#I’ve become so much more responsible! Well at least mentally. Not physically.

[clover-the-awesomest]

OMG GET ME A MOM LIKE THIS WHAT

Was just informed by my mom that I do in fact have ADHD and the reason I thought I didn’t was because ever since I was seven whenever I got super energetic my mom would have me go chop wood so now when I’m feeling The ADHD I go chop wood and I thought it was just some sort of routine I started when I was little and wanted to blow off steam

[verytallfox]

Okay, first ever Tumblr post! Not sure if anyone will see this, but this is about the podcast The Sounds of Nightmares, set in the world of Little Nightmares. Specifically I’m looking at Chapter 3.

BIG SHIT

So to those of you who’ve listened or heard what happens, holy fuck right?! There’s some pretty big revelations (stuff theorized for a while certainly but never outright confirmed) in the episode. For one, it knocks the whole “it’s just a dream world” thing out of the park. Noone physically vanished from her world for a moment. I am certain that the Ferryman’s riddle is responsible for that.

Otto’s disgraced mentor published a paper in which he posited the existence of other worlds and other centers of reality. This professor suggests that their own world might be “secondary” in the cosmic hierarchy of existence. This is outright transdimensional or multiverse shit right here and I love it so much! It makes sense to me in that these children who are so alien to this world would end up there, though I also believe that there were regular people there too (and kids), at least formerly.

SMALL SHIT

Additionally, this is one of the first times we’ve heard the monsters of this other place speak, or at the very least coherently. Not just the Ferryman, who is called the Candleman predominantly, but also the shopping mall.

The shopping mall is the third location that we know if that’s suggested to be alive. The Maw is only indicated through reading Word of God stuff from Tarsier and the imagery that it must “feed” or must not perish. With the Signal Tower or Transmission or Flesh Walls or Black Tower, what have you, we see this evidence explicitly.

Back to the abandoned shopping mall, which is what they’ve named it on the wikia for Little Nightmares! It’s not clear if it feeds on anything at all or how. I will also say that I’m a sucker for a tragic beastie, which is the vibes that I’m getting from this being. However, I don’t think it would be good for Noone to have stayed there with it, even if it always treated her well.

The shopping mall appears to be suffering from serious mental health issues and is horribly lonely. It is desperate to have someone else stay with it, and also appears to be aware of the common fate that befalls children outside its walls.

So you know what, I’m gonna choose to believe that while it’s certainly dangerous the mall doesn’t mean children harm. It’s both incredibly lonely and entirely powerless to stop anyone who’d willingly stay with it (or be forced to stay) from being taken.

I’ve wondered if anyone else was somewhat hoping for least one friendly giant to appear in the Nowhere. Alas, this “friendly” giant is miserable, a little unstable, and totally powerless to save the company it desperately craves.

It actually reminds me of Six being trapped and warped within the Tower. There seemed to be no real benefit to that place in keeping her there other than maybe controlling Mono more easily. Maybe the Tower wanted her to stay too. Who knows!

The last thing I wanna cover is (drumroll) THE FERRYMAN! God I love this character. What’s so interesting to me about him is that he doesn’t appear to be running on a single base desire like most of the other adults. That suggests to me that he may never have been human in the first place and that he’s also directly working for the otherworldly entities of the Nowhere.

He’s definitely trying to draw Noone further in and I believe the riddle he told her is part of a ritual or incantation to lure her further in. Either she will continue out of curiosity, a desire to get better (not realizing it’s a trap), or if she resists she won’t a choice once it’s fully taken hold in her. The route I think this is going is that Noone will be pulled over physically for longer and longer, with the world becoming more and more clear, until she can no longer return. Her home reality may now be but a dream that she’s no longer on the same wavelength of to be able to return to.

Anyway, that was a lot of writing lol! Props to anyone who makes it to the end. Please feel to share your own ideas in here and thanks for listening!

[aphrodaisyacs]

This might be an odd question, but do you have any tips or preferences when it comes writing Natsuo? Asking for *ahem* reasons...

Ok well I guess like with all fanfic writing I use canon as a jumping point. He’s not exactly a flat character because the few moments he’s given imply a lot of depth, and it’s pretty fun to tease out that depth.

What we know from canon:

Out of all his siblings, Natsuo is the only one who appears to have a “normal” social life. He has a girlfriend who he presumably met during a university class, and he’s implied to prefer hanging out with her and his other friends instead of going back to visit his childhood home (much to Fuyumi’s annoyance lol). Based on his interactions with others he seems to be a sociable and friendly person (when Endeavor isn’t around to sour the mood at least). Personality-wise he also seems to be a confrontational person, in the sense that time and again he doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable conversations or topics- he prefers to air out all the grievances instead of letting them fester.

Currently, he and Fuyumi are the closest out of all the family members. They grew up together and they have the most normal sibling relationship out of everyone (the bar is on the ground tho aljsbd). In the scene where we first see them visiting Rei in the hospital together we also see them bantering and playfully poking at each other and he loves and respects her enough to put up with Endeavor for her sake.

It is no secret that Natsuo despises Endeavor—for being responsible for Touya’s death, for his treatment of Rei and Shouto and most likely also for the way he left Fuyumi as the responsible “adult” in charge of the home. The latter is implied from the way Natsuo spoke about how he tried to help her, ie with the cooking, but he was forced to stop when Endeavor complained about his cooking so it became Fuyumi’s responsibility again.

Then there’s all the trauma surrounding Touya, the way he feels like his brother wouldn’t have had to die (and become a villain) if only he’d listened to him when he needed it and maybe talked him out of some of his more extreme beliefs. It’s implied that he’s studying his current degree (medical welfare I think?) because of Touya, because he wants to help more people like his brother. There’s a lot of (irrational) guilt wrapped up in his feelings about Touya, but as seen in recent chapters he’s willing to put in the work and walk the long and difficult road to mend things between Touya and the rest of the family.

Now onto headcanon territory (most of which are extrapolated from canon):

I think that he has extremely low self esteem, due to the neglect he suffered while growing up. Not just from Endeavor, but from Rei too—here’s some thoughts I’ve already had about this, copy-pasted from the end AN of ch13 in WHFO:

I've always gotten the feeling that she and Natsuo were never particularly close, especially before she was hospitalised. Because he must've been what, 3 when she had to pass him over to be raised by the housekeeper while she completely shifted her focus to Shouto? Not to mention that his physical resemblance to Endeavor would've made it hard for her to even look at him, especially as her mental health spiralled. I just feel like Rei never really got much of a chance to get close to him the way she did with her other children, which is sad because that means Natsuo didn't have much of a relationship with either of his parents when he needed it most during his formative years faksjdlfs that is most definitely not going to have an impact on him at all, nope :)

Expanding on that I think he is also incredibly affection starved, and even as he strives to make a life for himself outside the family a part of him might always find it hard to accept praise or even just the idea that people would genuinely think he’s great to be around or good at things in general. Just you know, general symptoms of someone who had a childhood of emotional neglect.

Because of the whole thing with Rei I also think that he’s hyperaware of how much he physically resembles Endeavor. Does this mean he’s probably insecure about his looks as a result? Yes I do like to think so, especially for the Angst™️. It also doesn’t help that all of his other siblings look like their mum so he’s got that extra dose of feeling like the odd one out.

I also really like the headcanon that he inherited Endeavor’s short temper and general anger issues. Not only because that’s Angst Deluxe, but also because it would be interesting to explore how he grapples with it, and the internal conflict he feels about how scared he is of becoming like his father. This is why I love writing scenes where he’s arguing with his siblings or shouts at them only to watch them flinch because the psychic damage + self-loathing that would follow? Impeccable. Unparalleled. 👌

[jujapaya]

Hey! I hope you're doing well. So basically, as I'm sure you've already seen, I'm playing Stardew Valley, and im VERY emotionally attached to Shane. It's ridiculous. Anyways, I want to know what your thoughts were on the parallels between Shane and Marc Spector because you reblogged a post of mine briefly talking about it. I just think it's interesting, and it's definitely been something I've put a lot of thought into as I've progressed through the game.

IM SO SORRY FOR THE DELAYED RESPONSE — this has been in my asks for DAYS but finals are coming up and I went to a pride parade today, so I’ve been a bit busy. Also, I’m writing this on my phone, so my grammar and everything about this response may be a bit wonky.

