#also taking it feels like a chemical lobotomy

[sarahwatchesthings]

*Researching the mechanism of action of a new psych drug*

The internet every single time:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/most-transgender-kids-turn-out-to-be-gay-gender-affirming-care-conversion-therapy-58111b2e

Most ‘Transgender’ Kids Turn Out to Be Gay

Subjecting them to medical interventions is the modern-day version of ‘conversion therapy.’

By: Roy Eappen

Published: Dec 14, 2023

As a medical professional who happens to be gay, I’ll be celebrating Dec. 15, the 50th anniversary of the American Psychiatric Association’s decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. The longstanding designation was based on prejudice, not medical research, and the revision marked the beginning of the end for so-called conversion therapy, which sought to “cure” gays and lesbians of a nonexistent malady.

Half a century later, the medical establishment is pushing a new kind of conversion therapy under the guise of transgender identity. No one is suffering more than gay kids. In Canada, where I practice, and in the U.S., physicians provide what’s euphemistically known as “gender-affirming care” to patients as young as 8, and the leading transgender health association has opened the door to interventions at even earlier ages. Under this framework, those who feel uncomfortable with their bodies may receive a medical regimen including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex-change surgeries. These interventions typically stunt, remove or irreversibly modify a patient’s sexual development, genitals and secondary sex characteristics. Any endocrinologist or other physician who rejects this approach is alleged to be endangering the health and even the life of his patients.

But are these patients really “transgender”? Research shows that some 80% of children with “gender dysphoria” eventually come to terms with their sex without surgical or pharmaceutical intervention. Multiple studies have found that most kids who are confused or distressed about their sex end up realizing they’re gay—nearly two-thirds in a 2021 study of boys. This makes sense: Gay kids often don’t conform to traditional sex roles. But gender ideology holds that feminine boys and masculine girls may be “born in the wrong body.”

In this light, “gender-affirming care” looks a lot like conversion therapy. In the past, it took the form of electroshock therapy, chemical castration and even lobotomy. Now it takes the form of rendering teenagers sterile and sexually dysfunctional for life. Clinicians from the main U.K. transgender service referred to prescribing puberty blockers as “transing the gay away”—a play on the description of old-fashioned conversion-therapy as “praying the gay away.” A clinician who resigned from the U.K. service accused it of “institutional homophobia.” Clinicians at the service had a “dark joke” that “there would be no gay people left at the rate Gids”—the Gender Identity Service—“was going.”

Consistent with conversion therapy, physicians are telling young gays and lesbians that something is wrong with them, based on a regressive view of what it is to be male or female. Also consistent with previous efforts to cure homosexuality: The resulting interventions often create lifelong medical problems, both physical and mental. Contrary to advocates’ claims, there’s no evidence that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgeries reduce the risk of suicide.

Children who take this road face a lifetime of pain, infertility and anguish. They deserve real mental-health care to address common underlying comorbidities, not mind- and body-altering medical interventions that try to make them into something they aren’t.

Fifty years ago, the medical assault on homosexuals began to end. Now society has been told that accepting transgender identity is the same as accepting gays and lesbians. But it isn’t. Even well-intentioned acceptance of transgender identity disproportionately harms them. One day perhaps professional organizations like the Endocrine Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics will follow the evidence, as the APA did in 1973. Until then, gay kids will continue to suffer from an injustice that was supposed to end 50 years ago.

Dr. Eappen is a practicing endocrinologist in Montreal and a senior fellow at Do No Harm.

==

Reminder:

There's no such thing as "trans kid."

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

The River

Worldbuilding/Lore

<< Previous: Lyctorhood | Masterpost

-

So, okay, bear with me here. I think these people's brains are fundamentally different from ours. And I think their brains are spiritual matter, contained in a brain-shape and perhaps even anatomically so. There was talk of a temporal lobe, after all.

Mind you, memories don't just get stored in one place in the brain. The hippocampus is crucial for formation of memories and storing them short-term - for a few months, maybe. After that, I was told in my studies we don't quite know where they go - likely stored in different parts all over the brain, connected to associations.

One thing I do know, however, is that you can't physically see which parts of the brain relate to which memory. Knowing this from necromantic ability should be a skill even Mercymorn would struggle with. Harrow, a bone magician, knows she is not the best flesh magician, so she enlists Ianthe's help for her lobotomy. Ianthe, allegedly the best necromancer in her generation, is actually able to do an alright job, except for one part where Harrow does some herself. Have they found ways to look at memories through the brain? By all current available science, I would rate that fairly impossible. Either science has progressed wildly in this (possible, given the whole ass myriad and then some), or these brains are not the same.

I actually think brains in this are made from much the same matter that The River is. The River is clearly not of Alecto or John's invention. It was discovered somehow, and when they resurrected everyone, they basically found the revenants for the bodies, and just stuck them back in, literally; pockets - or bubbles - of River, containing the revenant exactly, replacing the goopy mess of dead brain in the body.

Now your brains are goopy messes of river, made to look like what you expect the brain to look like. Your perceptions, expectations and rules are important in the River - it makes sense that River/Revenant-brains would still be brain-shaped. It means the brain is more fluid than that, though; in the Lyctor's cases, one soul - one brain - "takes over".

(Doesn't really explain why Lyctors like God, Augustine and Mercymorn consistently have their cavalier's eyes - other than maybe it was just that that's what they were expecting.)

Ok, so I kinda think brains are parts of The River. Coherent as revenants, living in bodies. This would have been the case for the first people who were resurrected a myriad ago - so when they create babies, the baby's brain is also River water, for want of a better term? Therefore everyone's is? And Death, in this post-resurrection world, is just returning to the River proper?

It's a working theory.

The River is a physical place, and also kind of like sub-space. You can enter it, you can form pockets of meaning in there, you can hunt things in there and make wards. You can use it to travel quickly to destinations many lightyears away. It is a physical place, but also a spiritual one. It is, essentially, the brain matter of billions, jumbled together, increasing in entropy with depth, all the way down to the stoma, where you can enter full entropy and be reduced to particles, as I understand.

Did you know that some scientists use entropy to describe brain processes? Entropy increases in the brain as it responds to stimuli. The concept of entropy is necessary for explaining what goes on in the brain, an organ of trillions+ of possible configurations, changing moment by moment. And what happens physically in the brain is perceived by us through a range of associations and thoughts and feelings, which all look and feel very different to the electric charges zipping along nerve axons and synapses releasing chemicals to trigger a reaction in the next nerve along. Which is (a gross oversimplification of) what actually physically happens inside our brains, millionfold, every millisecond.

Hey wait a second though. The Central Nervous System also includes the spinal cord. Is this included in the RiverBrain package deal? What about peripheral nerves? Right, I'm gonna stop this here, it's already one hell of a rabbit hole.

So if I'm right, then brains are made of River, and River is made of Brains. Sub-space, physically traversible brains. If planets, if stars have a soul, the whole Universe has a soul. The River could a manifestation of the Universe's soul, its collective Brain, and it encompasses all once (and future?) living things. It's not in our plane of existence, but can be accessed physically and mentally.

The River might be the source of necromantic ability, and I think either John or Alecto figured out how to access it. I Just Don't Think You're Supposed To.

Ok, let's get into Characters next. Blorboposting incoming.

>> Next: Gideon Nav

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

In regards to Ishval potentially being framed as an equal power against Amestris in that ask about WWII;

It’s more obvious in Mangahood but there’s a detail about how Ishvalan soldiers are a lot more skilled than Amestrians due to their training; It was said 1 Ishvalan could take down 10 soldiers, something like that. And the idea was that this made Amestris resort to the State Alchemists to win, this was why Bradley signed order 3066.

