#about measuring self worth w outside validation

[skitskatdacat63]

I feel uninspired and lack motivation for art again so I thought of an ask game for me :)

Send me(or comment) a number from 1-34 and I will draw my corresponding oc

I mentally struggled over whether I should make this post, because ik ocs are niche and probably not many people care for it, but I realized I could have been using those hours to y'know. Actually draw something. So I might as well just post it

[agent-cupcake]

can i ask what kind of person the reader in the story w claude is supposed to be? im pretty sure this was just me misreading stuff but at first i kind of got the image that they're like a competent assassin kind of person (like really unlike how it usually is in reader inserts) but then they were so devoted to claude and in the second part at first i assumed they were like, smart or cunning enough to keep up with yuri at least but then they seemed shy around him and there were also implications that claude manipulated either the reader or the reader and yuri as well but i didn't fully pick up on that and still cant really see it? which btw isnt bcus of the way u wrote it at all, im pretty sure its deadass just me being socially inept but like idk the readers personality to me seems pretty hard to nail down, esp because initially i thought they were maybe just more vulnerable around claude but when yuri showed up later on they also seemed kind of 'weak' around him so i think i might've just gotten a wrong first impression, or was this on purpose? u dont have to answer this ofc if u don't want to!! i think its really just me being kind of dumb but im kinda having a hard time with it lol

No!!! You’re not dumb at all! I will willingly admit that you’re right in saying the reader’s personality is dreadfully inconsistent, that’s on me 100%.. you don’t need to put yourself down to feed my ego, what you’re saying is a totally valid critique!

So now that I’ve so graciously accepted your adorable criticism, I am going to make excuses... Sorry... Anyway, the best one I can muster to explain the inconsistency for that is that I wrote the first part last... January? I think. I was working on it last Christmas. I mentioned it in an ask before, but Alethia was very specifically a one-shot, I had no follow-up plans and honestly, I didn’t even mentally structure any ideas about what could happen afterwards. Generally, that’s how I write because I don’t think even a half step in front of myself. So, because of that, when I was writing Dolos, I didn’t really go in with the intention of writing with the same character because that “character” was never meant to exist outside that particular story, I was using a reactionary stand-in to suit the story I concocted and some vague ideas I had about how what Claude did would have affected her. 

If I wanna start pulling some even cheaper excuses, I can try and say that Claude’s horrible breach of trust made her far more insecure than she would have been beforehand. Trust issues, insecurity, emotionally unstable... Basically, just a lot more vulnerable. He kinda destroyed something she saw as the measure of her self worth and weaponized her loyalty and affection for him, destabilizing two key components of how she defined herself. Yuri’s arrival made it worse because he and Claude are pretty similar. My thought process was that if there was one other person that would have seemed like a threat to her at that moment, it would be Yuri. Both positively and negatively, Yuri represented the flip side of what Claude was to her, so that’s kind of why I played up her nervousness/insecurity/doubt around him? But you’re still right because I don’t really know if that’s how the character from Alethia would have reacted, that’s the character I found interesting for this story. 

As far as the manipulation game, the idea was that Claude also viewed Yuri as the flip side of himself. Or, like, his alternative counterpart. Yuri’s the one who wears eye makeup and listens to alt pop punk music. Their dialogue in the DLC when they’re standing in Abyss together is one of my favorites because they’re both sneaky secretive sneaks who have a weakness for friendship monologues, drawing a pretty easy parallel between them. The reason I retconned that reader had carried a small torch (a match, if you will) for Yuri when they first met, before she and Claude were a Thing, was to set up the dynamic of possible interest. Not so much jealousy, but a precedent that the reader would already have a weakness for Yuri that Claude knew about. The whole situation was convoluted, I know, but basically, Claude was all-in betting on the fact that reader would fall prey to Yuri’s charms only to get fucked up guilt about it because, surprise, surprise, he’s not above weaponizing her emotions against her. You know, again.

Ultimately, I wouldn’t say most of the things I do with insert characters is on purpose, I create a personality to fit within the story I want to write without much interest in how they would exist independently. I will be the first to admit that it’s cheap and kind of lazy, so I’m sorry for confusing you. But... at the same time... I’m probably not going to stop. 

To me, reader insert fanfiction is like the dark rides at Disneyworld. But, like, with more dicks and fewer scary animatronics. 

I hope this cleared things up for you, or at least does a good job explaining why you’re not dumb, I’m just a hack fraud

[rose-red-ink]

Shadows and Thrones, Chapter 2

Here’s chapter 2! Finally getting some answers! Hope you all enjoy. 