Also this is going to be kind of long.. soooo… I’ve been thinking about this for days, of course it’s long.

Both Marc Spector and Shane fall into the trope of the character knowing that their mental health isn’t the greatest and slowly becoming better through therapy. I love the trope, it has the ability to show amazing character progression and to raise awareness of how therapy can help someone. On the other hand, it has the ability to be completely terrible if done wrong.

I can discuss the “done wrong” aspects of this trope for Marc and the system (the number of therapists who’ve tried to kill them is high! Extremely high). However, when you look at Mackay’s run (2021-2023), you can see this trope done right. You can see him slowly becoming more venerable (Reese’s hug, Jake and Steven coming out more, apologizing to Greer—Hell, even apologizing to CAPTAIN AMERICA about the Age of Khonshu event and talking about his system in one of the Avengers Unlimited issues) over the span of Mackay’s run.

Now, comparing to Shane, the same is done here, but you’re seeing more of what has been happening to get him into the awful mental health position (compared to Mackay’s run, since you’ve seen it in Marc’s previous comics issues) and the drive to send him to therapy. You see it affecting his family and their reactions. You root for him to go to therapy! He begins going to therapy upon seeing Jas’ reaction.

However, Shane and Marc’s stories are extremely different, especially with the time constraints.

With Marc, we all know Khonshu, horrible childhood experiences, military/mercenary work, and discrimination has lead him to terrible mental health. However, he’s been here for decades, Shane has been here for a few hours at least (in game play time). In turn, Shane’s story is the more cut and dry alcoholism story than the healing from major mental and physical abuse that Marc’s story is. That doesn’t mean either story is more “valid” than the other. Both are extremely compelling stories and people do suffer with these issues every day. However, one is more easier to portray in a short amount of time due to the commonality of it—which, again, is sad.

Stardew Valley is a children’s game as well, which is why these stories differ so much. Shane’s story is easy—he gets better almost instantly upon going to therapy and everything lives happily every after (at least in my experience, I haven’t married him. Aromanticism for THE WIN! KROBUS I LOVE YOU). It’s easier to tell that to a child. It’s easier to show that in a small game. However, comics aren’t limited to time, but limited to how many sales they’re getting/how much they can cram into a run. They’re able to show the slow progression of getting better. Even if nobody lives happily ever, at least the person is the best they could be right now.

That’s my take on it, I guess. The comparisons are interesting though! They both fall under the same trope but executed wildly different due to various reasons.

Thanks for the ask! :)

[deerlirium]

I love will he’s such a complex character. I rewatched twotl and he really does just shove them both off that cliff. And it’s like yeah maybe he did it so they would be together forever or something but maybe he also did it because he knows for either of them there is no coming back from it and he’s always been far more empathetic to the world than Hannibal. And he can’t let either of them continue being in the world, especially not together, because that would spell complete disaster for so many of the people they come across. It’s his final admission that what he and hannibal have done together is beautiful that also kind of seals their fate to die because he can’t live without hannibal, but he also can’t live with himself if he doesn’t do anything to stop hannibal. Wills internal turmoil has always been largely about his distress that he is so talented at thinking like a killer that he basically might as well be one, being in situations where he is forced to kill it comes naturally to him and doesn’t affect him the same way it affects other people. He’s lying when he tells abigail that killing is the ugliest thing in the world and he’s scared of how much of a lie that really is. I’ve always liked to imagine that that’s specifically why he became a profiler; in his head if his job is to stop killers, maybe it will fix him and he’ll stop thinking so much like one. But really all it does it put him in the perfect position to meet and be manipulated by Hannibal lecter, whose goal it becomes to show will what he is missing out on and to coax out the killer that he knows is inside. And partially will is genuinely being gaslighted and manipulated but he’s also on some level aware of what is happening (at least after a certain point) and allowing it to happen. And after the end of 3a his marriage to molly is kind of this desperate attempt to be like “see, I’m normal and I can live normally” and recover from hannibal, but he knows the truth is that nobody ever will know him like hannibal does and he will never fully be himself unless it’s with hannibal. So he’s stuck in this life that he doesn’t mind but that he’s not fully happy and not anywhere near fulfilled with (not that he doesn’t love molly or her son, just that it’s not the same) trying to prove to himself and to everyone else that he doesn’t need hannibal and he doesn’t need to think about killing people to get by. And then jack asks for help and he has to see hannibal and he spends all of 3b finally coming to terms with the fact that he can never truly be himself unless it’s with hannibal, and that he is capable of and enjoys violence like hannibal does and that he can be happy and fulfilled but only if it’s with hannibal, and only if they are killing people together. So when he and hannibal finally kill dolarrhyde it’s literally the happiest he’s ever been in his life, the most satisfied and the most at peace. And that’s also when he decides once and for all it has to end here, because what they did to dolarrhyde is quite literally only the tip of the iceberg of what they can and will do if they stay alive together. And while will can finally admit to himself the beauty they both see in violence, he is not a psychopath or at least as emotionally detached as hannibal tends to be. A lot of will is sacrificing his own mental, emotional and physical well-being for other people, so it makes sense that his final response is to fall off a cliff with hannibal. Can’t live with him, can’t live without him, can’t live with himself if he lets either of them live and wreak havoc wherever they go next.

[eyesteeth]

please talk more about the silt verses. your posts are so good and really get me thinking about the characters. do you have any paige or hayward thoughts? if not, then more faulkner?

THANK U ANON!! you are very sweet :]

i will admit in my sibling brainrotting i have neglected the other two leads a bit, but no more!! here, for your enjoyment, is a very long list of thoughts on paige and hayward!

⚠️ spoilers ahoy!! ⚠️

ok, Paige first :]

so i must confess right out the gate that it was very hard for me to get a pulse on Paige at first, but i believe i’ve got her down now. to me, her story is very much one of “the war is not here, so i don’t have to worry”, in a metaphorical sense. yes, people are dying, and gods are feeding, but i’m safe. i live in a penthouse. i have a job that pays well. i don’t have to worry. any death that happens is happening somewhere far away, where i don’t have to look at it.

and then Vaughn dies, and the fire is lit. the “war” is at Paige’s doorstep. if someone that close to Paige isn’t safe, then maybe she’s not safe. maybe she’s never been safe. and so she drinks herself to sleep, and one day she drives out, and runs into two (and later, three) new perspectives on everything.

i think this relates very well to how the Tree ends up developing later. it hating everyone and wanting everyone dead is sort of an extension of this and the greater series discussions of capitalism. under the current system, literally everyone is complicit in some suffering. someone was sacrificed so you could turn the lights on. people have died for your fast food. the good person/bad person binary that they put into the god failed to acknowledge this, and so, since everyone benefits from the suffering of some unseen individual, all deserve to die by its logic.

and Paige has to know this on some level. she helped with the marketing/designing of gods and saints. those entities she had a hand in making most certainly went on to feed on others. but it’s fine. it’s an invisible person being wronged, and you don’t have to look. and if Paige had this awareness/guilt in the back of her mind and it filtered into the Tree somehow… she might be responsible for even more death. 

despite all of this, she plays an everyman character with surprising efficiency. i think because we’re introduced to her as someone with a mundane job who isn’t drenched (lol) in cult antics that we settle in with her easily, despite the fact that (with the exception of Shrue), she’s the most financially well-off of the main cast. when she’s trying to figure out how to market the Tree, she considers marketing it to people like her before her father suggests prisoners instead. he’s much less well-off, and so he understands the lower-class plight better than she does. she ends up seeming most normal by comparison, at least until the back half of season 2 hits. i hope we get to see more active in the back half of this season. maybe she’ll get to kill someone personally!!

now, for Hayward.

