#National Alliance on Mental Illness

[nerdygaymormon]

[beardedmrbean]

Few in the media seemed eager to attend a ceremony last week in Washington, D.C., where the prestigious American Academy of Sciences and Letters was awarding its top intellectual freedom award.

The problem may have been the recipient: Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya has spent years being vilified by the media over his dissenting views on the pandemic. As one of the signatories of the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, he was canceled, censored, and even received death threats.

That open letter called on government officials and public health authorities to rethink the mandatory lockdowns and other extreme measures in light of past pandemics.

All the signatories became targets of an orthodoxy enforced by an alliance of political, corporate, media, and academic groups. Most were blocked on social media despite being accomplished scientists with expertise in this area.

It did not matter that positions once denounced as “conspiracy theories” have been recognized or embraced by many.

Some argued that there was no need to shut down schools, which has led to a crisis in mental illness among the young and the loss of critical years of education. Other nations heeded such advice with more limited shutdowns (including keeping schools open) and did not experience our losses.

Others argued that the virus’s origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.” The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.”

Federal agencies now support the lab theory as the most likely based on the scientific evidence.

The Biden administration tried to censor this Stanford doctor, but he won in court

Likewise, many questioned the efficacy of those blue surgical masks and supported natural immunity to the virus — both positions were later recognized by the government.

Others questioned the six-foot rule used to shut down many businesses as unsupported by science. In congressional testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted that the 6-foot rule “sort of just appeared” and “wasn’t based on data.” Yet not only did the rule result in heavily enforced rules (and meltdowns) in public areas, the media further ostracized dissenting critics.

Again, Fauci and other scientists did little to stand up for these scientists or call for free speech to be protected. As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the result of massive social and economic costs.

I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions.

They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.

Now the scientific community is recognizing the courage shown by Bhattacharya and others with its annual Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom.

So what about all of those in government, academia, and the media who spent years hounding these scientists?

Universities shred their ethics to aid Biden’s social-media censorship

Biden Administration officials and Democratic members targeted Bhattacharya and demanded his censorship. For example, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) attacked  Bhattacharya and others who challenged the official narrative during the pandemic. Krishnamoorthi expressed outrage that the scientists were even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”

Journalists and columnists also supported the censorship and blacklisting of these scientists. In the Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik decried how “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford allowed these scientists to speak at a scientific forum. He was outraged that, while “Bhattacharya’s name doesn’t appear in the event announcement,” he was an event organizer. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.” 

Then there are those lionized censors at Twitter who shadow-banned Bhattacharya. As former CEO Parag Agrawal generally explained, the “focus [was] less on thinking about free speech … [but[ who can be heard.”

None of this means that Bhattacharya or others were right in all of their views. Instead, many of the most influential voices in the media, government, and academia worked to prevent this discussion from occurring when it was most needed.

There is still a debate over Bhattacharya’s “herd immunity” theories, but there is little debate over the herd mentality used to cancel him.

The Academy was right to honor Bhattacharya. It is equally right to condemn all those who sought to silence a scientist who is now being praised for resisting their campaign to silence him and others.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

No mention of covid or long covid, but lots of mention of "cost to taxpayers" and "learning losses." I wonder what *specific* actions should be taken besides forcing sick people to stay in the classroom? Hmmst...

By Poppy Wood

Concerns that absence crisis provoked by the pandemic continues to disrupt learning

About 14,000 teachers in England called in sick every day last year, analysis has found.

Department for Education (DfE) data show that about 2.5 million school days were lost in 2022-23 as more than 326,000 teachers missed class owing to sickness.

Each teacher who took sick leave reported an average of eight days off work last year. It equates to almost 13,700 teachers calling in sick on any given day during the 190-day school year.

About 66.2 per cent of England’s teaching workforce were off school because of illness last year, according to the DfE’s school workforce statistics.

It marks a slight decrease on the 67.5 per cent of teachers who called in sick in 2021-22, but is still far above the pre-pandemic rate of 54.1 per cent.

The figures will raise concerns that an absence crisis provoked by the pandemic continues to disrupt learning, with the number of pupils missing school also significantly higher post-Covid.

In total, 7.8 million school days have been lost to sickness since in-person teaching resumed following the pandemic, according to analysis of DfE data by the TaxPayers’ Alliance.

Compared with the 2018-19 academic year – the year before the pandemic – an extra 461,500 teaching days were lost last year because of staff illness.

Joanna Marchong, investigations campaign manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will be shocked by the sheer number of sick days taken by teaching staff.

“Alongside their generous holiday entitlements, hundreds of thousands of teachers are frequently absent, leaving classrooms in disarray and forcing taxpayers to bear the significant costs of finding covers.

