#and am more likely to interpret stimuli as pain than most people. because of my sensory thingies.

[shodansbabygirl]

They should invent an intestine you can't feel

[bambeptin]

the map of infinity was wild as hell: an analysis

ok, let's get this out of the way first: there's no reason why Professor Paradox had to make the Map of Infinity other than "for fun".

which makes sense! he’s immortal, he’s been travelling for a while, and he’s likely very, very, very bored. anything he does is probably to chase new stimuli. his sense of morality is off, from human standards.

it's the complete space-time map of 17 different dimensions, which Paradox doesn't technically need, since he has the Chrononavigator and his own innate time powers. he doesn't even need it to reach the Forge of Creation, since he can literally just like, walk there whenever. Paradox was the person that made the barrier between the Forge and the rest of the Universe in the first place. was it even always outside of the universe? did he send it out there? I imagine it sort of went like this:

"boy, am I bored today!"

"let's see if I can make an in-depth map of a bunch of different dimensions"

fought Celestialsapiens when he reached the Forge of Creation, K6BD-style. they can't kill him (his powerset matches up well against theirs) and he can't kill them all (and they’re starting to mess with his time plans), so eventually they agree to a treaty. he found the war sorta fun

bored again

"what do I do with this map I made? destroy it? no, that would be pointless..."

"oh! I know!"

"split it into 4 parts, 2 of which are keystones to a world and 2 of which are in death trap temples, because that would be 1. fun to make and 2. could lead to fun situations in the future"

let's go over them all!

Map Piece 1. Mykdl'dy

gesundheit. if you don’t remember this planet, it’s the half hot/half cold one that Paradox made a death trap temple on, which is now guarded by Necrofriggian cultists.

"welcome to my crib....... I enjoyed creating brutalism-inspired shapes of dark grey prisms against the ever-changing backdrop of ice and fire. in front are two statues of a mysterious person in robes, because I thought it would look cool. within are some dastardly traps that I designed myself, so watch out! the Necrofriggian colonists making a religion out of it wasn't my intention though. it's just a coincidence that they're the same species as the statues! I felt like the high point of this temple is dragon-wyrm that I created! the acid is a fantastic extra touch.”

“dungeon design is my passion.”

it seems like he decorated the inner parts the most, lovingly, with his shade of blue, used a bunch of magical spells (presumably; elaborated on later) for that part too, then realized that it would be a bit of a pain decorating the rest of the place and made the rest plainer. I wonder if he made it all himself, or like, hired some dudes

Map Piece 2. Piscciss

it’s hidden as the anti-gravity multiplier that holds Piscciss together.

“huh?” you might ask. “why would that piece have that power?”

I don’t know, maybe they all had that power or something. maybe if Aggregor just took one and started blasting everyone with anti-gravity the arc would be over way faster. maybe it’s magic. maybe Paradox is fucking with you.

“wait???” you might ask next. “it’s hidden as WHAT????”

that’s right! this is the little thing that keeps Piscciss a planet and not a bunch of water filled with dead fish floating around in space. “haha yeah this works perfectly... trust me it's not a macguffin that will be stolen and break your planet apart and someone in the future will have to sacrifice an alien to replace it lol...” - Paradox handing the anti-gravity multiplier to the Piscciss Volann when they were making an artificial water planet for them to live on

either that or the Piscciss Volann stumbled on the piece in an unseen other death trap temple, found its powers, and decided to use it, which sort of goes against the whole “Paradox hid all the pieces” thing if he simply never checked up on them

Map Piece 3. Perplexahedron

I know they went to Ledgerdomain third but that is saved for the end because it’s fucking mental. so we’re gonna talk about the Perplaxahedron. it’s the cube from Cube (1997).

if you don’t know what that is, it’s an absolutely huge artificial planet/building that’s entirely made of death traps. each new room is an exciting and fresh way to die. invigorating! while it does have a simple design, it’s efficient at what it does, and the clinical nature adds to the theme of being an unknowable deadly object. that’s what he probably describes it as anyways. again, did he build all of that himself? can I make a “Paradox construction squad” OC?

maybe Paradox made these dudes to help build the place, and kept them around as guards, because that’s efficiency.

this dude’s sole purpose in life is to wait there and hand over the Map of Infinity piece to whoever’s smart enough to get inside. I assume Paradox made him, because he disappears from reality like ten minutes after he hands it out, but Paradox has hired people to be guards in his temples before. the pay must be really good. maybe their culture is like that. maybe he didn’t disappear and actually it was an actor to squeeze the most drama out of the universe.

anyways, if he was real, Ben basically ruined his life before he died by tossing out the very important piece of the Map to Aggregor for basically no reason. oops!

Map Piece 4. Ledgerdomain

“he can reach the Forge of Creation. so obviously he can reach Ledgerdomain, a dimension of pure mana. what’s the problem?” well, there’s really no problem. it’s quite cool! no, what’s wild is that nobody really thinks about the ramifications of this piece of the Map of Infinity. for a refresher, this is what it’s hidden as:

“It is an object as old as time itself, through which all magic flows. It is the keeper of the true name of [Ledgerdomain]; source of ultimate power! And it is mine!“ - Charmcaster

the secret true name of magic. if you have it, you have power over magic itself.  it can revive the dead or instantly kill people. that power corrupts its wielder easily. also, if it’s removed from Ledgerdomain, the realm loses all natural entry/exit points, destabilizes, and begins the crumble. that’s right! it’s the Alpha Rune.

Paradox is confirmed to have actually made the Alpha Rune, not just hidden a piece as the Rune. I implore you to think about what that entails.

he knows magic (3-page minicomic I made about that topic). he doesn’t just know magic, he knows the secret name of magic, automatically making him a disgustingly powerful mage. either that or it’s possible to get the secret name of magic without knowing magic, which is fine too, but just being around the Alpha Rune makes you able to cast spells. he probably ripped the Alpha Rune from the Omniverse and bound it to his will because he had nothing else better to do that day. could he make even more Alpha Runes (even if they’re weaker copies), since it knows it already? did making it into Rune form rip it from his own mind? I like to think that the reason why he can’t lie is because if he does, his latent magical abilities will automatically attempt to cast a spell to make it real.

here are three ways you can interpret “Paradox made the Alpha Rune”.

he found the secret name of magic and made the Alpha Rune out of it

he literally made the secret name of magic. i.e. he made magic itself. that would be wild as hell.

the writers didn’t really think about the ramifications of any part of the Map of Infinity past “cool artifact”, which, to be honest, fair enough.

he probably finds all the magic really useful, since it helps streamline all of his temples and stuff. all of the bright blue lines connected to Paradox’s creations might even be magic! or his time powers.

by the way, he pulls the same split-something-into-pieces-and-hide-them-with-death-traps stunt with Maltruant, so I think this is his hobby.

[relieverse]

How I innovate, dream and make a change in the world:

"People born with Uranus in the twelfth house in their birth chart have a need to be of help and may give a hand to others in the most unusual ways because that’s the way they are: unusual.

It’s like their purpose in life is to contribute and they’re never expecting any recognition or reward when supporting others. It’s very likely for them to be artists because their mind is very creative and they love to be in the company of people who are tasteful.

They want to see beyond reality and to cross the boundaries between this world and the one that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Individuals having Uranus in 12th house are very eager to express themselves freely by studying, being involved in all kind of affairs and dealing with the unknown.

It’s like their best ideas and even the most ingenious inventions are somehow revealed to them in their dreams. Things will come to them suddenly and they’ll be very inspired in what they may be doing for living because they always have the answers to problems in their head.

It’s also possible for these natives to see in the future, but only if they focus enough. Many of them will mask their knowledge of deeper meanings in the unconscious of the collective.

It’s suggested they pursue a career in psychology and even the occult because they can understand things that others aren’t even capable to see.

Positions of other planets in their chart wouldn’t matter that much because Uranus in the 12th house always has them efficient at dealing with matters that aren’t of this world, so they would more or less have control over their chart.

When it comes to everyday realities, natives having Uranus in the 12th house can struggle with the simplest tasks.

They may suffer from insomnia and sleep when others are at work and the other way around. Having a rich imagination, they’re very capable of lucid dreaming, but some negative aspects with the planets in their chart bring them nightmares.

Uranus in 12th house individuals may work in the shadows and do great things while not even searching for recognition. They don’t seem to have enough confidence to do something too out of the ordinary, so Uranus makes them feel guilty for being too shy to express what’s in their mind or for not just doing what they want in life..

Nevertheless, my caution is a good thing because it keeps me grounded in reality while also don’t feel confined by reality. While some people are afraid to dream big, I look past the physical restrictions and try anything to make my wish come true. Because of this, I am unlimited to the kinds of jobs and careers I can do.

Anything, where I am surrounded by creative types and forward-thinking individuals, is a good place to start. And I shouldn't be afraid to knock down any barriers that I come across because that’s how innovations become a reality.

The one area I do need time to myself is when I feel stressed and need to recharge my batteries. It’s better to have some alone time, for I can focus on what’s bringing me down and figure out ways to get over the feeling. Pulling strings behind the scenes can be tiring, especially if I don’t have anyone else I trust to help me. While I constantly strive to make the world a better place to live, not just for others but also for myself, I would place a lot of pressure on myself to match my dreams exactly.

I have to build up your confidence and see myself as an independent person, capable of handling problems on my own. I amso good at helping others with their issues. This is one area where I can excel over everyone else. I offer a shoulder to cry on or words of wisdom to help others get out of a scary or tense situation. But I need to try that technique on myself as well. My compassion is my strength, so learn to use it as such. I shouldn't be afraid of change in my career or marriage. Embrace it as a way of moving forward in life. The only way to learn how to handle tough scenarios at work is to deal with them firsthand.

Sometimes I may dream too big, and it’s not a realistic goal. I have grand theories and ideas, and no one can rival me in terms of imagination and creativity. The only trouble is I spend more time with my head in the clouds than my feet on the ground to get anything done. While having the ability to dream big comes in handy, it can also prevent me from accomplishing my goals. That doesn’t mean I have to give up on it. I have to think about it differently. This is when I can shine and not feel guilty about it. A dose of reality is needed in both cases, so I have to find a way to focus on the more realistic parts of the idea. And I shouldn't turn and run from this responsibility either.

I can get so overwhelmed by the everyday errands and busy routine that all I want to do is hide. But this only adds to my habit of shying away from difficult tasks and situations. That prevents you from growing emotionally and spiritually. My inability to gain knowledge and experience stunts my personality and prevents me from becoming a mature adult.

I also run the risk of feeling upset or guilty when I can’t express myself well to others. If I don’t have experience discussing conflict or how someone or something makes me feel, I often believe I have to hold it inside instead. This will only cause negative emotions to decay and can make me miserable or even mentally depressed. I shouldn't let myself fall into that endless cycle of sadness and disappointment. It’s important for them to not be afraid of any obstacles in their way as innovation doesn’t happen when the inventors or creators are scared of the unknown. It wouldn’t matter how tense or uncomfortable the planet Uranus in the 12th house is, the natives with this placement will always want to be alone when reading, painting, writing or meditating.

The more they’ll spend time in solitude and doing these things, the more profound they’ll get to feel or their soul to have its peace.

While very compassionate and kind, they don’t express all these things directly, and many people may not get the chance to understand them or worse, might feel hurt regarding their attitude.

They need to acknowledge their spirituality or else they can end up being very unhappy and unfulfilled.

It’s possible for them to feel weak in front of the usual changes life has to offer because they’re thinking they can’t handle working with something new.

The truth is, their faith will always help them, so being fearful doesn’t make any sense for them. They should believe in themselves because otherwise, they can escape in a world of fantasy and avoid reality, which isn’t in any way healthy.

Some of them will discover they’re capable of great spirituality when they’ll get older. Others will be aware of their profundity, but won’t be able to express it until their identity doesn’t get formed.

The 12th house is the most sensitive for the placement of Neptune because it is the home of this planet. Therefore, when here, this celestial body has great influence over the unconscious of natives.

People with this placement are very sensitive to the society as a whole and sometimes feel like victims of chaos and immorality.

The same planet here has the capacity to turn collective ideas into pure art. One of the most famous individuals with Neptune in 12th house is Salvador Dali, whose paintings are very intense and imaginative.

These natives are all very kind and open to different emotions, no matter whom they may be dealing with. They have psychic abilities and can guess what other people are thinking or feeling.

The planet Neptune can make their ego feel overwhelmed because it’s always open to external stimuli.

They may be vulnerable because they don’t have any protective fences to surround their sensitivity and also because Neptune doesn’t have any boundaries when being here, in the house of images and feelings of the collective.

At the same time, this planet gives them abundant creativity and the wish to become great artists. Very talented with music, poetry, painting, photography and other forms of self-expression, natives having Neptune in 12th house can become very famous in the art world.

Furthermore, they have a need to be with others, to merge and to feel the love of the collective. They’re also very connected with the Universe as the 12th house and Neptune are both spiritual and resonate with what lays within people.

It can be difficult to describe them and their feelings because they’re all the time overwhelmed in their unconscious, which is ruled by the 12th house.

This house can have them feeling deeply about many things in their life, including their ancestors, as it rules over the past and the conscious memories.

Neptune will always feel at home in the here. Even negative aspects of this planet won’t stay in these people’s way when it comes to spirituality.

The 12th house goes over everything that’s beyond the conscious mind, and is ethereal enough to have the natives with Neptune in it connected to deeper meanings and the unconscious mind of the collective.

Individuals having Neptune in 12th house could be great psychologists, but this quality would be stronger in them if some planets in their 10th or 6th houses would be in good aspects.

If so, the natives with these placements will choose to deal with other people’s thoughts and emotions as a career and if not, they will still make great friends who are always ready to talk about their own problems.