Hayward’s whole ordeal is that he craves purpose. he tells his mom he’s going to be a cop when he’s young and then he becomes it. it’s a direction and drive and it keeps him going. he’s at his lowest in the front half of season 2 because he’s purposeless, essentially using his personal investigation as the one thing keeping him from killing himself. then, he gets to make a god with Paige and Dennis, and gets to worship that god, and suddenly he has purpose again. he’s much happier in season 3 because of that wonderful purpose.

this is fascinating for a number of reasons, first being that he’s one of the few characters to have (seemingly) wholly benefitted from a god. pretty much all god encounters have some mental downside even if you’re physically benefitting, like in the harvest god episode. but because Hayward doesn’t have to make the sacrifices himself, and he’s very purpose-driven, this whole thing is a positive for him.

but there’s a little bit of insidiousness to it. see, Hayward’s role in the force was mostly one of submission. he was following someone else’s orders. he gets to even play bad-cop/meek-cop for a bit in season 1 because stepping out of line means The Stink and he’s so dedicated to this purpose of his that he wants to stay in line. he’s a dog, essentially.

but, when it comes to the Tree, he has a bit of power. he was one of the people who made the Tree, after all. and with Dennis dead and Paige largely out of commission, he gets to direct things, if he likes. and he does, he makes little changes and suggestions without Paige’s input. he’s still submissive to his higher purpose, but he has power within that. the leash is given more slack. he could fully usurp Paige, but he hasn’t, and i find that very, very interesting. quite honestly, he could go full zealot mode later in this season and it wouldn’t seem out of character to me. he’s got potential for that sort of swimmy-eyed shining-teethed sweaty-grinned devotion.

generally though, he’s fun! he’ll do something bumbling or endearing and then turn around and do something that reminds you of just how much of a scumbag he can be. old ham dies hard. i also loved the coal dinner episode and how he dealt with it all. cornered dogs biting and all that. maybe he’ll get a really vicious moment this season. personally i hope Val fucks him up because i’ve had an idea for a joke animatic in my brain for months if it goes real. she could turn him inside out. i believe in her.

and now… my favorite part… character comparisons >:] i love motifs and i love foils and man if tsv’s main six right now don’t have em… here’s four.

Paige and Faulkner: man if these two ever meet up it’s going to be wild.

for starters, Paige being a confirmed prophet provides a baseline for prophet behavior within the series, and therefore provides an avenue of comparison to Faulkner, who’s own prophet status is up for debate. whether it comes down to prophet/prophet mirroring or prophet/false prophet mirroring, there’s still a parallel there.

they’re both suffering from the responsibility of their role and are holed up and left to their own devices when not needed, Paige having her cottage and Faulkner having his room. Paige explicitly engages in unhealthy coping mechanisms whiles doing this, and i fully believe Faulkner does as well.

they’re also both close with Carpenter in different ways, and depending on how things go, i could see this as either a point of bonding or a point of animosity. they could end up sitting down and having a discussion with someone who actually gets it… or they could get very petty very quickly. transgender solidarity or transgender hostility, take your pick.

Paige and Shrue: bit of an oddball choice, but hear me out.

they’ve got very similar premises but end up going in wildly different directions. they’re (kinda) de-facto everymen by being less In The Soup than everyone else, but that's because of their white-collar status. they’re Above the soup, if you will. they smell it every day, but they aren’t broiling between the chunks of meat.

they’ve got strong ideas about what an ideal future looks like, one without gods and sacrifice. that’s why they specifically want to recruit Shrue, their morals line up with what the Tree faith believes in.

Hayward and Carpenter: dogs dogs dogs dogs

i already talked about the diner scene a while back so imagine all that nestled into here. tldr, they have the same doubts about their respective place in season 1, and they move towards a new purpose in season 3.

i talked about Hayward’s dogginess in his segment, but Carpenter’s got quite a bit of dogginess to her too. there’s the explicit “attack dog of the faith” comment that gets made in the s2 finale but also the similar following orders thing. Carpenter walks out, metaphorically taking the collar off, but her whole “i want to be good, let me die useful” thing is just her putting on a different one. which, y’know, this time it’s a chosen binding, but you’re still bound either way. and this applies to Hayward too. exchanged his detective job for the Tree. will their respective choices pay dividends, or will they feel the yank of their self-imposed leashes?

Hayward and Val: it’s just one but it’s tasty

Val joined the military because of her mother and Hayward joined the force because of his mother. both of them expected honor from their respective professions of violence and ended up embittered with it as a result. as much torment as he went through, Hayward’s lucky that he didn’t end up in Val’s place. what sort of saint would he end up being, then? the truth-teller that Carpenter spoke of, perhaps?

there’s definitely More to talk about with these two but i think this is good for now. i’m hoping to relisten to all of tsv over the series break and take extensive notes so hopefully i’ll thread a couple more dots together. thank you so much for your interest!! a hug for you across the net :]

[isabelpsaroslunnen]

It seems like it's become a sort of dogma of disability discourse that having different disabilities doesn't affect disabled people's receptions in society in any way. Sometimes this is taken to the extreme of "no disabled person experiences [say] social stigma in any way that differs from any other disabled person." Sometimes it's a vaguer denial that there are any general trends that differ by specific disability or by larger classes of disability.

I do get the frustration with inaccurate sweeping generalizations about how X group does/doesn't experience [thing], but also—for me, someone with a bunch of co-morbidities, this idea that all disabilities evoke basically the same receptions is laughably disconnected from reality.

The mental/physical disability divide is not particularly helpful or accurate here, I will freely admit! It's already an issue because the entire concept of mind-body separation is ... uhhhh, flawed. But also, at least in my experience, the general reception of something like depression is closer to how people respond to my being asthmatic than being autistic, say—I've had very severe episodes of both depression and asthma, and typically they're seen as less significant and less disruptive than my other disabilities, despite this being wildly out of touch with my experience and with much of the scholarly literature around them.

For instance, I have Bipolar II, typically seen as the milder form, though only the mania is milder. Hypomania can still be disruptive, but for me, the depressive episodes are much more so and take up more of my life. Interestingly, there's research suggesting this tends to be true for people with Bipolar I as well—despite the severity of manic episodes, it's depression that tends to be the most pervasive and disabling aspect of being bipolar, yet it's often perceived as less significant than mania, intrinsically less severe, less harmful to quality of life, etc.

And that has pretty obvious ramifications for people with major depression rather than bipolar depression—if bipolar depression is largely perceived as the minor part of being bipolar (despite the contrary evidence of a great deal of personal experience and scholarly literature!), then what about people who have depression without mania at all? And, speaking personally, it was easier to get people to accept that I'm disabled once I was diagnosed as bipolar rather than "just" depressed. I think this was in considerable part because mania (even hypomania) reads as "crazier" to a lot of people than depression.

This has obvious enormous downsides, but sometimes confers a weird sort of Actually Disabled legitimacy. I've experienced this, I've seen other bipolar people talking about experiencing it, I've read it in research, this is a thing.

Yes, there's a reason I use "tends" and "often" and "sometimes" a lot—I'm not saying this is true 100% of the time for everyone. I'm sure there are people out there who find it easier to get depression treated seriously than mania or for whom there's no distinction in the response. But the other way around is in fact much more typical, and sorry, but people are allowed to discuss common trends that reflect their experiences but not yours. You are also allowed to discuss your experiences! There is absolutely a time and place for doing that, but there are points where bringing it into every conversation about large-scale trends verges into Why Are We Not About Me territory.

And I did find it intriguing that the way people shrug off depression is very similar to how people shrug off some chronic illnesses like asthma. There's this pretty widespread idea of asthma as a minor inconvenience, and while asthma is indeed a minor inconvenience for some people, research suggests that most asthma deaths are the result of not treating it seriously enough (whether this comes from medical professionals, asthmatics, and/or family and friends, esp with asthmatic children). Like, this "minor inconvenience" narrative can literally kill and does so regularly, which is also the case with depression, frankly.

At the same time, it can be nice to be seen as relatively "normal." When people find out I'm autistic or bipolar, it tends to shape—even compromise—their view of me as a person in a way that seems different from how it affects their view of me as "merely" a depressed/anxious/asthmatic person. This is not always the case! But it often is, personally and broadly, even among people who have extremely vague ideas of how bipolar disorder or the autism spectrum operate.

This is long, I realize, and a mix of large-scale and personal issues concerning a small handful of the many disabilities out there. But even with just these few, the whole "all disabilities have exactly the same social stigma and reception" thing makes no sense to me at all.

[onecornerface]

My reply to Scott Alexander’s comment thread (on philosophy of mental disorder)

My comment in response to Scott Alexander’s post “You Don't Want A Purely Biological, Apolitical Taxonomy Of Mental Disorders“

I largely like and agree with this post. I think the post’s comparison of pedophilia and homosexuality is debatable, but plausible, and certainly not unreasonable, and I won’t comment further on it. But I am bothered by the comments—not because many of them advocate ideas that are false, unreasonable, and harmful (though many of them *do*), but rather because they are mostly repeating debates that have already happened at a MUCH higher quality elsewhere, and it sure looks like nobody has mentioned this fact in over 1,000 comments.