And I can’t help but be reminded of how Vietnam veterans will talk about how scary it was to occupy a village because the viet cong boogeyman could be any one of the villagers! They would ‘hide’ among them and attack! So the Americans just HAD to raze down villagers to keep themselves safe!

Also IIRC there was a moment in the manga during the genocide flashback where some soldiers barge into an Ishvalan congregation, and the priest makes a prayer to Ishvala before he and all of the civilians blow themselves up. And we see a soldier scared and dying from the explosion from the perspective of our traumatized war criminal protagonist who was there, I forgot which one.

Y I K E S

"Ishvalan soldiers are a lot more skilled than Amestrians" Based

"1 Ishvalan could take down 10 soldiers" EXCEPTIONALLY BASED

Imperialists are pathetic in every way possible. Real world imperialists will cry and shit themselves about their precious veterans (may they die alongside their wretched nations) having "suffered" at the hands of resistance/guerilla fighters and I have to laugh. And of course when their foot soldiers can't wipe a people out, in come the chemical weapons, the endless missiles, the war planes, the horrifying array of bombs, the embargoes, and so forth. And still, they can lose. That's important to remember.

May every empire fall, and may its profiteers, politicians, its wealthy, its cops/militarymen suffer a hundred-fold as their classes one day disappear. And may liberation come to those who suffered the wars and the boots of these powers.

some soldiers barge into an Ishvalan congregation, and the priest makes a prayer to Ishvala before he and all of the civilians blow themselves up

I'm sorry WHAT

Arakawa. Arakawa, answer me. Why the fuck would you use the "evil muslims brown people do a suicide bombing in their mosque temple to harm the poor white soldiers" trope?! Are you fucking kidding me?

Awesome, so the prowess and strategies of the Ishvalans once again circles back to a racist caricature of the "powerful, merciless savages". Great. Fantastic. Cool.

Reading this manga is going to feel like a goddamned lobotomy

[let-me-iiiiiiiin]

I realized I'm not really all that great at describing smell, so I decided to make myself a guide about it.

Take it apart, Spongebob

1. Components

Smell is made up of chemicals but ALSO a bit of tactile sensation. The temperature of the thing you are smelling DOES play a role in its perception. This is proven true both in taste, smell, and touch— the absorbance of an experience ALWAYS affects the impression one gains from it.

Not only this, but AIR ITSELF has its own components apart from temperature: mainly, humidity. It is a huge part of sensation— do NOT tell me you've never scowled because of extra dry, sharp cold air in your nose. "Smell" in writing is not solely contained within the realm of "chemicals". It is simply anything to do with the receptors in your nose, which are also tactile as well as chemical. (As I said before, the "touch" component also gets lumped with the "smell" component to create an ultra fucked up super smell voltron.)

So without further ado, components of smell:

A) Temperature (Affected by both origin of smell AND environment)

B) Humidity (same as above)

C) Actual Smell (which is composite particles from the THING they're coming from)

And since this is a guide, I suppose I do need a more concrete analysis tool than "these are the ingredients."

Do a flowchart, Spongebob

2. Analysis

A) Is the source of smell spread-out, or concentrated?

Is it like petrichor (which, while it DOES have its source (the ground) is spread mostly evenly through the air) or is it like a flower (which has a concentrated point of origin (unless it's a flower MEADOW)).

B) What is the temperature?

Is it like smoke (hot)? Or is it like a snowfall (cold)? Or maybe it's room temperature idk. Is it warm like a newly slaughtered sacrifice? Is it cold like an frozen body? Is it warm like a flesh husk made home by fungi and insects and lush plant life? And when you think of those, I bet you can smell their temperature too.

C) How much liquid content?

Basically how much of that smell is made up of water (or other associated liquid). 10%?? 30%??? 80%???? If it's above 100% that's called "You are not smelling anything that's water and you are now choking." Blood should generally smell a bit humid, depending on its freshness (not that I've ever smelled blood but this is the imagination not reality). Snow should smell of different water content depending on the surrounding temperature— colder weather will make it smell more like ice than water, but also the humidity will make it smell warmer.

D) What is the flavor profile?

It doesn't help when you think of "What does it smell like?" because you can usually IMAGINE what it smells like, and there's no way in hell you're gonna be able to get that out into the world without really advanced lobotomy. Stop thinking of this in terms of "What does it smell like?" and start thinking "What OTHER THINGS smell like this?"

Smells are diverse. Smells are CLOSELY associated with experiences. Even when you're smelling something entirely new, you smell it with the gut reaction to associate with something else you've experienced.

This "experience" is not limited to other smells. The experience can be visual, auditory, tactile, or even just an emotion. Attending your father's funeral under the cover of rainfall, and a year later on the anniversary opening the windows to a soaked street, can make the rain smell like loss. The rain can smell like wet wood. The rain can smell like a funeral casket.

BUT it is important to match the flavor profiles!!! While writing the above description I had the immediate association of "wet wood", but when I tried to think of others, they didn't fit, even though they are also associated with the funeral. Funeral garlands are also there, but matching "funeral" + "rain" + "wood" with "flowers" didn't feel right. So I just expanded on the association of "wood", and upgraded it to "funeral casket".

I feel like this much is a basic enough guide. I could make some more examples but I feel like that would take an eternity. So with that said, a closing statement:

Bake a cake, Spongebob

Describing smell isn't like writing action scenes. It is not just one thing— there is depth and layers to the object of your prose, and therefore your description (when it counts) must also be multi-layered. It must evoke sensation, feeling, or any of the aforementioned significant things that I can't remember right now. Smells are tools. Smells are characters unto themselves (certainly, some smells have more depth than the very characters smelling them).

What you need to do, is essentially "bake a cake". The cake is a composite of its ingredients— viscous eggs, smooth milk, handfuls of sugar crystals— but it is not ONLY the ingredients. The cake is a monstrosity and amalgamation of everything that went into the making of it, and the end result is something that you cannot clearly associate with what made the cake a cake. Not anymore.

ALSO I realized after going through this that here are usually vocabulary lists to describe smells, but like, those are all adjectives. They're just words. If you don't use them meaningfully they are just going to remain words on a paper. So yeah, smells are Experiences not just "saccharine", although the vocabulary SHOULD be used to enhance that experience.

So yeah, I need some more practice with this

[iatrophilosophos]

@lesbian-samurai Short answer: yes to both.

Long answer: The people who equate being against psychiatric incarceration with being against all psychiatry are closer to accurately portraying the history and function of the psychiatric establishment than what you're doing.

I think everybody should do whatever drugs they want and have access to emotional support they find helpful. I am fundamentally against the psychiatric establishment because it is built from the ground up on carceral logic and--however obscured by liberal feelgoodism--the idea that reproducing normative society is "health" and resisting or being unable to assimilate is "illness". This base assumption underlies every facet of modern psychiatry, regardless of individual people who may find usefulness in the products and services offered by the psychiatric medical industrial complex. For example: the cultural and philosophical biases of the psychiatric establishment are baked into how psychiatric drugs are developed, tested, marketed, and prescribed. If a person taking, for example, an antipsychotic drug walks into their calm, pleasant psychiatrist's office every three months and, when asked how they're doing, shrugs and says "nothing to report, I guess"; and that person goes to work, doesn't get into fights, and is generally percieved as calm and agreeable by those around them; the medication is considered "effective".