They’re so good at dealing with different realities because they’re good clairvoyants and psychics. They may even dream what’s about to happen or in symbols that transmit them messages.

That’s why they should study mysticism and learn how to interpret their dreams. The problem with this is that also negative things from the other side can enter their world, in this reality.

Because Neptune is very passive and would allow for this to happen, their sensitivity may increase, and they’d absorb all the pain and suffering of the world.

People love them for being empathic and for easily perceiving their thoughts or feelings, but this can have negative effects over their own health.

What they should be careful with is their unexplained guilt as it can truly wear them down. Wanting to help everyone, they’ll never get to make this dream of theirs come true because there is no way someone can help so many people as they would want to.

Each time a person around them is going through some bad times, they tend to blame themselves and have an enormous amount of guilt creeping on them.

Therefore, they may end up not helping or causing the situation to be worse. If they really want to give a hand, they need to first establish who they are and how they can manage their own life.

It’s the same situation as the one with doctors as these professionals need to be very cold and balanced in order to do their job.

Another problem they may have is the fact that they’re prone to become addicted to alcohol or drugs.

In the situation in which Neptune is in square position with Mars, Venus and Jupiter, they would have a tendency to abuse everything that helps them enter a fantasy world and leave reality behind.

Neptune will love having them overindulging, but this can cause real problems for their body and health in general.

While the Ascendant is the one that’s rules over physicality, Neptune in a position too close to this sign would only cause the dependence on substances to be stronger on them.

Because this planet is at home in the 12th house, it influences the areas of life this house governs, in a great manner. People with this astral placement are highly intuitive and very strong in their heart.

They may seem passive, but when needed to, they can become fierce. These natives love the role of the underdog and to give a hand to those who need it the most.

However the 12th house can be pretty suppressive, so they won’t be too focused on taking action and most of the time feel guilty for nothing.

What Neptune does is put rose-colored glasses in front of the eyes of the natives, making them see and hear only what they want.

Neptune in 12th house people need to work on their self-confidence and to think of themselves as independent creatures who can handle any problem without too much help.

They’re very supportive and helpful themselves, so they’d do a great job as doctors or healers. Because they like to listen and to find solutions to problems, they would also be efficient as psychologists and even firefighters.

It’s easy for them to calm people down and to give hope everything is going to be okay. However, before focusing on others, they need to work on themselves and to make sure they’re grounded in reality, just enough to be able to help.

Their compassion makes them strong, so they should learn how to use it. Change mustn’t be something that terrifies them because it can only help their life to move forward.

It’s important for them to deal with problems directly, especially when these are about work. They’re sometimes so overwhelmed by the everyday life that they just want to hide and to escape reality.

This is the explanation to why they’re always shy and trying to run from difficult situations, which means they’re not always able to develop from an emotional and spiritual point of view.

When they can’t seem to get a grasp of the knowledge transmitted by what they’re experiencing, they should take a step that and look for their level of maturity.

In the situation in which they can’t express themselves the way they want to, Neptune in 12th house individuals start to feel very upset and even guilty.

They should learn how to talk about conflicts and discuss the feelings they get from others’ actions or words because holding things inside will only cause them to be more hurt.

I deserve all the happiness that life has to offer. So keep up with the big dreams and idealistic view of life. Just focus on finding a good balance between my fantasies and the world in which I have to live. I can create something new and wonderful that can help myself and others reach their goals. So I shouldn't give up on it because of my lack of self-esteem. Once I am able to take my ideas further than they’ve ever been before, I will build the confidence and momentum I need to go even further. Nothing will be able to stand in my way, not even those old pangs of self-doubt."

[seven-oomen]

Please talk about Noah! Your takes are super interesting and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

(hope you're having a nice day!)

Alright then strap in! Because I am about to tell you why I think Noah Stilinski is;

A. Bisexual

B. Has the inattentive type of ADHD

Let’s begin!

First off, I think Noah Stilinksi is a bisexual man who has a preference for feminine presenting people. (As one would typically see women dress/appear in western society.) I don’t particularly have evidence for this, I tried scouring S3 to find clues of it, but honestly, I think this is just one of those, I headcanon it and therefore to me, it is true. If you have a different opinion, then awesome, you do you. 

I mean there are some looks between him and Chris Argent that can be interpreted as interested, but you’d have to look very closely. For now, it’s just one of those things, to me it’s like that, and I have fun with it.

Like father, like son right? Except Stiles would be more on the 50/50 scale of bisexuality where I think Noah is more on the 70/30 scale leaning towards feminine people.

As for his ADHD, I did find a lot of clues and tidbits there, so: 

Notice how the sheriff is frequently standing with his arms crossed as if he’s either trying to protect himself (trauma-based) or trying to keep himself from moving too much (ADHD based). This would also explain why the sheriff is often seen standing too still. He also tends to talk with his hands, which is another thing a lot of ADHD people have in common. Though to be fair a lot of NT people do this too.

However here in 3x01 we see the sheriff fully focused on this person while they’re trying to work something out.

Then the next second, Melissa enters the hallway and Noah’s undivided attention is suddenly on her, he barely remembers to utter out an excuse me before addressing Melissa. And he does it as if every neuron in his brain is suddenly focused on her. “Oh hey, Melissa!” 

*Brain switch. Undivided attention is now on Melissa.*

This is a form of hyper-focusing, and if you’ve been trained from a young age you do this while making it look NT-passing. You mask it. I do this. People with ADHD-C or ADHD-I that have a basis in trauma tend to this in my experience.

Like Stiles tends to do, the sheriff too, is moving around fidgeting in the blurry background. He’s talking faster than he can process which is picked up on by his stutters. While he’s trying to figure out a resolution to this conflict. 

You can also tell that there might be some RSD at play here due to the fact that he seems very keen to keep the peace in the scene and wants everyone to get along and let’s keep everyone around me chill. This may not seem like a stereotypical ADHD thing to do, but it’s very common in ADHD-I types.

In the scene with Deaton that he shares in this episode, as well as numerous scenes with Stiles and other characters. You can always see him thinking, you can practically see the wheels turning in his head as he tries to make connections and tries to focus on what lies ahead of him and what people are saying to him. 

Sometimes he successfully succeeds in listening and processing. You see this by his frowns, little head movements. But as soon as those arms cross or his frown deepens you can tell someone is trying to flip the switch, but the light’s not turning on. The information isn’t being processed by his brain. He’s trying to defend himself.

Again, this is a typical thing for someone with ADHD-I who’s been trained and has had extensive therapy to cope with his symptoms. For a while and for general conversations/problems, you are capable of holding the thread. When things get complicated, that’s when you start to see the thread unraveling in Noah’s head.

In 3x02 there’s a moment of impatience as he wakes the boys up but also clearly a look on his face that says a few things.

1. Omg Stiles has done it again.

2. Look at the state of this room where do I even begin? I don’t know, so I just won’t bother.

3. Oh no I have absolutely been here and now I have to deal with my son being in this state too.

So he does the most logical thing to him, he doesn’t deal with it. Just his executive dysfunction going off and thinking; nope I’m not dealing with this, I need to get work, I don’t have time to sit down (hence the mug in his hands.) Man is probably running late already and only now waking the boys up because he realizes they’re A. still in his house. And B. not off to school yet and he needs to get going too.

He has a moment like this in multiple episodes where his impatience and incapability of dealing with a situation in front of him causes him to physically drag Stiles away and using too much force to do it. Though judging by Stiles’s reactions, and the way he relaxes after being grabbed, the sheriff seems to realize how hard he is grabbing and eases up every single time.

And that seems like a little detail, but not knowing your own strength is also a thing that can correspond with ADHD. (Though it can occur in NT people and other conditions as well. Or generally, be caused by anger.) But for the sake of this essay or meta, I will attribute it to Noah having ADHD.

In 3x09 Stiles finally clues him in on what’s happening in Beacon Hills and we can clearly see that he’s struggling to process everything. One could attribute that purely to; 

1. Noah is trying to come to terms that supernatural creatures are real and this would be a lot for anyone to process. Which is a fair and a totally valid assumption.

2. However, we see signs of Noah already starting to believe something is up from the very beginning. There’s always been a side to the sheriff where he was willing to believe or give people the benefit of the doubt when it came to the supernatural. Like in 3x03 when he tells his deputy: “She saw something.”

This leads me to believe that the real matter at hand is that Noah simply can’t process all that information at that time and he needs a few days to think it over in order to do so. Which could be a sign of a processing problem due to ADHD. (Although as I have pointed out, it could also be interpreted as an NT just getting a lot of crazy information at once. Take it as you will.)

In 3x07 Stiles and Scott argue over whether or not to tell Noah what’s going on with the sacrifices. Stiles points out that they shouldn’t because his father is completely overwhelmed.

This can be attributed to several things and interpreted in different ways. Let’s lay down the most obvious one; the sheriff has no idea what’s going on, he has the FBI on his case, and multiple murders on his hands and essentially a serial killer. All of these on their own are enough to be overwhelmed by, yes.

I choose to interpret it as a combination of all of these factors combined with an inability to process this much information or information in general. Which is another symptom of ADHD-I.

We also hear him frequently telling Stiles and the other kids to ‘go home, get to class, go to school.’ Basically what he’s doing in moments like this is 1. looking out for them. 2. Unable to cope and process with all the information he’s been giving during that time and instead of lashing out at the kids, he tries a coping mechanism that’s called divert or redirect. Where you try to redirect people/thoughts/object into a direction or thought process that’s far more manageable to you. 

Which is something that I’ve been taught to do myself in therapy. And that is why I think it’s something Noah has been taught to do as well. Either in the Army/Police Academy. or during therapy sessions.

Now, this is what I like to call Noah’s; I’m trying to process what you’re trying to tell me face. And so far, I’m keeping up. You see the pursed lips, the frown on his face, the slightly squinted eyes. He’s focusing on what Stiles is trying to tell him.

Here he is looking away for a second, processing, trying to manage information. We see him frown further, his lip tensing further, he has to try harder.

He’s processing, processing, he blinks. And then this is the face he pulls right after the blink.

The frown has deepened, he's still following Stiles for now but you can see he’s starting to lose the train of thought here.

Stiles keeps explaining, pulls out the chessboard to explain what is going on.

And Noah has completely lost his train of thought. He has no idea what Stiles is saying to him anymore and no way to process all of the information that Stiles is giving him after this moment. He gets impatient, is annoyed at the things Stiles is telling him. That is because he’s emotionally, and physically overwhelmed. 

He deals with a lot of things in his job and he always seems utterly exhausted because of it. I think that is because his job is exhausting. But I also think it has to do with Noah not being able to filter sounds, stimuli, the inability to process things like an NT. I think Noah suffers from a high level of empathy, this combined with sensory processing issues results in someone who’s constantly trying to filter them out and failing. Resulting in chronic fatigue, turning to other means of dealing (Alcoholism), impatience, etc.

He also seems to have trouble regulating his emotions, as we see with his frequent snaps and jabs at Stiles but he also seems to try and be better about it and regret it when he does snap. We also know that in order to numb his pain and his emotions Noah turned to Alcohol to cope, as sad as it is, this is common in people with ADHD. Who often turn to substances to cope with their symptoms and their inability to regulate themselves, anything to numb all the feelings and their own shortcomings. Noah seems to have fallen into that trap too.

-

I think my favorite moment in this scene comes right after with this face:

And the question of; “Why is Jackson the Kanima?”

Which tells me a few things.

1. After everything, that’s the first question he truly asks as he leans back and tries to process things.

2. This may point to an inability to prioritize tasks/thoughts, which is another symptom of ADHD-I. Which for Noah seems to occur when he’s not on the job or with people he trusts and doesn’t have to mask for. (He does this too when he asks Derek at the station; “But if he doesn’t have a mouth, how does he eat?”) Suggesting that this is a more regular occurrence than we see on the show.

And at this point, I can no longer concentrate on this since I’ve lost my hyper-focus. But I think I managed to compile a pretty decent list.

And that is why I think Noah Stilinski is Bisexual and has ADHD.

Tagging: @mostly-vo1d and @artemisa97 since they are usually involved in these things too. You don’t have to respond of course, but if you feel up to it, join in.

[chaotic-lydia]

Home as a motif for Lydia in Beetlejuice

Because Sapien is awake in the unholy hours and has decided to unburden her knowledge on all of you people

So this is mainly coming off of the back of listening to the Beetlejuice soundtrack again and fawning over the Dead Mom lyrics because DAMN

So the first mention of home is in the first introduction to the Deetz family beyond Prologue: Invisible and refers more explicitly to the old house. “Dead Mom loved that house!”/“My whole life is in that house!” Both lines are said by Lydia during her bid to try and provoke Charles into seeing her and acknowledging both her own and his own grief. What I find interesting is the use of the personal pronoun “my” over “our”. Along with her later expressions of misplaced hatred towards her father, this creates an image of Charles’ emotional incapability towards approaching grief that paints him out of the picture of the life before Emily died in Lydia’s mind. Because he cannot cope with the painful memories attached to that house, or any external stimuli that remind him of Emily (probably a contributing factor to why he begins to shun Lydia from his life — she’s the spit of Emily in character).

Okay, so now we’ve broached the topic of first introduction, we can get into the good stuff!! Dead Mom!! So, we have all of Lydia’s angsty hours going on during this song, but after the belts the song softens. She claims “You’re my home, my destination” in relation to her deceased mother. “Home”, in this instance, refers to the abstract concept of where/with whom you feel most safe, most protected, most comfortable. This is how home is perceived in every instance of its mention throughout the play. For Lydia? Home is Emily. The only person who really understands her and accepts her exactly as she is. And Emily is dead. She has no home, adrift in the “abyss” before she ever reaches the Netherworld. Additionally, there’s a lovely bit of foreshadowing here with “my destination”, subtly nodding towards Lydia’s impromptu vacation in the Netherworld in pursuit of her dead mom.