Chapter 2

Kaia was the first to speak. “Um, is this some sort of stupid beginner’s quest?” she asked with a scoffing laugh. But there was a nervous edge to it, a sense of unease I picked up.

Adrius shook his head. “No, this is outside the jurisdiction of the game’s developers.” he said calmly. “I’ve hacked the game to keep you all inside.”

I just stared. “W-what do you mean?” I asked. My voice came out thin and weak, and I hated myself for it.

Adrius’s brown eyes met mine, and something seemed to spark behind them. But his attention quickly shifted.

“Why are you doing this?!” Lorson snarled. I looked over. He was bristling with anger, fists clenched and shaking.

Adrius smiled, perfectly calm and ordinary, and that was when it hit me why I felt so unsettled. He was so generic. Newbie level armor, default hair and eye color...if he had the technical prowess to lock us all in a VR game, why wasn’t he decked out in elaborate armor and riding a dragon over our heads?

“Isn’t this a beautiful world?” he asked, looking up at the sunset-stained sky. “But what is it that really makes a world beautiful?”

He turned to us, as if expecting an answer, but we all just stared. I wasn’t sure where he was going. I almost didn’t want to know.

His smile grew. “The people. The individuals who make up the world are those that make it truly beautiful. And here, in this world, you all are the best you could ever be. You’re better than what you would ever be in the real world, and until we can make you perfect in that world too, you’ll stay here.”

I frowned. “What are you--”

“Bastard!” Lorson jumped to his feet. “Who are you to say--to decide that--”

Edun shoved him out of the way. He marched up to Adrius, and started gesturing furiously with his hands.

Adrius looked to Edun’s hands, to his enraged expression, then back to us.

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I-I am afraid I don’t--”

Edun looked down at his hands, making a frustrated growl. “You have no right.” his voice rumbled low. “No right at all, to measure our worth.”  

I frowned. Those gestures he was making...they were ASL, right? Did that mean…?

Lorson picked himself up from the ground. “I didn’t get to see the birth of my niece thanks to you.” his voice was frigid, expression like stone.

Adrius had backed up from Edun, who had stopped signing and was glaring at the hacker with open contempt.

Adrius gulped. “Well, it isn’t as if you could have seen her birth, and that chat system means you can still--”

Lorson moved faster than I could comprehend, launching himself from the steps and swinging at Adrius.

Adrius was stoic as the fist connected with his cheek. He didn’t even stagger. “Satisfied?” the hacker asked.

“Not until you drop dead, you piece of--”

“What will it take?”

My voice came out shaking and pitched, but loud. Loud enough for everyone to take pause and look over.

Adrius raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

I gulped, trying to keep my voice steady, which wasn’t easy. I kept my eyes trained on the stone steps, too afraid to look up at the man who was imprisoning us here. Hot tears were threatening to spill, and I felt my throat closing up. Some bizarre section of my mind marveled at how the developers had managed to stimulate the feeling of crying in VR.

“How can we prove that you’re not right? That we’re all just as valid in the real world?” I forced myself to look up, to meet his eyes.

“You can’t.” he said softly. And it was that, that softness, that pity, that lit the spark. The spark that burned away the fear and replaced it with anger.

Because that stupid, worthless sentiment was all I got when I returned from the hospital. Sneers I could take, they were bearable. But this pity, the awkward pats on the shoulder and the “how are you feeling”s, with no intent to actually listen to anything that wasn’t false optimism and promises of recovery.

I sprang to my feet, marching up to Adrius, to whoever was stupid and cowardly enough to hide behind a bland face and self-righteous ideals.

“Not good enough.” I snapped. “Whatever you think you’re doing, for the good of us, or the world, or whatever, you have to know you’re wrong.”

He frowned, tried to protest. I held up a hand.

“Okay, fine, then you have to know there’s a possibility that you’re wrong.” I didn’t let my gaze drop. “Let us prove it.”

Adrius looked away first, taking a couple uneasy steps backwards.

I felt my rage drain away, and my courage went with it. I felt like shaking, like taking back everything I’d said. I had just yelled at the man who could be holding my life in his hands, at the very least my freedom.

But there was still a smoldering spark somewhere deeper, a part of me that didn’t regret my words in the slightest.

Adrius looked around at us all. “I wouldn’t be...opposed to the notion.” he said hesitantly. “Though I’m not sure how you could--”

“Make us how we are in the real world.” Kaia spoke up.

I turned. She wasn’t openly snarling her words, but the anger was still there, burning behind her golden eyes.

Adrius frowned. “I don’t--”

“I’m paralyzed from the waist down.” Kaia said bluntly. “So change my avatar to reflect that. And the same for all of us, if they agree. We beat the game as we are in the real world, and then you let us go.”

