#TW: discussion of illness

[thelunarsystemwrites]

Lunar's mental health. An update.

TW: bad mental health, EDs, depression, s/h, personal stuff, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, vent, self hate, heavy topics.

Sorry I haven't been posting!!

An update on me.

...Hi, you might know me as Lunar, or, TheLunarSystemWrites! I'm just an artist on here, trying to do things I like.... right?

Well, unfortunately, real life doesn't really... care. It doesn't care if I have friends to talk to, art to make, things I like to do.

I've been exhausted, physically and mentally. I've been busy working a lot in our home. (Painting, building, packing, inside work, cooking, etc) and it's always stressful... we're starting to get a little tight on money.

I've spent majority of my time in my bed. I don't wanna face my family members, so I've hidden away. It's hard to get up every day, and try to find the will to take care of myself.

I also recently relapsed with Bulimia, a disorder that, essentially means I throw up whatever I eat. I've been purging since September 16th, 2022. But I had awhile where I only purged once a day or none, but I'm back at it with full force. So my body doesn't have any energy left. I've also now lost my periods do to it.

I don't sleep well. It's much easier to stay up all night than waste my only free time sleeping. So I have no energy from sleeping well unless I sleep a whole day away, which makes me groggy.

Self harm is also something bothering me too, I'm too tired to do it and yet I keep doing it. Wasting precious spoons on it, I literally can't be clean for a whole year this year, that dream is dead. But, I am a few days clean as I type!

Suicidal and intrusive thoughts have been.... pesky. But I can't just leave my friends, plus I have prizes to make.

But, I'm unmotivated. I can't seem to write or draw anything. All my art is looking... regressed, to me. Everything is repetitive.

I've hated myself now more than ever in my life, I'm in a pretty bad place and I hate how self aware I am.

SPEAKING of regression! I have like, regression block. My brain isn't working with me, isn't regressing unless Involuntary. So my main coping mechanism is.... out of order.

I've been angry at the world, really pissy and moody. Tired, hungry, sad, then happy but not much. Numbness is a huge factor, I'm feeling depressed.

Not to mention, there's drama everywhere I look. This creator gets bullied, that one turns out to be disgusting. People get doxxed over opinions... it's constantly anxiety that I'll be wrongly accused, ridiculed, or abandoned. It's terrifying that people will go at each other's throats. It's exhausting to deal with it and be dragged into drama with problematic people.

Every day has been the same for me for the past 3 years. I'm tired, bored, understimulation controls me.

My friends are my lifeline right now.

I feel uncomfortable in my own body all the time, unsatisfied with my art, everything is essentially falling apart in my life.

Depression, anxiety... not a good mix to wake up disoriented and anxious, then gave zero spoons throughout the day. I'm not in a good home situation right now.

So... I kinda just... haven't been posting, role-playing, answering DMs, answering asks, etc...

I'm burnt out.

I feel like I'm a walking corpse.

Useless even.

I don't feel like myself anymore, I barely have the energy to talk to friends, every little bad things sets me back. I just can't bring myself to really engage much anymore.

So... sorry. I'm sorry, if I wasted your time. Or if this isn't like what you wanted to hear. I'm just not okay anymore, April was the last good month I had this year. APRIL.

I just wanted to update you all, there's a lot of other stuff I didn't share because it's nit important. I swear I'll get to the prizes eventually, I just ain't up to it right now. Might not be for awhile, apologies in advance!!

Hope you guys can understand, I might or might not be back to doing art, who knows. But I'll definitely get things done before that if I ever stopped. It just doesn't bring me joy, I used to hope I'd make an AU people cares about, and I've barely achieved that ^^"

Hope you're all well!! Stay safe, take care!! Remember to hydrate and to try eating if you can, you're spectacular!!!

Daily clicks!! ^^

Previous pinned post.

[mosscaller]

Image description:

Text reads:

"Ableism looks like calling people ‘inspiring’ for navigating asystem that is designed for exclusion, while doing nothing to hold the system accountable."

- Carson Tueller

[crows-talking-place]

(tw for gillion backstory stuff and curse stuff, check tags if unsure. stay safe also spoilers up to ep 97.)

still not over the thing where gil casually mentioned he had "divine health" so physically couldnt get sick. (ep 11, 57:52).

the implications, man. someone hug him please

also in retrospect it makes the whole gillion curse arc like a bazillion times worse. because the entire time he denied there was a problem, acting as if nothing was wrong until he physically couldnt hide it anymore, which is bad enough by itself, but this tells us why. that it was a learned behaviour. he didnt want to worry anyone because it had been drilled into him that being sick wasnt something that should happen. that it was a weakness, one that he shouldnt have. he was supposed to be better than this.

so he pretended he was okay.

it was all he had ever been taught to do

[wereoz]

……. spencer in prison, not able to express his autistic traits, not able to stim to deal with his stress, while it is piled on and on. without his healthy coping mechanisms, with feeling so much, just wanting to lash out, he turns to scratching himself as a replacement for stimming

[cuttleskulls]

I spent too much time of this for it to get caught in TikTok’s algorithm police

psa about drugs mkay

[uncanny-tranny]

In discussions about mental health, I am so tired of the only voices mattering being other people or other people who do not deal with a condition/disorder or a specific situation.

"Here's how I deal with loved ones with [x] condition!"