VERY well-developed versions of these same debates have already been taking place for DECADES—in fields such as philosophy of medicine, philosophy of psychiatry, and sociology. I’ve skimmed hundreds of comments in this thread, and only a few people have mentioned any of the relevant literature. A few people have mentioned Szasz (though not so much his critics, who are possibly even more important!), and a grand total of one (1) person (singular!) has mentioned Jerome Wakefield, and not much else has been brought up.

I hate people who dismiss everyone else’s ideas by saying “Read the literature!” because this sort of comment is generally condescending and unhelpful. But I’m going to do it. Please read the literature. At least a little bit of it. Or at least become aware that it exists. For starters, I recommend glancing over the following SEP articles—

Mental Disorder (Illness): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-disorder/

Philosophy of Psychiatry: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/psychiatry/

These articles provide decent overviews of, and extensive sources for, many of the debates being brought up again and again in the comments here. For one thing, look at the section 8 “Values and Mental Disorder” in the “Mental Disorder (Illness)” article. And for more generic discussion that I think can help reduce diseased thinking about disease, there’s also the following—

Concepts of Health and Disease: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/health-disease/

I don’t mean to endorse all the literature cited in these articles, or the articles themselves, in their entirety. They’re summary overviews with their own biases in what they cover and how they cover it. My point is more that they illustrate how these topics have been discussed extensively and for a long time, and at a high level of complexity—covering a great many topics discussed here, and doing so in a thoughtful and well-developed way. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel alone here. There is a cumulative tradition and set of communities and epistemic practices—resources of arguments, paradigms, theories, and criticisms, for copious object-level and meta-level issues here! There are specialist discourses on these topics that are worth engaging with, replete with useful conceptual distinctions and theoretical arguments which can be examined, adopted, rejected, criticized, and modified, for purposes of enriching the inquiry.

There is also, of course, a lot of meta-level debate over whether physical disorders are basically the same kind of thing as mental disorders, and/or whether we should engage in classification similarly or differently in these two areas.

The most notorious philosopher of mental illness might be Thomas Szasz, who advocates an extreme skepticism about mental disorders altogether. I’m pretty sure Scott is very much an anti-Szaszian. Szasz’s arguments probably don’t successfully apply to some more recent theories of mental disorders, so a lot of his ideas have been superseded. Hanna Pickard (a philosopher and psychotherapist) has defended a neo-Szaszian view in her book-chapter “Mental Illness is Indeed a Myth,” but she still shows that Szasz’s particular arguments and version of his theory were incorrect.

In the rest of this comment, I’ll discuss two anti-Szaszian theories of mental disorder (or disease more broadly, which is related) which I’ll discuss because I’m familiar with them and consider them fruitful to explore to improve the discourse. The first is a unified theory (Jerome Wakefield) which is realist and attempts to track the commonsense concept of disease or disorder. The second is a pluralist and pragmatist theory (Quill Kukla)—which I actually think closely resembles Scott’s revisionary pragmatist account given in “Diseased Thinking: Dissolving Questions about Disease.”

One major theorist is Jerome Wakefield (no relation to the anti-vax guy), known for his “Harmful Dysfunction” Analysis of mental disorder (HDA). (I’m pretty sure Wakefield also thinks the HDA is true of physical disorder, but he focuses mainly on mental disorder.) The HDA attempts to combine the need for a “biological” component (“dysfunction,” here a neutral term for, roughly, a failure of some bodily or mental element to perform its adapted evolutionary function) and a “normative” component (“harm”).

The HDA is supposed to apply to both physical and mental disorders. Wakefield has also compellingly argued that not all mental disorders are identical to, nor caused by, physical disorders. There can be mental disorder without (say) brain disorder. Nevertheless, this does not commit him to any kind of mind-body dualism. It is rather similar to how there can be software malfunctions even in the absence of hardware malfunctions, yet without any metaphysically dubious dualism that would say the software is a soul or anything like that. On this, see Wakefield’s article “Addiction and the Concept of Disorder, Part 2: Is every Mental Disorder a Brain Disorder?”

Not all harmful conditions are medical disorders at all, so something like a “dysfunction” component seems needed. But not all failures to perform evolutionary functions are bad, and (arguably!) it is misleading to call something a mental disorder if it is not at all bad—so something like a “harm” component seems needed. These statements are, of course, controversial.

Still, the HDA, or some variant of it, clearly has the ability to clarify a lot of the confusions that are messing up people’s thinking in some of the comments below Scott’s post—at the very least, by providing a body of empirically informed & logically rigorous argumentation and theory that can provide the basis for further discourse and debate! I think it should also disillusion some people of some beliefs they are highly confident in.

For example, some people in the thread have claimed it is “obvious” that homosexuality is a mental disorder, and that sheer political correctness is the only thing that prevents experts from admitting this fact. But really it is far from obvious that homosexuality is (or isn’t) a mental disorder—insofar as [1] it is far from obvious whether Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction account is correct or incorrect, and [2] it is unclear whether the HDA would imply that homosexuality is a disorder, because [2A] it is unclear whether homosexuality is a “dysfunction” in the right kind of evolutionary way; and [2B] the harm associated with homosexuality is caused by homophobia rather than homosexuality itself, and it is not entirely clear whether Wakefield’s analysis allows or disallows such extrinsically-caused harm to count as the right kind of harm to make a “dysfunction” qualify as a “disorder”.

Of course, the HDA has problems, and there is a lot of debate over it, and many theorists disagree with it. For an extensive recent anthology of chapters by Wakefield and fellow scholars who disagree with various aspects of his theory, see “Defining Mental Disorder: Wakefield and His Critics.” I haven't read much of it yet, beyond the intro chapter, but it looks fantastic and seems to be entirely open-access.

Defining Mental Disorder: Wakefield and His Critics: https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/5015/Defining-Mental-DisorderJerome-Wakefield-and-His

Whether correct or incorrect (or some combination of both), the HDA is the kind of nuanced way of thinking about mental disorder that stands a chance of pushing the conversation forward. The discourse around the HDA is, to some extent, a better version of the discourse people in this comment thread are attempting to engage in. For a 20-page overview of the sorts of issues discussed in the anthology, see its introductory chapter here: https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/5015/chapter/2812043/Introduction

The DSM itself, and organizations such as the APA, also have various discussions on these topics, and there’s overlap and cross-pollination between these discussions and the literatures I’ve mentioned. Some of this is also discussed in the Wakefield anthology.

More broadly, in the related academic literatures, there have already been myriad debates on topics such as (1) what is even the point of having a category of “mental disorder,” and (2) what criteria (if any) for “mental disorder” classification would avoid both over-inclusiveness and under-inclusiveness? Many (and perhaps all) proposed criteria seem to either [A] include things that shouldn’t be included, or [B] fail to include things that should be included, as instances of mental disorder.

Also relatedly, there’s a debate over whether [A] we should define “disorder” such that a disorder is always bad (in at least some way) by definition, or if instead [B] we should define “disorder” neutrally such that there can be disorders that are not bad at all. Perhaps a mental disorder is usually bad but not necessarily. There are pros and cons to each one. If a “disorder” must be bad by definition, then this may make it a less scientifically objective classification than people believe it is—and admitting it isn't scientifically objective may be problematically revisionary. On the other hand, if a “disorder” can be neutral or good, then this may clash with the commonsense concept of “disorder,” so it may also be problematically revisionary. I personally think commonsense thinking about “disorder” is fundamentally confused on many levels—so, as a result, I suspect *any* plausible account of “disorder” (if we should even keep the concept, which is also debatable) will be revisionary and counterintuitive to at least some degree.

As I interpret him, the view Scott defends in “Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease” is, roughly, X is a mental disorder *because* it responds well to “medical” treatment (which, in mental disorder, I assume means something like “medication and/or counseling”). Or rather, we should call it a “disease” on the grounds that by doing so, we will assist the appropriate response of medical treatment. The appropriateness of treatment is in turn determined at least partly by the presence or absence of the various contributory qualities given in the post’s node diagram, which are connected to the ‘hidden inferences’ encouraged by the use of the “disease” concept. Pardon me if this isn't quite a faithful summary.