The problem, in this example: Many people who have ceased taking antipsychotic drugs report feeling sluggish, unable to identify positive or negative feelings, little to no emotional memory/feeling as though they have Only Ever felt the way they do in any current moment, and inability to access imagination or play as effects of those medications that they were only able to put words to AFTER ceasing the drug. While people certainly have the right to take these medications if they so desire, the experience can be hellish for plenty--and it also tends to make people quiet, agreeable, prone to saying everything is alright if they're in a calm/chill environment because they cannot *remember* how they've felt in other environments, and appear relatively grounded. This is why first gen antipsychotics were marketed as "chemical lobotomies".

I don't particularly feel like typing out an explanation of therapy as alienating commodification of care rn, there's a long thread on my blog about it if you scroll down. 🤷

So, yeah. Like the original post is saying, fuck psychiatry. The fact that some bits of it are worth engaging with for some people doesn't change the fact it's rotten to the core and frankly I'm pretty sick of people special pleading their cool therapist or their excellent meds or whatever because coddling some lucky fucks feelings about not getting the short end of the stick is a terrible reason to pull punches wrt critizing the establishment that incarcerates, rapes, and lobotomizes people like me. We can do drugs and learn skills to take care of eachother and/or ask for the help we want in ways that are actionable for other people without psychiatry, and we can talk about tactics and skills for making that happen without walking on eggshells because God forbid someone feel #invalidated by someone shittalking their *broadly* socially acceptable, state-backed bazillion dollar emotional support industrial complex.

"How can you be against therapy when some people don't have friends" "some people really depend on psychiatric medication" "psychiatric incarceration kept me/a loved one alive and im grateful"

Yeah and some people go to fucking prison for three hots and a cot. I am capable of understanding where that choice comes from without going "well of course I'm an abolitionist but prisons do feed and house people, so let's dial back the criticism ok?"

[ranboo5]

Dropping the Ranboo mixtape

Anyway at time of starting to write this post I had two likes and two affirmative replies, which is Good Enough For Me, so here I am :D I was gonna link the YT but on second thought my YT channel is a mess so this is gonna be one of the annoying ones that doesn’t link to one you can actually listen to but 

This is also a running list and currently organized roughly by increasingly hotter takes and it’s under a cut bc it’s 13 songs and I justified all of them 

Everybody Likes You (Lemon Demon) - LISTEN THE ANIMATION MEMES WEREN’T LYING THAT EVERYBODY LIKES YOU CAN RANBOOCORE. The increasingly distorted, incredibly bright repetition of EVERYBODY LIKES YOU EVERYBODY LIKES YOU EVERYBODY LIKES YOU until you can hear it morphing in and out of EVERYBODY LIED TO YOU? Tell Me That’s Not Him In The Spiral Depths 

Tall (Naps the Block on YT) - This is a) literally a theme for the End, b) sounds stumbling and anxious/high-strung, and c) echoes the Pigstep melody in the middle while still very much doing its own thing this is self explanatory 

Dance of Thorns/Old Secret mashup (Tensei and James Roach respectively, feat. woodfur00 on YT) (yes this is Homestuck music) - It’s just the vibes. The energy. The way the elegance of the violin lines of Dance of Thorns sounds almost nervous especially against the almost noir mystery vibes of Old Secret, and the guitar lines of Dance of Thorns add like. Initiative/urgency especially when they underlay the other music it’s so good I don’t think either song alone is Ranboo vibes but this remix definitely is. Just the mix of perseverance and desperation and melancholy and mystery and Class 

Touch-Tone Telephone (Lemon Demon) - This one is old news but tbh it just works. Man decides he’s the correct one in this situation and he’s losing his entire mind that no one is listening to him because he just is not 

2012 (Will Wood) - This one isn’t really clever it’s just about memory loss, derealization, identity, and often self-hatred (“A miserable fuck, but a loud Tao mystical” is a lot). “Did you lose yourself?/It’s always in the last place that you check” sounds so mocking in ways internal monologues like Droice have been and “I might find myself/By retracing my steps” is literally just Ranboo dealing with the Enderwalk; “And not until lobotomy abolished my monotony/Did I applaud autonomy, and modify a lot of me!” works so much for him Dealing With Himself generally, and also “I heard the world would turn to hell/Compared to that, I’m doing well!” is a Him sentiment 

Hand Me My Shovel, I’m Going In! (Will Wood) - Jokes about the three hour mining/grinding streams aside. Not only is the chorus so heavily a spiral/self-evaluation mood, but literally consider his thought processes abt the things he’s done/allegedly done and then consider “My dreams were shattered like a stained-glass window/Jesus in pieces! I believe I through a brick right through Him/But my memory could not be saved!/It just seems unlikely that it’s me who was to blame/So I bookmark my DSM, ‘cause I need to remember my place.” And now with the advent of the “experiments” the second verse’s “Take the road on higher ground, and tell me ‘don’t look down! You’ll fall and break your back’/But that just reminds me how there’s more to be found beneath the black!” is more relevant than ever 

Friends With You (The Scary Jokes) - Oh my god. Oh my fucking god man. This could be on here for “I put myself to bed just halfway through the party/I love all my friends, but I hate when their eyes are on me” alone but the general almost empty saccharine vibe of the song is immensely his vibe; the humorlessly-smiling vocal fry on “don’t know” in “Why do you pretend/You don’t know who’s to blame?” is probably responsible for 80% of this read. Not to mention the first lyrics are literally “How long do I have to wait/’Til my lonely days are over?” which is really the. The waiting it out man the So When Do I Get To Be Okay of it all. Shoutouts also to “And the crumbling infrastructure no one else can see,” the self hatred of “I miss being friends with you/But what can I do/What can I do/But leave you alone?” and to “And I can tell you really love me/Can you tell I’m really sorry?” Just. The mix of hope+affection and dejected cynicism and self-hatred in the lyrics

Saline Solution (none other than Mr Wilbur Soot) - Remember what I said about waiting it out until you get to be okay? Anyway that’s crystallized in “If I could just break one more night/Maybe I could wake up and feel alright” and also this is literally a song about catastrophizing and self-evaluation just,, in general and I will not be highlighting all the lyrics about this but I will highlight the fact that he literally calls himself pragmatic and also the lyric “blurring the facts and the fiction.” Also, the sheer desperate anger-concealing-breakdown vibes of “I think I’ve made my choice” to “I think I’ve found my voice” deserves a mention, as does the culminating end of “saline solution to all your problems” with the tears+now splash water motifs of it all with Ranboo I am going to die 

Funny (The Scary Jokes) - This is actually a softer take but not only does it literally start with the singer pleading with the addressee to look away, it  continues with “I went up in the middle of the night and I climbed right onto the stage/And I raged/And I cried/Oh, what a funny joke am I” disregarding everything as performance, reemphasizes the opening demand with the qualifier “it’s not that I hate you, it’s just that I’m funny these days,” and then kills you with the last couple lines which. Yeah he does care and it does,,, just,,,,, a

Chemical Overreaction (Will Wood) - This is where the mood VIOLENTLY whiplashes because this is where we get unhinged. Anyway “I won’t stop to drop to draw a line in the sand/’Cause I’ll be picked apart to pieces by coyotes!” is LITERALLY the whole “I don’t do well with ‘peer pressure’” thing. “Where the sentimental value of the city around ya/Is deleted obsolete, but still completely will stun ya” is the single most L’Manberg lyric I’ve ever heard, especially from the perspective of a character whom I will repeatedly insist is narratively in the role of someone who’s shown up and seen the status quo as an outsider after it’s been established (hence the eternal New Kid vibes). Chorus very much has vibes of Ranboo Is Seized By The Urge To Do Something, and like. The entire dramatic end part. The last two lines especially (be very careful if you look up the vieo for this by the way it is NOT pretty; cws in the video for flashing, blood, suicide imagery) 