"If you do [y] because of [x mental health reason], you're selfish and everybody who loves you is having their lives made harder by you!"

"If your symptoms are [z], you're gross, and you deserve no sympathy for struggling"

I understand to an extent why people do this, but holy hell, as somebody who struggles and struggles often, the last thing any of us need to be told is that we're a burden that others have to carry. And it's terrible how everybody else's feelings but ours matter - even if we are the ones most affected by our condition or situation.

If you are dealing with issues surrounding your mental health and well-being, know that everything above isn't true; you are worthy of patience, understanding, kindness, and love. You are worthy of being listened to without judgment. You don't have to apologize or "make up" for who you are or what you struggle with.

[raceweek]

alex doing a podcast, one of the interviewers says georges name, he immediately calls him gorgeous and then proceeds to launch his campaign for george to start an onlyfans account. good morning

[lemongogo]

already the beginning of the end (ch.44 redraw)

[good-beanswrites]

A little alternate scene to @kyanako5972 's Amane request. I like the other drabble a bit better regarding how things would actually play out, but I couldn't resist trying something that included Fuuta. He's Amane's closest friend. He's the other person to openly say he'll go after a child and not give them special treatment. He literally looks like the orange cat she saved. I couldn't cover it all but there's just so much going on with them. Warning for references to Amane's cult/abuse mindset.

“Jeez, you scared the crap outta me…” 

Fuuta looked up to find Amane standing over his bed, staring intently as he woke. Amane knew he was doing his best to appear upset with her for the intrusion, but his grimace could be mistaken for pain in his condition. 

She knew she didn’t look much better, an eyepatch tucked under her short hair and bandages circling her body. It had taken all her strength to rise and make her way to his cell. She was used to walking off a bit of pain, but this was a different level altogether. 

She opened her mouth. She had come in here with a mission. She had her speech prepared. She didn’t write it out like her father was known to do, but she did rehearse it a few times quietly to herself, as she’d seen from him. 

Fuuta had listened to her when no one else would; there was a chance her passionate words could convince him to reject that doctor’s evil work and find the light. They could shed these bandages together, becoming pure and following their intended paths. She’d already tried removing her eyepatch several times, but there was always someone there to put it back on. It had been hard to fend off so many overbearing adults, the way her body screamed at her each time she tried. She despised them. She was suffocated by them.

But with Fuuta by her side, she could do it. There was power in numbers. Her mother, Es, Kotoko – all of them thought she was wicked. They weren’t important. They were only human. She could still be a good girl, in the ways that mattered. They could be good together. 

“Kajiyama Fuuta.”

“What?”

But the words caught in her throat. 

His voice was so weak. It was nothing like the way he spoke to her before. His eyes dulled with exhaustion, half-hidden under ginger hair. She couldn’t keep her gaze from the makeshift sling Shidou had put together with one of the bedsheets. It didn’t look much different than her own handiwork. The thought brought with it a surge of pride, which immediately made her tremble with shame. 

He had changed so much. This wasn’t the same person she had found camaraderie in before. If only she could help him. If only she could save him.

No. There was a right way and a wrong way to help him, and she mustn't be led astray. She had come here to help in the right way. Thoughts spun rapidly through her mind. Her trembling worsened. Her chest ached, and she couldn’t tell if it was from the emotions or the broken ribs. She just had to follow through. She had to be good. She had to –

“Stop being creepy,” he wheezed. “Just spit it out.”

“I – I have to go.”

She spun around. She could save Fuuta another day.

“Oi, Amane.”

“I said I have to go.”

“I'm sorry.”

She paused in the doorway to the cell. She glanced back at him, curious.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“I’m just... Sorry that happened to you. It was a fucked up thing to do.”

Amane shook her head. She held her chin high. “It was meant to be, and thus, I can bear it. You must, too.”

Fuuta's laugh turned into a cough. “You’re a weird kid. But tougher than I gave you credit for.”

Amane couldn’t meet his eyes. “Thank you.”

[kiarabanetmi]

“Poison” and how it speaks to all types of abuse

Hi there! I’m posting again. This is a small analysis/commentary on how the song Poison from Hazbin Hotel describes not just sexual and drug abuse, but other types of abuse as well. If you haven’t seen Hazbin Hotel or haven’t heard the song, I’ve put a link to the song below. Even if you don’t watch the show the song is amazing and I highly recommend it. Note: this is not the official episode music video, which is triggering to people, this is the before episode release version.

I also made another post earlier on my opinions on episode 4 of Hazbin Hotel. Give it a read!

Ok, so I’m going to cover some very specific lines and moments in the song. The majority of my analysis focuses on verse two and the the final verse.

This song at its core is about abuse. Angel Dust’s type of abuse is a combination of largely S/A along with physical and verbal Abuse by his pimp Valentino. But if you analyze these lyrics, this song speaks to all types of abuse and abuse victims and/or survivors, except for a few lines that are highly specific depending on situations. I’m going to focus on how this song can speak to domestic abuse victims, myself specifically. If you do not feel comfortable hearing about the following triggers then please scroll on and have a good day. You have been warned.