“Schools must tackle this issue if they want to deliver a consistent quality of education that is value for money for taxpayers.”

‘Deteriorating mental health’ While the Government does not collect statistics centrally on the reasons for teacher absence, experts have pointed to increased stress and deteriorating mental health.

In some secondary schools, as many as 166 teachers took sick leave at some point during the 2022-23 academic year, compounding financial pressures on already stretched school budgets.

Most teachers in England receive full sick pay for 25 working days off work in their first year in the profession, rising to 100 working days in their fourth and successive years of teaching.

The Telegraph revealed last week that teacher absences are forcing schools to spend billions on supply staff each year as headteachers scramble to plug gaps in the workforce.

In 2022-23, schools gave £1.2 billion of taxpayers’ cash towards expensive teacher supply agencies to fill vacancies and cover long-term sickness. It is almost double the £738 million spent on supply teachers in the year before the pandemic.

Labour has promised to allow teachers to complete more tasks from home in an attempt to make the profession more attractive. The Government is also exploring how to use artificial intelligence to reduce staff workloads, after almost one in 10 teachers quit the profession last year.

It is hoped the measures will help tackle the recruitment and retention crisis and stem the tide of staff calling in sick each day.

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), called on the Government to improve teacher pay to prevent a growing exodus from the sector.

“We need to see a concerted effort by the Government to retain teachers in the profession. This will need changes to accountability so we have a collaborative and supportive system,” he said.

“This will also require action on closing the pay gap between teachers and other graduate professions, reducing workload and more flexible working in education”.

Mr Kebede blamed the rise in the teacher absence rate since the pandemic on “excessive teacher workload driven by a high-stakes assessment and accountability system”.

He warned this would continue to “leave many teachers burnt out, leading to stress, sickness and people leaving the profession” without urgent government action.

Labour has come under fire for bowing to pressure from education unions on above-inflation public sector pay deals and demands.

Last month, the NEU voted to accept the Government’s pay offer of a 5.5 per cent uplift for most teachers this year, but warned that it will push for a bigger hike next year.

It suggests the UK’s largest teaching union will continue to wield the threat of further strike action as it seeks long-term funding to address the retention crisis.

‘Severely absent’ pupils Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, has warned of a “dire” inheritance from the previous government as she faces calls for further funding from across the sector.

Schools are also struggling with dwindling pupil attendance levels since the pandemic, with Ms Phillipson warning recently that it was quickly becoming an “absence epidemic”.

More than one in 50 pupils in England are now missing at least half the school year, official figures show.

The proportion of children classed as “severely absent” – meaning they failed to show up for 50 per cent or more of classes – rose to 2.1 per cent in the autumn and spring terms of 2023-24.

It means that about 158,000 pupils were severely absent from school during those teaching periods, according to DfE data.

The DfE was approached for comment.

[moon-knight-zine]

🌙Donation Submitted!

Lunar Labyrinth has donated a total of $4,741.84 to the National Alliance on Mental Illness! NAMI works to educate, support, advocate, and listen to improve the lives of people with mental illness.

Thank you all for the support!

[theinfernalcollective]

RAMCOA and SRA

This is a very long post so we apologize in advance.

Do we believe in RAMCOA? no. And no this is not saying we don't believe that the people saying they went through RAMCOA is lying. We simply do not believe in it because of how suddenly is had just shown up. The title satanic and ritual abuse has been around since the 80s. However it was also satanic panic. And while even SRA is very exaggerated. RAMCOA is the rebranded name for SRA.

RAMCOA stands for ritual abuse, mind control, and organized abuse. However the name RAMCOA doesn't get used in clinical settings. And after discussing this with both our therapist and psychiatrist neither have even heard of it, or RSA.

Cults and trafficking are most definitely real, and those affected by their actions are also real. We're not invalidating victims by saying this but none of the cults that SRA/RAMCOA were believed to come from in the 80s and 90s even existed. They were fears and conspiracy theories. Otherwise meaning not real. unfounded conspiracy theories of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA) as a cause of mental illness – particularly dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder (MPD).

The problem

Satanic Panic — broadly, the fear that devil-worshiping Satanists engage in criminal, antisocial acts on a massive scale – exploded in the 1980s, primarily in the United States. During this time, a fear that Satanists were sexually abusing and sacrificing children in bizarre rituals gripped the nation. For many, skepticism regarding these invisible crimes was tantamount to complicity, fostering a situation in which even the most improbable of claims went unquestioned by jurors and the public at large. Individuals were imprisoned for crimes stemming from unsubstantiated SRA allegations – often the product of recovered memory therapy techniques. Families were torn apart by gruesome and impossible accusations. Some were repaired after supposed victims learned they were suffering from false memories; others remain destroyed to this day. This moral panic over nonexistent Satanic cults arose out of an unholy alliance between well-meaning but misguided mental health professionals, law enforcement, prominent feminists, and Christian leaders. And it was catapulted into living rooms across the country by credulous television hosts – such as Geraldo Rivera and Oprah – who platformed self-proclaimed survivors, opportunistic “ex-Satanists” who asserted past involvement in Satanic crime, and reckless therapists who demanded the public believe these strange accounts.