I think something like this is a plausible analysis, and one which is an interesting rival to the Wakefield view. (Scott also connects his analysis of disease to something like hard determinism and an instrumentalist or consequentialist account of warranted blame, but I don’t think these further notions are necessary for the core of his analysis.) Notably, Scott’s view is revisionary, I think, because it looks like the reverse of the commonsense view. I think the commonsense view is basically that X responds well to medical treatment because it is a disorder. By contrast, Scott seems to think X is (something we should define as) a mental disorder because it responds well to medical treatment. This isn't necessarily a problem though, since again I think *any* plausible account will be revisionary, since commonsense is kind of busted on this topic.

Finally, I will also note there are some analyses similar to Scott’s analysis in the literature as well, such as Quill Kukla’s account of “disease” (which is at least similar to “disorder”).

Kukla’s account, and Scott’s account, are both broadly pragmatist—they both say we (morally) should define “disease” in a manner that is sensitive to the humanitarian consequences of making such a classification. Kukla’s version helpfully addresses the diverse and contradictory rationales for why people are interested in “disease” concepts. As a result, Kukla’s analysis is explicitly pluralistic, claiming (I think correctly) that some conditions will be properly categorized as diseases only in some contexts and not in other contexts. But I think this position accords well with the spirit of Scott’s other work in conceptual analysis, such as in his post “The Categories were Made for Man, not Man for the Categories.”

Kukla’s article “What Counts as a Disease, and Why Does It Matter?” (free download): https://www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/jpd_2022_0002_0130_0156

As a final note, I’ll also mention that there’s debate over the constellation of similar terms here, such as “disorder,” “disease,” “health condition,” “pathology,” and “illness,” among other similar or related terms such as “disability” (which is associated with yet more layers of controversy). And there is a variety of practices on whether some these are identical or distinct categories (some of which I think is arbitrary semantics, and some of which I think is substantive). Kukla alludes to this in a footnote.

Anyway, that’s about all I have to day on this for now. I highly recommend people interested in these topics check out some of these sources, and the broader tradition of scholarship surrounding them.

[penname-artist]

“So, I went beyond...pluuuuuuuus ULTRA” (And other updates)

(Warning: unintentionally long)

Okay, but in all seriousness, I finally feel that I’ve progressed just far enough in the show to state that I got into My Hero Academia. Technically, I’d watched season one and like the first 2-3 episodes of two before, but I didn’t finish it, and now I’m trying to. At the moment I’m about halfway through season 2 and making steady progress. Side note: You SPOIL shit near me and you’re a DEAD MAN! Let me watttttch >:(

Honestly I am fucking loving the series right now, I think aside from Deku, my favorites are definitely Tsu (Froooooggie) and, well, Shoto. You saw that coming, I can understand why he’s an overrated favorite. Feel bad for the kid though, like damn, boi you got some serious daddy issues, would you like a popsicle?

And, having started back up on MHA, I’m getting *cough cough* ideas *cough* for potential AUs and such.

Which actually segues this into another thing, just general life updates.

We had a pretty bad freeze lately, but thank God we didn’t lose our entire state power grid this time around, so it was smooth sailing. Unless you count the fact that we had to go out because I needed to be at work while the roads were slippery as snot. Which, was only one day. So we’re fine.

I also had a fix on the house which has FINALLY deterred the Mystery Creature from showing up at night and disturbing my sleep. After months of restlessness, we found out that it was coming in through a vent outside under my bedroom, and we had it covered. That seemed to do the job, thank goodness.

For mental health and productivity, I can’t really say much on the case; things have been about as steady as they can be, but in that it hasn’t really gone anywhere up, and I’m afraid I might be teetering on top of another depressive slump. Which, at the very least I’m prepared for. I honestly thought it would have been sooner, I had a REALLY bad attack a couple weeks ago and I felt sure it was going to be lasting, but by some miracle, though the attack itself was horrendous, I managed to recover in a record time. The only big downside is that my trauma response seems to have “manifested” (for lack of a better word) into very severe body tremors and shaking. I can control it...somewhat...but it drains a lot out of me. Still, I suppose it’s become more manageable, in a tangible sense. I’m a little less worried about how I react mentally to triggers and more worried about how I react physically. That’s a much easier hurdle to take on, overall.

Though, mental barriers are just as much an issue, if for a slightly different reason, at the moment. I’m honestly really stuck, writing-wise. I have so much I want to work on and so much I try to work on, but just a few paragraphs in I get skeptical because the piece will become jarring and choppy, and hard to maintain. I’ve re-started the same baseline to a Clutch and Tyker fic about four times now.

I’m actually considering doing a deep-clean, throwing out concepts too old and too untouched to really go any further with. I will, of course, keep the important ones, and the pieces that are ongoing, but a lot of the stuff I have in the wings that hasn’t been released is just so fucking dead in the water, I either need to put it in the waiting room or drop it completely. So, not sure where that’s going yet.

Actually, come to think of it, the semi-annual is also coming up.

Been doing this for a few years now but as a re-reminder, I try to take social media times down significantly or else entirely 1-2 times a year, one in the spring and one in the autumn. April and September-October have been my best time frames for these, as they’re not only good distances apart, but they’re in relatively trauma-ey time periods that I need to focus on getting through rather than pushing past. Plus, it’s a great excuse to work on large scale projects and not feel any sort of production-line pressure I put on myself to get them out, because they’re all gonna get stacked in a corner to wait until my return.

So! In recap: I’m probably gonna stick around until April 10th (I wanna at LEAST get to have my 21st birthday in the company of my people) and then probably do a week or two heavily away from things, and then extended time kinda by the seat of my pants as needed. That’s still a ways out, but better prepared sooner than later!

That’s all the updates that I can think of for the time being, for now I’m kinda just trying to Vibe where I can. I want to work on things but my body is giving me a very big “no”, so. Sidelines week it is!

Hopefully you all have a relaxing and/or fun-filled weekend, and until the morrow!

[jenniferdiazisatransgirl]

I know I put a post about this FaceApp mess about a few days ago, but I just ended up putting a pretty long and reflective post on FB regarding the last 10 years when sharing it. Which is below;

I was messing with FaceApp a few days ago and my instant response to this was, “NO!!!! Just no! Thank fuck that was never me!” 😂

Probably is a fairly accurate representation of how I’d look right now if I hadn’t transitioned. And look, there are totally aspects of myself I wish I could change. I know I’m not necessarily the most feminine looking individual but between how I look now and what could of been. Hell, I‘ll take how I look now any day of the week.

I still really love a quote from one of my favourite books, “Being Emily” by Rachel Gold. There is a bit where Emily’s mum says something along the lines of, “You’ll never be pretty. You’ll be an ugly woman. Why would you put yourself through that?” Can’t remember it word for word. But Emily’s response is simply, “I would rather fail at being myself than succeed at being someone I’m not.”

Not that being pretty is a requirement of being a woman, but there can be this perception that if you don’t ”pass” you have somehow failed and you may as well have not bothered transitioning.

I’m actually approaching 10 years of being on estrogen. It’ll be 10 years on the 18th February and just realising it has been that long is just, “WOW!”

In that time I’ve been at university, started a career, had 3 roommates, met 3 people who I think are gonna pretty much be friends for life, got my awesome cat Mr Gold and just generally become so much more confident in myself.

For better or for worse, my life isn’t exactly what I imagined it would be pre-transition. I mean ideally I would have liked to have been married or at least settled down with a partner by now. I might have had some unrealistic expectations about what I’d look like. Also early in my transition, I was mentally trying really hard to conform to this super feminine ideal which over the years I have just realised is not me in the slightest, which is why I generally failed to put it into practice.

I realised though, ultimately I transitioned to be me and to feel some sense of comfort in the skin I am in. Everyone has aspects of themselves they wish they could change but I have gone from having a complete dissonance with my body. Like honest to God, I used to look in the mirror and my brain would struggle to recognise the person looking back at me was in fact me. Like, it wasn’t wanting to change a few things about myself. My brain was literally like, “This person is not me in the slightest.”