So context before I get into this: I was raised with a mentally ill parent as well as victim of my other parent’s former Fiance who also verbally and emotionally abused but the two of us. My mentally ill parent suffers from untreated unconventional borderline personality disorder, known as BPD. My other parent’s ex Fiance suffers from grandiose narcissistic personality disorder, known as NPD. I am no longer in contact with the ex Fiance and have no plans to see them ever again. However, I am still suffering from my parent with BPD, specifically over the holiday. We had a major fight because they believe my other parent is truly the abuser in their reality and by taking their side, I was starting to abuse them as well. This has caused me to (at least temporarily) cut off the unhealthy parent and live with the other one full time. And the unhealthy parent is a master at verbal, emotional and psychological manipulation.

Now getting onto the actual song:

Whenever I listen to the back half of verse 1 into the first chorus, I really relate to the lyrics through personal experience. It starts at the following line:

“I shoulda known that this would happen,

“I shoulda known it when I looked into your red-hot eyes

“Spewin’ all your red hot lies”

Now let’s go back to the lyrics and how it relates to me. As part of their BPD, this is especially true, and true for those who are involved with family/spouses/loved ones who are verbally and emotionally abusive. I believe any person who has different under an abuser will relate to this simple like. At some point we know the pattern, we know the signs for when we “fucked up” as it were. And we know at some point, consciously or unconsciously, that our abuser is lying.

“What’s the worst part of this hell?

“I can only blame myself.”

This line can be relatable depending on the type abuse you suffer from. In Angel’s case, he signed his soul away (literally) to his abuser. In a way I do that with my abuser every time I choose to go see them and enter that unhealthy environment. The problem for me personally is that BPD does have patterns but I find myself surprised and shocked by them. Know that now I am doing research to try and learn how to properly deal with family members with BPD, but that personality disorder does not excuse the abuse I suffer from t I’ll his parent. Mental illness is NOT an excuse for inflicting abuse, even if it’s as complex or rarely treated like BPD. But every time I go back into that environment I can only blame myself for entering that hell willingly again. Because despite the pain I know they will inflict upon me at some point, I still love my abuser. I imagine this is a similar mindset to what other victims of domestic abuse feel as well. We walk back to our abusers, usually choosing to because we still love our abuser and hope they’ll change and this time they’re telling the truth.

But that’s usually not the case.

“Cause I know you’re poison,

“You’re feeding me poison

“Addicted to this feeling I can’t help but swallow up your poison

“I made my choice and

“Every night I’m living like there’s no tomorrow.”

In my situation I relate to this line INCREDIBLY hard. It’s not just my unstable parent who is abusive. That side of my family has a long cycle of generational abuse that I am trying to break away from. But because I grew up in that situation, despite now knowing how bad and unhealthy it is, it’s what I’m used to. And unfortunately, I am used to or addicted to that chaos. For the past few months I have lived with my healthier parent and during that time, I have developed a non-chaotic, healthy lifestyle. Growing up everything was constantly shifting and changing based on the needs/wants of my unhealthy parent, since I was predominantly in their custody in my youth. Because of this, I grew up used to that chaos, considering it normal and fine, until I was shown another alternative by my other parent when they filed for custody and finally got rid of their own abusive fiancé. But because of the way I grew up, I became used to the chaos, and every time I go back to visit my abusive parent, I run the risk of falling under their spell. And unfortunately, more often than not, I do fall for it. And when I do fall for it, I fall into survival mode once again. This means that in a sense I’m “living like there’s no tomorrow”, like Angel. I don’t think about the consequences of anything other than escalating the situation, of making sure I make it out of there without some sort of fight or confrontation.

“I got so good at being untrue,

“I got so good at telling you what you want to hear,

“I disassociate disappear”

When I enter this survival mode, as I’m sure many other abuse victims and survivors do, I tend to lose myself for a time. I become someone else in order to be who my abuser wants me to be. In my personal case, I end up regressing to a smaller helpless child (not literally, but my body language does, as an unhealthy form of self soothing, being untrue and becoming who they want me to be: someone they control. I tell them what they want to hear, usually that they are right or that their pain is valid and nothing is their fault because they are the victim (which in my parent’s case of BPD is a reality that they ACTUALLY believe). Half the time when my abuser parent is tearing into me or trying to make me feel guilty or into he the bad guy (with depressingly frequent success rates), I tend to enter a sort of humble stage. I disassociate until it’s my turn to speak. I disappear for a while until it’s safe to come back out and say or do something. And when I do disassociate it’s awful. I lose small chunks of time. This has not happened yet outside of these instances of interaction with my abuser, thank goodness, but it is still dangerous to disassociate too often. I’m sure survivors of all types of abuse have disassociated at least once in their time with their abuser.

“So far beyond difficult to resist another gulp.”

Since I grew up so used to this behavior and pattern, it is like fighting my own nature to try to stand up and not fall for the lies. It’s so hard because I still love my abuser but because of their illness and their refusal to acknowledge it or seek real treatment this pattern is unending. It’s hard to resist swallowing down the poison they force in my face and flood me with. In my case, unlike Angel, my form of poison is in a pool, slowly raising towards my mouth, and I struggle not to get it not. And I imaging that’s what most other victims of abuse also feel like. That physical, emotional, sexual, psychological abuse is a poison that if left unchecked or stayed near to long will eventually kill us, either minor abuser’s action or our own.(Note, at the end of this post I have posted links the contact information of various services to help people in these situations, at least for those in the United States). Angel’s situation is also like that too, but he’s also drugged and forced to take poison by Valentino.