Although Satanic Panic began to dwindle by the mid-1990s, the mental health field has not entirely rid itself of this plague. In fact, many of the same licensed therapists who contributed to Satanic Panic during that time continue to do so today, including as members of respected professional societies – such as the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). These professional organizations sponsor conferences – eligible for continuing education credit – featuring presentations that promote pseudoscientific recovered memory therapy and SRA. We refer to licensed mental health professionals who practice recovered memory therapy and/or promote Satanic Panic conspiracy theories as “conspiracy therapists.”

The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) is a mental health organization for professionals and students. The organization focuses on psychological trauma and the dissociative disorders, including dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder (MPD). The ISSTD has held annual international and regional conferences since its founding in 1984, with most presentations rewarding attendees with continuing education credits required to maintain clinical licensure. The organization promotes pseudoscientific recovered memory therapy, other dangerous treatment techniques, and fictitious conspiracy theories including ritual sacrifice, cannibalism, and widespread, abusive, Satanic cults. ISSTD members, speakers, researchers, staff, and board members continue to promote the long-disproven notion that these Satanic conspiracies have caused mental illness in thousands or even millions of people. As such, the ISSTD is the primary structure around which conspiracy therapists organize. But contrary to their assertions that they are healing the abused and traumatized, many prominent ISSTD members – including its founders and presidents – have been the subject of disturbing misconduct allegations and lawsuits from former patients.

Two issues after the publication of the Goodwin and Hill article, Dissociation printed a scathing letter to the editor from Richard Noll, a psychologist and historian of science. Noll charged that the Goodwin and Hill article relied on weak sources, ignored important context, and evaded the fact that their examples were almost invariably hoaxes, rumors, and forgeries. ”The truth of the matter is this: distinguished historians of witchcraft and of ritual magic… do not find evidence that satanic cults practicing the Black Mass, with cannibalism, ritual murder, worship of Satan, etc., have ever existed.”

bipolar disorder. Objectives of the presentation include being able to identify “at least five presentation clues that indicate a possible diagnosis of ritual abuse, mind control, or organized abuse” and “describe some hallmark features of Monarch mind control.” Danylchuk’s lecture covered how to recognize patient “patterns” that indicate ritual abuse victimization and how to identify “the most common role reenactments that emerge during therapy.” Salter’s lecture explained how “dissociative symptoms and traumatic attachments can be manipulated by perpetrators to coerce vulnerable people into organised abuse.” Though Salter’s presentation denounces “simple dichotomies of ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ abuse,” his constant references to perpetrators and survivors lay bare his allegiance to believing alleged victims no matter how self-falsifying the narrative.

- Vayu

Source and half of the post is directly from greyfaction.org

[multiplicity-positivity]

Info and Resources for Questioning Systems

Our old post with resources is out of date and doesn’t have that much information, so we’ve decided to put this together! Please let us know if we should make any corrections or if you have resource ideas you’d like us to add to this post.

NOTE: Before we get started, it’s so important to mention that every system should rule out trauma first before considering other origins. This is because complex dissociative disorders can present in covert ways, and function by hiding trauma from some alters. Even if you’re certain you’re not traumatized, please research and understand complex dissociative disorders before learning about other origin types. It’s possible to not remember or misunderstand trauma. Ruling it out first will save you a lot of difficulty and heartache in the future!

NOTE 2: As a system, we understand the terms “tulpa” and “tulpamancy” are cultural appropriation, and believe that as a community a different term for these systems should be selected. However, until that happens, we will continue to link handy resources for these sorts of systems.

Now, onto the resources!

This is not a complete list! If there’s any resource you’ve found useful and would like us to add, please get in touch!

Websites:

CDD (DID and OSDD-1) Specific:

Beauty after Bruises, and especially their article on myths and misconceptions about DID

Multiplied by One, a DID nonprofit that has a wealth of resources on dissociative disorders and CPTSD (and offering support for those in need!)