Edun and Lorson paused, but nodded. Everyone’s eyes turned to me.

I hesitated. “I don’t...that is, I don’t think you could quite…”

Adrius nodded. “Right. So how about this.”

He turned to Edun. “Deafness.”

Then to Lorson. “Blindness.”

Then his gaze settled on me. “As for you...how about this? Every time you avatar dies, you lose all your levels and experience points. Your items, feats, skill trees, all wiped back to zero.”

I gulped. If I died right before we defeated a boss...I could seriously handicap the group. But I didn’t have much of a choice. I nodded teresely.

He gave a cynical smile. “Try not to throw yourself off any cliffs.”

My stomach dropped, and I could only stare. How…?

His gaze travelled around the group. “Your disabilities should be setting in soon. You have two years starting tomorrow. Defeat the game, and you’ll be set free. If you fail to complete it in that time, then my point will stand. You’ll be back to being your best selves, until we can find a way to fix you in the real world.”

“Hold on, two years isn’t nearly long enough!” Lorson protested.

“I finished my first MMO in that time.” he said calmly. “And to be frank, you’re not in much of a place to negotiate.

His eyes travelled around the group, a small, smug smile resting on his lips. “Best of luck.”

His avatar disappeared.

There were a few minutes of silence. Twilight had almost arrived, the sun a bloody remnant on the horizon.

Kaia gasped, her legs buckling under her. Lorson blinked rapidly, shaking his head.

Edun sighed, staring at the horizon, before leaning down to pick up Kaia in his arms.

Lorson gritted his teeth. “We should find somewhere to spend the night.” he said. “I’m exhausted, night monsters will be coming out soon. And we need to figure out how we’re going to do any of this.”

I nodded, then realized. “Oh, um, yeah, we should.”

He hesitated. “Can I take your arm? I’ll figure something out soon, but for now, please make sure I don’t run over any cats or anything.”

I placed my arm under his hand. “Of course.”

Kaia sighed, looking towards him. “Sorry, Edun. We can find something for me too.”

Edun shrugged, but smiled down at her.

We found a tavern, and rented out a room. We tried to halfheartedly come up with some ideas, but we were all too overwhelmed and tired to come up with much. We decided to save it until morning.

I buried myself under the covers. Maybe the developers could log us out. Maybe we’d be free soon, maybe this hacker would slip up.

Maybe I would open my eyes and be back in my own bed, my own body.

It was that thought that got me through the night, and finally let my eyes slip shut.

[alazada]

Information being objective is preferable by most to its being subjective – we trust objective information more easily because we think it reflects the facts and we want to think that we are getting the real, actual facts to form our own opinion, or to mirror the so called objective fact in our opinion and call it our own. However, true objectivity is impossible to reach in non-numerical data, all information passes through at least one human observer, us ourselves if not any middlemen. Even numbers can be manipulated and presented according to a person’s preexisting opinions, often without noticing. The natural sciences are not objective either: the data is read through the researcher’s lens and usually serves the purposes of a group. Research contains gender, racial, cultural, or other forms of bias. But we still value objectivity and consider it an ideal to strive to in our accounts, and we decide who is objective and who is subjective when acquiring information, and make up our minds accordingly. However, as everything involving human interaction, the way we evaluate objectivity is not neutral; it is political.

We tend to consider ourselves more objective than others if we do not consciously hold a bias, or at least we trust our objectivity easier than the objectivity of others, as we would know if we were not being objective. This leads to two things: first, we are more inclined to believe the words of people similar to us, because they are probably more objective. Second, we tend to disregard the societal influences on our ideas of objectivity.

Let’s explore the example of gender. We associate manhood with objectivity, or rather womanhood with emotional responses and a lack of logical thinking, while it has beenproven scientifically that there is no such thing as a male brain or a female brain, that women are socialized from childhood to be more empathetic and perform emotional labor while men are socialized to avoid displays of emotion and are not taught to perform empathy the same way women are, and that there is no significant difference between logical thinking of men and women. Still, we associate womanhood with emotional responses and second-guess women’s opinions or narratives of women, we do not consider them to be accurate and lived accounts but tainted with emotion and therefore subjective and therefore not worth considering in the so called real world. But the real world (laws, social policies, attitudes towards women) directly impacts the experiences women have navigating the said world, and it is only natural that their voices should be a driving force in shaping it, for example in issues like reproductive health. But then, the issue of subjectivity arises: according to the dominant narrative, a woman (or someone affected directly by a problem) cannot be trusted to opine or legislate on it because they cannot be objective(as it affects them directly).