So, without doing a lot of research into the script of Beetlejuice, the next reference of the motif I could find was the song Home. Which, of course, is riddled with the word. This is the song that, in my humble opinion, shows Lydia’s character development in the most clear and concise manner.

The first time she mentions the word: “Back at home you don’t exist, so here I am in the abyss”. This is the first and only I think time that she refers to the house in Winter River as home (rather than referring to a person, as she usually does). This may just be a choice for lyrical flow, but I find it interesting, as it emphasises that Emily is NOT there and so therefore home is not home.

We get some nice metaphors for depression sprinkled within the already gut wrenching performance. And the parallels between “I’m prob’ly talking to myself here” and “Tired of talking to myself here” are amazing. She’s so weary of the world and it’s cruelty, so so tired.

“I don’t know which way’s home”; “Show me the way back home”; “Is there a way back home?” These lines come in chronological order, and their development is particularly interesting to me. The first iteration has a double meaning: firstly, the more explicit plea of ‘I’m lost’, both in terms of direction and without Emily; secondly, that she can’t find her mom, and therefore doesn’t know the way back into her arms. She doesn’t know which way’s home. But then the wording changes. “Show me the way back home”, to me, sounds like an open cry for help although she’s still talking to Emily in particular she’s not fussy. Home is no longer pertaining to Dead Mom, but is instead a reference to the human world and the life she left behind (indicated by the line “No light above and there’s no hope below”).

So I’m moving “Is there a way back home?” down here because I feel like this could be lengthy. This has so many interpretations, I love it! So, firstly, let’s start with the surface connotations. The first and foremost implication being her questioning whether or not actually leaving the Netherworld is a possible scenario for her and her father (especially since Juno is after both of them). That’s on the surface. Now, deeper, you’ve got this idea that Lydia has yet to find Emily in the deep dark pit of the Netherworld. Is she even there? Would she ever find her? Is there a way back to the woman she considers home? Who knows? There’s a further idea about a happy family that I’d like to touch on. This idea of home could include Charles. A happier, more open Charles who wasn’t so insecure (because I have a gut feeling Lydia’s actually a daddy’s girl) and a time when Mom was alive and they were all happier. That memory of having an unbroken family is also home, supported by the next reference of “There’s no home without you in it”.

Now we have the bit where Charles and Lydia make up before going back into song.

“I’m gonna go back home / Adam, Barbara, Delia, and Dad / It’s messy but they’re all that I have” Lydia finds her homes in people rather than places, and in this case she’s accepting that Emily cannot be her home anymore though she promises not to forget her and that she has to move on to make more meaningful relationships with others who care about her. “It’s messy but they’re all that I have” will always be one of the most beautiful lines in the entire musical, because it demonstrates how far she’s come. Yes, they’ll have to work on it. Yes, it will be tough. But they’re there for her no matter how disjointed and how difficult it is for them to communicate. She has found herself a new home.

Now! Onto the finale!! Jump in Line!! The very very last line of the entire musical is “I’m hoooommmeeee” from Lydia. Now, thank you to @barbara-lazuli for bringing this to my attention but there is a parallel I hadn’t noticed in this line. The very first lone of the entire musical is the ensemble: “Daylight come and me wanna go....” The line cuts off before home. Flash forward to the very last line of the musical. The ensemble sings the same line, only it ends with Lydia singing the “I’m home” part. At the start she was incomplete, ill at ease with grief and depression, adrift in an ocean far from home; however, with help, support, patience, and love, Lydia has found a new place, a new family to call home.

In conclusion, Sapien has spent 2 hours writing this and is tired as anything. Come back next time for Sapien overanalysing the motif of invisibility and how it creates a wonderful parallel for Beetlejuice and Lydia. Please enjoy. :)

[star-anise]

Thank you! My actual question is, what is trauma? Particularly trauma that doesn't stem from a single Traumatic Event (TM) -- like, trauma that comes from years of being treated as a "gifted" child, or from developing a disability slowly and quietly rather than in some big accident, or other non-obvious sources. What is trauma, what does it do to someone, why can two people go through the same shit and one comes out traumatised and the other does not? This is a big and vague question I know.

Yeah, “trauma” as a concept is kind of confusing because people think that to be traumatic, something has to be dramatic. And it doesn’t. In point of fact, when my province did its public messaging campaign for trauma-informed care, they completely replaced the word “trauma” with “toxic stress”.

This is gonna get long. For further reading, I’d suggest looking at the Child Trauma Academy’s Trauma and PTSD Library. And it will sound at the beginning like I’m answering some different question than yours, but I promise, I am.

The root of trauma is in the stress response system. When our body interprets something as a threat, it activates the stress response system; our system floods with adrenaline, heart rate goes up, breathing quickens, the brain diverts energy away from centres of higher thought and into immediate physical motion, your liver releases glucose your digestive system slows down, all that stuff. This is called “arousal” but it means stress arousal, not sexual arousal. And then, after the threat has passed, your body works to return you to normal; it releases cortisol to calm you down, your heart goes back to normal, your digestion goes back to normal, you are calmed and soothed.

The first major cause of stress after birth is being hungry. The stomach hurts; we’re in pain; we become stressed and cry. And ideally, someone will come, pick us up, and feed, rock, soothe, and make noises at us until we stop crying and become calm again. If we receive adequate care--that is, if we experience thousands of repetitions of being alarmed and in pain, having the pain go away, and being soothed--our brain records a basic set point of “most of the time I do not need to be alarmed, but when I am alarmed, it probably won’t be for long and I’ll get what I need to calm down again.”

Our brains don’t differentiate well between physical and emotional pain, between something that happens to us and something that happens to others. What makes a baby scream in hunger is the same basic mechanism as what happens when someone experiences a dramatic trauma.

The really big, important step, is when the body goes back to normal. When you are calmed and soothed. The parasympathetic nervous system kicks in; the body releases cortisol; heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure go back to normal; digestion resumes; higher brain functions go back online. 

Trauma is what happens when this doesn’t occur--your body tries to soothe itself, but it isn’t enough to fully work. Maybe the stressor is still present so the stress response keeps happening; maybe there aren’t enough resources to become soothed by. Instead the body is alarmed to the point of exhaustion. An aroused stress response is an incredibly taxing state, sucking down resources at an enormous rate while preventing the generation of new ones. So for an adult this could be a big shock that they can’t get over; for a baby, it could be not being fed, not being soothed, or being in constant pain. 

Trauma is, basically, a stress response that wakes up easily and then takes a long time to settle down again after. It’s the brain trying to anticipate a dangerous world where something bad happens and you need to be quick to respond to it, and maybe be prepared for a long siege where you need to maintain that response for quite some time. 

It works differently for kids because we actually need a lot of help to cope with stress initially. We spend a long time helpless, unable to walk or talk, completely dependent on a caregiver to eat and handle threats. The repetition of being soothed by a caregiver slowly builds up the neural capacity to deal with threats. We use our sense of connection with other people, and our own mastery over the world, to help deal with with stress. This is why hurt children want to be soothed by their caregiver, specifically, and why that caregiver kissing an injury to make it feel better works. Rejection is painful because on a basic level, our brains associate it with not having the resources to handle pain.

So there are a lot of thing that can either deprive a child of adequate resources to handle stress, or create a stressful stimuli too great to be soothed. Which are kind of the same thing, except: there are harmful or inadequate environments that would be guaranteed to over-stress and fail to soothe a vast number of children; and there are children who become so stressed they require a level of soothing much greater than what would be adequate for most other kids. An almost universally neglectful environment might be infants in an old-fashioned orphanage, where babies are fed on a rigid schedule, rarely held, rocked, or soothed, and not responded to when they cry; those suckers are almost guaranteed to fuck up any infant raised within them. (If it survives.) Meanwhile, a child that is difficult to soothe might for some reason have levels of pain it would require painkillers to take away, or might be distressed by things their caregiver doesn’t know to control, like an autistic child who is distressed by the fabric of their blanket or the electric hum of household equipment, which many neurotypical people would never guess could be distressing.

So some of those predispositions might be genetic, but then they get compounded by early life experience. For example, my nephew was allergic to his infant formula; he screamed way more than your average baby and was much harder to soothe, until his parents and their doctor figured out what was going on. After that, he was a much happier baby. If they hadn’t figured out what was going on, and he’d spent maybe a year being constantly distressed with nothing to soothe it, it probably would have moved his stress response system a little closer to “easily activated and hard to soothe”.

You know how when plastic gets hot, it gets all melty and can be put into a bunch of different shapes? And then when it cools down, you can flex it a little but not reshape it entirely? That’s what is meant when neuroscientists say the brain is plastic. When we’re born, our genetics play a little into the shape that our brains take, but our environment has just as much ability to shape our brains. The brain can be optimized for learning English or learning Chinese, to being happy and easily soothed or for responding to constant, unremitting stress. And as we grow older, the plastic cools off. A lot of your stress response system’s basic set point is decided by the age of 3, and much harder to change thereafter. The window for learning any new language easily and flawlessly closes in elementary school; after that, as we age, it gets harder and harder. The adult brain solidifies, so it can flex but is hard to totally reshape.

Part of childhood trauma is also the failure to learn skills during a critical period for learning them. If a child isn’t exposed to any language by the age of 7, they are deeply unlikely to learn how to speak naturally and fluently later in life. And almost everything that differentiates adulthood from childhood is a learned skill, including staying calm, paying attention, solving problems, making friends, and socializing. They’re like muscles; they have to be used for them to grow from their initial promise, their basic genetic gift, to being large, strong, and capable of doing things.

So the younger you are, you see, the more subtle a trauma can be; the stress response system is so much weaker when we’re young. It is shaped not just by huge things, but little ones: How predictably we’re fed when we cry. Whether the adults around us are grieving or fearful. If we’re allowed to feel safe when we leave the house. If the people we encounter are friendly or hostile. Whether we can reliably meet the standards for being considered “good”. How often we encounter rejection.  The hope is that, as you age, you can handle bigger and bigger stresses, because stress response is to some degree a skill; I can handle a skinned knee more easily than my 3-year-old nephew can.

But both genetics and that early life set-point can determine how likely we are to be traumatized anew by later events. If your stress system is already prone to being aroused way before other peoples’, and much slower to calm down, you’re much more likely to both be stressed by new events, and to fail to calm down totally after. The stresses pile up. Your stress response system, bless its little heart, thinks that the response to more stress is MORE VIGILANCE, and it takes a lot of very deliberate work, environmental change, and possibly medication to calm it back down again. (A frequent medication for traumatized children is clonidine, which reduces blood pressure, because it helps reset their bodies to “less stressed”)

And then if our bodies leave us in a state of chronic stress, we can often fail to do the things that help us recover from it later. If a child is constantly stressed and anxious, it may make it harder for them to make friends; then when they’re pushed off the swing at recess while the teacher’s back was turned, they’re less likely to have friends who will notice or react with care, concern, or help. If they feel totally embittered by school as a whole, they may be more likely to drop out, meaning they don’t have the educational qualifications that would give them home, food, and medical care. It can be a really vicious downward spiral.

So: 

Trauma from big shit as an adult is essentially the same as trauma from little shit when you’re a kid. To a baby, social isolation equals death, and it takes a long time to learn otherwise. 

Two people can experience the same thing and have very different reactions because of combination of genetics and life experiences

 One of those differences can be perception of threat, so they are more likely to find something distressing than others

Another can be difficulty with distress tolerance and self-soothing, so they are much less able to return from distress to a feeling of wellbeing and calm.

Adverse early experiences can set you up for a negative downward spiral

Lack of positive shaping experiences as a child can leave you without important skills for health and growth, and those skills can be much harder to learn later in life.

[stagekiller]

“Those who grant sympathy to guilt, grant none to innocence.”  ―  Ayn Rand  

  To cut a long story short, we could conclude that clownman grew up in a toxic environment. And as much as I hate to make him sound like a victim, he...was a victim of circumstance. So, today, we delve into Jerome’s feelings in regards to his past.

  Before I begin, I would like to declare that I am very much opposed to any fandom interpretations of his character that present him as a ‘poor wittle baby whose mommy didn’t love him yadayadayada’. This is watering down the character. It’s Bonnie & Clyde syndrome. And my goal in this post is NOT to make you sympathize with him, hence the quote.

  Second, small disclaimer; these are fictional characters in a fictional settings. Though it may bare resemblance to things that happen in real life, I, as the mun, by no means condone any actions described.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: child abuse, corporal punishment, incest, gaslighting, spoilers

  Throughout this post I will be making references to Arthur Phleck, so consider it a spoiler zone for JOKER(2019). These references are mostly used as comparisons in regards to ‘The Joker’s essence and how the victim mentality comes into play in all different iterations of this DC villain, establishing victim-play as a character trait.

PART ONE : ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY

 To begin with, I want to delve into how Jerome himself sees his childhood, how he feels about these past events and how he chooses to present them to others.

  Jerome is someone who hates vulnerability. He is not one to open up or be vulnerable around others where it counts. That is a symptom, or rather, a consequence, of the abuse he has suffered. Child abuse survivors often have severe trust issues, because the people they were supposed to trust (their family) have betrayed them in some shape or form. For example, if a parent baits their child to confess a naughty thing (”If you tell me, I won’t ground you.”) they did and then punishes them after confessing, it is very likely that this child will be more hesitant to confess the next time. After enough repetition, the child may start suspecting other adults of similar behavior. The foundation for a cognitive structure has been laid; “If I trust people with information, they may use it against me.”