A Mannequin Adrift (The Scary Jokes) - The Bitterness. This song is just fully The Bitterness at the environment he’s stuck in; the saccharine comes back as does the “peer pressure” thematic and just the Having An Awful Time; the sarcastic saccharine comes back too, which is always good I love passive aggression. Honestly the first verse is just everything like just listen to it it immediately makes sense

Poison Ivy Grows (The Scary Jokes) - This is overall a song about having bad brain and not knowing what the hell to do about it; it’s so faintly bitter and distant and melancholy and also so zoned out. Also, it’s not the only lyric that matters here but it is enough to be a full argument on its own: “I used to spend so much time/Wandering around outside/Now I’ve got too much on my mind/Now I’ve got too much on my mind” 

Spring Haze (Tori Amos) - Listen. Do I know what Spring Haze is about? No. Is that gonna stop me from saying it’s about Ranboo? Also no. I just think “You say we’ll never make it there/So all we do is circle it” is so much, the fact that the bridge at the end is just “Why does it always end up like this?” repeated, and that it just feels so much like overall the song feels like a desperate attempt to figure Something out, and the chorus is just inexplicably him? It might be partially influenced by the fact that “Uh-oh, let go, off on my way” and, to a lesser extent, “Uh-oh, way to go” is not only in accordance with character vibes but also vaguely evocative of Ranboo’s speech pattern

[feraels-a]

reasoning  for  sporadic  activity  below  the  cut.  check  the  tags  before  reading  for  potentially  triggering  material.

i  feel  like  shit.  mentally.  the  closer  my  birthday  gets ,  the  more  like  shit  i  feel.  i’m  depressed  beyond  the  normal  realms  for  me.  after  being  legitimately   dumped   by  my  last  therapist ,  i’ve  given  up  on  that.  plus  the  waiting  lists  for  my  insurance  approved  providers  anywhere  near  me  are  too  long.  i  refuse  to  take  more  than  xanax  medication  wise ,  as  i  was  a  far  more  erratic  and  hateful  person  on  them  +  one  pill  i  was  on  for  16  years  gave  me  what  the  medical  community  calls  “ a  chemical  lobotomy ”  which  is  why  my  brain  doesn’t  work  the  way  a  “ normal ”  person’s  might.  so  i’m  just  not  in  a  good  way.

i’ve  been  through  a  lot  of  difficult  things  this  year  including  a  miscarriage  that  really  wrecked  me  and  losing  friends  i  thought  would  be  in  my  life  forever.  i’m  having  a  really  hard  time  having  anyone  in  my  life  right  now  who  doesn’t  have  me  around  solely  to  take  advantage  of  my  good  nature  and  kindness.  i’m  also  having  a  hard  time  having  anyone  in  my  life  who  supports  me  and  the  special  interests  i  have.  a  lot  of  the  time  i  fear  sharing  things  with  people  because  of  the  invalidation  i’m  met  with  a  lot  of  the  time.

anyway ,  i  drank  with  my  family  and  my  bf  at  my  parents’  earlier  for  my  brother’s  birthday  and  i  actually  felt  really  great.  but  now  that  i’m  sober ,  i’m  back  where  i  was.  i  know  this  is  worrisome ,  but  i  don’t  have  anything  i  can  do  about  it.  i  don’t  have  the  funds  available  to  do  therapy  any  way  except  through  my  insurance  provider.  it’s  just  not  feasible  to  do  on  my  own.  but  i  cannot  get  out  of  this  slump  and  it’s  killing  me.  not  literally ,  but  you  know.  anyway ,  like  the  past  two  days ,  this  is  why  i’m  not  going  to  be  around  tonight.

[a-minke-whales-tale]

Like it or not we exist, and have always existed, long before this popularity of current therianthropy, long before the splitting of elfkind and otherkind and formation of "spiritual therianthropy" during early days of internet, remarks through history going back to nearly 5.000 years past, by some sets of theory on evolutionary reason of schizophrenia, timeline of said evolution, and trends of early human spirituality, possibly as far back as the existance of *homo sapiens sapiens* as a species.

We have existed, we still exist, and we *will* exist. And we deserve to have a place to exist and talk with others of similar experience. These attitudes, like the one you carry, made me feel unwelcome in the community for more than half a decade, before it was I could feel comfortable to call myself therian. Some days still I wonder if I am actually welcome and part of this community.

I have schizophrenia, and my experience of having my identity medicalized, being locked away in hospitals and forced onto horrible medicine, only did to me great harm. Many others carry to them similar stories. I do not know you, nor the depth of your intent; but whether you believe that by cleansing the "crazies" from the community, the outside world will take you seriously; or that by medicalizing yourself and your own identity you can gain credibility by having a disgnosis to point to; in either case you are dearly mistaken. People will not treat you better for it, and in the meantime you attempt to crush others under your feet and climb atop us or excise us from our communities. It did not work for trying to drop bixseuals from the gay community. It did not work for LGB drop the T. It did not work for the Transmedicalists. It did not work to try to exclude the Asexuals from LGBT. It did not work for the Autistic community. It did not work for the mental health advocates of "sanitized disorders". Nor indeed will it work for you.

Normalization is about many things. For us who experience or have experienced clinical zoanthropy, it is a place to talk and share our experiences, to not feel so lonely or isolated in our quite rare experience, even on here there are maybe half of a dozen people at most who talk about it, and our expeirences vary wildly. It is such a wonderful feeling to have a place where I do not need to preface every experience and description with the dance of "showing insight". I can just exist and my experiences can be presented and accepted as real, just as real as they are to me. Schizospectrum, psychotic, and dissociative disorders are very heavily maligned and stigmatized; those of us who experience clinical zoanthropy often fall into one of these disorders, and it bears the stigma of those disorders. Normalization brings to us the understanding that we can and do exist in a wide variety of ways, and that we are not inherently evil, wicked, or broken for it. And that public knowledge also means that for people who do choose to pursue medical intervention (and not have it forced upon them), that there will be more resources and knowledge and better tools and targets for medical professions than the mere crude cudgel of the chemical lobotomy (neuroleptics, antipsychotics, etc).

Stop being a jerk.

Therian Misconceptions

So I see the alterhuman side of Tumblr is starting to normalize clinical lycanthropy so I js wanted to put this out here

BELIEVING U R PHYSICALLY AN ANIMAL IS A DISORDER

It's not good, it's a delusion, it's just bad this is CLINICAL LYCANTHROPY.

"Losing control" during shifts IS NOT NORMAL.

If you're "losing control" during mental shifts and going into a neighbors yard, killing birds, etc, THAT IS NOT NORMAL. it is NOT. Therianthropy at that point it is a PROBLEM.

If you believe that you are PHYSICALLY an animal or lose control during shifts, that is NOT normal therianthropy.

"Oh but that's what being non-human is!!!"

NO IT'S NOT.

U shouldn't lose control when ur shifting???

U should think you are physically an animal because you're not, you're physically a human, but mentally yes you're an animal stuck in a human body BUT YOU'RE STILL IN A HUMAN BODY.

Yes I say "oh I'm a (insert my theriotype)" but I'm not FUCKING saying I'm not a human

And don't pull up with that bullshit of "it's like saying 'oh trans women-'" NO IT'S FUCKING NOT. Ur opinion is fucking invalid

If you don't know that you're physically a fucking human that is not normal. That is not ok.

U can obv call yourself an animal etc etc etc

But you cannot believe you're physically an animal and think it's normal

[everything-laito]

(idk if this needs a TW: abuse, violence, memory loss. )

This might sound dunb but if i took a baseball bat and hit Laito as hard as i possibly can would it trigger something to make him act different? Or make him forget about himself/Yui and he’d bo longer be abusive?