But then, the dominant narrative of objectivity holds the opposite of this true as well. People outside the dominant narrative, for example, people from outside the Western world, or minorities in a country, or very young people, or very old people, cannot offer an objective account of the dominant narrative and therefore cannot be trusted. To give a concrete example: I cannot be trusted in issues about Turkey because I must be biased, as I am from there and I am a member of the ethnic majority there, and so on. But then, I cannot talk about American politics, because I am not from there, and same goes with Europe. This makes me think that the problem is actually about me, since some people can very well talk about their own countries (I don’t think I ever heard someone be told that they cannot talk about Switzerland since they are Swiss, that is, with conviction and in a serious discussion, as a random example), and then they can use their objective outsider perspectives to make objective and true declarations about countries they have nothing to do with, enlightening locals and other foreigners alike. I am sure the locals appreciate your objective perspective based on a few readings and a week-long trip (or even years of study, as these are not really what we use when classifying narratives), and want to thank you for rescuing them from the crushing subjectivity for spending a lifetime in their own country, from having a complicated and nuanced experience that can only be expressed in a complicated and nuanced narrative, and sometimes being unable to just walk away from the country because of their deep ties. As it seems, voices outside the dominant narrative are subjective no matter what, and voices from within are automatically objective due to the virtue of not being marginalized or holding any actual stake in the conversation. Of course dominance is highly contextual, but in most given discussions it seems to work like this.

To deepen the personal example, I (and when I say I, I don’t mean just I, I know many people experience this, but I will speak for myself for now) am not trusted on many issues about Turkey because I may be subjective about it. Which is, to this day, odd to me because it encompasses several assumptions: it assumes that I am not able to make the correct decision for myself based on the information I encounter, which is infantilizing and condescending in itself. It assumes that I am incapable of reaching accurate information based on the press freedom limitations in my country, which is honestly insulting as I was 8 when I learned how to use anonymous proxy filters to access banned websites, and 12 when I learned to change my DNS settings and use VPN’s – not out of interest but more out of necessity. I think I am capable of using my English skills (I am proficient – I even have IELTS scores to prove it) and my Turkish-citizen-starter-pack tech skills to access information. Moreover, I can access information in Turkish provided by dissidents and independent sources, and even by non-independent sources, so that I have an idea of what all sides are thinking (and somehow not believe everything I see!). I do not have the luxury of considering being available in English as a measure of worth when it comes to information, thankfully. And then the last assumption, or rather conviction is that the direct impact of the issues we are discussing on my life are negligible or somehow a hindrance to a pure logical discussion. The truth is – you can go on with your life without remembering my country exists. There are millions of people who live and die without even learning anything about my country. I cannot do that. I can move away and have a life elsewhere but I will always be carrying the country with me, and I will have a level of attachment to there. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s complicated, but it shapes most interactions I have. Additionally, I most probably cannot go on with my life ignoring your country as well, as its policies influence my country and my life.

The next time you feel like telling someone that they’re not capable of talking about their own country because they must be brainwashed, please consider that you’re assuming they’re incapable of assessing their own situation – usually some kind of Orientalist assumption that the Oriental peoples are incapable of self awareness and self determination. You are assuming their critical thinking skills are not as developed as yours. Also, people of all countries may be manipulated and brainwashed to an extent about their country through childhood and education, and most people put effort into unlearning this. I know that I personally had to question and reconsider many things I was taught in school and reached different conclusions, and so did many people I know. This is a real effort one has to make, and it is important to recognize this before writing someone off as being brainwashed. I would not claim to have more insight about the functioning of French society even if I studied France extensively, because I did not grow up here and can only learn about some aspects instead of living through them and observing firsthand. I may have a different perspective based on my own experience and origin, but I would not claim to be more objective and therefore a more reliable source on France.

I’m definitely not saying only the citizens of a country should be able to speak about it, of course not. But the problem begins when we start ascribing this title of “objective” to outsider voices, and “subjective” to insiders, and go on to only considering the objective as legitimate. The insider voice isn’t necessarily subjective, but more importantly, especially in the social sciences, subjective is not inherently less valuable and less valid. A subjective voice is colored by personal experience and even reflects what an (objective!) ethnographic study can reflect. I find it important to listen to a variety of subjective voices and construct a narrative combining them, considering the reasons for differences in these narratives and experiences. The fact of not being from a country can have its own subjectivity, as your information will be either from research that’s been through other people’s lenses already, or what you can observe as an outsider with an inevitable gap in context. We should stop considering objective and subjective as adjectives evaluating the validity of a narrative, or as inherent traits, and start questioning the reasons behind our classifications, and the selectivity in our application of this framework. Let’s learn from subjective insider accounts, and place the outsider accounts in their own context of being an outsider, perhaps being from a globally dominant perspective or having a different worldview. Everyone’s accounts of the same topic will be colored by their individual circumstances, but some colors are considered default while others are marginalized with the title of “subjective” and everything it carries – and we need to change the way we think about objectivity.