  According to Mary Ainsworth, the bond between mother and infant is the most important because the child will then base their future attachments on that prototype. In an oversimplification, parents teach us how to bond with other people, among other things. They are responsible for teaching us how to behave socially and how to interact with others. Furthermore, research has shown that children with depressed mothers are more likely to develop conduct disorders, due to the lack of proper interaction and stimuli at an early age.

 PART TWO: THESE HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

   Now, to put all these things into perspective, in my headcanon, Lila Valeska was very much a depressed mother. A depressed alcoholic, to be exact. A broken woman, looking for self esteem in any embrace that would be offered to her. And, because of that,s he was completely incapable to equip Jerome and Jeremiah with the social skills they needed. She never intended to abuse them. And she wasn’t evil. She just wasn’t enough.

   But the problem only begins with Lila. Zachary Trundle very much played the part of her controlling older brother. We can actually see that he was rather controlling in canon, telling her what to do with her kids ( note how Zach told her to throw Jerome in the river but Lila still kept him around ) and being in charge of moving Jeremiah when the time came. We can conclude that Zachary played the part of a father, a brother and potentially a husband substitute as well.

  And it was Zachary who molded Jerome into what he became later on. But... more on their relationship on a later post. ;3c

 Last, but not least, let’s not forget about Paul Cicero, who not only wasn’t there to console Jerome but also gaslighted him. ( “The world doesn’t care about you” ) He tried to instill the core belief in him that he was unworthy and he should just suck it up. And what that does to kids is usually make them think that they deserve the abuse and not try to escape from it. In Jerome’s case, it also resulted in him abusing himself later on. Because when this kind of situation has been NORMALIZED for you, anything other than pain feels abnormal and weird. Jerome would not know how to react to healthy relationships.

PART THREE: ONE IN EVERY DECK

  “Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else's behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering and the manipulator often finds it easy to play on sympathy to get cooperation.”    ―  George K. Simon Jr.,  In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People    

  All iterations of the Joker have a tragic backstory. Most DC Villains do, as a matter of fact. But how they deal with it differs from one iteration to another. For example, Ledger Joker uses different versions of a tragic backstory to either disturb or gain sympathy from his victims, or to make a point ( ‘you wanna know how I got these scars?’ ). Nicholson Joker uses his tragic backstory as feud fuel and victim cards to pin his misery on Batman. BTAs Joker is shown using some tragic backstory to sway Dr. Quinzel, but later on in the Mad Love episode we see that he’s used the same victim card on Batman too.

  But Phoenix Joker is by far the most compelled to play victim cards. The difference with previous iterations is that Phleck Joker sees himself as the victim too. I’m not saying that the others didn’t, to some extent. But Arthur is immersed in the part. He thinks of himself as a mentally ill loner. He doesn’t just use the victimhood card in a manipulative fashion. He actually experiences emotion over it. That is a much more realistic interpretation of what has come to be known as the serial killer victim complex.

  I’ve dropped a link to a video of a real life criminal talking about himself and his past actions in a very similar way to Arthur Phleck, here. Please view at your own discretion, it does contain disturbing material.

    So how does Jerome view the things that happened in his childhood?

  On the show, Jerome uses victim cards in a similar fashion to previous Joker iterations. “ With Uncle Zach, the beatings never stopped...they went on and on, and yet...nobody ever helped me... ” He tells Bruce. For a moment, we see him performing an emotion. But it is shallow. And that is because, as I mentioned above, Jerome hates vulnerability. So, to me, he is somewhat of a combination between Phleck and the previous Jokers.

  He will use his tragic backstory for pity points when it is convenient. But does he actually see himself as a victim? No. Because that would contradict his prideful nature! A victim is weak, puny, abused and broken. Jerome can’t be those things, because seeing himself as such would be an ego collapse. Jerome sees his life as a movie. Another soap opera. He removes himself from the reality of the situation. There is a ‘that’s life’ mentality in that too. There’s a ‘my life is a comedy’ mentality in that too. But, unlike Phleck, Jerome doesn’t feel bitter about it anymore.

   Even when referencing how he killed Lila to Jim Gordon, or complaining to Jeremiah for abandoning him, the emotional aspect lasts for a minute. Then he starts laughing and making jokes about it. It’s like he wants to distance himself from the reality of the situation. And that’s why he doesn’t use the victim cards in most situations too. Because they would make him look weak and small. And he’s not pathetic like that.

  For example, he wouldn’t start talking about his tragic backstory just to sleep with some cult girl. These tactics are RESERVED for very special individuals, like Bruce Wayne and his brother. He would use this kind of thing against people he knows are emotional or bonded with him to some extend. That’s why he doesn’t do it to Jimbo, for example, because he knows Jimbo isn’t as openly compassionate as Bruce, who would feel sorry for him and want to help him.

   TO CONCLUDE: Once again my post got huge and if you made it this far, thank you for reading :D I hope I conveyed the general picture adequately to you!

To those who abuse: the sin is yours, the crime is yours, and the shame is yours. To those who protect the perpetrators: blaming the victims only masks the evil within, making you as guilty as those who abuse. Stand up for the innocent or go down with the rest.”   — Flora Jessop, Church of Lies

[omgktlouchheim]

Word Vomit Wednesday - Romanticizing Rejection

Welcome to Word Vomit Wednesday! A series of blog posts where I attempt to process thoughts and feelings around a specific topic or current events that I, and sometimes the rest of the Internet, ruminate obsessively about. All thoughts/opinions/experiences are my own (unless otherwise indicated); I don’t claim anything that I write to represent anyone other than myself.

Recently, I’ve made some more deliberate efforts to create community and meet people now that I’m more settled and steady in Tucson. This need to venture out and start testing the waters led me to sign up for a three-month virtual community that was being beta-tested by my life-coach. The calls were scheduled to happen once a month for two hours with a max of up to 30 people. They began with an exercise to ground us and any anxieties we might be bringing into the call, a brief ice-breaker to get acquainted with one another, then a specific topic that the majority voted for would be presented, either by my life coach or a volunteer from the group that we would build a conversation around. On the last call that we had in November, the topic was about rejection. Mostly around intimate or romantic relationships, although we also got into the ways we’ve felt rejected by others in often small, subtle ways that resulted in big impacts on our lives. Other than discussing those smaller moments I admit, I was not interested in the topic. I couldn’t quite figure out what was so compelling about rejection.

Then, as I do, I started thinking about it. I read a Refinery29 article that talked about the man who invented “Rejection Therapy,” a game where the aim is to get rejected by others to build resilience to the fear of rejection, and watched a TedTalk where another man who took the game and challenged himself to vlog getting rejected for 100 days and how it changed his life for the better. As I thought, and read, and watched I came to an understanding that underneath the blanket of “rejection” seems to be where the issues actually lie. Fear of putting yourself out there. Not wanting to open yourself up to potentially painful situations. Anxious/avoidant/dysfunctional attachment issues. Asking for help or for something that you want or need. Tapping into your own creativity. Setting a boundary. The rejection itself doesn’t seem to be the actual issue. The underlying issue is showing up in the world fully as yourself and the reality that you may have to make some tough decisions regarding your relationships when certain people are not so accepting. Sometimes the fear of rejection is also about how a rejection is relayed. Humans are notorious for responding to others in a multitude of fucked up ways. Ghosting, public humiliation, abuse, torture, condescension/belittling/minimizing, interrupting, ignoring, attacking, defending, stonewalling, projecting/deflecting, lying… the list goes on and on. Given all of this, I feel like rejection and the ways it can be demonstrated is more telling of the source and is imperative information to have for our own health and well-being.

Pain, in and of itself, is important. Not in the bullshit “no pain no gain” way, but in that it is a part of the human condition in the same way that joy, sadness, excitement and other emotions and sensations are a part of the human condition. When feelings come up for us, they present us with data based on internal and external stimuli and it is our job to interpret that data as accurately as possible to then take any action that may be required of us. We can have a tendency to have difficulty when thinking about our feelings this way because in this society we are essentially conditioned to cut off communication between ourselves and our emotions and other physiological sensations our bodies use to relay important messages to us. It can make it very hard, scary even, to retrain ourselves to listen to ourselves. Instead we choose to ignore feelings when they come up, maybe become annoyed with ourselves when uncomfortable feelings arise, binge eat to try to physically shove discomfort down, shop compulsively because we think something external will quiet or “fix” the internal, and develop a variety of other coping mechanisms because we don’t know what to do with them and probably had never been given the space to safely explore what they could be trying to tell us. When pain gets activated either physically or emotionally, it usually means a major boundary has been crossed, or something is wrong and needs to be checked out right away. When we stub our toe walking into the couch going from one room to the next in our house, we learn to pay more attention to our surroundings and adapt. When we’ve been running around from errand to errand all day and our body begins to ache, we know we’ve reached our limit and need to take a break. And when we come down with some illness and are coughing so hard that it hurts to even breathe, we go to the doctor. Because we feel pain, we are able to take charge and make any number of possible necessary changes to our lives. It can become trickier to know what action to take when our feelings get hurt (because it’s both a physical and  largely internal response), but really the same principles apply. When someone says or does something that hurts your feelings you figure out what nerve that hit and determine if this is a person you keep in your life and to what extent based on your particular boundaries and needs. Easier said than done, I know. 

On the flip side of this, and as the title of this essay indicates, we are not only a society that teaches us to fear pain and any “negative” feelings but we are also one that is OBSESSED with suffering. Everything from our narratives about tragic “starving artists,” the 24-hour news cycle, the internet, the romanticization of drama in our relationships, violence permeates almost every aspect of our culture. There is a huge difference between pain and suffering though. Pain, like I said before, is there to relay a message to us that we then interpret, take action on, and release. Suffering, on the other hand, is something we do to ourselves. We replay old narratives on loops that keep us trapped in emotional purgatory and we take our issues out on others instead of tackling them head on and making difficult but necessary changes in our lives. And sometimes we even allow and cause the suffering of others because we benefit from the exploitation of others. So, it’s entirely possible that it may not even be pain from rejection we’re all trying to avoid, but all pain because we’re already so overloaded with so much pain AND suffering. We are so desensitized to pain in a variety of forms, no wonder our relationship with it is dysfunctional. We may honestly, be too tired to even think about engaging with it. Unfortunately, when we ignore it we allow injustice to flourish and we lose out on so much. Not only do we not see all the choices and opportunities laid out before us, or take risks in relationships, we are so used to fear that we end up rejecting ourselves. Our worlds become so small and we do this to ourselves. And this is the main difference between pain and suffering. Pain releases when we recognize it and take action, suffering is what we do to ourselves by choice even when there are so many other options available to us.  

We will often choose to reject and betray ourselves before stepping into the unknown. I am no stranger to this myself. There have been so many times that I had an inkling to do that thing or talk to that person or allow myself to want something and I never would. I would make up some excuse or other and not give myself a chance. “Well, if they’re interested they’ll say something. I don’t want to bother them.” “That sounds like a really cool job, but I don’t think I’m qualified.” “I’m not going to submit this project for the competition, I probably don’t have a shot at winning.” This year I’ve been recognizing many of the ways in which I reject myself, often so subtly, that I barely even know I’m doing it. Because it’s typically modeled and learned behavior and unless we start doing healing work, rejecting ourselves just seems normal. It takes a lot of work just to hear the whispers: “Don’t go out tonight, everybody sucks so it’s not like you’d meet anyone decent anyway,” “Don’t speak your truth because everyone you care about will abandon you,” “You have to hustle or you’ll never be worthy of success or love.” There are probably millions of examples and they’ll show up differently for different people. Not only do we adopt these behaviors and narratives, we let them drive everything we do because we believe they are part of our identities. It’s a lie. The fact is, you get to decide who you want to be and how you want to show up in the world. It takes practice, work, and a lot of self-discovery. We also face many obstacles and various forms of systemic oppression that are so much larger than any one individual, which can also be another reason why showing up as yourself can feel dangerous. As difficult and scary as it may be, it’s also worth it even if you don’t initially know  how you’re going to do it or where it’s going to take you. 

There’s this game I really like to play on my phone called Flow. It’s kind of like a connect-the-dots puzzle. You have a shape with multiple pairs of dots inside that you have to connect without impeding the other paths of the other connecting dots. What I like most about this game is that once you get one path, the other ones start to become more clear. Flow is all about taking that first step on one path and connecting the dots as you go. The paths are not always linear and straightforward. Sometimes there are twists, sharp-corners and backtracking. But once you start toward something; an idea, goal, etc., worlds you never knew existed start to open up. Toward the end of my studies to get my certificate in audio engineering and production the faculty held a competition for the post-production projects we’d been working on. I hadn’t planned on submitting mine even though I loved it and was really proud of the work I did and how it turned out. The moment I was aware of the competition I heard a whisper that said, “It’s probably not as good as other people’s.” Flash forward: I won first place. After seeing my project, a friend in my class said I should submit it. For whatever reason, I decided to internalize his belief in me and my talent and I went for it. Had I not done that I would have missed out, not only on winning the top prize, but on being asked about my process and being celebrated for something really cool that I did and integrating more self-confidence and the message that I deserve to be in the running for the things I want into my psyche. What I learned from that and other experiences since, is that on the flip side of rejection is courage.

Katie Louchheim would like to wish everyone a very Merry Impeachmas!

[help-on-four-paws]

How I Help My Girl as a Mobility Service Dog

[original article is from our wordpress blog but copy-and-pasted here in case it’s easier for people to access on here]

A Mobility Service Dog helps a handler who is disabled in one or more ways that affects their mobility or locomotion.  Mobility dogs are what come to mind for most people when they think of non-Guide Dog assistance dogs.  The tasks that a Mobility Service Dog can do varies depending on the dog itself, their handler’s needs, and the organization that trained the dog (when applicable).  Most people think of bigger dogs when they think of Mobility Dogs, but they can actually range in size: a small dog is just as capable of picking up dropped items and retrieving identified items if that’s what the handler needs.