“My story’s going to end with me dead from your poison.”

This line hit me hardest out of everything in the song. During the latest fight with my parent, they tore into me overall and so brutally that for the first time in my life, I truly contemplated suicide as a better alternative. The verbal and mental poison they fed me for so long overwhelmed me and I felt myself wanting to die from it. I am not suicidal now, but it was an overwhelming feeling of pain, hopelessness, feeling trapped with no escape (at one point literally when I threatened to go drinking and they blocked the door, which is a tricky situation). If I hadn’t gotten out of then not already had the support system in place that I spend years setting up and learning to build, I may not be making this post right now. And there’s thousands of others like me who are still stuck in that pool of poison, but have already choked too much and succumbed to it. Never forget them.

“Poison, I’m sick of the poison,

“Im filling up my glass but it’s always hollow

“Full of poison, I’m sick of the poison,

“Wish I had something to live for tomorrow.”

And like Angel here, I’m sick of the poison as well, and every other abuse victim of any type can relate to this. At some point nothing helps anymore when you are stuck in the situation long enough. There’s no escape, and everything is hollow. There was a time when I was like this as well. My abuser had isolated me from nearly everyone else in my life save for my healthy parent, and it nearly broke me. But I found a reason to live for tomorrow at the time.

And I hope you can too. If you are reading this and relate to my story, or you heard this song and related to it in some way, then please know you are not alone. This song is not just a bop, it’s a real look at the kind of a severely abused victim that we don’t always see.

If you or your loved one are being by abused in some way, you are not alone. Here are some resources if you are in danger and need to call for help:

The Suicide Hotline: 988

The National Domestic Abuse Hotline:

The National Sexual Assault Hotline:

Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Parents

[scarfacemarston]

Tw animal illness ! Tw: Future animal death.

I hate to bother everyone again, but even though it does piss anons off, I just need to use this space.

Nikki is back in the hospital. My mom says “Why am I wanting to kill off the dog so quickly?” because I keep saying that I think she should be put to sleep. My dog has her good days and her bad days and that makes the decision so hard, but I really feel like she’s just lingering. It’s not fair to her. It’s so hard right now because I’ve had so much thrown at me. If you follow my blog, you know what that is.

Edit: vet said it’s time to put her to sleep soon.

[a-polite-melody]

Okay. Seriously.

It might be for the best that I have no options for transporting myself and a giant dog to a vet because if I could I honestly might have taken my neighbour’s dog I’m caring for to be euthanized for quality of life concerns by now. She is constantly in respiratory distress, and like. It’s severe and gets worse with basically any movement.

Like. Just now. All within a few seconds.

Zero indication beforehand that she needed to go outside. She gets up to walk over to the door. I go from the dining room to the living room to follow after her and grab her leash. She paces back over from the door panting heavily and flops down onto the ground before I can get to her. Once I’m right by her but before I can attach the leash she lays down fully into her side. I’m confused because this is usually how she tells me “no” if I offer to take her outside but she doesn’t want to. I attach the leash anyway but kinda just drop it so it’s there and attached if she changes her mind and as I do this she rises kinda quickly back up into a typical down, I assume in response to the leash being attached. It then looks like she’s about to lay on her side again but she snaps back upright, and it quickly happens again. I think maybe she was actually losing consciousness. She also pees while this is happening.

Now she’s panting really heavy and her tongue is actually fucking purple (and her tongue is naturally not exactly typical pink but like. This is not the normal colour) and she doesn’t want to move out of her pee because moving at all is only going to be more exertion.

And the dog understands none of this. Why she can’t oxygenate properly. And it seems terrifying to her. It’s terrifying for me to be watching, I don’t want to even imagine going through it with no frame of reference for it.

But it’s not my dog. But this dog Is Suffering.

Fucking hell this is awful.

Maybe I take the dog to be euthed and off myself. Take myself out in righteous fury for this dog’s condition and knowledge that I could be prosecuted for killing someone’s dog. I’m joking, mostly because, again, I have no way to actually do it. Kinda a “maybe if I fantasize about actually doing something this will hurt a little less” because I’m fucking stuck.

[the-entity-down-the-street]

I want to talk about suicide. Wish we could have more open discussion of suicidal ideation without getting shut down by goddamn search engines going "are sure you're okay??? Here's the suicide hotline!! Also we won't show you anything related to this search because it's triggering and might encourage you to self-harm!!"

Like no bitch I'm not trying to die, I'm trying to open a dialogue about suicide rates in the trans and autistic community you stupid fucking algorithm.

There's a societal squeamishness around suicide that definitely plays into why it's treated like this. Social media censors it, forcing sanitized language like "unalive yourself" because it's more ad-friendly.

Of course, hiding it doesn't discourage folks from attempting. All it does is add more stigma around suicidal thoughts, and that keeps people isolated.

There's also not enough discussion about what happens when you *recover* from suicidal ideation, and have to live with the lingering scars (psychological and physical) of it. Like, when we talk about recovery, it's always about how much better things are, how you get your life back, etc. And yes, that's important, but like most things, recovery is more nuanced as that. For me it feels like being haunted by my own ghost. It's eerie, and sad, and I'm angry about the childhood I lost to abuse and depression. It's a whole second phase of suicide recovery that I never see conversation about. Not to mention that my idea of "a future" getting stretched out by a few decades is disorienting.