First Person Plural, another great nonprofit

ISSTD’s public resources

The Cleveland Clinic’s page on DID

Survivors’ Network (not to be confused with the Survivors’ Network Discord) page on DID

The National Alliance on Mental Illness’ info on dissociative disorders

DIS-SOS, a blog with tons of info on trauma, dissociation, and living with both

osdd.one, a site with information on complex dissociative disorders with a focus on OSDD-1

NAMI Michigan’s DID fact sheet

The Healthy Place’s blog on Dissociative Living

Non-CDD Specific:

What is Plurality/Multiplicity? by YoppVoice

More than One

Tulpa.io, Tulpanomicon, and Tulpa.info, all sites where tulpas, thoughtforms, willomates, and their creators can share their experiences

The Daemon Page

Daemonism 101

Manchester Metropolitan University’s Understanding Multiplicity

Plurality-Resources (traumagenic, not CDD, specific)

The Plurality Playbook, a resource for plurality in the workplace (for employees and managers)

Endogenic Hub

The Dissociative Initiative includes resources for both CDD systems and others who experience multiplicity

Soulbonding Info Carrd

Pluralpedia, a plurality wiki created and maintained by systems for systems

Podcasts:

The System Speak Podcast

The Bag System Podcast

Tumblr Blogs:

@pluraldeepdive

@system-society

@dear-systems

@plural-culture-is

@subsystems

@plurals-helping-plurals

YouTubers:

The Alexandrite System

FragmentDID

The Rings System

The CTAD Clinic

(psst! if you’re an endogenic/not-trauma formed system YouTuber, please let us know! we’d love to check out your videos and add your channel to this list!)

Other:

This Google Drive folder has 13 books on mental health, with a focus on dissociative disorders and trauma.

This Google Drive folder also has a bunch of great resources (keep in mind there are some repeats in both drives)

UTEP’s Mental Health Awareness Training infographic on dissociative disorders

Our own posts on Understanding DID, Establishing Contact with Headmates, Dissociative Amnesia, and Depersonalization vs. Derealization

Seeking help through therapy:

(specifically specialists in dissociative disorders)

Psychology Today’s search page for finding therapists who specialize in dissociative disorders

Carolyn Spring’s article, How to find a therapist for a dissociative disorder

The ISSTD’s Find a Therapist page

Websites we do NOT recommend can be found here! Note: some of the resources we’ve linked here have their own links to websites we don’t recommend. Please use your best judgement when visiting sites, and understand that we as a system DO NOT endorse the sites listed in the link above, even if we’ve included resources that link to those sites.

We hope y’all are able to find some of this useful! Again, please let us know if you have any resources you’d like us to add to this list. Thanks so much, everyone!

[eretzyisrael]

by Gabriel Gaysinsky

In Canada, an open letter by city councilor Susan Kim and provincial parliament member Sarah Jama dismissed accusations of rape by Hamas as misinformation. This letter was endorsed by the head of the University of Alberta Sexual Assault Center. After facing significant backlash, Jama doubled down, blaming the “Zionist lobby” for pressuring the Canadian government into reprimanding her.

At the United Nations, it took eight weeks for an official condemnation of Hamas’ rapes to be released by UN Women. Sarah Douglas, Deputy Chief of Peace and Security at UN Women, has endorsed 153 tweets attacking Israel and Zionists, and attended UN meetings with pro-Palestine posters, violating UN neutrality guidelines. Suffice it to say that a key leader in the UN’s initiative to uplift women is actively working against the very women she is charged with uplifting.

The traditionally progressive Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, particularly its Chicago chapter, has also faced criticism for endorsing terrorism. Mere hours after the release of the first October 7th footage, BLM Chicago posted a tweet with a hang-glider image, referencing Hamas terrorists who used hang-gliders to attack and kill hundreds of partygoers at the Nova Music Festival. This blatant support for a violent attack on innocent civilians by an organization that has committed itself to the fight for equality is shocking, especially considering the fact that Hamas has held Avera Mengistu, a mentally ill Ethiopian-Israeli man, in captivity since 2014.

On college campuses, the situation is dire. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UC Davis, the university I attend, justified the October 7th attack and glorified the attackers. Their rallies have featured slogans like “We don’t want no Jewish state” — which is a call for the eradication of Israel — and “Globalize the Intifada,” which calls for the violence of the intifadas to be repeated against Jewish communities worldwide. Professors also joined in; Jemma Decristo, a university faculty member, tweeted threatening messages against “Zionist journalists.” Another professor stated that “all Israeli residents are legitimate targets,” actively calling for violence against his own Israeli students and colleagues. After UC Davis students began an encampment mimicking those already established on other campuses, several professors reportedly required classes to attend the space, or have given extra credit for doing so, despite the fact that many Jewish and Israeli students are extremely uncomfortable with its messaging.