I used to play video games and totally disassociate too. Like I’d play a game and completely block out the world around me, not intentionally but the desire to escape the body I had back then was just so strong. It’s a reason I dislike VR so much. I can now play video games and still feel present in this world and I like feeling present in this world and my body. I don’t want to block out the world around me and engulf myself in a game anymore.

I now look in the mirror and sure there are things I’d change about myself if I could, my hair is probably the biggest thing I’d change. I hate my hair, lol. But like, I do see myself now. I look in the mirror and my brain is like, “Yeah, that’s me.” Honest to God, in the first 12 months of transition, I took more photos of myself than I did during the first 20 years of my life, lol. And like its not just alterations to physical appearance. It was also the impact on my mental health. It goes without saying but estrogen is very different to testosterone and a large chunk of what I can remember of myself prior to starting HRT, was having this constant simmering rage just below the surface. From what I know of most of my male friends, testosterone causing a constant feeling of simmering rage is not a common side effect, lol. With estrogen, that simmering rage just subsided and not to mention it came with a boost in confidence.

I noticed the mental effects way before any physical effects started but like by like late March, early April 2013 I was already looking at starting to at rebuilding my friendship circles and social life. Something that prior to that point I just couldn’t bare to do. I went to a job interview which I remember absolutely nailing cos I felt more able to be me, than faking to be someone else.

And like here is a thing, like prior to starting HRT I did have a double personality. Like there were two personalities in my head. Deadname and Lily. Lily was naturally the stronger personality but deadname was the one I put across to the world. And I say they were two personalities, cos they literally did have conversations with each other in my head. Deadname was there as a defence mechanism to hide Lily though and a weak defence mechanism at best. I think people can tell when you aren’t putting your full self, your best self forward and the lack of confidence I had pre-HRT I think was just blatantly clear.

Starting HRT caused deadname’s voice to very quickly fade though. I finally had one person in my head, me and fail or succeed, I was at least being me. My best self.

And you know sommat, I mentioned the constant simmering rage, the double personalities and up till have gender reassignment surgery in 2016 there were still mental hang ups that kept my mind occupied. I vividly remember Summer 2017 I was camping and just laying there in my tent and thinking how utterly silent my brain sounded. Like all that mental clutter was finally gone.

Anyway, this has turned into a long reflective post and it was just meant to be about my reaction to me messing about on FaceApp though. I just so happy that 10 years after starting HRT, I’m well and truly happy in the person I’ve become and I wish I could go back and tell past me how good my life will become. I would probably be horrified to learn I drop out of university though 😂

Fingers crossed the next 10 years are just as good 😊

[mypinkdiary43]

2023 Vision Board

This is not really a vision board, but I didn’t want to call it my resolutions either. So here it goes.

Dear Diary:

I’m feeling so optimistic and hopeful as the new year begins. It really feels like my life is getting back on track, and this time I’m being more intentional about my goals. My focus is on putting myself first, so I don’t fall into another mental health crisis this year. I’m genuinely happy right now. Not only am I starting a new job soon (still in the animal welfare industry), but I’m officially a director in my industry! Well, I know have the title at least. I've always been the director, strategies, but my boss has always gotten the credit for what I did behind the scenes. Okay, off topic, but anyway; I’m finally making the kind of money I’ve dreamed of, and it’s so motivating to work for a company that values me as much as I value it. Being underemployed for so many years took such a toll on my mental and physical health, but now I’m stepping into 2023 in the best way possible—and I’m so ready for this new chapter!

Oh, and nope, I’m not pregnant yet, but honestly, I’m over it for now and will save that discussion for another entry.

One of my goals this year is to become more self-sufficient with my hair. I’ve had a solid hair routine for the past three years, and my hair has grown so much because of it. I’ve learned a lot about caring for my long, thick kinks, which can easily tangle or mat if I’m not careful. I love my hairdresser to pieces, but I think it’s time for me to take more ownership of my hair care. Maybe I’ll reach out to her only when absolutely necessary—perhaps quarterly—and do my own hair on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. It’s time for me to take the reins.

Another focus for me this year is establishing a solid morning routine. I want to start each day with tea and some gentle movement—either stretching or yoga. Right now, I wake up around 6:30 a.m. and usually spend time writing until 8 a.m. before I get out of bed to prepare for work. While it’s enjoyable, it’s not productive for my physical health. Most days, I’m so tired after work that I skip exercising, which isn’t helping me meet my health goals. I think a shift in my morning routine could be the key. Here’s my plan:

6:30-7:00 a.m.: Writing

7:00-7:45 a.m.: Morning stretches, workout, and yoga

7:45-8:30 a.m.: Make breakfast, drink tea, and shower

Be ready for work by 8:30 a.m.

If I can stick to this, I’ll start my day with intention and hopefully build up the motivation to work out at the end of the day, too. I’m also planning to incorporate a lunch break at noon and then a dedicated workout hour from 2 to 3 p.m. That way, I can step away from my desk and really focus on my health. My goal is to finish my workday by 4 p.m. so dinner isn’t too late. If I can lock this routine in, I truly believe I can improve both my physical and mental health at the same time.

Lastly, I’m committing to signing up for therapy once a month. My mental health has been rocky for the past three years, but I made some real progress in 2022. I want to keep that going. As I return to the workforce and take on new responsibilities in my job, I know I’ll need to keep battling impostor syndrome and anxiety. So, I’m being proactive about this. Within the first three months of this year, I’ll have a therapist lined up to help me stay grounded and strong.

This year is about balance, intention, and growth—and I’m ready for it all.

[jonathankatwhatever]

It’s 11 June 2024. Spent the day moving Debbie’s teaching materials to storage. Have no idea what to type. I was thinking about uncountable means uncountably many uncountables. I’m seeing this as Cantor sets, meaning they order but the ordering is 1-0-1 at each step and the 0 fills with more counting. So that maps 1-0-1 counting to this discussion. I’m kinda out of it.

Realized that Boundary and the shift over occurs within aging, within walking and other body use shifts. I noticed that the mental shift in change of gait locks in a bit, and this pairs to the youthful sensation where your mind shifts gait but the body lags because you’re growing or to those times when you moved both effortlessly and with extreme effort. And in age, the problem becomes the energy necessary to change gaits or postures appears higher. Is this true? Let’s think. Have some fun.

I’m sitting on Peters Hill. Tried sitting in the shade but the mosquitoes drove me into the sun. It’s not my fault I’m delicious.

I think the issue is awareness of the body parts so the more the mind establishes perspective, the less the body side controls it. That fits to sexual function, at least in men: the more they become aware of the mechanisms of desire, the less they will tend to connect to the purely physical expression. That would tend to channel toward fetishes, meaning repetitive behaviors that work, which reliably connect to meanings which generate arousal in the mind and the body.

That was very hard to do. Pun not and then intended. It’s almost impossible as a man to see the wiring of arousal and desire. It was and is very difficult to grasp that this shift is not undoable, like you can’t choose to be a happy silly animal when you’re aware. So understanding that shift and the role these perspectives play in society and in relationships is crucial. If they’re to have a chance at crossing the bar.

I can’t count how many hours I’ve spent thinking about this. It dates back to when I was suddenly around unfamiliar girls, ones I didn’t know at all. I’m not saying I knew all the girls in grade school, and certainly not well, but I accepted being around them like part of the ordinary experience. Suddenly there were other girls, and that was arousing because the interactions were so fleeting they remained more abstractions of physical shapes than people, like you were watching them on a TV in your actual life.

Why that response? Because they abstracted that step. So male arousal then is more easily understood because it moves into focus and out. The variations in that cover a lot.

I know this discussion counts really well. Makes chains of reals inverting into 1-0Segments, so there’s a countable of uncountables, so that can be put in 1:1, again treating 2:1 as 1. That also enables linkage over the 1, like the entire counting system of midpoint, etc. we developed.

I’m getting very tired. Did not get much sleep last night. Don’t want to lose the idea about inversion over an Extent and inversion into the 1-0Segment. That comes all the way around to gsParallels, that the underlying definition of parallel lines is they follow an Extent. An Extent is 1Space, so the gsParallels follow, in pairs, along the Boundary which connects the 1Space to the 0Space.

A proof of this is that Triangular has Irreducibles, so the Extent constructs, which means into gsSpace. That means the expression of the Extent is through the szK as the Boundary, meaning we count the szK as 1, not 0Space root2. I visualize the szK as a tube, not as a line, because it is constructed of Bip Ends, except at the corners, where the corner End is the Bip End and the Bip End is the corner.