[biofunmy]

New Rating System for Charities Aims to Measure Impact of Gifts

It has become the holy grail of philanthropy: measuring the impact of a charitable contribution. Donors don’t want their money misused or used less effectively than it could be, but how can impact be measured?

A new rating system, Impact Matters, is aiming to do just that. It rates similar nonprofit groups across an array of areas, all with an eye toward impact. The first wide-scale batch of 1,078 ratings were released on Friday, ahead of the holiday giving season.

Donors want an answer to a principal question: “Which nonprofit is spending their money wisely?” said Elijah Goldberg, executive director of Impact Matters. “We wanted to understand the impact in a quantitative, rigorous way. We went out to solve this problem.”

Impact Matters, which is based in Manhattan, looks at how much good an organization achieves per dollar. For example, a group that provides a meal for $2 when the cost in the area is $4 will get a higher rating than a similar group that provides a meal in that area for $5.

There are already well-established charity rating systems. But Mr. Goldberg, who founded Impact Matters with Dean Karlan, a Northwestern University economics professor who taught Mr. Goldberg at Yale, said the other ratings did not measure impact as maximizing a donor’s dollar.

Guidestar collects nonprofit groups’ tax forms, known as 990s, and makes searching for financial information easy. Charity Navigator uses the amount of money a charity spends on overhead as a crucial metric in rating a charity’s effectiveness.

GiveWell takes a more exacting approach, naming top charities based on how much good an additional dollar will do. Then there are crowdsourced sites like Great Nonprofits.

All have their defenders and detractors. How much a charity spends on overhead is important but tells a limited story. A small list of top charities may isolate ones that do the most good, but some donors may want a larger set of options.

Impact Matters is trying to highlight an apples-to-apples comparison of organizations in a sector, like food or health care. It contends that its approach will direct more money to the charities that have the most impact in their fields while pushing laggards to step things up.

Several philanthropic advisers questioned the usefulness of an impact measurement focused on individual organizations when problems like hunger require many different approaches.

“Giving for impact is critical, but it’s not the only driver for philanthropy,” said Dianne Chipps Bailey, national philanthropy strategy executive at Bank of America. “The most interesting question in measuring impact today is getting beyond this framework of efficiency and effectiveness to embrace advocacy, and shifting fundamental attitudes to make commitments that will endure over a long time.”

This requires many nonprofit groups to take on the same issue — say, hunger in a single neighborhood — from different directions, Ms. Bailey said.

“If you’re just looking at the cost of each meal provided, you’re missing the broader point about why that meal should be provided,” she said. “Why isn’t it being prepared in affordable and safe housing that is the person’s own?”

A Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism study released on Wednesday interpreted impact differently. It found that the biggest current motivation for affluent individuals to give was the fractured political climate’s impact on services. Forty percent said they were driven by the political climate to give more; wealthy donors in the next-largest group, 26 percent, said they were motivated to give more by economic conditions.

“The clients we deal with are allocating more dollars to complex issues,” said Beth Renner, national director of philanthropic services at Wells Fargo. “With complexity comes difficulty achieving success.”

Finding a simple way to rate charities that are dealing with complex problems is challenging. Impact Matters said it had abandoned a more involved framework and replaced it with a five-star rating system.

“Moving one at a time, we realized we were never going to get to philanthropy writ large,” Mr. Goldberg said. “But we could use the same tools and get to more philanthropists using publicly available data without the one-on-one core analysis.” The current rating system is much less labor intensive than the earlier one.

Mr. Goldberg said the goal was to help donors at least find the top nonprofit groups in eight areas where impact could be measured: veterans, clean water, homelessness, health, poverty, hunger, education and climate change.

“What we did was introduce a benchmark for each outcome,” he said. “In some ways, our estimates are better because we do 300 food banks and soup kitchens at once.”

In the first batch, 59 percent received five stars, 28 percent four stars, 13 percent three stars and just one a single star, for reporting improprieties. (Two-star ratings, which will appear in future releases as Impact Matters rates more charities, are reserved for groups that have haven’t reported enough information.)

The number of high marks raises the issue of inflated ratings. Are the ratings worth the effort if most nonprofits score a five?