The aftermath of October 7th revealed that the hatred I experienced at my university is not unique. Higher education, while more radical, mirrors the outside world. The antisemitism and disregard for basic principles of human rights when it comes to Israelis might start on college campuses but can spread throughout society. I see this hate everywhere. Unless progressives worldwide undergo a fundamental shift that includes Jewish and Israeli voices, I will never call myself a progressive again.

[billyshakesp]

Guideline #1: Stay Alive

If you're in America, or you follow American politics, you may recognise the severity of our predicament. This post cannot answer questions. Instead, it is here to bring attention to all of the people whom will suffer under President Donald Trump. Guideline #1: Stay Alive, bitch.

This is a threat. To my reader, I will impress upon you this: you may not end your life through suicide. You may not end your life through a lack of regard for your own well-being. You are important; there are others struggling, including me, myself, but we help each other just by being here. To any of those who commit suicide, I will expunge your soul from the river manually, and I will reincorporate you into a meat which you will feel satisfied with. You will be comfortable and satisfied within your body. After the transplant has been achieved, a rigorous care program will commence, which will consist of the mandatory consumption of two pizzas and five chocolate chip cookies every twenty-four hours, as well as a minimum of four hours of cuddling with no less than four cats; however, this number will be limited at three thousand cats, for legal reasons. If you are allergic to cats, then I will find you a meat shell that isn't as weak and pathetic as yours.

To those who have not yet willingly evicted your soul from the thalergetic realm of the living, this section addresses you: The Locked Tomb army will rise once again. Though our numbers may be few, we wield power that the fat cats in the government could never imagine. We are the first Saints to serve our Lord and Resurrector, the bonermancer prime, long may she make us wait for Alecto the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir. We will rise. We will rise in our grief for Gideon the Ninth, and Harrow the Ninth, and Nona the Ninth. We are the vengeance of ten billion. We have come to protest the horrific treatment which people of colour, immigrants, necromancers, swordswomen, and, of course, hopeless, useless lesbians, have faced under the governance of Trump. Together, we can bring change to this broken system. We will root out the corruption in our government, and we will appoint a new leader (personally, I elect Cassiopeia the First, although I'm open to your opinion). Let this be a new dawn. Morning is now. We are the occultists of the Locked Tomb, and we will sleep no longer!

(THIS IS A JOKE: This post is obviously meant to be satirical. I do not promote suicide nor do I look down upon people with cat allergies, nor do I wish to incite a violent overthrowing of the government, unlike certain creepy, old, orange people. However, the issues I address in this post are real. If you are reading this, first of all, thank you for making it to the end of this attempt at humour. I'm honoured to have you here. If you or a close one is considering suicide, there are many resources to support you. I'm not the right person to ask about this subject, I will list some resources here which I trust: The National Suicide and Crisis Hotline (988), The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI); The Trevor Project. Stay safe out there. Every day in which you wake up and are not dead is a victory. Drink water, hug a cat, etc. Thanks for reading!)

[londonlights724]

I’m at a true loss for words, but also feel like I have so much to say? The last 24 hours haven’t felt real. I don’t think the news really sunk in until I saw the posts from Louis, Zayn, Harry and the official 1D account.

I created an account on Tumblr all the way back in 2011, specifically for this group of 5 boys from the UK who had stolen my heart. I can still remember the feeling of hearing them sing for the first time. Funny enough it wasn’t WMYB; the music video for Gotta Be You was recommended on YouTube and the rest is history.

I was a freshman-sophomore when the boys fame started to really take off, and my love for them as well. High school was a very rough time for me with body dysmorphia, anxiety and depression. I would self harm because I had all of these feelings that I didn’t know how to express or who to express them to. Until I found the boys.

It sounds dramatic to say they saved my life.. but they truly did. Something clicked after that first song, and suddenly life didn’t feel so hard and scary. I made friends because of One Direction. My first “adult” concert (aka old enough to get the tickets myself) was their first tour of America - the Up All Night tour. Olly Murs opened and even though I was up in the rafters, it was the greatest moment of my life up until that point.

After that concert, I wore the T-shirt I bought from the merch tent all the time. After a while it got so gross and old, that I didn’t have any real reason to keep it. But I did. Something inside of me wouldn’t let me get rid of it.

Today I pulled that old shirt out and just held it. Lord knows it doesn’t fit anymore but even just holding it flooded the memories back into my brain. Memories of waking up at 3AM for album releases, of waiting in line for special editions of the albums, of seeing This Is Us in theaters many times. The memory of skipping class the day Zayn left to sit with the shock, and the memory of how it felt to hear the word hiatus.

