#Sorry to overshare

[hephaestuscrew]

When you listen to the funeral in Boléro when you're 19 and are fairly naïve and have been lucky enough that you've never had a death close to you, you think Hera doesn't understand "why they have to be gone" because she's an AI and she only has 4 years of life experience to go off and it's inevitably difficult for someone without a physical body to conceptualise death. But then you get a little older and things happen and you realise No, that's just what grief is like.

Hera thinks that it doesn't make sense to her because she's missing something, because there's something that her creators didn't put inside her head, or at the very least because she's never experienced that kind of loss before. She thinks there's something that can be explained to her that will make it easier to come to terms with the deaths of people who've been a part of her life. And Eiffel struggles for an answer, or rather a way to explain to her that there is no answer; "Hera, we don't… I don't know that there's… That's not what this -".

The truth is that there's nothing that Hera is missing. What is happening inside her head feels "wrong and stupid and wrong" because that's just how it feels when someone you know dies. That's how the other characters are feeling too, even if they express it differently.

Hera thinks that she feels the way she does because she's experiencing things differently to her human crewmates, but that's not really the case. She's just being the most honest about those feelings.

It's not an artificial intelligence grappling with human situations that she can't understand. It's a person struggling with grief in the way that any human struggles with grief.

Hera's feeling that she doesn't know how to deal with this, her inability to stop thinking about the fact that they're gone, her sense that there must be some set of instructions she wasn't given, her desperation for a way to make it better or easier, her plea for things to somehow make sense… It's all just so incredibly, heart-wrenchingly human and real.

[nikosheba]

I was given this advice myself about a year ago. It genuinely did change my life. It changed how I saw myself, it changed how people saw me.

There’s an older woman (about 20 years older than me) I work with who’s been through the wringer. Abusive marriage, cancer and chemotherapy, extreme poverty, nearly dying of covid twice in the past two years (ventilator each time), and plenty more. She has very little education, and is completely awful at computers. Our job is WFH, and involves a ton of computer use, which frustrates her intensely, because she’s amazing at every other part of her job.

I was coaching her a couple weeks ago, and gave her this exact advice. “What if, instead of saying, “Oh my god, I’m such a dummy!” you said, “Wow, just call me Einstein!” I know, you’re afraid people will laugh at you.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “People always laugh at me. I figure, if I can laugh first...”

“Just try it,” I said. “For me. Try it for a couple days.”

Literally the next day, she pulled me aside and said, a little shyly, “I tried it last night on my boyfriend. I bumped into something, and said, “Wow, I’m the most graceful person ever born.” And my boyfriend laughed really hard, and said I was cute. You know, he’s ALWAYS telling me to stop talking bad about myself. But I just get so scared that people are going to think I’m full of myself, and they’re going to tear me down however they can. Everyone is smarter than me, and they always tell me I’m not worth anything, so...”

“So is it better to make them laugh instead of making them say, “No, no, you’re not dumb!”?”

I love this woman to death, I’d walk into traffic for her. I told her I used to do the same thing to myself last year, and she was aghast. “But you’re like, really smart!” 

“So are you!”

She paused, and said, “Actually, yeah, I’m like, totally Einstein.”

it's been said before and i'm sure said better than i can phrase it. but really, really - if you like making "i'm going to kill myself" jokes, please try switching to being ironically conceited instead.

anytime something goes wrong, say things like "ah well at least i'm beautiful and charming and everyone loves me." when you forget something, try "my big huge brain is so smart and thinking about too many other very big wizardly thoughts you wouldn't even understand." when you're frustrated by one of your symptoms, start talking like you're in My Immortal. "Life has come for me but my eyes are beautiful pools of gorgeous fire and my hair is amazing. I stuck my middle finger up at life and told it to fuck off and it did."

just... try it for a month or two. try saying the most absurdly self-congratulatory shit you can think of.

i know it's tempting to make suicide or self-harm jokes. and for me at least, a decade ago (!) when someone suggested i stop making those kinds of jokes, i was kind of at a loss for what to replace them with. i wanted to make light of these moments, but genuinely (at the time) my first thought really was suicidal ideation. there was a part of me that even felt like ... i was kind of "making light" of that voice. that if i could say i want to die lol, it would help take the sting out of that genuine (albeit passive) desire. like i could turn my illness into a joke.

