece of shit.) Or that COULD have been when she was about to graduate high school? Not totally sure about that one.

Some I don't have dates for:

I showed signs of depression maaaybe in adolescence? I don't think I was in high school yet. For a few days after school, I told my mom I wanted to be alone in my room for a while because I felt like crying (didn't tell her that part.) My sister was pretty young but going to school and out of her toddler phase.

My parents yelling at me in a Ferris wheel. Cool! Could've been anywhere from childhood to early adolescence.

Parents giving me shit at Christmas but trying not to get angry since it was the holidays. I'm pretty sure I was on the younger end of the scale. Might have been anywhere from 8 to 11.

Parents yelling at me while watching an episode of Celebrity Deathmatch. That series aired from 1998 to 2002, but I vaguely recall my parents watching it as a rerun, maybe as a "Hey, we used to watch this show, let's watch it again!" moment. That could've been in any year. I was young, though.

Dad staring at me as a punishment while we were in a fast-casual restaurant. 99% sure I was in adolescence. I went into the bathroom and winked and smiled in the mirror, trying to keep it together. Trying not to show emotion in front of them.

Overhearing my dad telling my mom that he was about to strangle me. I was younger (don't remember how young), but I actually did the same thing. Smiled and winked to myself like everything was fine. Like it was a joke. That was the only way I could cope.

Parents yelling at me at The Cheesecake Factory in the mall. Who the hell knows when that happened.

My parents giving me a bunch of shit during mini-golf. I think that was two separate incidents.

This was definitely during adolescence, but I can't remember how old I was. My parents, sister and I were leaving a grocery store (might've been Walmart) and overhead a bratty teenager mouthing off to her parents. My dad said "Even [name]'s not THAT bad!" I felt like crying, but I didn't. I thought to myself "Wow, you sure know how to make a girl feel good." (OK, I'll admit that was cheesy. I probably picked that up from a book.)

Me crying alone in my room--I think I was anywhere from 8 to 11--and thinking to myself "I'll probably have problems with depression when I'm older." Boy, was I right!

My dad coldly mocking me in front of my sister, and me telling a friend about it the next day. Probably somewhere from 8 to 11.

Dad saying "Now I'm sounding like [name]" as an insult. Likely around the same age.

Mom threatening to "throw me out there with the skunk," although she actually regretted that one and told my sister "Don't laugh at that!", implying embarrassment.

Mom saying "You're not a puppy dog," then telling my sister "Maybe she is." Then my sister started talking to me like I were a dog. Thanks for that, Mom!

Mom calling me "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." That might've been somewhere from 2006 to 2007. Maybe a little younger? I feel like I was in adolescence, though.

Dad spanking me when I was way too old for that to humiliate me--so, early adolescence.

Mom screaming in my ear and yelling that I'm making her crazy. Goddamn. I'm going to say that was probably anywhere from 8 to 10 years old.

My POS sister mocking and humiliating me in my adulthood. Happened multiple times, don't have exact years or dates.

A day off from school when my mom told me "You can do whatever you want." As soon as she said that, I knew that I would not, in fact, do whatever I wanted. Sure enough, my dad ended up grounding me.

Sitting in a restaurant and trying not to cry while my parents half-assedly tried to get my POS sister to stop triggering me (they didn't try that hard, and she didn't stop) in a rare moment of sympathy.

Dad telling me "Either stop, or get the hell away from me." I did get the hell away from him, but not by choice--he sent me to my room.

Dad telling me "Go to your room" when "it" happened as we played checkers. I didn't even really want to play checkers.

Mom yelling "Oh, [name], I could hit you!"

Dad giving me shit and nudging my arm with his finger (it was pretty clear that he wanted to get way more physical than that.)

My dad saying "Now I'm starting to sound like [name]" when he was frustrated. Comparing someone to me is always an insult!

"If you want quiet, go to your room and shut the door. It'll be plenty quiet." Another gem from my dad.

Dad stopping to stare at me, then shaking his head coldly.

I swear to God, it's like he actively thought of new ways to give me shit: stopping and saying "Do I even have to say it?" Lmao what even was that? It was like a nasty joke.

Dad saying "Restrain yourself" after some other shit that I can't remember right now. But I remember the "vibe."

"I'm getting really tired of your shit!" from my dad in a parking lot.