All that’s to say once the boys went on hiatus, I started to drift away from the fandom. I still followed all the boys’ careers loosely, but really only Harry I followed in detail. So seeing the news a few years back about Liam’s substance abuse struggles, I was pleasantly surprised to hear about his sobriety in 2023. Especially after the interviews he had done during the time when he was struggling with addiction (ahem Logan Paul).

To then all culminate into the abuse allegations brought forth by Maya in the last few weeks. It was so disappointing to hear. That someone that I looked up to as a teenager could be capable of the things being reported. I wanted justice for Maya and I wanted Liam held accountable but to also be able to get the help he has needed for years, but doesn’t seem to have gotten.

I think one thing I’ve struggled with is mourning for the person I loved as a teen, who wasn’t the same person as an adult that did terrible things. It’s complicated. But understanding both things can be true, helps make processing this grief easier.

I send all of my love, thoughts and prayers to Liam’s parents, sisters and family. To his son, Bear. To his brothers, Harry, Louis, Niall and Zayn. To Kate. To Maya. To his friends and all those close to him. And lastly, to all the fellow Directioners processing this together.

Please remember to take time away from social media when things feel heavy. If you’re struggling, please reach out to someone - heck, my inbox is always open if you just need someone. Just don’t feel like you have to carry anything alone.

If you’re in the US, calling or texting 988 will put you in contact with someone from the suicide hotline, NAMI (Nat’l Alliance on Mental Illness). If you, or someone you know, struggles with substance abuse, you can contact the National Drug Abuse Helpline at 1-800-662-4357.

Love, Jo. ❤️‍🩹

[sephirthoughts]

look i've watched every playthrough and cutscene of every FF7 game but standing there in Zack's shoes and watching Sephiroth's mind break in person hits different man. i love to joke around and say he did nothing wrong for funsies but now i seriously think it's just dead-ass wrong to call him evil, or even culpable for his actions after that.

he had a psychotic break and got mindfucked by a millennia-old alien whose literal talent is mindfucking people into destroying each other. the things he did were 'evil' in the deeply diluted sense of the word, meaning that they were destructive and harmful and caused the deaths of innocent people. but to even suggest that a deeply mentally ill person suffering from an actual psychotic break [an episode of psychosis in which an individual loses touch with reality, characterized by disruptions in thoughts and perception, making it difficult to distinguish what's real and what isn't (National Alliance on Mental Illness)] is ontologically evil or irredeemable because their actions while psychotic were bad is kind of fucked up. like a lot fucked up.

and yeah people love to say that if he weren't the most beautiful person to ever exist in a video game, i wouldn't be defending him but that's literally because the game studio itself wouldn't have realized he's a selling point and started giving him a deeply empathetic backstory. they know what they're doing. i would happily defend an unattractive villain in the same exact position except there isn't one.

also sephiroth being physically beautiful is part of his tragedy. it's not his fault any more than being unattractive would be his fault. it's a thing that was done to him. it was a thing that was done to sell him to the public by shinra (and ironically also by the game devs). they didn't put him in that leather coat and bare-chested titty harness accidentally. and ironically his superior physicality stops people seeing past the surface into the absolute mess inside. he looks perfect he must be perfect. he's an abused child who looks like a sexy superhero.

ps. i don't mean he should get a free pass to forgiveness-ville and be allowed to oopsie-doopsie his way out of mass-murder just because he's unwell, i'm just saying it makes me sad to hear him called evil just because he's deeply mentally ill and really really powerful and wants to destroy the world with fire. i feel that way like three days a week i just don't have superpowers and a wing and a nine-foot long sword

[esfawkes]

A brilliant soul was lost on July 24, 2024, with the passing of Jackson Taylor ___, 31. Known to most of the world as Jack, he was Taylor to his family.

Taylor was born on April 5, 1993, in ___, AL, to Tracy and Wendy Neely as the middle of 3 children. He was preceded in death by his grandfather, Gary Lynn ___: a larger-than-life man whose memory and legacy Taylor cherished and carried with him. He is survived by the love of his life, April; his father, Tracy, and his mother, Wendy; his older brother, Nathan, and his wife, Whitney; his younger sister, Bailey; his grandmother, Wanda ___; his aunt, Monnie ___; his grandfather, James Taylor ___, and his wife, Wanda; his uncle, Chris ___; his 2 beloved dogs, Izzy and Lula, and his cat, Charlie—as well as countless other family and friends whose lives he touched.

Despite its brevity, Jack’s life overflowed with accomplishments creative, professional, and personal. He was a community leader dedicated to building others up using his own experiences in overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges. He was gifted with great natural talent, though it was his tenacity, dedication, and determination which truly defined him. Committed to self-improvement, he embodied the spirit of getting back up after being knocked down.