“It’s reflective of the fact that these groups are doing good,” Mr. Goldberg said. Plus, Impact Matters still has tens of thousands of charities to rate.

For organizations on the receiving end, a high ranking is welcome and can help them stand out.

Sightsavers, which works internationally to help prevent blindness and advocate for people who are blind, received five stars. Caroline Harper, the British organization’s chief executive, said that it had long worked on self-evaluation but that the rating gave it outside validation.

“We’re not as well known as I’d like us to be,” she said. “It’s just another thing that builds our reputation.”

That has already happened with D-Rev, which develops medical devices like prosthetic knees and lamps to cure jaundice in newborns. It is already seeing the benefit of the earlier iteration of the ratings, which were given a limited release.

“It grew our audience,” said Sara Tollefson, D-Rev’s director of impact. “We have new donors around the world. People have reached out to me since.”

Dianne Calvi, chief executive of Village Enterprise, which works with entrepreneurs in Africa, was cautious in her praise of the rating system, even though her organization received five stars.

“It’s hard for a rating system to be perfect,” she said. “Donors have to figure out where to put their money. Otherwise, they’re just listening to the nonprofit and don’t have a way to compare it to another nonprofit.”

The nonprofit groups that have received fewer than five stars are worried. Liz Plachta, who founded Ruby’s Rainbow to help young adults with Down syndrome, said she didn’t understand why her organization had received four stars. She said she worried that the rating would hurt her fund-raising and ability to support programs for teenagers with Down syndrome seeking higher education.

“I guess a four out of five is O.K., but we’re so passionate about what we do and very little goes to overhead,” she said. “We rely on people to believe in us and know that we’re authentically doing what we do. I don’t want someone looking at that and saying, ‘Why are they a four and not a five?’”

For most donors, though, impact is just one measure. Ms. Bailey said having an objective source was a better option.

“Most high-net-worth philanthropists, 71 percent, are relying on the organizations they’re giving to,” she said, “to tell them if they’re having impact.”

Sahred From Source link Business

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[hersmilingeyes]

Emotionally draining, emotionally drained

I have done my share to contributed to these feelings

I always do, even fer myself

I can’t always tell how much are due to my own self-destructive efforts and how much are the side effects of being close enough to someone where if they hurt you, it truly stings and resonates in ways that fuck you up

Cause you to reflect and reassess deeply

Take drastic measures to recover, regulate, resume a sense of stable n healthy normalcy

Yet I’m left to wonder what that looks like fer me and if I have ever achieved it

I have put into practice being unconditional regardless of feelings, and know I’m at least capable to some degree to feel like I can do it if I strive to apply myself

But it’s something you inevitably have to feel out to assess yer progress.

Avoiding doing so inevitably puts off the feeling in hopes it’ll diminish—something I’ve tried to negotiate within myself but it ultimately surfaces

It inevitably hurts

I can’t pretend it doesn’t or it won’t.

I can’t pretend my feelings don’t affect me:

And it fucks me up.

Bc I’m also v stubborn.

I’ll feel how I feel until I understand fer myself that I’m done, and I won’t rush it

Don’t know how to rush it either

Don’t know how let go, or know when to

My dedication can be to my detriment, but I don’t know how to call it,

If it’s more responsible to call it.

I have been feeling especially depleting, depleted, and vulnerable.

My coping has been sleep, eating/not eating, smoking herb, distracting myself w Netflix and spending a lot of my downtime on my own.

Only selectively hanging out, but only agreeing to—rarely reaching out as I would normally.

I can feel the walls I’ve built to buffer me from life’s external emotions—which isn’t fair but sometimes necessary

No one is outwardly judging me on this but I am judging myself:

I haven’t been the friend I want to be to many people, the friend I believe my loved ones deserve

Been having an existential crisis w intimacy, and how much / to what degree I let others in

Been real fucked up about my capacity fer closeness, especially in hopes of it ever developing into something more

Been feeling my own autonomy lately, what I enjoy about It and the things i simply prefer to share

Been processing my needs//desires to express my feelings in their full capacity in order to convey how much anyone matters to me, and how much of that is my own need to feel validated by it—to feel and be able to explore a new level of closeness openly and without fear of anyone shutting down, closing off

Change is inevitable, but /how/ is something I am currently coping through

The change I’m undergoing through is addressing a lot of old patterns, a lot of patterns that hadn’t served me aside from trying to control the process, control the feelings, control the outcome

Trying to control these things hasn’t really eliminated them, though

I am not coping any better

I am more aware, but I am no less destructive to myself or others

I volley back and forth between external anger and overall upsetness to internalizing what it must be like to deal w me

And ultimately feeling even more at a loss bc I wouldn’t put up w me

Mostly bc it’s me, not the reasoning why

I have greater patience fer others than I do fer myself

I wouldn’t even consider it putting up w others, bc that’s not how I see it

But this is one of my double standards

I don’t know what to do w it, aside from let it go bc it does not serve me.