Bigger dogs, though, are definitely required for weight-bearing mobility work, which is usually divided into the categories of “light” and heavy” depending on how much weight the dog needs to bear.  Different people will argue for different handler-to-dog ratios, but most people will say that a dog doing light mobility needs to be at least 1/3 of their handler’s height and 30% of their handler’s weight.  Heavy mobility typically requires a dog that is at least 33.3-40% of their handler’s height and 40-50% of their handler’s weight.** Light mobility work involves guide work, and heavy mobility work involves bracing and wheelchair pulling.***  Other weight-bearing tasks, such as counterbalance and forward momentum pulling, can vary in their categorization of “light” and “heavy” depending on the frequency of their use.  The bigger your dog is compared to you, generally the safer it’ll be to do weight-bearing mobility with that dog, but please note that these numbers are by no means the absolute standard for any given dog.  Structure also plays a critically important role in how pressure is distributed across the dog’s skeleton and can determine whether a dog can do weight-bearing mobility work safely.  Choice of mobility harness also critically affects the safety of mobility work for a dog (e.g. a fixed, rigid bracing handle typically shouldn’t be more than about 6″ in height because the downward force can create torque on the dog’s spine; source: my girl’s biomechanics notes, autumn 2017).

The ability to do mobility work depends on the individual dog itself: if you want to do weight-bearing mobility work with your dog, please consult your veterinarian to see if your individual dog is a good candidate for mobility work and that the mobility harness that you choose is appropriate for your individual dog, as well as for the tasks that you want your dog to perform.  Your pup shouldn’t be doing weight-bearing mobility work before their growth plates are closed, usually by 18-24 months, since this can have long-term affects on your dog’s musculoskeletal health, and growth plate progress can only be assessed via x-ray, not by a physical exam.  X-ray is also the only way to assess whether your dog can comfortably do mobility work (e.g. that your dog does not have hip dysplasia).  And remember that your dog needs to be conditioned to the work: weight-bearing mobility work on an unconditioned dog can cause injury even with the correct harness on a well-structured dog. (And, of course, if you’re relying heavily on your dog for heavy weight-bearing mobility work, it may be time to acquire a non-dog mobility aid, such as a walker or wheelchair.)

The type of weight-bearing mobility work that I do would be considered “light,” because I am approximately 1/3 of my girl’s height and about 38% of my girl’s weight.  My hips and elbows have been x-rayed multiple times, and I have been cleared by multiple vets at two different vet clinics (one on the West Coast, on on the East Coast) multiple times for every task that I do for my girl, the frequency with which I do my tasks, and every piece of gear in which I perform those tasks.  That’s a long checklist, but it’s important for keeping me safe!  And I need to be kept safe since my job is keeping my girl safe.

However, I do more than just weight-bearing mobility, of course!  I have a wide range of tasks to help my girl.  Her mobility issues stem primarily from her migraine disorder and her fibromyalgia, which is a syndrome characterized by pain and fatigue and is most likely caused by overactive pain receptors that interpret normal stimuli as super painful.  For my girl, fibromyalgia is associated with autonomic nervous system problems as well, like temperature regulation issues, bladder leakage, and GI issues.  As a Mobility Service Dog, I help my girl with her fatigue, pain, and nausea, as well as other symptoms that may impair her ability to move.

Because I love fetch, I easily learned how to pick up items other than toys, and I actually do it with pleasure — it’s like a game to me!  It’s just fetch with weirdly-shaped toys, right?  My enthusiasm really benefits my girl: I save her the job of bending over to pick up something, which is very helpful for her for a number of reasons.  When she has a migraine, for example, or even just the daily headaches caused by her migraine disorder, bending over can dramatically exacerbate the pounding in her head.  Her strength and dexterity are affected by the migraines, so it can be helpful to have me pick up items that she continually drops, like her phone.  Bending over can also worsen her dizziness and nausea, both of which are caused by her autonomic dysfunction.  Picking up items can even be helpful on high pain days when her hips, back, or knees are bothering her.  I use this task a lot in cold weather, because the cold limits the mobility in my girl’s hands, so she often drops what she’s holding.  When her hands have limited dexterity like this, it can be hard for her to pick up an item, so I can do it for her and then place the item in her hand.  Sometimes she drops things multiple times, but that’s okay — I could play fetch all day long, so I could do this all day long, too! (To be fair, sometimes it does elicit a sassy look from me, but would I really be me if I weren’t being sassy?)  The items I pick up most frequently are my leash, her phone, or her pill case, but I am so talented that I can even pick up a raw egg without breaking it, as well as a credit card on a flat surface!

I can also retrieve items that are at a slight distance when my girl points to what I’m supposed to retrieve.  This was also super easy for me to learn because it’s just a mini game of fetch!  Retrieving indicated items can be helpful when my girl is “grounded” by a migraine and cannot move around without a lot of pain.  I can also retrieve these indicated items when nausea or pain would make moving incredibly unpleasant for my girl, as well as when dizziness or other issues would make moving even a short distance not the best option for her.  Retrieving things for my girl can even help during periods of paralyzing anxiety, where my girl is “frozen” and cannot get up to fetch items that would be helpful to her (like her medication).

I can also retrieve a few named items when they’re out of sight or in a different room.  My best retrieval is getting my “at home” harness from the spot where it’s always supposed to be.  If my girl needs a little extra balance but can’t safely get to where she stores my gear, I can go get this harness for her.  During GI flares, for example, any kind of movement can be unpleasant, so I can fetch this harness and give her a little extra support while she’s walking around the house.

When I wear the right harness, I can do forward momentum pulling, where I act like a dog-sized tugboat for my girl by pulling into my harness while I’m walking as a way to save some of my girl’s energy.  I pull her along so that she doesn’t have to use as much energy while she’s walking, so she doesn’t get tired as fast as she would on her own.  Helping my girl conserve her energy is important because one of the symptoms that impacts her life the most is her chronic fatigue because it disrupts not only big plans, like going to appointments, but also small daily tasks, like brushing her teeth or getting dressed.  If I can help her save a spoon while she’s walking, then she can hopefully use that spoon during another part of her day to complete something on her To Do list.  Forward momentum pulling can also help keep my girl upright when she has bad nausea and just wants to curl up into a ball on the ground or when she feels dizzy and unstable on her feet — my forward momentum helps her stay balanced, just like a boat pulling a waterskier.

My forward momentum pulling also has a guiding aspect to it.  This is helpful when my girl has bad nausea so that she can focus on trying not to feel sick while I handle more complex things like navigating the environment so that my girl has one less thing to think about when she’s feeling sick.  The guiding aspect can also help when my girl has a migraine, especially when she becomes sensitive to light because of her migraines — she can just close her eyes against the light, and I’ll make sure I get us where I need to go.  I’m not trained to watch for “safe” traffic yet, but I do know how to turn left, turn right, stay straight, and stop.  I can also find a few specific locations, as well as some of the important people in her life.  I can even find them in unfamiliar places!  I love doing this task because my “reward” is getting to say hello to the person I found for my girl (which is usually someone I love, too).

I can also provide counterbalance to help my girl, a task where I lean my weight in the opposite direction she’s leaning in order to steady her, which can help with dizziness and with her migraine-induced balance issues.  However, although I still perform this task from time to time, we quickly learned that my counterbalance harnesses help greatly my girl’s proprioception, which is her body’s “awareness” of itself (if you want to learn more about proprioception, click on this link – which I really like because it’ll show you a lot of current research involving proprioception).  Just holding onto the handle on my harness can be enough to tell my girl’s body where she is in relation to the world around her and can be a strong enough signal to make her body respond appropriately when her brain is a little “frazzled.”  Now, simply wearing a harness is not a trained task (just like wearing a dress or a cute bow wouldn’t be a task either), but it certainly is a benefit of having me as her service dog!

Perhaps my favourite task of all is helping my girl (or her friends, or really anyone who asks me) to take off her socks.  I get so excited to take off her socks that sometimes I’m overly enthusiastic and will start offering her shoes and other items!  My girl had never before taught a dog to take off socks and decided to teach me how to do so on a whim while waiting to say goodnight to her niece and nephew in December of 2016.  I initially learned to take off her socks at the toe, a method that works well enough for ankle socks, but we quickly realized that toe-pulling can rip longer socks because they get stuck on the heel (ah, the challenges of owner-training a service dog!).  Nowadays, I aim for my girl’s heel when removing her socks — although sometimes I forget when I become too enthusiastic!  Those who know my girl may wonder why I take off her socks since she is physically able to do so herself.  Taking off her socks can be helpful when she’s extra tired from fatigue and needs to save her limited energy for getting ready for bed, which can be surprisingly draining if you don’t have much energy to spare.  It can also be helpful on days where her pain is really high or when she has a migraine, both of which would make any movement very uncomfortable, so when I take off her socks for her, I save her that discomfort.

I’ve now also extended this task to being able to take off different types of clothes, mainly pants and shirts (jackets and gloves can still be a little tricky!).  Because I remove her clothes, I can prevent her from bending over and making her nausea worse when it’s acting up, and, again, it can also be helpful on high pain days and migraine days when movement is painful.  Sometimes my girl is even to tired to fully get ready for bed, but wearing the day’s clothes can make my girl feel gross and distract her from falling asleep, even if she’s exhausted (thanks to “racing thoughts” at night, which I touched upon previously), so when I help her undress, it can help her get the sleep her body desperately needs.

One big way I can help my girl in her daily life is by helping her do the laundry.  Yes, you read that right: I willingly help my girl with “boring” chores!  Except they’re not boring to me, because it’s all just a fun game.  Laundry can be an exhausting and potentially pain-inducing task for my girl, but unfortunately, no matter how tired or sick you are, dirty underwear doesn’t spontaneously become clean!  So when I step in to help, my girl and I can do what needs to get done even if she isn’t feeling too great.

The strongest part of my laundry routine is helping my girl sort laundry.  Usually, my girl will take the whole dirty laundry hamper and empty it on the floor.  I help pick up the items and sort them into either the laundry basket, which will then get taken down to the laundry room (at least in this apartment setup), into the dirty laundry hamper to be washed another day, or into my girl’s hands if the item needs to be flipped inside-out.  My girl lets me choose the order in which I pick up the clothes, and I have a blast choosing just the right socks and shirts to give her!

I can also put things in the washing machine or take them out of the washing machine (which was slightly more relevant at our last apartment because the machines here are top-loading, but it’s still helpful when I help my girl’s girlfriend do her laundry – because of course I help her friends, too!).  I hold items super gently with my mouth, which is great when I’m picking up delicate items that can break easily, but it isn’t quite as great when a little force is needed to get clothes in or out of the washing machine.  I can do smaller items, like underwear and socks, with no problem, but bigger items can certainly be a challenge, especially when they have multiple arms and legs!  I can also push the washing machine door closed when my girl asks me too.

Back in the winter of early 2016, my girl and I had a few minutes to spare before class, so she decided to teach me how to push the accessibility buttons that open doors.  It started as a fun trick to challenge my smart mind, but it’s actually become a helpful task!  This was particularly helpful at Dartmouth, which has many buildings with heavy doors (because that was the cool thing to do in the 1800s), and those heavy doors can be hard for anyone to open, especially for my girl on high pain or bad fatigue days.  I get very excited when I’m asked to hit an accessibility button with my paw, so it took me a while to learn how to do the job with finesse (instead of flailing excitedly) — but now I do it like a pro.  Currently, we don’t live in a town that is excessively accessible, but if we did, there is a very solid chance that my girl would be at least a part-time wheelchair user, in which case this task would be immensely helpful.  For now, though, it is still helpful on my girl’s worse health days, and as a perk, it’s also helpful when my girl is carrying a cup of hot tea!

Similarly, I have learned how to pay at register and check out, in case I should ever need to do so (e.g. if my girl and I move somewhere that is more wheelchair user-friendly).  Right now, of course, this is just a trick since my girl doesn’t need to use it, but I solidly know how to give a cashier my girl’s credit card, then take it back, and hand it to my girl, as well as removing a credit card from a chip reader.  As long as no one is waiting behind us in line at a store, my girl has me do this – partially to keep my skills sharp, but partially to melt hearts!

Although I like playing fetch, I haven’t always been open to the idea of holding something that I didn’t choose to hold, so it took a while for me to learn to hold things in my mouth when my girl asked me to (and not just spit them out!).  We’re still working on holding bigger and bigger items, as well as holding items for longer and longer amounts of time, but I can happily carry small things like pastry bags for my girl — and now that I know how to do it, I’m often pretty gosh darn proud of myself when I do!

Now that we’ve moved to a new apartment that has a bit more space, I’m slowly learning some new tasks that will offer some extra help to my girl around the house.  More room in an apartment, of course, means more room to spread out all my toys!  My girl is teaching me to clean up my toys and put them in their designated basket, a job that would normally require a lot of walking back and forth, bending over, and energy from my girl.  This isn’t necessarily restricted to just my toys, though: I can pick up any item that she indicates and then either give those items to her or drop them where she tells me to.  For example, I can throw trash away for her if she asks me to (and I actually have a command for that – appropriately named “Trash”).

I’m also working on being able to open and close doors, both of which have been tricky for me.  Opening doors has been hard for me to learn because I hold things very gently in my mouth, especially when I know I’m working and not playing so my girl has had to “trick” me into thinking that we’re playing a game of tug!  And closing doors has been tricky because I don’t like pressing things with my nose very hard, but I’m now able to close doors in a series of nose-boops.  Since my girl and I have our own room, opening and closing her door will be helpful for when she’s having a bad health day that requires rest but isn’t able to get out of bed.  Opening and closing doors ties into another task that I’m learning: retrieving a drink from a designated spot in the fridge.  This task requires me to open the fridge, grab the drink, hand it to my girl, and then return to close the fridge — and if I’m in my girl’s room with her, it could potentially require me to open and close her bedroom door, too.  When I’m able to retrieve a drink for her, she’ll be able to take medication even if she isn’t able to get out of bed (and also just stay hydrated, of course).