It’s not a dumb question, because I do not believe there are such questions, so don’t worry about it! Although this did make me laugh because it so vividly reminded me of the “horny bonk” meme salfkdjgaslf it just fits Laito to a T lol

Never thought I’d pull on my STEM jeans completely up on this blog, but here we are, and I’m incredibly excited! 

klSFJklagsdf note that neither of my majors involve neurobiology/neuroscience but I do know a good chunk, let’s jump right in! Also, I’m assuming that Vampire brains are similar to human brains in this manner as well lol 

and as always, rant under the cut!

First of all, I’d say that being hit with a baseball bat to the head is a type of blunt force head trauma. This type of trauma can cause a concussion or a contusion. Concussion, as commonly known, is caused by shaking of the brain, while a contusion is a direct injury to the brain. A more severe case is a contrecoup, which is injury that occurs at the brain opposite of impact. 

Here are some symptoms of blunt force head trauma injuries (or traumatic brain injuries as a shorter term):  | Convulsion | Partial paralysis involving one or more limbs | lost of consciousness | personality changes or irritability | confusion | drops in blood pressure | diminished coordination | slurred speech | blurred vision | severe headache | vomiting | 

Here’s my source!

Apparently personality changes are common after a traumatic brain injury, and can even effect the brain long after it’s healed (neuroplasticity babyyyy). This is what this article says. Your personality doesn't change, it’s more of the moods are so overwhelming it feels like you’re a different person:

Many people suffer from social anxiety, irritability, anger, depression, feelings of overwhelm, general anxiety, mood swings, or emotional lability (teariness) after their injury. But make no mistake: While these symptoms can make it seem like you’re a different person now, your personality is intact. It’s just buried under the weight of symptoms that are so, so hard to handle.

Think of personality as a collection of traits, and your mood as your current state of being. Normally, our moods don’t last for weeks and months on end. But after a head injury, negative moods like sadness, anxiety, or irritation can drag on, making patients and their families mistake the emotional symptoms for personality changes.

Lmao, flashbacks to the whole American football controversy???? ooooooop! But no, it would not affect Laito’s personality in the case you are thinking about. It really would make that shit worse. I could go on about nature vs nurture and what personality really is, but ima just say this here:

The reason why Laito is abusive + has a facade is because it is his way of coping with emotional, psychological, and even physical trauma earlier in his life. He projects his situations and feelings onto others so he feels “better about himself” and to get “revenge” in a sense. 

So it’s not as simple as you think it might be. However, let’s take this a step further. If we were to change someone on a chemical and neurological level like this and do it the old fashioned way; aka not emotionally or mentally confronting these issues that could be solved but change the brain physically. 

I’m talking about lobotomy/leukotomy. 

If you don’t know, this is a type of neurosurgery that severs connections to the brain’s prefrontal cortex; aka the anterior frontal loves of the brain. This was common in Western medicine for about two years to “help” mental disorders. However a lot went wrong, and some people got more aggressive, patients developed seizures, emotional blunting, or just unable to mentally function. There’s a lot of unexpected and mixed consequences about it, basically it’s just: don’t mess with the brain.

If we’re talking about memory loss in general, or amnesia, can be caused by brain damage or disease. The hippocampus is commonly associated with memory (and memory loss) as well as the medial temporal lobe. A protein, RbAp48, is also associated with memory loss when it is deficient. Without me going off on genes n such (that actually happens to be related to my concentration for one of my majors) its basically like not having this protein = you’re unable to carry out the certain pathways and such in order to remember something. Deficiency in this protein usually means you have a damaged memory. 

Amnesia causes can usually be categorized into head trauma, traumatic events, or physical deficiencies (like hippocampus atrophy; which means that part just isn’t used). The type of amnesia associated with head trauma is usually anterograde amnesia (also its an effect of long term alcoholism so stay safe kids). It’s also associated with post-traumatic amnesia as well. Or just remove part of the hippocampus since we’re delving into the darker era of neurosurgery. But acute blunt force trauma to the head in the hippocampus region could make Laito lose his memory, but it definitely could result in other consequences that are unexpected or just “undesirable” 

TLDR: dont mess with the brain lol it’s the most important organ for a reason, your neurons can't repair themselves, shit’s permanent! 

DSLFKJ Strawberry, you probably did not expect this answer to be well, this. But welcome to everything-laito, where I will talk your ear off B) 

Hopefully you enjoyed though, despite it being balls to the wall LMAO! See ya later! -Corn

[malprazolam]

NOTHING WORKS

I can’t get my link to my personal tagged posts to work.... wtf? Can I do anything right? lol

Anyway a lot has happened. I went to rehab. that was fucking awful. I’m finally losing weight again because along with my will to live, my desire to eat has pretty much gone away! I’m freaking out about my appointment tomorrow with my psychiatrist because he wants to lower my dosage of xanax to 4mg instead of 6mg per day (which I already exceed by a lot) and I really REALLY do not want that to happen. I’m literally going to be praying that I walk out of there with the prescriptions that I’ve been given for the last like six or seven years. Even though I can’t feel high off of xanax anymore no matter how much I take (literally I ate five bars yesterday just to see if I’d feel fucked up and I didn’t.) I wonder if theres some sort of chemical that’s been depleted in my brain over the years from taking xanax long term that can be restored so I can feel like my xanax works. Same with my adderall and vyvanse. I swear my dopamine and serotonin levels are shot because I don’t feel either of those pills when I take them anymore either and I really wish I could go back to when everything did it’s job and the chemicals in my brain reacted to pills as they should and my reward system existed and I didn’t have an inhumane tolerance to literally every fucking thing I take.  I wish there was a way to reset it and start from zero. 

On the note of tolerance, why does my ketamine tolerance build so fucking quickly? Does that happen to anyone else? I snorted probably a .5g last night in one line and didn’t feel anything however the day before when i did less than that I was spun..... 

The only thing I can rely on to get my fucked up right now is soma and i need my damn old lady to fill her fucking script so I can grab those because the doctor i go to now wont give me them lol. and I know that somas and ketamine are something i build a tolerance to similarly. I can’t get fucked up on somas too often because I already take around 3,000mg to get high at a time. And I know my tolerance will build in a day. I can’t do opiates because my mom’s being a bitch and drug testing me!!!! I need to move the fuck out of my house. I also need some sort of purpose and will to live and motivation and maybe a lobotomy.

[deathsanction]

MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE

Fyodor is quite well educated on medical knowledge. He successfully performed a lobotomy on Ivan, a procedure that is quite well known to be dangerous. But that’s not the most significant fact. Most lobotomies turn patients into a toned down version of themselves, and in some cases, vegetables (i.e. unable to take care of themselves/think at all/etc ). Many who undergo lobotomies struggled to remember things, to make decisions, to form plans, and to feel emotions. Even likes and dislikes became severely diluted compared to prior to the lobotomy. Many times they cannot function well on their own. They can eat/sleep/etc. on their own, but they tend to go to a childish mentality, and many are incapable of real conversation / emotion / memory making.

Ivan, clearly, is not in the same field as most other lobotomized patients. Yes, he hangs onto Fyodor’s every word, but he is perfectly capable of thinking on his own and thats shown in his battle. He has likes and dislikes, he still has a very bright personality. Which means Fyodor managed a lobotomy that’s solely removed his ability to feel happiness, and likely his ability to disobey Fyodor, but nothing more. More telling is Ivan’s ability to remember the different musics correlating to different meanings in the cannibalization arc. After reading several accounts by people who HAVE undergone lobotomize and the few recorded cases, most patients reported they struggled to maintain complex memorization, if they remembered at all.  Fyodor pulled off something that is virtually ( but not entirely ) unrecorded.

