#You know you're a nerd when you use survivor to study

[letstalksurvivorcbs]

Not me remembering the significance of the Mason-Dixon Line for my AP US History Class because of Nick (ew) and Christian (second favorite player of all time) calling their alliance that

[ask-thearchivists]

OOC post (I hope I’m using that right)

I would love to see all the other family’s they seem so interesting, and also why are separated? Or do all the family’s chose to stay away from each other

This stuff might be a spoiler (depends on some external factors regarding future special events on this blog)

I explained it through Equinox/Copyist a bit back, but their society is basically a bunch of super-powered nerds who have Nerd Studies and Nerd Debates and at one of these debates it was brought up by someone, in a rude way, that the Moons should retire their protocols for killing mortals because all the other families agreed to various levels that it was wrong. The Moons at the debate shot back by pointing out the ways all the other families have inferior methodology to them.

I'm sure you've noticed by the tension between Compelor/Solstice and Charmer/Crescent but insulting another Collector's preferred methodology is like a button to instantly piss them off. It's a cultural thing and also, if you spent thousands of years doing something a specific way, someone doing it in a way you think is more annoying or inefficient or not as fun telling you you're wrong and how you're doing it is bad or dumb or whatever. I think it would make you really angry.

Anyways it kept escalating from simply insulting how the Moons do things to several members of each family throwing personal insults and one of them (I don't know who and I don't think that it actually matters that much) attacked another with a spell and it kind of exploded at that point. It only took a moment for several people from each family to die. The Debate was immediately ended and the survivors ran off to meet with the elders of their families.

The Moons did not hear anything from the other four families, but each of those families contacted each other and it was decided that the Moons were too dangerous, who knows what they would do to us if we stayed? If this family is leaving, then we should leave, we cannot possibly stand up against them by ourselves.

Meanwhile the Moons were going to concede. They never wanted to harm other Collectors. But when they went to contact the other families, they found the Archives of all the other families missing or abandoned. So their methods have gone uncontested for hundreds of thousands of years now, which is why they're so much more extreme.

[3liza]

Discussion of more or less cortisol in C-PTSD and PTSD might be hard to follow if you're not a big nerd but here's a passage from this 2024 paper that sort of outlines the issues:

Cortisol findings in PTSD are not as clear cut as they may appear at first glance. As nicely reviewed in (Sbisa et al., 2023), which discussed 17 studies reporting cortisol findings, alterations in cortisol and HPA activity have been reported, but directionality of these alterations is not clear cut. 9 of these studies showed decreased cortisol in PTSD, 6 showed no significant difference, 1 showed elevated cortisol, and 1 showed mixed results when compared to controls (Sbisa et al., 2023).

For example, one study showed decreased cortisol predicted PTSD symptom severity at 6 weeks and 6 months post trauma (Mouthaan et al., 2014). Conversely, Walsh and colleagues found elevated cortisol measured within 72 h of rape correlated with increased PTSD symptoms at a 6 week follow up, but only in those without a prior history of assault (Walsh et al., 2013). It is important to note that those with a prior history of assault had lower cortisol at the 72-h mark when compared to those without a history of prior assault (Walsh et al., 2013). Thus, many studies on cortisol in PTSD have conflicting results.

so as a good illustration of the problems happening in research with this issue right now, the researchers are aware that "PTSD" as a blanket diagnosis is an issue but still don't seem to be separating patient groups into "people who got PTSD from a single incident of trauma or a limited traumatic exposure to unusual circumstances (regular PTSD, like combat or natural disaster survivors)" vs "people who got PTSD from twenty years of consistent abuse in a dysfunctional household or were in an abusive relationship for long enough that it became normalized (C-PTSD)". the phrase I emphasized in the quoted passage notes that a history of trauma predicts lower cortisol levels in the patients. it was observed that most people who had been traumatized before responded with low cortisol to new trauma, in other words. people who were having their first traumatic experience had high cortisol. this makes sense if you think of the body responding to trauma as either "what the fuck is going on" vs "ah lads not again".

but even though this paper came out in 2024 it doesn't use the term "C-PTSD". even though researchers in general are aware of C-PTSD, it doesn't seem to have become formally accepted into research frameworks yet so you have a million papers going "a lot of these trauma victims have low cortisol but others have high cortisol, what gives", which is very frustrating, but I'm not a researcher and I know there are various institutional processes and rules that make stuff like this happen. all patients with post traumatic syndromes are still being treated as if combat trauma in military personnel and a domestic violence survivor should have exactly the same symptoms and exactly the same response to treatment, which isn't the case. eventually this will get figured out but right now it is confusing the issue whenever you try to look up research about it.

anyway this is yet another reason all the Tiktok wellness shit about "decreasing cortisol" and using "stress hormones" as a bogeyman is complete bullshit. many, maybe most people who are trying to recover from trauma need MORE "stress hormones", not less

me personally, I have found that just becoming aware that this was happening to me was very helpful. if I know I am enjoying a crisis situation and feel healthier specifically because something is going wrong in my brain, and not because it is objectively good to be in crisis, or objectively good and correct to be abused or exploited, that's a useful calibration for me. it allows me to explain my seemingly contradictory feelings and also to understand that the usual "trust your body" advice is completely useless to me and can be safely ignored. actually I did listen to my body, and my body is telling me to run into the nearest burning building so I can feel normal for once.

the ability to handle emergencies calmly and with superhuman focus is a skill that is extremely useful to everyone involved in the emergency. I owe it my life, and other people probably also owe my dysfunctional HPA axis their life. this is kind of a bummer but does neatly illustrate how humans function as a group of contributing individuals to overall survival, and how adaptations like this not only benefit the victim but also the people around them as they are able to cooly organize a crisis or not panic when life threatening emergencies occur. kind of neat to think about

big fan of characters who have it all under control when theyre put in situations but no idea how to be like a regular guy doing regular stuff when all is said and done.