And now that my girl and I have our own bedroom, I’m learning how to turn the lights on and off.  When my girl gets sensitive to light due to a migraine, I’ll be able to turn off her bedroom light so she can recover in the comfort of a darkened room, and when she’s too tired to finish getting ready for bed, I can turn off the lights so that she can at least sleep in the dark and help her circadian rhythms.  And when she wakes up from panic attack-inducing nightmares but cannot get out of bed, I can turn on the lights to soothe her.

As you can see, I do a lot for my girl, and my job is always expanding as my girl and I encounter new environments (like this new apartment) and learn new ways that I can help her.  You may have picked up that sometimes the most helpful way I help my girl is doing tasks around the house for her, because her worst health days tend to confine her to the house or to her bed.  Most people think that having a Service Dog means “getting to take your dog everywhere with you,” but sometimes the most critical ways I help my girl are done in private, not in public.  But whether I’m inside or outside, wearing vest or wearing nothing, I love helping my girl when she asks me to!  The tasks I listed above are some of my favourite parts of my job – parts that I get a little too enthusiastic about at times – and I’m always happy to make my girl’s life a little easier.

Tail wags and puppy kisses, Kelsie Iris

Like my content? Buy me a dog treat! Also, check out these other posts of mine: Service Dog team etiquette (particularly apropos after this post!) Don’t distract Service Dogs Spoon Theory Confused? See my terms and abbreviations

[jmenvs3000w22]

Discussion Week 10

Blog prompt: Describe your personal ethic as you develop as a nature interpreter. What beliefs do you bring? What responsibilities do you have? What approaches are most suitable for you as an individual? 

This prompt ties into the 3 questions we have explored this course:

Who am I as an interpreter?

Who is my audience?

How can I make this experience meaningful?

As I make my way through this discussion, I will tie into all of these points above. :) 

Nature interpretation, as we’ve explored throughout this semester, can be presented in a variety of ways from history and art to science and technology. When I think about my personal development as a nature interpreter and the beliefs I bring, I go back to one simple condition: being out in nature. Fundamentally, I believe that despite all the wonderful technologies that can be used as tools to interpret nature such as the bear cams in Katmai National Park and Reserve, Alaska (Beck et al. 2018), the most powerful experiences are truly to be had out in the field. In “Why Environmental Educators Shouldn’t Give Up Hope” by Jacob Rodenburg, it is explained that children are often kept indoors to decrease risk of liability; the real danger however lies in not taking kids outside. Building relationships and intimacy through nature can transfer to all aspects of our life and it is critical for young kids to form this connection, and to tap into their wonder and curiosity (Rodenburg 2019). Though there are many complex topics to be taught out there, tailoring to a young audience can limit these insights. Yet the biggest insight of all that children are experts at, is to love. Rodenburg (2019) explains that children are ready to love nature, it is simply the action of exposing them to it. Going forward as an educator, I feel as though this is a responsibility of mine to uphold: to bring the people out into nature. Specifically, to bring kids who are little sponges to information and stimuli into beautiful places that will shape who they become. There is so much meaning in this kind of interpretation to a young audience as there are rarely any pre-formed barriers or prejudices to the natural world, only objective curiosity and love which, in my opinion, makes the best audience. Everyone belongs in nature. As kids, the knapsacks we carry are yet to be filled; the responsibility as an interpreter is to make everyone know that they belong despite their backgrounds be it financial, cultural, etc (Gallavan 2005).  

I have personally always loved to work with kids, be it through babysitting or through aftercare school programs. I believe there is so much to learn from them, as they offer a new perspective on pretty much everything, and they take all the complexity out of something seemingly complicated and they come up with a solution. I have been pleasantly surprised by this on more than one occasion, and I believe one of the most rewarding things is to have a child make you feel better about something making it seem like the caregiver role is reversed. To give you an example, when I was working at the Lake Agnes Teahouse above Lake Louise (my job for the past two summers), the staff sometimes worked alongside our boss’s children who came up on occasion to help out. One of the young girls, Zaylah who is 5 years old, always liked to take orders and work beside me, or run napkins to a table if it got busy. One morning I was pouring teas, and I burned my hand pretty badly on the kettle. Uncontrollably, tears started welling in my eyes from the pain, but also just because it was a little bit of a stressful day and everything added up to me feeling overwhelmed. My boss, Joanna, who is very good at taking care of her staff, said to me to go take a break and put my hand in the water outside; Zaylah came with me. Here I am, crying by the lake tending to my burned hand, and Zaylah, the 5-year-old, is rubbing my back telling me that it’s ok and sometimes when she’s sad she cries too. I couldn’t help but smile in that moment and thank her, as she now was the caregiver taking care of me. To say that everything is okay and sometimes I cry too when I’m sad may seem simple, but I would bet that it’s something that many adults couldn’t string together if they tried. Even with the best interest in mind, people may try to start by saying “at least it’s not as bad as x y z” or “don’t be sad”, which, when you’re sad is just not something you always want to hear! 

In this week’s unit, a quote, in particular, struck me: “...environmentalists need the goodwill of children would seem self-evident- but more often than not, children are viewed as props or extraneous to the serious adult work of saving the world. One often overlooked value of children is that they constitute the future political constituency, and their attention or vote – which is ultimately based more on a foundation of personal experience than rational decision making- is not guaranteed” (Hooykaas, 2022).

This precisely ties into the power and meaning of connecting in nature by experiencing it. By immersion and real experiences versus the sometimes complicated and theoretical world of adults. All children with unique backgrounds hold a powerful mosaic of potential to shape our world into a better one. Despite this, children are in fact overlooked for this potential. This connects to an excerpt from Tilden (1957) in the textbook which states that “Interpretation addressed to children should not be a dilution of the presentation to adults, but should follow a fundamentally different approach. To be at its best it will require a separate program” (Beck et al. 2018). 

I love the term “dilution” and that, in fact, interpreting to children is not a dilution at all, instead, it can be seen as an alternative way of thinking, a different perspective to be seen through the lens of a child. Adult vs child, no one is better or more “knowledgeable”, I do believe both worlds have a lot to teach the other, or rather for adults to remember and learn again. This is why knowing your audience is so important, and I believe the delivery of interpretation has to be fine-tuned to make a memorable experience. 

I believe I have the responsibility to incorporate child-like curiosities to a broader range of audiences, even adults, to shift the narrative and perspectives to re-learn nature without pre-disposed judgements and fears. Bringing people back to how they grew up without all the complications of growing up, is how I believe I can make meaningful experiences for people.  

References Cited

Beck, L., Cable, T.T. & Knudson, D.M. (2018). Guiding Principles of Interpretation. Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage for a Better World. (pp. 81-101). Sagamore-Venture Publishing.

Beck, L., Cable, T.T. & Knudson, D.M. (2018). Interpreting to the Masses. Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage for a Better World. (pp. 165-182). Sagamore-Venture Publishing.

Gallavan, N.P. (2005). "Helping teachers unpack their 'invisible knapsacks'." Multicultural Education, vol. 13, no. 1, p. 36. Gale Academic OneFile.

Hooykaas, A. (2022). Nature Interpretation’s Role in Environmental Sustainability. Nature Interpretation, University of Guelph.

Rodenburg, J. (2019). Why environmental educators shouldn’t give up hope. Pacific Northwest Journal of Community-based Environmental Literacy Education. University of Guelph Ares. 

[tangledtech]

Character Spotlight and Speculation: King Freddy

As mentioned before, I am almost dead certain King Freddy has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. As someone with multiple friends with confirmed diagnoses of PTSD and myself with a potential diagnosis from my last psych hanging over me, and multiple unconfirmed cases throughout my childhood, I’m fairly familiar with PTSD and from the pilot movie I’ve instantly felt Fred is being portrayed with PTSD. We actually don’t have a lot of concrete things but there’s a lot of implied clues. 

Strongest evidence: Closing of windows

This one seems inconsequential but when you combine a minor moment that happens early in the pilot movie with a scene that happens later that is much more poignant, we have the potential for a pattern.

Early in the movie, King Fred comes into Rapunzel’s room and closes her window. There’s no attention drawn to this, but combined with a later scene, starts to paint a picture. Later, at night, when the king is confessing his worries to the queen, we get a glimpse into his head. We hear a baby crying as he moves to close the doors to his balcony, a pained look on his face as we hear his past-self crying out for the guards. He locks the door-windows, and suddenly there’s a connection to the other, meaningless scene. He does not want these windows open. 

While the voiceover during this latter scene can very easily be interpreted as a narrative device to remind us, the audience, of what happened, personally I felt it was very much coded as a post-traumatic flashback. A brief, intrusive thought brought on as he saw the doors to their room open, too reminiscent of what happened before. Flashes of memories as he sees the doors unlocked, the very reason his daughter was stolen 18 years ago. Personally, I have every reason to believe the same thing happened in the earlier scene, unheard by the audience, and really, every time he’s seen a window unlocked for the past 18 years.

Weaker evidence: Language and actions

At the end of the pilot movie, after Raps saves the day and Fred goes to have his talking-to with her, we get another glimpse into the connections his mind is making. 

“And now that this has returned; the very reason you were snatched away from me in the first place...”

The King is already making connections between past events and current scenarios. His mind is already going back to that night 18 years ago.

From a neurobiological standpoint, PTSD involves many parts of your brain but one of the biggest factors is injury or weakness in the areas that distinguish the passage of time and separating new memories from old memories. Mentally and physically we relive memories. Psychologically we continue to return to that traumatic event particularly via stimuli that reminds us of it, and we are terrified of reliving that event. For the King, her hair is associated with his past trauma, and he’s scared. He’s terrified of reliving that trauma--and understandably so. 

Many times, people with PTSD will go out of their way to avoid things that trigger us. Trauma involving fire might make us extra precautious around campfires or open sources of flame, maybe we can only use jar candles instead of candlesticks, maybe candles are outright out of the question. 

The King is displaying a lot of that avoidance, most tellingly in his ban of all talk related to her hair or things magical. He gives the impression of doing this for her protection but it is far more likely that he is doing this for his own protection. Talking about these things brings too many painful, scary memories that remind him too fiercely that what happened before could happen again. He had his entire world shattered, and in his words, part of him died that day. He won’t--and can’t--go through that again. 

If we look at the risk factors for developing PTSD, King Freddy can very easily fit many of them. These include feeling extreme fear, horror, helplessness (hard to feel in control when your baby is snatched out of the night and not found for 18 years), having little to no social support after the event (besides Arianna, I’m not seeing a King very easily being able to reach out about his pain and just talk to someone, and he may not even be able to feel he can without looking weak or unable to do his job--protect people--as king), and dealing with extra stress after the event (I don’t see King duties slowing down after your kid disappears).

Speculation

These are things I see in-character for him, and things that would very likely come with suffering from PTSD.

Vivid dreams/nightmares: many, many people with PTSD not only suffer many nightmares but wild, intense dreams even if they’re not nightmares. I would not be surprised if King Freddy wakes up from these dreams fairly often.

Insomnia: Going along with those dreams, PTSD often affects our sleep cycle--which is to say, it decimates it. The King is certainly not a young man but I get the impression of being tired very often from him, particularly in his eyes.

Anxiety: I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say he would get anxiety attacks. He seems more like the sort to have very quiet anxiety, such that you might not even know he’s get a shock of adrenaline up his spine as he sees the window open. He seems an introverted man and unlikely to make his feelings present. 

Rituals: I believe we’ve already gotten a glimpse of one; the closing of his bedroom door. I wholly believe closing or checking the door is something he does every night.

Distorted guilt: He locks the door to the sound of his child crying and himself calling out to the guards for help. I have no doubt there’s some misplaced guilt on his part: “If I’d only locked the door that night...” Hence nightly rituals.

King Fred is making a lot of mistakes. But while he needs to take responsibility for his mistakes, I think a lot of it is forgivable because he does, at heart, love Rapunzel more than his own life and he is a man capable of change. This is a man who has perhaps been suffering from mental illness for 18 years and few or maybe even no people know about it. Many people who suffer from PTSD do so quietly for years before ever getting help, and the situation is all too easily found in Fred. 

[goddamnitlady]

OOC // super long post of me talking at myself, trying to make sense of my behaviour.

I need to put this chaos of thoughts down on the page. Or else they might claw my skull open from the inside out. This text is so super personal it would fit better in my diary. This is me talking at me.

So no obligation to you to read this!!!

I realise I’m so shaken, that in the below text, I will be (re-)constructing my own narrative about myself. I’ll do that right here. 

I will use this narrative to review what I learnt about my behaviour, re-interpret my past and then frame my current social reality. If I use kinder language, perhaps I'll think kinder of myself? Gotta try that. This is my unstructured train of thought, me talking at me. If you want to read about me talking at you, scroll down.

Enjoy some nude TMI. It’s long.

INTRO - BEHAVIOUR 

Yesterday I went to A.DHD Central to get tested and maybe a diagno.sis and surprise, I have it! I saw it coming and I'm okay with this. It explains why... 

why I'm always so easily distracted

why it's almost painful to be bored

why it's almost to do difficult tasks 

why I've got social periods that can last days or month and then suddenly get asocial periods

why I forget something 3 seconds after you said it

why I can't remember more than 3 instructions

why I don't have one train of thought, but 3 or 4. And I need to jump from train to train to keep up with them.

Okay so that's that.