"I'm going to fucking win" at the end of one of my dad's tirades. Him dropping the F-bomb like that really freaked me out.

There are plenty of others, most that I'm sure I forgot a long time ago. But I recall a lot of them.

[actualtext]

Dec 8, 2022

Reflection

1. What is going on inside your head right now?

I feel like the more I know about anything, the worse I feel. For example, learning about my homelessness. Or learning about anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc. I feel like knowing about these things and being able to identify them when they are occurring only makes me feel self conscious and broken.

I think the assessment made me realize I'm not taking as good care of myself as I previously thought I was and that makes me kinda sad. Haha I thought I was doing so well but there's so much to improve on and that thought makes me feel tired. I've been sleeping a lot more than usual since we last spoke and I still feel sleepy. There are circles under my eyes thats I've noticed lately..

2. What negative emotion keeps cropping up the most lately?

Mostly that no one wants me around. It's a silly thought because my friends love me, deep down inside I know they do. They make it obvious whenever I see them. But when I'm not with them I always feel like maybe they don't like me or miss me. It especially hurts me when I try to make plans with them and they have to cancel for some reason. It feels like they just don't want to be around me.

3. What has made you the happiest lately?

I told myself I wasn't going to date anymore after the traumatic event happened with my cousin, because I would be leaving soon but also because I wasn't ready to trust men. I tweeted something about how it was kind of difficult to function normally after a traumatic event had occurred, and an old friend liked my tweet. This old friends name is Jaime, we dated briefly but I went off to college in a different city and he stayed behind. We hung out a few times since the incident with my cousin and I told him what went down. I've been talking to him a lot lately about how I've been so bummed out and he always does something to make me laugh and feel better. He's a very comical character. Always makes me laugh so I think the rekindling of our friendship has made me the happiest lately.

4. The last time you felt this way, what did you do?

The last time I felt extremely anxious, I ruined a friendship. My pal Leo didn't know how to tell me that he would be less involved in my life cause he got a girlfriend. I thought he just hated my guts. I kept asking him if I had some something, and if he hated me. He wouldn't ever give me a straight answer so I thought the worst. Ultimately I came off as clingy and overbearing cause I was doing everything to not lose him, and then I did. 🙃

5. What holds you back the most from moving on from negative emotions?

Probably me forgetting about any reassurance I've received. I have a terrible memory so sometimes I'll forget how someone consoled me and go back to feeling how I felt before the consolation.

6. Which emotions are you trying to avoid right now? why?

Right now I'm trying to avoid feeling like a complete screw up. I was asked recently to participate in a panel discussion, but what I hate most about those is the part when they ask about where I am now. I feel stuck as if I haven't accomplished anything lately and that kills me. It's true, I haven't accomplished anything lately, but I wish I was okay with that, rather than feeling like less of a worthy person because of it. I don't wanna do the panel. I'm probably going to cancel, even thought I would consider it an achievement.

7. What is your inner critic telling you lately?

That I'll end up like my mom, severely depressed and unhappy. She had a hard life though, and while I have also had a hard life, it's not as bad as hers was. I feel like I'm in an ocean of sad feelings and I'm trying so hard to stay afloat as opposed to drowning in it but I'm getting so tired of fighting the current trying to pull me under.

[hermholland]

This is going to be a little bit of a mish-mash of things but there is a point to it…

Lately I've been realising that I need additional help and support with my Depression than I'm currently getting. Despite the fact that since October I've had decent reasons to be upset or sad, I've recently acknowledged that I've not actually come back out of my misery for months, I've just found new reasons to explain it. It's clear that Things Are Getting Bad Again.

I've explained before, I think, about my abandonment issues, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and paranoia, and it's been especially bad the last few months: I've struggled to communicate with others, I've questioned whether people I consider my friends would prefer if I wasn't around, I've wondered if they'd notice if I dropped off the face of the Earth, I've been anxious about reconnecting with people, I've been scared to make plans, I've had panic attacks at the prospect of seeing people I've not had any contact with in a long time… The list goes on.