Folx, friends, and fam will put up w as much as they feel like and that’s their choice

That’s up to them, despite my active pushing away

I honestly don’t feel like I deserve it

I do a lot of this to myself

I judge my own behavior

And I rule myself out

I justify these thoughts w the personally narrative that they’re better off without me

I keep to myself about my feelings

When they slip past me, I feel bad fer how I feel—what I feel like I put people thru

This is no more satisfying, but it’s my go to bc when I can no longer blame others, i blame myself

I’m causing all this pain bc I’m hurting and I don’t know how to resolve it fast enough

I leave little room fer anyone to know how to reach me

Let alone, continue to be close to me

I am aware of what I’m doing and how haphazard it is but I don’t know how to resolve it without feeling I’m making all the effort myself

That I need to change in order fer situations to improve

That I need to adapt in order to feel better

Which ultimately boils down that I am the cause of my own pain

Even though other people have done things that hurt me and that’s just what it is

I don’t know what I want from that

Do something that shows me yer trying is vague and doesn’t do justice to effort being made already

Do something that I can understand as effort

Give me what I need

These are important things to recognize, while also realizing how selfish and unrealistic they inevitably are

I feel so fucked up bc people do put forth effort and I just shut it down

I don’t always know how to receive it and sometimes it just doesn’t make a difference

Especially when I deeply identify w how I’m feeling // how ingrained it is in my narrative as how I understand myself

I don’t specifically choose it, but inevitably do whenever I identify w my feelings exclusively

How I feel becomes who I am they are so deeply entwined

I have yet to figure out how to separate

How to refrain from internalizing, esp in my longer and more intimate relationships

I have this unrealistic standard that after a long enough time, people should know better and therefore when I am hurt by them, it feels that much more personal

That someone should know me well enough to know how to not hurt me, and then not hurt me

Like that’s something you can truly ask//expect from anyone

Especially folx you let in and experience yer vulnerabilities

It’s unrealistic

But I’m awful stubborn about it regardless bc I don’t want to hurt

I know this doesn’t prevent more hurt but it does allow me to feel some sense of control

I’m hurt and this is what I’m doing about it kind of thing

Not to say that not being hurt is effortless, but when I do that, what happens to the hurt?

Is it absolved or forgotten about?

Is it worth hanging onto?

If it happens again, will it be easier?

Will it be easier bc I’m being more complacent or bc I’ve grown and healed?

I realize I’m at a point where I’m actively pushing many of the people I’m closest to away on the ground that I don’t know the answers to those questions

There is also a hyper vigilance that I’m not simply complying to cause less friction

I don’t want to foster the notion that friction is a healthy thing to maintain in order to understand my relationships to people

I’m not looking to challenge things unnecessarily

I will get lost in certain narratives and fixated on how others validate how i already feel about myself—even if unknowingly

I will attribute things that don’t reflect how i want or need them to be as reinforcing the narrative

Someone is always reinforcing the narrative, it’s just a matter of who

There are certain feelings so deeply ingrained in me that I understand them to be part of me

When it comes to rooting out and letting go of what no longer serves me, what may very well never as served me as a coping mechanism,

I feel distressed at the fact that I am changing, that I need to change in order to feel better

That someone else’s behavior can upset me so deeply and in order to recover from it, I need to change—if only fer my mental health to improve

But it does a number on my mental health recognizing the necessity of this change, that i need to change at all

Esp when someone else caused such a disruption in me

Dismantling my previous coping mechanisms as ineffective and therefore irrelevant

Challenging me ultimately when I’m not always in a place to be challenged more

I try to find respite in the saying, “Life only gives you as much as you can handle,” but I haven’t been the most stable to handle it

I haven’t been handling it well aside from keeping myself functional enough to maintain my responsibilities

I’m actively surviving, and doing anything more feels taxing even if it could make a difference overall

I am so exhausted that there isn’t much incentive outside of trying to figure out how to best maintain and honor my intimacies w people, recognizing that my feelings are not in a vacuum, and that everyone is having their own life experience in this and being affected in their own way.