He also knows where to harm for nonfatal injuries, but ones that will ensure he’s fine. In this case, Dazai being shot. Not enough to kill, but somewhere that would cause enough blood loss that Dazai would not be able to chase after him. Somewhere Dazai wouldn’t be able to ignore as he might if it was his arm or leg. Fyodor knows from the simple, like sprains and breaks to stitches all the way to lobotomies and more.

Fyodor’s medical knowledge is all through self taught and observation in the underground. Most came through books, especially as he was focused on ideas of cleansing the world. Sometimes his ability would not be the best way to get rid of someone in his way. So Fyodor delved into learning the human body. Weak spots, reactions to poisons, medical procedures, the effects of procedures & chemicals, anything he felt might help him. Part of it was also to learn about his own anemia when he was much younger. It’s a culmination of knowledge learned over years. He also would witness many underground surgeries / operations and learn all the new chemicals that went onto the market. Many of these he would see how they effect people up close, all for his scheme of cleansing the world, just as he learned how to control and manipulate people even just psychologically. Many times, in his younger years, his mastery over mental manipulation and medical practice would go hand in hand. From a lobotomy like Ivan to convincing someone to take a pill to see what it would do. Fyodor’s even more dangerous than most people realize.

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 167

Prefrontal Cortex and Its Connection to Human Spirituality

The body-self and spirit of a person generate a dynamic and complex system in which they are in constant communication with one another. The brain is one of the control and management centers of this complex structure. Although the brain's compartments have very different functions and structures, most of the compartments are vital for a healthy existence. Different compartments are distinguished by definitions that refer to direction or position, such as fore, middle, back, left or right. One such compartment is the forebrain (prefrontal cortex), which we still have limited knowledge about.

Various studies exist about these compartments – which controls the expression of the soul through the body, which is responsible for memory, intelligence, belief, hatred and love. The brain's two hemispheres have different functions and specialize in different areas. For example, linguistic abilities and tongue functions are usually controlled by the left hemisphere, while musical abilities and the ability to comment and analyze complex images are controlled by the right hemisphere. However, it is not possible to state that the forebrain functions independently from the hemispheres of the brain. The Wernicke's area, located on the upper tail of the temporal lobe, is responsible for language comprehension, and the Angular Gyrus that is a mediator between sound and vision, is responsible for linguistic and mathematical operations. For this reason, the Angular Gyrus is accepted to be related with superior consciousness and intelligence. Scientists have proven that intelligence and consciousness decrease more dramatically upon the destruction of these areas when compared to the destruction of the forebrain. Therefore, for the spiritual functions to be able to operate in the body, it's essential that these areas of the brain function.

The more accepted view, at least today, is that spiritual characteristics and personality function independent of the brain. A convincing proof disregarding this view is that during many tumor surgeries, even though the body's vital activities remain intact, after removing tissue from the brain, spiritual characteristics sometimes degrade. Another proof is the surgery performed to remove the forebrain of depressed patients (a prefrontal lobotomy). The patients vital activities were not disrupted upon surgery and their mood improved for a while. For a short amount of time, patients stopped suffering from serious neurological and psychiatric disturbances. However, when the patients were observed several years after the surgery, it was concluded that the patients lacked the functions of the forebrain and these surgeries were abandoned. The most prevalent side effects related to the removal of the forebrain were:

Loss of the ability to solve complex social problems,

Loss of the ability to take sequential steps in order to resolve a complex problem,

Loss of the ability to multitask,

Loss of determination, effort and desire to do activities,

Loss of the ability for a community response when faced with a problem,

Loss of ethical values and the feeling of shame,

Loss of coherent thought even though the ability to speak and understand what is said is not lost,

Instant emotional changes: from kindness to frustration, passion, violence and insanity,

Inability to use artistic or naturally existing talents for the sake of a purpose.

These dysfunctions made it apparent that there was a correlation between the forebrain and spiritual characteristics.

Single neurons, not from the human brain, were inoculated in the lab and an experiment was carried out.. Studies showed that these neurons were not a means to highly intellectual capabilities, such as intelligence; whereas when neurons taken from the forebrain were inoculated and experimented on, it was found that they were a means to uniquely human capabilities like intelligence. Complex problem solving and the capacity to make discoveries were found to be correlated with the forebrain. It is not possible to explain such a fact without taking the soul into consideration. Spiritual characteristics such as sadness, happiness, joy, peace, patience, compassion, and love are all the results of complex interactions within the brain. However, it is not convincing to say that they are only results of electrical or chemical interactions within the brain.

The prefrontal area is where all thoughts coming from lower brain areas (such as sight, hearing, and feeling cortex areas, and the thalamus and hypothalamus) are gathered and processed to be enriched. Many information and memories gathered from different parts of the brain come together in the prefrontal area to be synthesized into deeper thoughts. Active memory is when different pieces of information are synthesized together and form a thought; and this thought is later acted upon. This allows to accurately surmise future events, and to plan for them.

It also allows for a rapid, appropriate response to the signals gathered by the five sensory channels. It allows for predicting the consequences of actions before performing them and for resolving problems of a complex medical, mathematical, ethical, moral, or philosophical basis. It can also postpone emotional responses for an appropriate time, measure the consequences of verbal and physical communications, use will power to measure the ethical and moral consequences of actions, and use information gathered from all channels to diagnose a problem. People who have damaged prefrontal cortexes, have serious difficulty synthesizing information and processing it to form coherent thoughts (active memory). This situation shows us that the prefrontal cortex enables consciousness and highly intellectual actions.

Another function of the prefrontal cortex is to enable focus about a specific topic. Taking this into consideration, the prefrontal cortex is semi related to attention. An existing proof for this is that people with damaged prefrontal cortexes are unable to concentrate and their focus is easily disturbed. Individuals whose prefrontal cortex has been removed or damaged can acquire a spiritual consciousness; however due to their handicap, they are unable to express their thoughts in a serial and sensible fashion for more than a minute. They can be easily distracted from the original subject. The prefrontal cortex allows an individual to accomplish a process of thought despite distractions, and allows for communication between the soul and the mind.

To sum it up, the prefrontal cortex is correlated with intellectual characteristics such as consciousness, intelligence, and self control, and also relates to how well we perform our moral values. For example, if the prefrontal cortex is unable to function, the individual does not feel shame anymore. This makes people believe shame is related only to the prefrontal cortex. However, the brain is merely a bridge between the body and the soul. Our brain is a bridge and curtain for our soul, which is the source of our spiritual characteristics. When we physically have a problem with our brain, the soul carries on its existence as before, however it is unable to express its consciousness, intellect, and will power in this material world.

[entoman-created-by-the-tallgreys]

Psychiatry  is Bullshit !

A Man Sit’s in the Office of a Con Man .... i Mean a Psychiatrist. 

He Sit’s There Calmly, With his Hand Fold in his Lap and Give’s Basic Small Talk and Dose not Go Beyond that .... Keep’s His Cool, and Dose try to Say Anything Triggering ... He’s Clean ... to Took a Shower Right ! Before he Went there Shook His or Her Hand, ask How is Thay Doing and Start of with talking about  Weather, and With a Smile. 

The Psychiatrist - Wright’s Down, Paranoid Schizophrenia ... 

A Fat ass 2 Ton Smell like Shit female, Fat n Flabby and Has not Taken a Shower in over 5 Month's ... Sit down's Start crying Saying every one is trying to Rape her, SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNG’S !!! 