when i started complimenting myself instead, it felt awkward and stupid. it felt really, really ironic. what i was actually saying was nobody would ever think this stuff about me, that's what makes it so fucking funny.

but. the effect was immediate. first thing i noticed was the people around me. when i dropped a glass and said ah my skin is too beautiful and sleek the glass has swooned and broken for me, other people were suddenly overjoyed to jump in with the joke. rather than making an awkward moment, we'd both start cracking up. ah princess sleek hands, i've heard of you.

i was 19. i hadn't noticed i'd been making others tense when i said i want it all to end. i know now that it's incredibly hard to know how to walk that moment - do you talk to them about your concern? do you potentially make them uncomfortable by asking if they're okay? do you ignore the situation? do you help them pick up the glass, or do they need to do it by themselves? are they genuinely made suicidal over this small moment? and most importantly, how do you - without professional training or supplies - actually help?

most people want to help you pick up the glass in your life, they just have no fucking idea how to do it. they don't want to make anything worse. they don't want to make assumptions about you. they love you, they're scared for you - and being scared makes people kind of freeze up. it's not because they don't love you. it's because they do.

now when something bad happens, my first thought is how can i make a stupid joke about this. it isn't my brain saying you're a dumb fucking bitch. i spend more time laughing. i spend more time being gentle with myself. i spend more time feeling good.

and the thing is - what's kind of funny - is that you'd be surprised by how many people agree with you. the first time i said i'm too pretty to understand that, someone else said to be fair you're the prettiest person in this room. i promise - you really don't know how kindly your friends see you. but they love you for a reason. they sort of reverse-velveteen-rabbit you. your weird and ugly spots fade away and you just become... the love they want to give you.

go love yourself ironically. the worst thing that happens is that you end up tricking your reflection into actually loving you.

[amygdalae]

kind of hate my stupid caustic pussy for dissolving my underwear over time but it's kind of cool, like, scientifically

[spoopdeedoop]

doctor “trauma dump to companion of five minutes” who

[pinkalluna]

I wish I had another person to talk to about relationship problems. Someone older and someone who knows about stuff. I wish I could talk to my mom or a friend.

[rhaenyratargayen]

im literally having a mental breakdown over going to this christmas party for work bc 1. i really dont want to 2. im having an allergic reaction to something and im broken out in hives but 3. my trauma response is to feel like i have to explain myself for everything and my anxiety goes hand in hand with being social so now i feel like i have to make myself go in spite of my anxiety

[lazylittledragon]

ok i swear i'm not going to talk about my breakup forever but the thing that just keeps bothering me:

i know that not getting what you need in a relationship is a COMPLETELY valid reason to end it but also. i feel like having a very vulnerable moment where i opened up about my struggles with intimacy and being relieved that i didn't have to keep doing things i wasn't comfortable with, then being dumped a YEAR later because of my lack of intimacy. is something i should be allowed to be very hurt by???

[teaboot]

if ur a murderbot nerd now do u have any fun opinions abt it yet?

Oh my goddd you have no idea

I really, really, really like Murderbot because it comes at life with this perspective we don't often see that is very real among people who have already been through traumatic experiences, who developed skills and abilities to suvive that were once useful but no longer have context- that search that traumatized people go through to recalibrate and reorient ourselves in a world where we no longer really need those things to survive.

A bit personal here, but my own issues personally involved a lot of psychological abuse that made it difficult to trust my own perceptions of reality, and as a result I found I was very easy to lie to and manipulate.

To handle this, I became obsessive over writing things down, cataloging details and making notes of things as they happened- I'd carry recording devices and make audio recordings and stay up late at night to transcribe what they'd picked up, read those over and over again to reassure myself of things I wasn't certain about.

While doing this, there were others close to me that I felt responsible for, who I had to protect from others and protect myself from at the same time. Life was about two things: Evidence, and defusing threats

Over time, I learned to trust myself as my memories matched what had been recorded where their narrative didn't, but I never really kicked the habit. Like Murderbot, I had added something to my own programming that reassured me I was safe, that I was in control of myself, that I couldn't be mistaken or crazy or broken or used.