We deserve to be able to talk about all this. Sorry a good chunk of my life experience isn't monetizable, or ad-friendly, or suitable for all ages. It's still worth talking about.

[transbeeduo]

anyways whenever someone is weird about the stuff i talk about regarding beeduo with bug i DO have legal rights to hit you with hammers sorry

[ink-asunder]

Having demand avoidance in a medical setting is literally hell. Like, patient autonomy is already absolute ass. It's only made worse when doctors CONSISTENTLY tell you what to do and act like you HAVE to do it instead of consulting with you first like normal fucking people.

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Following up on my post about episodes 5 and 6, here are my thoughts on the mental health side of episodes 7 and 8 of The Eighth Sense.

Hey, @waitmyturtles, it's finally finished!

As in my last T8S post, I'll start by talking about what I see going on with Jae Won (and this time, to a lesser extent, with Ji Hyun), then get into my thoughts about what his therapist is up to.

Here’s what I’ll be talking about below:

lowered affect and psychomotor symptoms

the "freeze" response and the depressive side of PTSD

"I want to heal his wounds"

Jae Won's therapist: dancing over the line

the portrayal of mental health interventions in The Eighth Sense so far

what's next?

lowered affect and psychomotor symptoms

When it comes to Jae Won, I think for the most part his deal is readily apparent to anyone with a reasonable amount of insight, whether they have mental health training or not (though I hope my perspective might help clarify some stuff). As others have pointed out, he's incredibly numb and shut down. It's clear that he feels responsible for Ji Hyun's accident even before he says so directly to his therapist, and that he has some kind of distorted thought process that is telling him that staying away from Ji Hyun will keep him safer than if he allowed himself to be close to him again. This also functions as a way of protecting himself from experiencing another loss--if he doesn't have anyone in his life that he actually cares about, he can't get hurt that way again.

By the way, just like the capacity for self-blame I talked about last time, it's remarkable how readily people who've experienced trauma can form strong beliefs that don't make rational sense (often involving magical thinking) while seeing no reason to doubt those beliefs. For example, it seems pretty certain that Jae Won is consciously telling himself, "Everyone I love dies or gets taken away from me in some way, so if I love someone I'm putting them in danger." There's no possible way this could be true, but it feels like the truth to him and he's unable to see how obviously false this belief is.

A couple of the things we're seeing with Jae Won have psychological terms that can be used to describe them more precisely. You know how Jae Won's face is super expressionless for most of episodes 7 and 8? In psychology, we use the term "affect" to mean the expression of emotion in someone's face (and to a lesser extent, other parts of their body). ("Affect" has a really different meaning in other disciplines.) Identifying the type of lowered affect Jae Won has sheds some light on his emotional state. There are standard descriptors that psychologists and others use in reports and notes to talk about people's affect. "Broad" or "full" affect means a person shows a typical amount of emotion in their expression. "Labile" affect means that the person is showing disproportionately strong emotions; often these emotions change abruptly as well (for example, if someone laughs one moment and cries the next and neither seem appropriate to the situation). Then you have descriptors for people who are showing less emotion than normal. "Restricted" affect is somewhat subdued compared to full affect. Just like it sounds, it's as if the person is (consciously or unconsciously) restricting the amount of emotion they allow others to see. A step down from restricted is "blunted" affect, which is a pretty intense symptom. Someone with blunted affect shows very little emotion, even when talking about or experiencing something upsetting. Another step down is "flat" affect. I often see people using "flat affect" to describe a person who actually has blunted or just restricted affect, but flat affect is a lot more marked than that. True flat affect means that the person shows absolutely no emotion. It's extremely rare. You're highly unlikely to meet a person with flat affect in your daily life, unless you work in an inpatient mental health facility. Where is Jae Won on this scale? His affect is blunted. This is a very big deal! When someone is experiencing mental health symptoms so marked that their affect is blunted, especially almost all of the time as we observe in Jae Won's case, there is a lot of cause for concern. As you might imagine, it's often reflective of the person being very disconnected from their own emotions. This symptom can be associated with a number of diagnoses. Some of these involve psychotic symptoms, which might interest proponents of the "everything after episode four is a hallucination" theory. But it's also associated with PTSD and depression, and I think it's pretty clear that's at the root of Jae Won's deal. After all, his affect became blunted right after he was retraumatized and massively triggered by Ji Hyun's accident.

A great example of Jae Won's blunted affect happens in the scene where Ji Hyun finally gets him to talk to him in private and he keeps insisting that everything that happened between them "was nothing." It's not normal for someone to have almost no affect when having a conversation like this, no matter how they feel about the other person or their history with them. If their relationship really meant nothing to him, we'd expect Jae Won to look flippant, irritated, contemptuous, guilty, maybe superficially sympathetic, but we'd expect him to have some degree of affect. The fact that he can sit there, dead-eyed, during this conversation speaks volumes. Another term that applies here is "psychomotor retardation." Sometimes people say "psychomotor slowing" instead to avoid the connotations of that second word there. Or you may just hear about "psychomotor symptoms." In severe depression, people's speech, movements--really, just about everything they do can become slowed. If you've ever been around someone who was severely depressed, you may have observed this. I had a friend in college whose psychomotor symptoms got so intense during a depressive episode that I misunderstood and thought she was drunk. The fact that this is coming up for Jae Won is another giant red flag that he is in a massive amount of distress.