Meaning that the cycle of pain continues as I hold onto and identify w this pain

How to redirect is still something I am working out without feeling like I’m losing myself to someone else’s decisions

Esp when they don’t reflect what I’d choose

And the double standard in that

As I simultaneously hope that I don’t succeed in pushing the ones I love away indefinitely

I keep eliminating myself from the equation thinking it’ll be easier bc I am still learning how to live, and value that choice

I have always distanced myself thinking it’d be easier to cope

Then I could handle my feelings however I needed to find relief and not hurt anyone but myself

That’s what I’ve thought all along

I’m still learning to value my presence—no matter what may come.

To be here fer it, and allow others to be when they choose to, and to not second-guess why

That’s the irony, I am so familiar w how I feel that I catch myself going to strange lengths to feel it

I’ve made the feeling so real that not feeling it feels artificial

I’m fighting w myself after I’ve pushed everyone away

Bc the friction is still there

The ways in which I’m hard on myself replaces any challenge shared

When they happen to exist simultaneously, i find myself shutting down

Coping w vices and avoiding bc I cannot stand how I’m feeling, I cannot stand myself, and I don’t know how to recover fast enough

What parts to change, despite feeling an experience change me—even if fer the better

I can’t seem to change rapidly enough to grow into who I am becoming, even if it’s who I’d hope to become

Fer who?

Fer me, first and foremost, but it’s hard to feel that way when it’s inspired by the results of someone else’s influence

The most comforting piece from today was this mantra I heard in a podcast I was listening to:

“I am not the body, I am not even the mind. Bc it is mine, but it is not me.”

The same goes fer feelings—I am not my feelings. My feelings are mine but they are not me.

I need to be reminded of this, as I am quick to identify and determine my life based off of how I feel

Especially since I determine a lot of my life based off of how i feel

It’s not foolproof but I contribute a lot of my positive progress to my intuition, my feelings

But identifying so much w this progress doesn’t leave me a lot of room to adapt to much beyond what patterns I’ve grown to anticipate

Leaving what often tends to be a battle of the egos

One ego determines something that requires an override of the other ego, and the other ego has to choose to agree to this or maintain ego

And I hate that conundrum

Bc it’s in the ego’s best interest to maintain its sense of self

Ego aside, the fear of losing oneself to someone else’s way of life and preferences is a legitimate concern

I never want to feel dominated by someone else’s life choices, shaped by their decisions

It taps into not only my sense of control but my desire to feel like I have any

A reiteration of hyper-vigilance

These coping mechanisms are what I’ve always done to feel any degree of control over whatever it is

Even if it does nothing more than create space from the distressed caused, and addressing what is distressing me

I am still learning how to address these things, bc I’m often reluctant to share any vulnerability at this point and sharing how I feel is vulnerable.

I don’t like being vulnerable when I already feel vulnerable so I often shut down

Sabotage

Self-destruct

Run away and avoid

I hate opening up about it that bad

I hate this

I hate feeling like I do

And it feeds into how I don’t know how anyone would choose to put up w me I literally can’t relate

Like, I would walk away from myself, and so I’m waiting fer you to

Looking fer that feeling to be validated by someone who can walk away so I can continue to identify w how I’m feeling

When how I’m feeling is not being the friend I need, nor the friend I want, fer myself or anyone else.

I am embodying what I fear most, and I contribute to it by feeding into it,

Believing it.

I cannot exist like this bc it is no longer feasible.

If I do not change, I am choosing to limit my existence.

And by limiting my existence, I become that much closer to snuffing it out bc I’m giving myself less and less to work with by stubbornly capping my efforts at disengage as I try to figure out how to improve

I’m tired

I’m so fucking tired

My own feelings deplete me, let alone the feelings others stir

I’m so desperate to keep afloat that I’m going to great lengths to get to the root of this

To grow

Expand

Hold more space

To not identify so much w my thoughts and feelings despite them being my main sources of context, of identity

What is integrity then?

How significant is it anymore or is it another factor of ego?

What else have I misunderstood?

How much of social mores are actually objective and how much are subjective?

Or are they another form of standardization bias?

Is it so wrong to get upset when social mores aren’t upheld?

Do social mores help or hinder healthy relationship standards?

What is a reasonable gauge to determine a healthy relationship dynamic when thoughts and feelings are deeply hurt?

More than once?

Over and over in similar ways?

This is where I struggle to relate to people bc I just do not understand this process.

I don’t understand this cycle and I haven’t determined how to escape it besides actively reminding myself that these thoughts and feelings are not me

Meaning if I do not identify w them, I can be freed from their limits

Whether or not this caters to my disassociation, I have no idea

But the concept brings me some form of relief

Especially since I don’t always feel safe in my thoughts, in my feelings...

...And I welcome the relief wholeheartedly