I'm only on book two, but already I see myself in Murderbot again. No spoilers here, but when I left home- left that dangerous context- I didn't need to repeat these patterns to survive anymore, but I still did, because I didn't know anything else anymore. It felt safe, comfortable, knowing knowing that the past couldn't repeat itself, because I'd written that flaw- blind trust in myself-  out of my programming and replaced it with something else.

Still, though, I'd become something specially suited to thrive in a very specific environment. Nothing else felt right like followinghigh-risk situations, like witnessing and watching and recording and knowing I had proof of the truth where others might not.

People took notice. I wound up in security by accident, but's an environment that I thrive in due to the same patterns and behaviours I originally developed when I had no other choice. I climbed the ladder pretty quickly, once supervisors caught on that my reports were the most accurate, most objective, most factual, detail-oriented and timely. I keep others and myself safe and prioritize public safety above all else, and I perform well under pressure

Now I'm in a position where I often wonder, do I enjoy this job, or is it just what I'm good at? I have a set of skills now, but do I have the option of choosing not to use them? What would I be, if not this? Could I be anything else? Can Murderbot be anything else?

It has a set of skills that set it apart, make it different, special. It does what it knows best. But is it free? Does it want to be? What does it want? Does it have to do what it was built to do? What if it didn't?

I know what I'm good for. The idea of deliberately leaving what I'm good for for something uncertain, that I might hate, that I might be useless at- the choice to give up what was so important to me for so long and become deliberately obsolete?

Let go of my entire purpose? The only thing I know, that I fit so well into but don't actually know if I enjoy? Now that I can choose? Now that enjoyment is a luxury I can afford to consider?

Yeah, that resonates.

I like the Murderbot series so far because it feels the way I feel: Like the most significant and formative part of my story, the part where I became what I am, has already happened

And now I have to just. Keep going

Into... what?

It feels absurd. Like a microwave giving up on reheating food and deciding to start a life around abstract dance.

So, uh. Yeah. It's really very wild to see this same philosophical-ish dilemma I've been digging over in the back of my mind and in therapy for the last forever laid out so plainly in a genuinely exciting and enjoyable story like this. I feel much less alone, and I... kind of really need to see how it resolves, I think.

So, uh. Yeah. Read Murderbot, I guess

[hjhb-the-hdgp]

Bruh. I envy you so much

Peeing is fun and easy to do.

[b0tster]

gm. my head hurts. but its probably partially cuz of the hangover lol. crazy dreams tho

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

the chemistry and technology of edible oils and fats and their high fat products (1989) - g. hoffmann

"mole interest"

[shitouttabuck]

“I’ll be honest—when Bobby first brought you on board, I told him he should just get a Dalmatian instead.”

[lesbianwithchainsaws]

Sometimes watching Community is like "Abed's just like me fr 😃" and sometimes it's "Abed's just like me fr ☹️"

[devotion-disorder]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3dFHa31qxQ8?feature=share

10/10 would smash Yuri buuuuut this vid lived rent free in my head, I don't wanna skip to my next life just yet-

no because i can vouch that she is 100% correct. of course everyone's built different but i have almost the exact same opinions as her...they dont call it rearranging your guts for no reason yall.

BUT you can also make a lot work with a bit of time and patience :D and when you're sequestered in the deepest part of the woods, trapped in a village that most people that don't even know exists, there is definitely more than plenty of time :) though Yuri also tends to be impatient, so......................... good luck? ^^;

[theriverbeyond]

talked to my thesis advisor today about how i am in the torture labyrinth micromanaging my thesis partner and she was so nice.... she was super understanding of my concerns..... she affirmed that i should NOT have to do the amount of work i've been doing.... she came up w a plan.... she promised my graduation won't be at risk if he doesn't do his part... perhaps there IS hope after all.... ‼️

[dogboymutual]

hi everyone. letting you all know that i find the clicker game about the guy who likes clicking. the one called clickolding. that one. it's. hhot