the "freeze" response and the depressive side of PTSD

Given how much informed trauma discussion happens on tumbr, I'm guessing a lot of folks reading this may already know that contemporary trauma scholars have added to the well-known "flight or flight" set of trauma responses. The most common change is to add "freeze" to the list to make it "fight, flight, or freeze." Some also add "appease," or "fawn." We're all familiar with the fight response to trauma (go toward the feared object and try to fight it) and the flight response (run away from it). The freeze response is analogous to instinctively playing dead when attacked by a dangerous wild animal, except it's usually automatic, something our body does whether we want it to or not. People having a freeze response may dissociate, or they may find it difficult or impossible to get their body to move. The "appease" response refers to an instinctive impulse to do anything and everything to appease a person who poses a threat. It's a trauma response that frequently comes up in partner abuse situations. The "fawn" response, sometimes called a "collapse" response, is a kind of last ditch attempt by your brain to disconnect from your body so thoroughly that you'll feel less pain as a result of the trauma. I'd group it with the "freeze" response--they're kind of like different degrees of the same thing, with fawn/collapse being even more extreme than freeze. I had a mentor, Dr. S, in one of my training positions who had put together his own model of how trauma works, one he had cobbled together from a number of sources. Usually when a mental health person tells you they have this kind of homemade theory bricolage deal it turns out to be a hot mess. But Dr. S was incredibly smart and experienced and his theory was coherent and useful. I wish I knew where he got the various components from. I know he was into somatic experiencing therapy and it was part of the model but there were other traditions he had pulled from as well. But the gist, as it applies here, is this: he categorized the acute trauma responses (fight, flight, etc.) into two main groups, activating on the one hand and freeze-y/deactivating on the other. And those acute responses, the responses that a person has in the moment when the trauma is happening or soon afterward, are related to how their PTSD symptoms manifest, if they develop it. According to Dr. S, people with PTSD usually have a sort of predominant tendency where their PTSD symptoms lean more toward the freeze-y side, which is the more depressive and dissociative side, or the fight and/or flight side, which involves more overt dysregulation, anger, risk-taking, and so forth.

The thing that made me think about Dr. S's model of trauma when I watched episodes 7 and 8 was something he always said about these different ways trauma shows up as symptoms. I wish I could remember the rationale--like, what the supposed reason was that things work this way--but I remember that once he pointed it out I started seeing examples of it everywhere. He said that if you're stuck in a freeze-y, depressive state with your PTSD symptoms, you can't move directly from that into a more healthy, engaged relationship with your emotions, your memories, and the world around you. Instead of going straight from freeze mode into something healthier, he said, you have to spend some time in fight/flight mode. It's like, metaphorically speaking, there's no path out of the freeze zone without passing through fight/flight territory.

Jae Won's PTSD typically shows up in a very freeze-y way. His depressive symptoms were his most noticeable ones from the start of the series. He dissociates rather readily. He was numb even before what happened with Ji Hyun, then gets even more numb. Actually, I'd bet that when he resisted his connection with Ji Hyun before, and to an extent in 7 and 8, one of his main reasons was that Ji Hyun makes him feel alive and that scares him. Ji Hyun makes him "thaw out" in a way he doesn't feel prepared for. And then, of course, as soon as he dares to let his guard down with someone and experience real connection, what happens? A new trauma and massive triggers for his past trauma. So he goes back into freeze mode with a vengeance.

And he gets really passive. Just sort of floating along. Not kissing Eun Ji back when she kisses him, but not saying no or pushing her away either. (Well, there's one extremely gentle push after which he takes the tiniest step back, but that's it.) When we see him alone, he's just lying in bed with his eyes wide open staring into space. But there is one thing that makes him wake up, something that puts him squarely into fight mode: Tae Hyung making shitty comments about Ji Hyun. As audience members, it's natural to want to cheer this on in part because Tae Hyung is such a dick and that was incredibly below-the-belt. But I think another part of what makes us want to applaud is that Jae Won is finally thawing out again. It's fleeting. And the way the show is edited drives this home even more since there's an abrupt cut from Jae Won pummeling Tae Hyung to him talking with their professor in his office looking incredibly spaced out. But it happens.

"I want to heal his wounds"

One thing I've noticed in more than one response to episodes 7 and 8 is people being critical of Ji Hyun's words when he tells Joon Pyo, "He wants to be seen as a strong person, but has a lot of wounds. And I want to heal his wounds." Basically, I'm seeing people say that it's up to Joon Pyo to heal himself and that it's naive of Ji Hyun to think that he can "heal" him. And to an extent, they have a point. If Ji Hyun claimed he was going to singlehandedly heal Jae Won's pain and trauma, it would be extremely unrealistic. Especially if he claimed he'd do it whether or not Jae Won participates. But he says he wants to heal Jae Won's wounds, and I think that's more reasonable. I would expect that most of us, in his shoes, would at least want that on some level, even if we don't think it's possible. But more than that, I think this is an example of a certain cultural attitude, one that (in my experience) seems more prevalent in individualistic cultures like those of the U.S. and much of Europe. It's related to the idea that "no one can love you until you love yourself." I find this attitude just as unrealistic, and just as riddled with wishful thinking, as the idea that we can heal a partner by our force of will alone without their participation. Because individualism is a wishful fantasy in a way. It tells us that we can fix ourselves without having to worry about making connections with others or whether those others will be willing or able to give us the love we need. But we can't just wish away our relational needs.