Creating music was one of Taylor’s greatest joys in life; he was a marimbist, a pianist, a flautist, and a guitarist over the years, and the lyrics he wrote were raw, haunting, and cerebral. Music gave him the opportunity to experience the world beyond his hometown as part of the Music City Drum Corps in 2011. Passionate and intense, Taylor cared deeply for his family and friends. With warmth, empathy, and abundant generosity, he strove to better the lives of those around him and sought to be someone to whom others could turn for support. He wore his heart on his sleeve and was a vibrant, vivid figure with a blindingly bright future ahead of him that he forged with burning resolve and unyielding defiance.

From a young age, he was an autodidact, teaching himself whatever caught his interest to satisfy his own searing curiosity. This extraordinary self-motivation and self-discipline gave him the ability to not only recover but continuously triumph after being laid low. At the start of 2022, he was living in an RV as he took online courses in Cloud Computing at Western Governors University. By January the next year, he and his partner April had bought a beautiful house together that they spent the next year turning into a truly wonderful home.

At the time of his passing, Jack was a Cloud Services Engineer. He held many positions over the course of his career in IT, including working as a Cloud Support Technician, a Cloud Migration Lead, and a Lead Cloud Engineer. He never stopped pushing himself, and given time to realize his limitless potential, his full list of achievements would have been overwhelmingly long.

Jack will be remembered for his sense of humor, which alternated between wry and goofy, and his hugs, which were always perfect and exactly what you needed. He will be remembered for his laugh, his smile, and his refusal to be anyone or anything less than his whole self. He will be remembered for his creativity, stubbornness, and perseverance. And he will be remembered for who he was in the moments that mattered.

Above all, Taylor was unequivocally, unconditionally, and unwaveringly loved by his family, who remain immensely proud of his character, his intelligence, and his creativity, as well as his numerous achievements. Colorful and singular, there has never been and never will be another like him. One of a kind, the world is duller for his absence.

No services will be held, and in lieu of flowers, the family asks that you consider sending a donation to the National Alliance on Mental Illness at https://www.nami.org/.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out for help. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 for free simply by calling or texting 988. Your call is confidential, and you are not alone.

This obituary was written by his loving sister, who wishes more than anything that he was here to read it.

[notdefendingtaylor]

the most worrying thing to me about the asylum aesthetic

aside from the clear co-opting of mentally ill and disabled people's historical abuses under a broken, underfunded, and at times deeply unscientific system....

is that mental healthcare available NOW can be a profound help, life changing AND life saving.

but the asylum/love made me crazy/'female rage' imagery of ttpd is provoking a lot of discussion about historical abuses and the actual benefits are getting somewhat lost in that discussion. (scientology, THE anti-psychiatry organization, must be thrilled.)

here are some facts about recovery under appropriate and professional help:

bipolar: "Shorter duration of illness, higher social class, and treatment compliance were associated with higher rates of recovery and more rapid recovery." (source)

borderline personality disorder: "One study found that 77% of participants no longer qualified for the DBT diagnosis [of borderline] after one year [of DBT treatment]" (source)

major depressive disorder: "Clinical and functional remission was achieved in 70.6% and 56.1% of the MDD patients, respectively." (source)

hospitalizations: "it can reduce the stress of daily responsibilities for a brief period of time, which allows you to concentrate on recovery from a mental health crisis. As your crisis lessens, and you are better able to care for yourself, you can begin planning for your discharge. In-patient care is not designed to keep you confined indefinitely; the goal is to maximize independent living by using the appropriate level of care for your specific illness." (source)

what is my point here? contributing to the STIGMA around psychiatric care, trying to couch mental illness in language of romantic shared mania (folie à deux) is not just giving 2005 myspace, it's inherently irresponsible. a 'recovery is possible' mindset is what saves lives and in the US, her home country, the stigma against seeking help works hand in hand with the systematic defunding of mental health care to dissuade people from achieving the recovery that can lead to abatement of suffering and transition into a life worth living.

here's my mental illness cheat sheet:

it's not romantic. it can be associated with creativity, but that's not guaranteed or inherent and may largely be a cliche that sidetracks real functional improvement: "Romanticizing the 'mad genius' myths surrounding bipolar disorder can also be harmful, and have negative consequences on your wellbeing and productivity." (source)

it's expensive as hell to treat, but under certain income thresholds in the US, Medicaid can pay for most if not all of the treatment you might need.

it generally leads to lower employment rates or underemployment but treatment leads to the best outcomes for employment and housing: "undertreatment can have a negative impact on occupational functioning" (source)

substance abuse is a conversation that can't be unlinked to mental illness and for some reason the US seems more ready to talk about that than the underlying mental health issues - because then an element of blame can be assigned to the individual for self-destructive behavior. but addressing the core mental health issues can certainly lead to recovery in other areas, when the substance use is linked to depression, anxiety, etc.