Say there are People Walking into her Ear at Night and Try to Take Control over her Brain .... Talk about She Love’s her Cat even tho it died she Keep’s in a Cage and pet’s it ... Dose not Clean the House ... She is a Pedophile, the Way she Talk’s about the Kid’s on the block ( Eww, Major Eww )  She is Short Tempered, She is a Control freak, She is Utterly Illogical ... Think’s Every one is Out to Kill her .... ( No Surprise ) - ( and i Wouldn't’ Doubt it ) 

Wont’s Stop Going off in Random Direction of Screeching Tirade’s of Word Salad, and Crying for no Reason !!! 

Piss’s her Pant’s, RIGHT IN FROUNT OF THE GUY or Gal, Saying Woo that felt Good, Keep the demon’s from Clawing up my leg 

Say the Male Man Want’s to rape her .... and Every one Stealing her food RIGHT After she just told Him She Live’s a lot 

The Psychiatrist - Say’s Mood Disorder .... 

and on Her Way out She Shit her Pant’s, and a Taco fall’s out of her Pocket ... 

and if you think a person like this Could not Exist .... THINK AGAIN !!! 

----- 

it is Mostly Aimed at Men over Female, Women can be the Sickest Bat shit Craziest and ... there is Nothing in the system that is going to stop them be side’s a cop and even then the judge is going to let them off easy 55% of the time if she’s Hot 75% of the time ... if she is rich and hot 90% of the time and when there not off the hook the Punishment is So fucking petty the Court Order was Almost a joke ... Like she get’s House Arrest for Murder for a week or 9 

if She is Ugly, RIGHT TO JAIL !!! 

Life is More unfair in the Usa ... Oh And the Way thay Make there Money is Most of there Patient’s, are Driven there by Wife’s and Mother’s of people that think there Other Member in the House is Nut’s weather it be there Belief or Taboo Knowledge. or If thay Just Disobeyed her and she Think Disobey her Authority is mental illness. 

And thay Make the Appointment for them and force them to GO ! to them. 

and thay will Always Give you a Pill and these are not Sugar Pill’s there Neurotoxin's, thay are Chemical Lobotomy, there A Altered version of Meth. and thay Feel like a Flame Thrower in the head .... 

And the Poison the rest of your body there Almost to the point of Watered down Suicide pill’s, there So Strong. 

There is a Reason thay fuck you up and Make you sick. 

The Pill’s are a Weapon, the Profession is a Scam the doc’s are Con Artist, and the Asylum are Jail’s ! 

there also Thought Police. and No there not Open Minded and Most of them are Extremely Stupid, Never talk about Red Pill shit to them, thay don’t got enough Brains’ to understand it ... 

thay are today what people back in the 1850 that Would of Called you Crazy for talking about Little Life form’s you need a Micro scope to see, and thay all over the place, and thay can make you sick and There are Billion of Different kind’s of them and thay Where !!!  

But you can’t see them !!! but there every where !!! there all over the wall’s your shoe’s Your body create them all over the place there in your gut ... AKA Germ’s 

See there Not very Smart !!! But there Good as Poising and there good at Selling Pill’s. At Least a Dung Dealer Get’s people High before thay get sick and die the fucking Psychiatrist Can’t Even do that, i Bet if you found a Drug Dealer you knew you could get high on Weed and talk about lien’s n Shit ... and he’s not going to lock you in a Cage and Keep you there till he Think’s your safe for the world ! 

but you try thay shit with a Psychiatrist, and you Might get “ Committed “ aka Locked up for Month’s ... and you Can’t Escape there Toxic Pill’s ! 

Becuz thay Watch you and Wan tot see if you took and forcing you to open your mouth and stick your tongue out,  it’s horror ... and if you Rebel, the Place Scream CODE BLUE ! CODE BLUE ! and these Hulk’s Run out Hold you down and Inject you with god only know’s what ... And thay Keep You Down till you Almost stop Moving .... 

Asylum's are Horrible Place’s ... ... ... thay Should of Never Bin Created thay do More harm and Zero Good ! 

Just to Be in one of these Place and be Trapped not let out till your told you can is Very Traumatizing ... and the Pill’s are very Brain Damaging ...

I’ve Bin there .... over n over ... Horror is a Understatement ! - Even tho it Look Calm shit Pop off all of the time and People are scream 24/7 in Pain in horror and the Fucking Asylum police are Beating every one down ... 

All in the Name of “Care” 

[mellomedia]

Mental Health Crisis in Media

This month’s blog post for Media & Society class is a good fit for what many people are dealing with during this never ending pandemic - the mental health crisis. Our list of films to watch were American Psycho, Donnie Darko, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Black Swan, and Parasite. Mental health is something we all need to talk more about. We’ve come a long way since 1975 when One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was produced, but sadly there’s still many misconceptions about mental health. Most people associate mental health with violent behavior. The vast majority of people with mental health problems are no more likely to be violent than anyone else (“Mental Health Myth,” 2017). 

In all of these films, the main characters are coping with a mental health issue. All of them go through a stage of catharsis by the end of the film. Once again, I learned a new word - catharsis. According to Dictionary.com, it is defined as the process of releasing and/or relieving from stronger repressed emotions. The purpose of catharsis is to bring about some form of positive change in the individual's life (Cherry, 2020). Since mental illness is so complex, there are many interpretations of what each viewer thinks someone went through by the end of each film. If you haven’t seen any of the films above, I’ll warn you now about spoiler alerts. 

For this assignment we were asked to pick two out of the five films mentioned above, explain the ending of each, and then discuss the connections between these films and their ambiguous endings. I’ll also explain whether I thought each main character went through catharsis. I decided to go with the two films I felt were more challenging for me to understand. I’d also like to add that the two films I’m going to write about really opened my mind to a deeper awareness of mental health. Chan School Dean Michelle Williams makes a powerful statement about mental health during the pandemic. “The past year has been terribly damaging to our collective mental health,” Williams said. “There is no vaccine for mental illness - It will be months, if not years before we are fully able to grasp the scope of the mental health issues born out of this pandemic” (Powell, 2021). Even though these films were all produced pre-pandemic, they provide a better understanding of what someone with mental health issues go through. 

First on my list is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The ending of this film definitely had multiple meanings. And I think it had many meanings based on how you perceived McMurphy’s existence at the mental hospital. The way I saw it, McMurphy was the ‘cool guy’ that the other patients looked up to. Throughout the film he shows the other patients they aren’t as mental as Nurse Ratched makes them feel. He “frees” each patient of their mental health issue by having them step out of their comfort zone and literally out of the mental hospital. One part that really gave me a whole different insight of mental illness is when McMurphy hi-jacked a bus with all the patients on it and brought them on a boat ride. As they board the boat, the owner of the shipyard approaches them asking who they are. McMurphy introduces them one by one, “Dr. Martini, Dr. Taber… .” Instead of mental patients THEY were the doctors. As he said each man’s name, they stood tall and proud. It really was a cool moment in the film. I was actually cheering for them in my head. Fast forward to the end of the film, McMurphy ends up getting punished for hosting an out of control party at the mental hospital. 

Normally the punishment would be shock therapy, but this time it was a frontal lobotomy. Chief is one of the patients that McMurphy became close with. They planned on escaping the mental facility together after the party. But when Chief saw McMurphy’s scars from the lobotomy, he knew he’d never be himself again. To “free” McMurphy, Chief suffocates him to death, just as McMurphy freed each of the patients he met during his stay. By freed, I mean they were temporarily freed of their mental health disorders, their fears, their anxieties. I do believe that the ending was cathartic for McMurphy. He was released of the suffering he would have to live with after the lobotomy. I was really hoping the ending went like this: McMurphy’s punishment was the usual shock therapy...Chief wakes him up and the two escape. In the closing scene you’d see them walking away from the mental health facility. But the actual ending had much more meaning and made me really understand mental health further. I have a very open mind about mental health issues - I never judge. But this film gave me a deeper understanding of how misunderstood mental health is. Each of the mental patients was dealing with their own anxiety - but how it is handled is key. Nurse Ratched kept each of them in their shell while “think outside the box” McMurphy put their anxiety right in front of them. With mental health, we really need to think outside the box more.