I need to stop for now.

[cracksofmtdoom]

Well nothing shocking here. It is 4 am and I’m up. Still got a bit of crack. Well not exactly but at least a hit or two. Yay!! It has now become nearly impossible to see any way out of this mess. Both of us are just doing the wrong thing over and over and over. I had really hoped that she could be strong enough to keep me from falling further. Be the rock that I really need. But she has instead followed me down this pit of failure and pain. It hurts me badly to see her in this state. It takes a heavy toll on her physically and mentally. She does not take proper care of herself. We have a void between us. The drugs cause the same goddamn problems each and every time. And the stress of having to come up with the money for this vile soulless cocksucker kills me. I hate him. But yet here I am yet again smoking his product. I am sick. I am an addict. I am powerless. I’m wasting the precious time that I should be spending with my son. Wow. I had typed a whole new sentence or two regarding the Hellicorn but it did not get saved somehow. Ok take 2.

Oh the countless times that I have failed. At sooo much for sooo long now. It needs to end. Period.

I have failed many. All of them ones whom I claim I love and care for. And yet almost each one them still, without question, genuinely love me. I am worthy of love. I am. I deserve to have a healthy happy productive meaningful life again. They are all pulling for me and want to see me happy, at peace, sober and alive again. I long for that. I have an absolutely incredible family that I am so very grateful, proud and blessed to be part of. We are all kinda fucked up in our own strange ways. But we are family. We look out for each other, take care of each other. Love and respect each other. It’s a beautiful thing. I shut them out, I fell victim to the family affliction of addiction. As my father, his father and his father’s father. It isn’t isolated to one side or the other, but I believe it is the Bartels bloodline which is more influential if that word makes sense. Anyway, it’s an awful soulless faceless monster which consumes all that was and is good in you. It is ugly. It is sick. It cares for nothing. It begins to kill the soul. I have to wonder after this much time lost and on a frantic pace, what remains of my soul…. I know that it’s still there. Battered, burned and broken. But there and desperately clinging to me. I need to let go. Enough is enough. I do want to feel alive again. Intermission

I do enjoy this font. Cursive writing is cool. It’s a dying thing though. They no longer teach it in school. No need when you don’t really have to write, typing being the majority of time

Strange little thought stream I guess. And I was just thinking of the fact that I have a lot of people to make amends with. To not let their continued love and support be in vain. I have long standing relationships that I would like to rekindle when possible. I have so many things I want and need to do and be to be the best possible father to B. I’ve been a terrible father and have let him down far too many times and missed out on a lot of important time and events in his life. He’s at a delicate point at this age. I was already on the wrong path by his age. I need to be there for him. Goddamn. How awful I am. This twisted mockery of me that is. There is good in me. I am a good person and deserve to love myself and those around me. To put this burden aside and stop the madness and the continuing suffering. I am a father and that is an awesome responsibility and a great privilege to have the opportunity to do good, to instill values and wisdom and praise and love the human being that you created and give him the best you possibly can and show him what a real father is like.

[enfanttxrriblx]

Part 1: Introspection May 2023

Have you ever wondered what happened to the sad and mythical protagonist of your favourite cutting edge teenage drama when they grow up?  Well, we crave madness. We now suffer in silence. And we long for the feeling of loosing control. Now that we’re all grown up life doesn’t allow us to blame our parents or the crappy school systems for our mental deficencies anymore. It’s a trap. Suddenly we’re becoming so good at working on ourselves so that we even trick ourselves into believing we’re happy. However, we will never be cured and we’ll always revisit the place of insanity until the day that we’re able to let go of whatever is driving us crazy. At my age, it’s either improving or finally saying your good-byes to life. There is no in between. And that hurts the most. Not being able to chose a life in dreadfulness, but being forced to become better.

Madness is freedom. Acting out, doing drugs, hurting yourself… it’s all very fulfilling ways of testing your limits. It brings the illusion of living above all rules. It’s limitlessness. When you’re young and beautiful people want to take care of you. The prettier and crazier you are, the more people get obsessed with you. A feeling that is almost as intoxicating as the substances we used to pretend to be addicted to. You’re the star of the night. An icon only known to just a few. When you get older, the glamour turns into pitifulness and then suddenly to disgust. 

When you’re young people feel sorry for you as you’re charming yourself through life. Suddenly you turn 25 or 26, and people start to laugh at you. “Look at her, she just tries to fuck her way up top.” A behaviour that used to be idolised as a teen queen. When you hit the magical mark of 25 you loose all innocence of your childlike dolly face. You’re a woman now. And women are not allowed to be sad. We’re supposed to mother society and fix everything and everyone that we used to break for fun. 

So now, we just want to escape the cycle of madness. We need to heal, find love to not feel responsible to fix our society anymore and let go of all pressure. It’s just so tiring. I just wanted to die an icon as soon as I’d turn 27 but unfortunately I didn’t do anything remarkable until now. So my death would probably remain unnoticed by time and life. 

As for now, I won’t leave a footprint in this world, I know I have to accept all conventional expectations and work. Study, work, be disciplined. Be the best and also be feminine. Be sexy, be wifey material, be as strong as men, and so on. I actually feel just like the girly from “Gone Girl”. 

I used to associate myself with Tracy from Thirteen. Suddenly, I wake up just a few years after and I can understand Mme Bovary more than I ever would've wanted to. I hate it. My problems have become average. I used to be the special sad girl, so creative and talented. Making the good hearts around me slaves to wanting to help me reach my potential. I loved the attention. Now, no one cares about me when I don’t actually do anything valuable. 

Partying everyday is irresponsible now. It actually even became boring. And I think too much of myself to start doing harder drugs like meth or heroine. So what’s in it even anymore? I’ve died all the ego deaths and had all the disclosures one could think of. Found the source of life on acid like a million times. Tried and abused all the psychedelics, so they don’t allow me to feel the vibrant colours anymore. 

Life feels so black and white now. The last thing that could’ve brought me the rush was love, or at least that feeling of high that I associated with love. The failures of relationships that got me physically and emotionally abused kind of ruined that feeling of high too now. 

Now, I have to rely on my last resort to give my life a certain meaningfulness now. I feel obliged to take care of serious matters now. What’s even more shocking is that I actually started to car4e about politics and discussions around capitalism in a serious way. As a teenager, you become performative and idealistic. Today I can understand more of their complexities. I can have rational discussions about this shit. I care about this shit. Am I shit? Am I a shitty boring person now? Am I like everyone else? Isn’t it actually a good feeling to be part of society? What do I want now that I am not destined to die a tormented young soul anymore… 

Something in me wants to fall in love and start a family. Not sure if it’s just my hormones.. But recently I’ve started to be very comfortable with the thought of creating. Not only life but also knowledge. Put my thoughts and theories out there. Nevertheless, I am convinced that no one will be actually interested in what I have to say. But then again so many people loved “catcher in the Rye”. I thought that novel sucked. I hated to writing style. So maybe someone would love to listen to me? 

I love being the centre of attention but without people looking at me. It’s such an annoying urge. Wanting to be seen but not noticed. This even sounds so wanna be deep. Sorry about that. 

The point of life I’m locked up in doesn’t feel good. Either, I would love to be myself in 5 years from now or go back to 2013. This current feeling of in betweenness however does not feel intense enough, and I live for intensity. 

[stormy333]

Questions

But lately, what I’ve been crying about most is myself the person I used to be and lost and the person in the present with no clue about her future.

TW; Depression, Unknown, Foul Langue, overall sadness

Hello and welcome back to the Realm of Nothing!!! I am the Queen of Nothing right? Or is that just who I pretend to be? Do I really believe that nothing is everything and everything is nothing? I know I have been so mixed with my messages lately with Sober 2.0 and well I think that is the main mixed message I am not sure. Quite frankly I am SO fucked up in my mind right now I cannot tell what’s really right and left or up and down.