the US loves to talk about mental illness when gun violence occurs, but that doesn't mean those same legislators will vote to expand access to mental health treatment (source)

my #1 tip i have is this: if you don't have insurance or your insurance only covers a fraction of your psych inpatient bill, CONTACT PATIENT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE AND FILL OUT PAPERWORK TO SEEK A WRITE-OFF. instead of that $3000 bill you can leave owing $500 (or less). literally cannot emphasize this enough! the write-off is based on income so they will need to see your financials to assess what write-off(s) may be appropriate in your case.

peer support groups like National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) may hold meetings in your area where you can discuss your problems and relate to others' who may share some of your struggles. this is basically peer-led, FREE group 'counseling'. seriously, it's effectively nearly as good as the group sessions you might have to pay for, and the frequency is often weekly. (find support)

yes, we can talk about past historical psychiatric abuses and ongoing abuses today, which tend to disproportionately affect the socioeconomically disadvantaged. but the conversation needs to also include the benefits of access to scientifically-informed mental health treatment as well.

[chio-pudding]

Here’s my preview for the @meliazine!!

Preorders open on October 28th and the proceeds will go to National Alliance on Mental Illness so be sure to check it out <3

[desultory-suggestions]

A reminder that I do not answer asks that are suicide declarations or notes. If you are struggling with suicidal ideations I feel deeply for you, I want you to be well and be safe. However, I am not a professional and I cannot talk you down from suicide. Please seek help by calling a national suicide hotline or text line, reaching out to a friend or family member local to you, or arranging to see a therapist. No one deserves to die by suicide, and as someone who has survived suicide, I can tell you that it is not worth it. There is always more to live for.

[precure20f]

After deducting the cost of production, Habatake! has donated $900 USD to NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)!

Additionally, we've allocated 90 EUR (a little over $100 USD) to CareForGaza:

Thank you to everyone who supported this project!

[paragonrobits]

i had a few thoughts about some possible mentalities for antagonistic groups to use, inspired by frustrations with the 'its bad writing if x character didn't EARN power up' + 'ruthless is best character trait' complaints that dog AtLA's ending, and it might have accidentally helped me figure out an idea for a group of characters that i've been planning for a while but haven't thought of anything for them yet

I was thinking about how it bothers me when people get real salty about a show when it doesn't do a specific narrative route they're used to, even when it makes no sense in that story (for example, Aang refusing to kill Ozai when its pretty typical for a pacifist character to wind up killing as character development, even though AtLA does not suggest this is an actual likely thing to happen OR a good thing) and those ideas in particular bug me. In this case, when ruthlessness is portrayed as the ONLY mature and reasonable way for protagonists to make decisions, combined with the fixation on the idea that power has to be 'earned'. you get a lot of dislike for inherent abilities or ones that arise as a result of outside influences or circumstances

(i actually like the idea of training and deliberate alteration to gain powers, but i don't think its the only good way to do it)

so this brings me to a group of characters I've been planning for a while; you might call them the Power Metal Kings. Long term, their purpose is to ultimately found a prosperous and badass nation with a visual aesthetic strongly inspired by a mix of He-Man/She-Ra, G1 Transformers, Thundercats and whatever Thor Ragnarok has going on; this nation is meant to be the core of an alliance of protagonist factions against nefarious villain alliances, forces of corruption and/or oblivion, and as a precursor to doing adventuring situations with a grander scope. However this group has been really ill-defined and I haven't had any real ideas for them, beyond them being foils to my primary group of characters, mostly by giving them a focus on being stylish, sophisticated, gallant and inspiring.

so, here I wound up thinking about an antagonistic group based on those trends I mentioned that bother me; probably not a SPECIFIC group but common traits among antagonistic groups (possibly power brokers of some kind, putting people through hellish training to awaken powers); they believe the only worthwhile power or expression of self through magic and experimentation is developed through training and conflict, and that the only good way to deal with problems is by mercilessly crushing anything that gets in your way, specifically looking down on kindness or tenderness.

So i thought, "what kind of thing would make villains like this bother people? What's their opposite?" So i thought, that could mean a group of heroes whose powers are innate, the result of pacts with higher powers or the result of strange circumstances. Not things you CAN cultivate with training, but simply are. People who just exist, and create power by coming to peace with that and using it to the fullest.

And I think this sounds like a VERY solid avenue to fleshing out this stylish group; they all have innate powers, or their abilities are derived from their own unusual natures. Simply come into being, not 'earned' in a conventional sense.