My most recent struggle is that one of my closest friends seemingly not wanting to spend time with me or even really communicate with me if it's remotely out of his convenience. It's felt like if I try to make plans with him to do something other than go to one pub we always go to he either doesn't want to or he'll agree & then cancel last minute ghost me for a day or more. Not all of this is imagined, but it's far more down to his own personal issues than with some resentment towards me. But it's been hard enough reaching out and being rejected or ignored that I've had to decide to just stop reaching out for the time being as a form of self-preservation. The voice that tells me everyone hates me and that they're right to is always much louder and more convincing than reality or truth, and for a while now I've been questioning a lot about my relationships with the people I care about. This has been extremely painful, and I've been getting progressively more closed off and isolated as I've tried to deal with it.

That, and other things, and general demon voices telling me I'm an awful person, have me feeling unwanted, unlikable, and isolated. It's been really horrific.

The thing is, though, and essentially what's become the reason I've actually shared this, is that while all this has been happening, in the last week (and more specifically on Sunday) I've had a few different and entirely unconnected things happen which have done a lot to counter these feelings. Some of these things will seem entirely inconsequential, but in the context of what I've just explained they've all meant the absolute world to me.

A friend of mine couldn't make it to my pirate outing on the 10th of February because he'd broken his clavicle and thus was entirely bedbound. He lives on his own and has not been able to even sit up without great pain and difficulty for several weeks now. I've tried to keep in touch with him, even about mundane things like what I'm looking forward to eating that day, so that he doesn't feel alone and like everyone has forgotten him (I know that feeling and wouldn't wish it on anyone). This is the man that I made my little BlueJay toy for, so that he could come out with us to the pirate event that he'd been looking forward to before the accident. The day after the pirate outing I sent him loads of pictures of everyone who was out posing with the toy of him. He was incredibly grateful, and told me how much the gesture meant to him and that he believed that even thinking of making a stand-in for him so that he could join us was "a sign of true friendship". I was really pleased with this response and it made me feel really good about doing something that didn't feel like much of a big deal to me while I did it.

Fast forward to last Sunday.

As I was getting some stuff sorted on my PC, out of nowhere, I got a message from my friend that I'd had to stop reaching out to, simply talking about how he didn't like his new phone. It was nothing special or important, and was really only a grumble about something inconsequential. I'd been feeling unwanted and like my badgering was the only reason our friendship had persisted, and hearing from him about something so unimportant and conversational was, maybe quite oddly, an extremely affirming gesture about the status of our friendship. If he'd gotten in touch about something that mattered then it'd have been worse, because this was just talking for the sake of talking because we're friends. A tiny thing, but it meant the world to me.

Maybe an hour later I got a message from a friend of mine who I only ever see maybe once or twice a year because he lives far away, but always gives me a shout when he's in the area to hang out. I wasn't able to join him, but it was really nice to get the invitation, especially as he doesn't know any of my other friends, so it was entirely unrelated. Another simple thing but it made me feel wanted, which was wonderful.

Again a little while later I was chatting with another friend of mine who I always chat with on a Sunday, and everything about feeling unwanted and so on had made me worry that I was neglecting this friendship, and I said as much to him. He reassured me that this was not the case at all, and something about that and the way he did it was really comforting.

A little while after that I got a gift from a friend out of nowhere, which was far more meaningful than I think he remotely understood at the time, or even after when I reiterated my gratitude to him for it. He explained his reasoning behind giving me the gift as being quite simple and matter-of-fact, but even that kind of meant more because it wasn't some grand gesture designed to make him look like a saint… it was just "You wanted this, and I wanted to make sure you got it at the right time". I was incredibly flustered to receive the gift at the time (I'm shite at surprises, especially gifting surprises!) and later on when I was by myself I got really quite emotional about it.

All of these separate things happened from unconnected people for entirely different reasons and at similar but obviously not-choreographed times. Even though my Depression voices are extremely convincing and very loud, they can't block out the fact that all of those things happening so close together affirm the collective strength of my friendships with people. It's hard to believe that nobody likes me when all of these people have made gestures proving otherwise.

I'm having a hard time, and that's not changed. I'm not feeling better, as such, but the smallest of gestures from people (as simple as just messaging me out of the blue to say their new phone is annoying them, which just shows they want to share something in their life with me) have been so reassuring and affirming that things don't feel so heck right now. I'm still miserable, but that's helped shut up one of the worst voices telling me I'm awful.

You'll never know how meaningful just saying hi to someone without any purpose or agenda (except just that they're your friend) can be.