The OTHER thing that I cannot stop thinking about now is just as important. The old man said it very casually, like: "oh btw on such an intense diagnosis day our team of trained specialist always finds other mental difficulties people developed too. AD.HD comes with friends. We see you have (traits of) avoi.dant personality disor.der okay continuing on, your computer test showed..."

And today I'm at home. I picked up my me.ds this morning and I've started dosing. I started thinking, wait what did they say yesterday about that other thing? So I read through Wikipedia.

ME TALKING @ ME. ^That new info about my behaviour changes my interpretation of my past.   

Yesterday a professional told me that 50% of the kids with ADH.D leave primary school feeling like an outcast so it's not weird I was bullied too.

On primary school I was dia.gnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia. It means that letters and numbers magic to me. They tremble and swap places or vanish. The classes Maths and Languages were awful to me. Biology and History were better and more fun but they also make use of numbers (dates/calculations). Art class (with my hands or brain) was the one thing I could actually do. I could do presentations and discussions as well.

But I felt different from my peers because they could learn things so EASILY compared to me. I wasn't dumb, I understood, but then the explanation was gone and I'd forgotten it again(AD.HD). So I needed lots of repetition to learn. And then once I understood it the letters/numbers kept moving without my consent! (dyslexia/dyscalucia) Stupid letters/numbers.

I moved houses and thus switched schools. On the new school became bullied by being socially exluded, ignored, and critisized.

That bullying made me feel like I could be 'attacked' in class all the time. In hindsight I was sensitive to stimuli. Everyone has a filter on their mind that ignores certain things (like the fact you are breathing. congratulations, you are now aware that you are breathing) and lets other things through (such as the honk of a car when you're jaywalking). Child!me must have been working super hard to 

pay attention to class 

filter stimuli 

categorise high-speed which stimuli are hostile 

muffle intense emotional reactions 

consider which version of reply would create least conflict/emotion 

A lack of sleep (from reading books until late) make me sleepy during the day thus less sensitive to (negative) stimuli. 

So I became from age 10 onward very much an outcast/ anxious/ nervous/ shy/ avoidant-of-confrontations-where-I-could-be-rejected. 

I was bullied on secondary school too. Jackpot.

I worked harder than average but my grades were lower than average. I felt inadequate. Inferior. My self reflection went into overdrive. I started to think things like... if I can't do maths or language and don't like people, what sort of career could I do? What value did I have to humanity?  Was I not just taking up resources? I felt guilt and shame that my parents had to waste(!) money on me. No economic equation could justify having me around. I was a useless human being. My only good trait is that I'm kind to people, showing kindness always -- even if they don't deserve it. Because I know what it’s like to be hurt and I don’t want to do that to anyone. 

(I feel so fucking lucky that I grew up in a loving family because holy shit teenage!me sounded like the textbook perfect victim for types of abuse.)

I worked hard in all my classes and it paid off. I went to the above-medium level of education for secondary school. Finally away from my bullies at age 15,5! I think that ended my de.pression too. I switched schools to above-medium, it was a normal period on that secondary school.  Two more years after that went fine. Made my long-term school friends and cosplay friends in that time and since. Yay!

After that, I studied graphic design on adult education medium level, then for Teacher of English As A Foreign Language on above-medium level, now I'm this(!) close to finishing Literature Studies on university (highest) level. Take that, insecurity. I'm not stupid. My specialities (creativity) just lay elsewhere than the standard measurement.

I read somewhere that AD.HD people don't have normal emotions but that one emotion TIMES TEN. So a small mention of rejecton from another person causes a feeling of REJECTION TIMES TEN in me. I can easily say that I have joy times TEN, fear times TEN, and enthusiasm times TEN too, which can make me a very charming person?

I initially thought this strong emotional fear of rejection was the AD.HD-only symptom called RSD, rejection-sensitive dys.phoria. What makes it into a personality diso.rder?

Answer: Persistent malfunctioning in society. 

ME TALKING @ ME. Re-framing my social reality and examining my behaviours.

I malfunction as follows: I experience extreme shyness in certain moments, feel anxious before or during new social situations, don't want to go to the kitchen if my housemates are there, have a fear of emailing/calling people, or approaching groups. Fear of asking money back (I feel like "I'm not worth even a euro"). I have a GIANT fear of being rejected by others. Giant fear of being ridiculed. Cast out.

This leads to a behavior pattern where I avoid conflict. I'm just too scared to do them. Critique freaks me out (because me emotions will skyrocket times ten). And it's the worst when I'm doing a project with people (such as preparing a presentation with a group/making cosplay costume with a friend/travelling home by train and someone needs to pick me up). People are the worst. I feel I always let them down.

So then anticipate on being inadequate, take longer to do it perfect, get ill from thinking up a thousand stressful could-be's, then fiiiiiinally reach out, and hear "you should have done X" or "why didn't you call me earlier?! Now I have to deal with this escalated mess!"

HOW I RESPOND TO ONLINE STIMULI

When friends send me a message online, I get scared. I ALWAYS have fear of opening them. I always think "what did I do wrong this time?" I always anticipate an attack. This is why it's good I have both friends AND other people on whatsapp. Sometimes this emotional anticipation or reaction is so strong that it can dominate my mood for hours.

Sometimes (when I'm most afraid) I open the message to get rid of the notification and don't actually read it. 

Sometimes (when I'm fearful brave) I take a deep breath and read it and take an hour to deal with the stressful emotional reaction. I want to reply but 1)I need to think of the perfect reply to type up so the negative situation will be quelled or/or followed by 2) my AD.HD forgets it.

Sometimes (when I'm happy) I can respond immediately. I'm functional!!!

Sometimes (when I'm happy) I respond immediately and them too and it's fun! And I have a blast! Wow, talking to friends is so much fun!!! I'm charming. I'm fast. I'm celebrating.

Nowadays I have a lot of friends. At least twenty five! They're divided into four groups: hometown, student life, online, cosplay. These are "friends without obligation" MEANING that my presence is a addition and not a requirement. They will never guilt me for cancelling on them. We can only hang out once a year and have a blast without talking at all during the rest of the year, and we will still conciser each other friends.           I consider them friends if I can message/call them up at 2 a.m. and cry about a boyfriend or needing a place to sleep. Which is a huge deal to me, me-who-feels-guilty-for-taking-up-resources.)          It don’t always function. I can hide for weeks, avoiding social contact. Then I can be super functional for weeks. Ups and downs.          I function best around friends without obligations. 

ME @ TUMBLR FRIENDS.

I suppose I want my tumblr friends to know that...

I 'squish' on a person. I use the word here in the meaning of 'plantonic crushing' and 'wanting to have an emotional bond with them as friend'. I sometimes stalk/bombard a person with messages/like every post/am super invested in everything they do. Usual reason: because I think they are a fantastic content creator. This makes me feel like they are inspiring and amazing and sometimes 'socially higher ranked' than me.          To battle my inferiority, I want them to acknowledge me. I want to 'have' them. I hate to admit it, but the words "notice me senpai" sum it up badly. A better way of describing it is “proving my inferiority complex as wrong and my internalised social hierarchy as false as fast as I can”.         The resolution is often hanging out in chat and writing a thread together. It will make me realise that we're both humans. Often, once the person gives me attention, I very quickly normalise them and am able to stop bad thoughts.        I really dislike the senpai/kohai dynamic and want to get rid of it asap. Giving me attention helps! I've experienced this squishing in class/ social/ work/ online/ cosplay environments. If I am 'squishing' on you, just pat my head, okay? 

I feel compelled to admit have had squishes on but then normalised as equal Sky.e, Ni.kki, Ju.lia, E.su, Ham.my, J, Cel.este, Va.na, and various others who I don’t need to mention because I never became friends with them. My squishes on these people were on the creative person as future friend, not(!!!) on the muses. I still have a ton of respect for these people.

People I'm in the process of normalising are Surfi and Jana. I'm doing well. I’m not that bad. When Hammy appears I still want a pat on the head though.

One person I'm squishing on quite much right now is Nami. I want all their attention. Nami, if you're reading this, I hope it doesn't drive you crazy (not as mad as it drives me). So I'm sorry that I post a reply 0.3 seconds after you post and seem to be online 24/7. 

And if anyone else is reading this, sorry I’m paying less attention to you.

I hate it when partners drop threads unannounced because I'll be waiting by the front door like a labrador waiting for a dead owner to come home.

Its fine if you tell me you want to drop a thread, no problem, no feeling of rejection here.

It's fine if you take 2 years to reply to a thread. Literally.

I forget thread posts. Feel free to poke me when I take longer than a month.

Me not replying to your roleplay request is because I'm imagining that my rejection of your request will hurt you as much as it would hurt me. I'm imagining your pain and emphasize with my fantasy to the point that I leave your request in my inbox for months. And then it hurts that I didn't reply.

Me not posting your submission/ask message is because I'm always feeling inferior. I don't feel worthy of your attention. I don't feel worthy of your text/art/time, so when I get it I feel THRILLED. Like, "WOW they like me!! Take that inferiority complex!!" I feel thrilled. I have to give you the perfect reply that will show you exactly how thrilled I am. Or give you a perfect drabble as reply.

Me not replying to your chat messages is not me intentionally disrespecting you. You are important. Goddamnit I want to keep you as a friend. It's me being EMOTIONAL AS FUCK AND I'M PREPARING A REPLY or I FORGOT ABOUT IT.

I only give myself permission to delete those after 6 months of struggling.

Me roleplaying super intensely with you and then suddenly not at all, is because the following happened: 

I  squished on you back then,

we wrote and for a while my days centerend around your online hours, 

I normalised you and I found tranquillity (good ending) OR 

I was called away because I had ignored real life and it became on fire. (bad ending, very much at risk of uncontrolled squishing on you again!!!)  

(I want to continue to enjoy being friends with you Super Duper Much, I respect your distaste for my silences, I’m sorry, and I feel bad TIMES TEN that I put you in this mood.) (I then feel worthless. Then inferior and wow hello devil on my shoulder that tells me bad things. Hey devil if you’re here do you pay rent?  And I begin to avoid you which makes you even unhappier. Then I avoid you and - etc. etc. Goddamn I just want to be friends and write rp WHY am I like this! Why am I so fearful? It doesn’t make any sense!)  

The thought of writing with you makes me excited times ten. I respect you. And because we didn't RP and you're worried and I feel I let you down... I want to "make it up to you by being perfect and worthy".        It catapults me right back into the mindset/habits from where I used to squish on you, and my day will center around you again. I know I don't /want/ that mindset to ambush me. It'll control me.         So I either postpone engagement with you, OR I ask/agree a day where we can write together. Then my intense emotions and refresh-the-page obsession and "OH MY GOD THIS RP IS SO GOOD U R SUCH AN AWESOME CONTENT CREATOR WE HAVE SO MUCH FUN" thoughts can be limited to that day.         During the next days (I usually need days), I can cool down from the hype and try to continue with my life and productively avoid the bad squish. This may come across as cold. But I assure you, my mind is constantly on you. And when I’m settled, I’ll be easier to approach for casual RP again. 

I find it extremely hard to deal with users who see me as their senpai. When I feel that you idolise me as senpai, want my attention and affection, want to be my friend, I get really uncomfortable. I usually search for ways to calm you down and make you realize I'm human. But if I do not feel equal, (because of IM chat/because writing styles clash) I can’t hang out with you. That’s not you, that’s me. Feeling inferior is something I’m trained in now and know how to go to ‘equals’ level fast, I’m not trained at all to feel superior. I screw up wayyy to much to accept that role. I will fear hurting you. I wouldn’t know how to try to become equals. So then I dash away. I’m sorry.

I'm not good at IM messaging in chat on tumblr or other social media online because I'll 1)get scared of the messages or 2) really really want to write with you. So I generally don't want to chat at all, except to plot roleplays. I find it difficult to send friends regular 'hi how are you' messages because I want a "friendship-without-obligations" that I described earlier.

Wow this list must scare you. I'm sorry.

It scares me. Wow, what a manual. I'm so complicated.

I'm worried now about whether I should post this. I sound like such a... a crazy online person that has a ton of things wrong in the head and should be avoided at all cost. ......... No, let me rephrase that. I’m a self-reflective person. I am a critical analyst of my mind and it's unique I can put it into words. 

DEAR TUMBLR FRIENDS...

- You don't want my squishing + I don't want my squishing. Let's work together so this bad mindset doesn't thrive, OK?

- You don't want to be ignored + I don't want my ‘conflict avoiding anxiety’ that makes me ignore you. Let's continue to communicate!! Please sandwich your critique in kindness. Kind-critical-kind. Then I'll reply faster!

- I am worth as much as every one of you. I am NOT your kohai and if you start seeing me as such I'll feel offended. I'm worth as much as any of you. (My mind cannot be trusted.)

- You cannot control what emotions I feel, nor the intensity. Anything(!) could spark me to go into a different mindset.

ROLEPLAY I suppose I have a 'type' of muse. 

I like writing confident-arrogant muses who never hesitate about being better than others. They used their unique traits that set them apart to excel (not fall), and are so fearless of social rejections that they boldly abandoned social-mediocority to craft a setting they thrive in.       Its because their growth/conquer mindsets appeal to me. I want to continue training myself to think like that. It helps battle my fears.       I identify with them.       Reasons: I worked hard and rose from being bullied at primary school and medium education level to upper-middle level. Now I'm at highest level of education (university) despite my flaws. I channelled my traits of creativity + kindness + hard work and made a ton of friends. I am now struggling with my university bachelor thesis. I have to finish it asap, but damn, I'm amazing, I never thought I'd get this far?? I'm in my world of my own making. My loving supporting surrounding friends/family/teachers help me function.  

IN CONCLUSION....

So in conclusion, I can only ask for your friendship, your kindness to forgive me when I mess up, and to please occasionally pet my head.