I used to know exactly who I was. I was Hailey Marie (Black) Isaacs “Pastor Joe’s daughter” straight A student, never miss a Sunday, always do what’s right not what’s easy, veterinarian/teacher want to be. That is where I saw myself. I saw myself at 17 -18 with the story book romance being with the one I loved and about to walk down the aisle at Graduation Day. Then go to the university of Florida, maybe I can be a teacher and a vet who cares I will have time to work out the details right? Maybe get married around 22 or 23 then by the time I get whichever degree I want I will be ready to be a mom. But life has other ideas, right? God specifically has a different plan.

It is 2021, it’s grad year. My class so many are preparing to graduate, the displays are everywhere, every time I go into work it’s there in my face. Here’s the thing I am super proud of everyone who is graduating this year and support them fully. I also have no regrets when it comes to the decision I made, I made it for my mental and physical health and that’s hella more important than some stereotype. But here’s where I am mentally. Good for them but just because I made a MATURE or stupid (however the frick you want to see it) decision doesn’t mean it was bloody easy. You don’t know what someone is going through or their reasons for doing whatever it is they did. Which brings me back to a point I think everyone should think about including myself; Just because someone did something YOU do not freaking approve of does not make them not worth it or a bad person. Check yourself before you wreck yourself honestly. I’ve had to do a lot of that lately so trust me I'm not just shifting responsibility. Or telling you something that I would not try to put into or try to put into action myself.

Now onto more questions.... I hear that it is a normal teenage thing though, trying to find yourself. Making mistakes and learning things the hard way. Right?

Want to know something I learned recently? Some lessons are shitty. The lesson most recently learned and hardest taken was that you can so easily become the person you hate in a heartbeat. It’s dark and scary but it happens. I did that I was the person I didn’t want to be. I hurt someone pretty bad, and I can’t change it and don’t have the option to make it better. BUT I can forgive myself and move forward and be more cautious as to not do it again. Guess what though? No matter how hard you try you will never be perfect so stop trying just to be you and be a better you be kinder. Pay attention to how you feel to, because Honey it isn’t just about them. It’s about you too and there is such a thing as taking TO MUCH responsibility. Own up to your actions but know that it’s a two-way street.

Next, if you’re still with me?🔨🍷.

I always wonder why I’m the only one not in a relationship always curious why the hopeless romantic the one who is die hard true love believer why she hasn’t found someone she can actually see herself with? Simple answer she had to at the very least begin to accept things about herself, plus there is more to life than dating (no offence). I used to only want to be in a relationship it was like my only desire but now I’m like dude that would be okay and don’t get me wrong I still want that, but I want the old school lets be friends for a while and build up a bond then outta nowhere ask me out and shock me but flatter me and come tell/meet my family. Bruh lets go old school. Trust me on this I want to flatter you a bit too. But I want all this I want it to be real and mean something and not be pointless or a waste of either of our times. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is nah I don’t give a rip about a relationship right now because I wanna hang out, I wanna be a kid. I’m finally starting to feel like myself again and I want to go have some fun, go on long drives, go to the beach or camping or horseback riding or try something new or even just star gazing and yeah, I wanna share that with someone but I don’t want to rush a relationship because I want those memories to lead to the wedding or family dinner or whatever. If I am for you, I’m for the long haul. And I’d hope you are too. I want a solid foundation and hey if we go out and make those memories as just friends and we both end up friends for life but married to different people I’m good with that; let's make lifelong memories to tell our families so they can make fun of us or whatever. Sturdy foundation is important in a friendship and a relationship so let's work on the foundation and see where life takes us?

Another question I have always pondered the answer to is why, why the fuck is this on me? Why do I have to be strong? Just why? This one I don’t know the answer to, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact I wouldn’t wish this shit on anyone. Or that it builds character? Tests my relationship with the man upstairs. I’m still not sure but these are theories. It also raises questions like why do I push everyone away? If I'm such a romantic, why do I push everyone out?  Ha the answer to this one I could do a separate blog on but it’d be depressing as fuck. So, I'm going to give you a simple/ less depressing answer. I think. Once someone sees what it’s really like to be with me all the sickness all the depression all the anger all of that their gonna walk away or at least that’s what my mind says so to avoid any more damage and hurt just push them away simple right? Hurt myself for a few before they can hurt me longer aye?

Anyways I think that will be all for this long depressing post. I’m sorry for the length and the sadness but its reality so welcome to my mind? I love you guys and am so thankful for those of you who read my blog it means a lot. There will likely be more like this as we walk into my dark mind and try to figure life out but nonetheless you never have to read it if you don’t want to :)

Hails

[raz-b-rose]

Tmnt 2k3 character study: Leo

Leo is not a stick in the mud.

Leo is simply acting as an older sibling that has taken on a self-placed responsibility. I should know, I'm the oldest of 7. So this will be a little self reflective as well, because I’ve always seen so much of myself in Leo I cringe lol. 

As the oldest (self-imposed or not), Leo feels this pressure to help Splinter with the boys. He wants to make things easier for Splinter by taking some of the responsibility off his shoulders. If his brothers are behaving through his involvement, then Splinter can relax. Or at least thats the hopeful mindset. 

As he grows older, he gets more bossy and mildly aggressive (ie annoyed) because his brothers actions start to affect what he wants to do, how he thinks things should go, and basically mess up all these unspoken plans he has. 

Raph being one more likely to act on what he’s feeling in the moment and Leo one to more carefully consider and be as responsible as possible can cause some strife between them. However, Leo has a really good read on his brothers and their ticks. He knows what he needs to say and do to reassure and motivate them.

Since he took on this responsibility so young, his brothers follow his lead, trusting in his level head and quick thinking, having grown up with it as well, it makes all of their roles second nature. Raph takes on almost a-second-in-command type role but he functions more as a shield than additional leadership, while Donnie is actually that second voice of reason and Mikey is the flexible rear.

During their final battle with the Shredder, we see Leo take it far more personally than the others, even Splinter. That self imposed standard of perfection and the weight of his families wellbeing placed on his shoulders by no one but himself takes a a heavy toll after their almost self sacrifice to rid the world of the Shredder. 

He ends up places all the blame on himself, this affecting his mood, mental and physical rest and relationships. He gets tunnel vison on a  good thing turning it toxic. He starts to push what was once his internal expectations onto his brothers. His intensity mixed with his self hatred and frustration causes him to lash out constantly, then during training with Splinter. 

When Usagi comes to visit, someone who has always understood him where his brothers didn’t always, we see the true extent of his inner battle. He blinds himself to his unhealthy habits until the Ancient ones unconventional approach helps him to calm down and learn true humility.

Up to this point, you could feel his naivety (City at War) with fights and their enemies (Kari, Zixx, Hun, but the biggest surprise is Bishop) always hoping for the best and trying to honorably win each fight and give some dignity to their enemies, and even their own, defeats. As we all know and love he lives his life by the Bushido code. (Justice, courage, compassion, respect, integrity, honor, loyalty and self- control.)

He strives to give each person these actions and live by these attributes. However you can see where he loses his grip on his values during his growing period. It is after his return that you can see him find a serenity, and reaffirm his core values in the Bushido Code. He has learned valuable lessons and grown into himself. (One of my more favorite coming of age plots)

His dedication to ninjutsu comes off as ridged and boring, however that level of dedication for so long speaks volumes to his drive and and strength of will. The ability to work hard for so long has become enjoyable for him. Sharing his knowledge and values brings him great joy. Being kind and giving people the opportunity to prove his initial perceptions wrong (his dark clone) is one of his best traits and certainty not the weakness Raph and Don can see it as. Mikey almost shares the sentiment but he also doesn't enjoy getting thrown around too often, so hes more cautious to being “bitten twice”. 

Also remember he’s still a teenager (albeit a very serious and ninja nerd teenager) so he does enjoy video games and sports with his brothers (Like “training” exercises being tag, hide and seek, water balloons). He especially enjoys his time with Splinter, that can turn into meditation but still time with his dad. Time that becomes even more special after his lack of efficient mediation during his “angst” period. (Y’all really like the angsty boys lol) 

We get to see Leo grow through all 7 season, taking hold of what was once a self-placed responsibility but soon turned into an agreed upon role with his family. He learns that growth never stops, mistakes are simply learning moments, and he learns to trust in his brothers skills, ability to defend themselves and each other, know that it takes more than just his efforts to keep them whole. (the power of family!) 

He’s cheesy (his one liners feeling so out of place with his normal serious demeanor), he’s a respectful young man and truly talented in his ninjutsu. A true leader.