Human beings are relational creatures. We develop from birth through our relationships with others. These relationships can be damaging or they can be supportive and strengthening (or, of course, both). We don't have to wait until we are perfectly self-sufficient before we're capable of receiving love, deserving of love, or able to benefit from love. When someone loves us deeply and shows that to us, when they show their love through caring for us, it makes a difference in our lives. Of course it does! And if we are completely lacking in that kind of love, life is harder for us. I could go off for pages and pages about this and I may well do so here one of these days. For now I'll say that if you're interested in combating your individualistic bias and thinking in a new way about the fundamentally relational nature of humanity, I highly recommend the first section of Kenneth Gergen's book Relational Being--it's phenomenal. (I first read it on a long bus commute and I was gasping so much that people started giving me looks. And I normally never gasp aloud at a book.) Stan Tatkin's work on attachment dynamics in couples is also really instructive here. Tatkin talks about how we've been conditioned to think it's burdensome and excessive to ask for our partners to be there for us and take care of us in certain ways that are actually imminently reasonable and part of a healthy relationship. This isn't to say that there's no such thing as a burdensome demand or an onerous expectation of a partner. But there's a whole class of caring for others that gets stigmatized in our culture that's actually not only OK but healthy and beneficial.

What about Ji Hyun? I think it's not unlikely, given his age and lack of relationship history, that he's being a bit overly idealistic. But I also think it shows an admirable degree of self-awareness that he sees that he has a desire to heal Jae Won. And honestly? He already has healed him to an extent, even if subsequent events seem to have undone it. He can't heal Jae Won just by loving him. Jae Won would have to allow himself to be close to Ji Hyun again for that to happen, and he'd also have to open himself up enough emotionally to take in what Ji Hyun has to offer. And in order for him to heal in a substantial way--for example, to stop having an active case of PTSD--he'd also have to put in some independent effort. But it's also true that if Jae Won lets him, Ji Hyun actually could make a real difference in Jae Won's healing. And Jae Won could do the same for Ji Hyun.

Jae Won's therapist: dancing over the line

Jae Won's therapist/psychiatrist has been playing around with boundaries a bit since we first encountered her. Her "just tell me what your worries are!" joke ventured a bit close to a boundary line for me, but it stayed on the right side and made sense in context so I considered it pretty skillful. Sometimes getting close to those therapy boundaries is actually really powerful. I mean, it may sound like this would just be a lapse, and then we could debate whether or not it was forgivable. But actually, playing with therapy boundaries in a careful way that doesn't go too far can be an particularly good idea, depending on the situation and the client. Sometimes factors like the formality of therapy, clients' idealization of their therapist, their worries about seeming like a good person or being a "good client," and so forth can lead to the therapy process getting completely stuck. Calling some of these things into question can be really useful.

So initially, I thought Jae Won's therapist was handling this sort of thing well. At the same time, I was concerned that she might overdo it. I had a therapist once who played around with boundaries in a safe, careful way at first, and it really benefited me, but later, he was careless about some important boundaries and actually crossed the line to the point where I had to stop working with him. I didn't know if she'd do this, but I worried about it. Then episodes 7 and 8 happened.

Some folks have taken issue with her saying to Jae Won, "Why didn't you visit recently? I almost couldn't pay my rent because you stopped coming. You know every minute counts for the consultation fee, right?" I do think she's getting into risky territory here, but she ends up on the right side of the line by my standards (albeit barely). It should be completely obvious that Jae Won's attendance at their appointments doesn't make that huge of a difference in her bottom line. I actually see some reasons to believe she's likely an administrator or instructor/professor in addition to her clinical work (I'd be happy to explain my reasons but I'm trying not to get too far in the weeds). So she likely has other things to do besides see clients. And she's the kind of clinician that probably has plenty of clients. But no matter what her job entails, the fees from one client who sees her biweekly are not going to make or break her financially. She's trying to make light of her worry when Jae Won missed appointments (probably two, since a month has passed and that would mean two biweekly sessions). Then there's the exchange about her experiences with clients dying by suicide. There are aspects of it that seem OK to me, but she crosses the line in my estimation.

When she first raises the topic, she asks him, "Did you think about extreme decisions?" This set off alarm bells for me. It's important that therapists show that they're able to speak clearly and explicitly about suicidality. Using euphemisms or beating around the bush conveys a lack of confidence and comfort with the topic that could undermine clients' faith in the therapist or make the therapist seem like someone they have to protect from learning about their suicidal thoughts or intentions. Thankfully, she switched to more direct terms quickly, so I felt like that made up for her initial vagueness.

Then she talks about how "the hardest time" in her work is "when my patients commit suicide." But instead of talking about the loss she would feel in that situation, she quickly pivots to talking about how it's difficult to decide whether or not to attend these clients' funerals. It's a weird turn. It makes it sound as if the hard part is navigating this funeral question rather than the actual loss of the patient. I'm sure that's not how she really feels, but this topic shift makes it sound that way.