Next on my list is Black Swan. While we caught glimpses of Nina’s dual personality, it was in our face by the end of the film. Nina’s doppelganger is shown through the use of mirrors. We see how she sees herself and at times we see the evil side of her that is emerging. The mirror presented to her the darkness within herself that metaphorically depicted the evolution into the black swan (Nelson, 2013). The pain she inflicted on other people was actually herself. Between Nina being so repressed from herself, and her mom, she really had no chance of escaping her mental state. In my opinion, this film showed how mental health might be a coping mechanism. Nina’s mom kept her in a secluded, isolated world. Nina’s repression was learned from the person she was closest to - her mom. But as Lily and Thomas try to pull Nina out of her confined world, she starts to hurt herself. She’s only able to become the Black Swan after she stabs her perfect white swan self. The way I look at it, once Nina freed herself of who she was, she became who she wanted to be - the perfect ballerina who could fulfill the role of a lifetime. Unfortunately that freedom was death. As with McMurphy, Nina’s motives also led to catharsis by the end of the film. I was hoping that her catharsis was in her head and that she finally achieved her dual role of the swan. But in reality the only way Nina could do that was out of self mutilation and eventually suicide. So obviously I was hoping for a different ending of Black Swan, but it would not have had the eye-opening impact into the reality of mental health. 

What connects these two films is their ambiguous endings. I think it’s actually symbolic that a film about mental health has more than one interpretation. Mental health is a complex issue, which would only make sense for the film’s ending to be just as complex. As I mentioned already, I would have written happier endings where Nina realizes she can be both the black and white swan and McMurphy leaves the mental hospital with Chief. But then what would I have learned by endings like that? That everyone gets cured from mental health? That mental health is easy to overcome and prevent? It would send the wrong message. In fact it would send a stereotypical message that people struggling with mental health can easily be ‘fixed.’ Many people don’t understand the very basic concept of mental health - your brain is in control - often there is a chemical imbalance or genetic predisposition to mental health problems (newroadstrmnt, 2018). If you think you know what mental health is and looks like, I urge you to watch these films. They both really showed me a side of mental health I wasn’t aware of.  

On a side note, during this pandemic I learned about a very close friend who is going through depression. I had absolutely zero clue he was dealing with this. Just like I didn’t realize at first what Nina was dealing with. I am relieved he is talking to a professional and getting help. But I also know that might not be enough. I don’t harp on it but I always ask him how things are. If he’s having a bad day, I remind him he doesn’t have to deal with anything alone. If you have a friend that is struggling with something, don’t walk away from them. Just be there and listen. Remind them that it’s nothing to be embarrassed about and reaching out for help takes a lot of courage. 

Below is a photo of myself I tried some effects on. I was trying to find artwork to share that shows an imbalance of the brain - although that wasn’t my intention when I created it. 

Artwork by Marcello Laudato, 2017.

[samrull]

Multiples of two 😈

Thanks! :)

2: is there a band with only one song you like?

There’s lots where I only know/listen to one song. ONE OK ROCK and their song Jaded comes to mind (I only know it because Alex Gaskarth is featured on it)

4: name a great band you recently discovered

DON BROCO. I still find them a recent discovery, and they’ve just released a 10/10 album Technology. 

6: is there an artist whose solo career you prefer over their work with their band(s)?

Harry Styles hands down. I only liked one or two One Direction songs and I absolutely love most of Harry’s solo work, which is more mature, sexy and basically showing his full potential. I also much prefer solo Julian Casablancas over his work with The Strokes.

8: which song do you think should everybody listen to at least once in their lives?

Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas

10: any bands you got into after seeing them live?

So many! Nothing But Thieves became one of my top bands after seeing them support Gerard Way, and I’ve been to 5 more of their gigs since - they gained a major fanbase in Poland. I feel in love with Palisades after seeing them open for Our Last Night. Also, in a major way, Creeper. I saw them open for Pierce The Veil and then was lucky enough to see them again, opening for All Time Low. In March I’ll see them open for ATL again! But live music in general has a huge potential of dragging people in, because your full focus is on the band currently onstage and you can really hear what their music is about. I love that.

12: a band which is the only band from their genre you like?

I’m skipping that one because nothing comes to mind.

14: _th favourite song by your _th favourite band?

1st band I ever loved was Fall Out Boy and 1st song by them I loved was This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race.

16: favourite album artwork?

18: favourite concept album?

Is there an answer other than The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance? Do you not weep with Gerard’s Patient? Do you not cherish every breath they take and every little fucking guitar note that exists within this masterpiece?

20: which was the longest concert you ever attended?

Woodstock music festival lasted for three days, and we’re talking day and night of almost non-stop music and events.

22: list 10 favourite songs by your top 10 bands (each)

Can I even pick 10 favorite bands? Sweet Jesus. Doing 10 bands and songs I currently love most! Not in order.

Waterparks: Gloom Boys, Hawaii (Stay Awake), Peach (Lobotomy), Blonde, TANTRUM, Little Violence, Crave, Mad All The Time, Not Warriors, They All Float

Pierce The Veil: I’d Rather Die Than Be Famous, A Cheap Bouquet, Diamonds and Why Men Buy Them, Besitos, The Sky Under The Sea, Bulls In The Bronx, King for a Day, Texas Is Forever, Song for Isabelle, Today I Saw The Whole World

All Time Low: The Girl’s a Straight-Up Hustler, Therapy, Ground Control, Cinderblock Garden, Canals, The Irony of Choking on a Lifesaver, Jasey Rae, Take Cover, Stay Awake (Dreams Only Last For a Night), Your Bed

DON BROCO: Tightrope, Pretty, Everybody, T-Shirt Song, Come Out To LA, Nerve, Stay Ignorant, Porkies, Y, Blood in the Water

Nothing But Thieves: Last Orders, Hell Yeah, Neon Brother, Drawing Pins, Amsterdam, I Was Just a Kid, Broken Machine, Graveyard Whistling, Excuse Me, Ban All The Music

Counterfeit: Come Get Some, Romeo, For The Thrill of It, Letter to the Lost, Washed Out, As Yet Untitled, You Can’t Rely, Family Suicide, Enough, Close to Your Chest

Fall Out Boy: Chicago Is So Two Years Ago, 7 Minutes In Heaven (Atavan Halen), G.I.N.A.S.F.S., Hum Hallelujah, Bang The Doldrums, w.a.m.s., Miss Missing You, Where Did The Party Go, Twin Skeletons (Hotel in NYC), Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)

Enter Shikari: The Sights, An Ode to Lost Jigsaw Pieces, Live Outside, Rabble Rouser, Arguing With Thermometers, Search Party, System…, Sorry You’re Not a Winner, The One True Color, Take My Country Back

Bring Me The Horizon: Doomed, Drown, True Friends, Oh No, Can You Feel My Heart, Empire (Let Them Sing), Crooked Youth, Deathbeds, Don’t Go, Home Sweet Hole

Queens of The Stone Age: Walkin’ on the Sidewalks, Little Sister, Go With The Flow, 3′s and 7′s, Calopsia, I Sat By The Ocean, Sick Sick Sick, Never Say Never, Feet Don’t Fail Me, Fairweather Friends

24: favourite songwriter/lyric writer

I refuse to pick one :/ I need to mention Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low, Ryan Ross of the original Panic! At The Disco and Vic Fuentes of Pierce The Veil.