I know that @waitmyturtles took issue with the way the therapist hashed out conflicting ideas around ethics in a conversation with a client, and I do think that's almost always something that should be avoided. But I also think if she had done it in the right way, it could have been OK or even a good idea. Why? Because as I wrote above, one good reason to mess around with therapy boundaries sometimes is in order to undermine the idealization of the therapist when it gets out of hand. In other words, sometimes clients need to see firsthand that therapists are human beings too and that they make mistakes and have growth areas--and that they feel confused about how to navigate some professional situations, as she talks about here. It's demystifying in a way that can be beneficial. My biggest concern is actually the fact that she's doing this around the topic of client suicide.

Even though she plays it off somewhat by seguing into an ethical quandary about funerals, Jae Won's therapist is still raising the subject of how patients' suicides affect her. And this is where I think she's really playing with fire.

There's nothing wrong with a therapist acknowledging that when/if a client ends their life, they are/would be strongly affected. To pretend otherwise would not only be disingenuous, it would make the therapist seem unfeeling and cold. But it's risky to do anything that might center oneself in the conversation about a client's suicidality. Basically, saying you worry about a client, saying you would be very sad if they died, and so forth can be not only OK but advisable if done judiciously. But spending a substantial amount of time talking about yourself when you're sitting with a client who has a substantial suicide risk is insensitive and dangerous.

Of course, this is partly because centering oneself as a therapist is almost always counter-therapeutic (not to mention shitty and wrong). But if a therapist centers themselves around this specific topic, it could also lead to losing access to vital information about the client's thoughts, intentions, and risk level.

If I'm seeing a therapist who I have a good rapport with, I'm going to be concerned if it appears I might hurt them. I may even be highly motivated to try to protect them. If I'm having suicidal ideation but I think telling my therapist about it will upset, overwhelm or frighten them? If I'm being told right and left how distressing client suicide is for them? I now have a very good reason to keep my suicidal ideation a secret. Once a therapist loses a client's trust that they can safely disclose their suicidal thoughts and intentions to them, risks immediately go way up. Bottom line: if a client doesn't feel safe telling you about that stuff, you can't help them when they're in crisis. You're operating in the dark, without access to critical information.

I continue to believe that Jae Won is at a substantial risk of suicide and/or self-harm. And he has shown time and again that he tends not to disclose much in therapy even when he's at his best. This is no time to play around with this stuff. His therapist needs to show him that she's a steadfast, safe, concerned, but also reasonably neutral figure right now if she wants to have any hope of keeping him safe. And she failed to do that in episode 7.

the portrayal of mental health interventions in The Eighth Sense so far

As before, I think that the show has shown Jae Won's therapist in a mostly positive light in the latest episodes. And without a doubt, it's a good thing that therapy is being shown at all here. But one thing we haven't seen so far is an instance of therapy actually helping Jae Won in any observable way. And I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the series will end without any specific benefit from therapy being shown. I get that this is a love story and the emphasis is bound to be on the ways in which Ji Hyun and Jae Won can make a difference in each other's lives. But if you're going to portray therapy at all, you really ought to include at least some sort of potential benefit from it. Otherwise you run the risk of sending the message that while therapy might not be actively bad, it's also not something that will help someone in a meaningful way.

I'm also concerned about how psychoactive medication is being portrayed in this series. There's been a lot of talk of prescriptions. In the deleted scene that's been making the rounds, the camera pans down at Jae Won's pill bottles as if to call attention to them, emphasizing them at a time when Jae Won seems to be falling apart. Maybe these are hints that Jae Won is going to misuse his medication at some point, or maybe not. But currently, they function as a kind of commentary. The implication seems to be something like, "Look how fucked up Jae Won is right now. He even has to take medication for his mental health!" It makes it seem like someone taking psych meds is a sad or worrisome thing on its own. This is exploitative and supportive of mental health stigma. If it turns out these cues were foreshadowing Jae Won misusing his medication to self-harm, the generalized medication stigma aspect could be less of a concern, but it still wouldn’t exactly be a progressive portrayal of mental health care. I hope the show's creators pull back from this or find a way to make it all worthwhile, but I'm becoming less hopeful about that as well.

what's next?

I have some thoughts about what's coming next for the story based on what we've seen so far. Well, I have a lot of thoughts on that subject, but I'm going to confine myself to those I see as mental health-related here.

There's a chance that Jae Won could engage in some kind of self-harm or make a move to try to end his life. It's hardly certain this will happen, but it wouldn't be out of left field. Given the attention paid at various points to Jae Won's medications, the most likely avenue of self-harm seems to be misusing them.

One potential turning point could happen if events bring up Jae Won's protectiveness toward Ji Hyun. This could come up due to something really overt if he has reason to believe Ji Hyun is physically in danger, but it's at least as likely to come up if he sees other people mistreating him. If Eun Ji continues to try to bully Ji Hyun and Jae Won witnesses it, or if Tae Hyung lashes out at him, this could have a big effect on Jae Won. After all, even in his highly depressed and dissociated state after Ji Hyun's accident, the one thing that brought him back to himself was Tae Hyung's shitty comment. I would tie this back to the idea I mentioned above, that the path from long-term freeze mode to something healthier may need to involve passing through a more activated, aggressive state in the process. Jae Won's protectiveness toward Ji Hyun could be the catalyst that causes this type of shift for him.