In return, I will generously offer friendship for however long you want me, will bravely engage in struggles to reply to your messages in time, and I offer you lots of FEELS from my muses.

I'm going to make sure that the time we hang out and write together, will be the MOST AMAZING EXPERIENCE.

Excerpt from my thoughts to show you how it goes: Small bad thought in my head: "don't abandon me, please accept this RP service I offer, because you won't hang out with me for my personality due to my bad attention/communication skills. I can see why you like my Orochimaru/muses but can hardly see why you could like me." Louder good thought in my head: "Shut up you're a feeling from the AD.HD or conflict-avoident-personality-type part of my brain and you can't be trusted. LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING. I'M GREAT." Small thought: "...Keep telling yourself that." Louder thought: "Ouch. I mean. LA LA LA. POSITIVE SELF-DECEPTION  AGAINST BAD THOUGHTS UNTIL IT'S AN INTERNALISED TRUTH IS AN EMPOWERING METHOD THAT WORKS. LA LA LA." So that’s how it works. Sometimes I cannot differ which of the thoughts is bad and which one is the good one. 

EPILOGUE, I’m done.

Okay. I think I have figured myself out. I’ve re-evaluated my past. 

The urgent mess of thoughts in my brain has calmed down. I no longer feel like my head will explode. 

I’ve said all the things I wanted to say to myself, and I’ve said the things I want to say to tumblr friends. 

I’m going to pretend nooooo oneeee took the time to read this big post... so no one will be angry (something which I fear for no logical reason) ... and I’ll be able to sleep right now. 

[xtcpanda]

Seriously, is playing Video Games as BAD as mom says?

If you grew up playing video games like I did … you’ve probably heard lots of conflicting information about games from your parents and people. Some say too much gaming will ruin your vision or rot your brain … While others claim it improves your hand-eye coordination, response time and can even make you smarter so what exactly does gaming do to our brain and body?

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with video games.

  I would stay awake for more than 48h till I wake up with keyboard marks on my face, red eyes and my body is so tired to even get up and drink some water... trust me I am not exaggerating. After all that I would go to sleep only to dream about the perfect headshot with that “AWM”.

  But there were physical effects, too. My thumbs turned into machines, quick and precise. During especially difficult levels of play, my palms would sweat. My heart would race. I’d have knots in my stomach from anxiety. It was the same feeling I’d sometimes get from watching scary movies or suspenseful TV shows.

These days the gaming industry is booming and becoming more like sports with fans, medals and everything! and thanks to smartphones and free games like fortnight and League of Legends … Gamers are increasing more than ever before. So, given that we can play virtually anywhere at any time How is all this gaming changing us physically?

Scientists are discovering that playing video games can change the way we act, think, and feel. Whether these changes are good or bad has become a subject of intense debate.

  Action games like counter-strike, overwatch and PUBG are some of the most popular with gamers these days and probably you’ve heard once or twice your grandmother says “these games will make you more violent from all the blood you see!”

Whenever a wave of teenage violence strikes, movies, TV, or video games often take the heat. Some adults assume that movies, TV, and video games are a bad influence on kids, and they blame these media for causing various problems.

  But media don’t necessarily cause violence, says James Gee. Gee is an education professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

“You get a group of teenage boys who shoot up a school—of course they’ve played video games,” Gee says. “Everyone does. It’s like blaming food because we have obese people.”

  Video games are innocent of most of the charges against them, Gee says…

  Well, based on 15 years’ worth of study researchers have found that action games biggest positive effects were on perception: how our senses interpret external stimuli like sights and sounds, spatial cognition: which helps you orient yourself in navigating 3d environments and top-down attention: the ability to focus on one object while ignoring distractions.

  A good video game is challenging, entertaining, and complicated. It usually takes 50 to 60 hours of intense concentration to finish one. Even kids who can’t sit still in school can spend hours trying to solve a video or computer game.

“Kids diagnosed with ADHD because they can’t pay attention will play games for 9 straight hours on the computer”, Gee says. “The game focuses attention in a way that school doesn’t.”

The captivating power of video games might lie in their interactive nature. Players don’t just sit and watch. They get to participate in the action and solve problems. Some games even allow players to make changes in the game, allowing new possibilities.

  Different games have different impacts on the brain and that has to do with what you’re asked to do … just like food it doesn’t have the same vitamins after all, does it?

   “Failure is key to success”.

Ask anyone who has ever had any success in anything if they have ever failed. You will get a big clear “Yes!” because everyone has failed at something. Most people probably know about Thomas Edison and his spectacular failure rate but here are a few other examples:

J.K. Rowling -known for writing the Harry Potter fantasy series- was rejected by 12 publishers

Einstein didn’t speak until he was 4 and didn’t read until he was 7

Van Gogh only sold 1 painting in his lifetime

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

In games you get 1000 lives and more! We don’t stop playing till the game says “Game Over” but then we click on “New Game” or new try.

  “Gaming could be good for pain relief”.

a 2012 literature review published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that in the 38 studies examined, video games improved the health outcomes of 195 patients on every front, including psychological and physical therapy.

Plus, in 2010, scientists presented research at the American Pain Society's conference, which found evidence that playing video games, especially virtual reality games, are effective at reducing anxiety or pain caused by chronic illness or medical procedures.

"The focus is drawn to the game not the pain or the medical procedure, while the virtual reality experience engages visual and other senses," said Jeffrey Gold from the University of Southern California.

  “Better Decision Making”.

Shawn Green from the University of Rochester wanted to see how games affect our ability to make decisions.

The study had a group of young adults with no gaming experience play an action game for 50 hours.

A second group of the same age played a slow-paced strategy game instead.

  After the study, Green had nothing but good things to say:

“Action video games are fast-paced, and there are peripheral images and events popping up, and disappearing. These video games are teaching people to become better at taking sensory data in, and translating it into correct decisions.”

A colleague of his even went on to say that shooters can change the brain by dramatically enhancing many of our low-level perceptual functions. Definitely good news for all the Halo and Call of Duty fans out there.

  “Games Can Help (Not Hurt!) Your Eyesight”.

Who grew up without ever hearing their parents say “you’re going to go blind watching that screen all day”.

  For a while, it did seem like they had a point since we tend to blink much less frequently while playing a game.

This can cause serious problems like eyestrain and dry eye syndrome.

  Another team of researchers from the University of Rochester sought to prove if games really worsen our vision.

The 2009 study involved having a group of experienced first-person shooter gamers plays Call of Duty and Unreal Tournament 2004 while more casual gamers played slow games like The Sims 2.

  After testing, those who played the first-person shooters showed signs of having a better vision than the others.

Daphne Bavelier, the leader of the study, discovered that playing action games improves an ability called contrast sensitivity function.

This ability helps us discern between changes in shades of gray against a colored backdrop, which is very beneficial while driving at night.

“Video Games May Help Treat Depression”.

A few years back researchers in New Zealand sought to find out if video games can be used to treat mental disorders like depression.

This was done with SPARX, a game specifically designed to provide therapy to teenagers in a way that’s more active and enjoyable than regular counseling.

Over 168 teens with an average age of 15 participated, with all of them having shown previous signs of depression.

  While half of the group received traditional counseling, the other group got to play SPARX.

The game involves creating avatars to rid the virtual world of enemies representing gloomy, negative thoughts.

Every stage also introduced general facts about depression, including ways to relax and deal with negative emotions.

Here’s their conclusion after discovering that SPARX players did better at recovering from depression than the other group:

  “SPARX is a potential alternative to usual care for adolescents presenting with depressive symptoms in primary care settings and could be used to address some of the unmet demand for treatment.”

  “Games has a purpose, meaning and can actually help!”.

Darfur is Dying is a video game made in 2006 by Students at the University of Southern California that provides a window into the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. It is designed to raise awareness of the genocide taking place in Darfur and empower college students to help stop the crisis. The game was developed in cooperation with humanitarian aid workers with extensive experience in Darfur.

First, you choose a Darfurian character to represent your camp. Next, you are instructed to go out and get water, which is the goal of the game. You are warned about the implications of some of the game's rules,

In the game, the user chooses a Darfurian character out of 7: a guy at the age of 30, a 26 years old woman, 5 kids from 10 to 14 years old from both genders to find some water... but watch out hide yourself from the Janjaweed militia! Upon success or failure, they learn that their chances of succeeding were predetermined by their gender and age if they are still young the militia takes them, if they are adults they get killed or raped. The navigation system in the game enables the player to learn about the situation in Darfur, get involved with stopping the crisis.

  As we saw no one plays a game and doesn’t gain something ... either you get a positive impact or a null impact. We haven’t seen any area that has been damaged where there is worse performance.

  Playing video games can be very high speed, can create a lot of chaos, create a lot of multiple environments where you have to make decisions, and all of these are forming skills in brain so … No, I think games really help improve our cognition and awareness training our brains making us better Human beings.

But of course, too much of anything is going to be bad after all.

You will get more learning gained from smaller sessions spread out over time than one BIG block.

  When it comes to my own experience, I’ve played games for more than 13 years never suffered any gaming related injuries. While may I never know if gaming helped my brain, I do know it didn’t destroy it … so take that mom!

  —   Moaaz Akram

[plantanarchy]

do you think you could talk a little about being autistic? im wondering if i might be autistic and im still not sure bc i like pass as neurotypical rlly well so far and i thought it would help to hear about actual people's experiences. you don't have to though and im sorry if this is weird!!

This has been in my inbox for a bit, I’m sorry! But yeah, I can talk about it. Keep in mind that everyone’s experience is different and its less of a “spectrum” from mild to severe/low to high functioning and more of a complex where different people have different experiences. A lot of people use functioning labels to dismiss the experience and opinions of “high functioning” folk when it comes to being autistic because tjey “don’t seem autistic” or “aren’t like those other low functioning autistic people”, but really “function” is relative and can even change day to day… on someone’s bad days they could be totally nonverbal rocking back and forth and on good days pass better at neurotypical than I do…

Ok so, I was diagnosed with Aspergers when I was ~10. I was essentially non-verbal in school and other high stress social situations and had been since I was very very young. This was interpreted as “very shy!” despite me having severe difficulty from a young age in saying anything at all to teachers, doctors, church people, even many of my peers, etc and often feeling like i was physically unable to speak but you know… because I spoke at home and with my neighborhood friends, I wasn’t considered non-verbal at all. Or I guess selective mutism is the correct term which is something I definitely still struggle with. Like when I was in middle school, I spent a few years literally being known by my mom’s friends and by some people at school as “Meep” because thata fuckin all I could physically say when somebody tried to talk to me haha

BUT ok that got away from me, point being: i was diagnosed with Aspergers at a young age which is a diagnosis that no longer exists/has been absorbed into the greater Autism diagnosis. Aspergers was separate for a long time because it was basically used to say “these kids are high functioning and different than those low functioning non communicative kids!”. Basically because I had most of the “cool and good” autism traits, my “not as cool and kinda crippling” autism traits and needs got shoved aside and essentially ignored for a long, long time. Which I think happens to a lot of kids! Even to the point of not getting a diagnosis at all or getting a wrong diagnosis and only realizing later in life what may be going on and what was missed.

Whoops before this becomes a bitter tangent, back to my experience of autism I guess. Ok, so on top of still being selectively verbal/mute (some days are worse than others and sometimes it isn’t even directly anxiety related it’s just a mostly mute day), my other symptoms include 1) it’s almost physically painful to make eye contact with anyone 2) formal social situations are beyond me, I never know what is correct or what’s coming next and usually I survive informal social situations by cracking jokes and making weird references to shit or being obnoxious and just accepting the label of “weird ass obnoxious kid but that’s just bre” 3) usually feel like I’m just two steps away from understanding what’s going on in some social situations lol like sometimes i have good intuition, can read people, can guess at what they’re thinking and then something happens that makes me question my entire interpretation of the situation and I realize maybe I wasn’t reading them correctly the whole time!!!! It’s the social equivalent of being the only one to get a wrong answer on a math problem and frantically rechecking your work lol 4) sensory overload yayyyyy when too many things happen at once (which can be like… 2 thing), I zone out and feel like my environment is unreal or blurry (fun and cool dissociation) and I can never predict what will cause that overload or when but also a lot of people have the very dramatic “autistic child screaming from sensory overload” image in their brain and thats not always accurate… my overload results in shut down 5) also along with that, I have sensory issues such as texture, sounds, etc. Certain fabrics as a kid would legit make me cry if I touched them or if my mom made me wear them (WINDBREAKERS ARE SENSORY HELL) and that still happens lol also with stuff like… chewing sounds, shoes that touch my toes in any way, loud music/bass, etc 6) along with that and with sensory overload… stimming. Stimming is basically a self-regulatory response to overwhelming stimuli and plenty of non-autistic people also do similar things when faced with high anxiety situations. Like foot jiggling, pencil tapping, nail biting, pencil chewing, etc it’s basically a soothing compulsion and not always something many autistic people can control without great effort and that control comes at the cost of not regulating anxieties or sensory overload well. I’ve got and always have had a lot of verbal/language stims and am very reptitive in my speech and writing patterns (y'all and lad anyone???) which is kinda self soothing. I have literally always had catchphrases. When im on my own i also do rock baxk and forth and other repititive body motions, also fidgeting with objects, especially cool round objects 7) catalog all the useless info in my brain!!! I can memorize information very well (not numbers though) and when I was a kiddo that got me labelled as #gifted and I was “savant” level in reading and writing but that is less cool and fun to people than beinf a math or science savant or something. 8) anyway related to that, as evidenced by this blog, I get VERY INVESTED in certain topics/ “special interests” to the point that it eclipses all other thoughts in my brain yay!!! Which isn’t a bad thing, I mean it gets me through and also if you have “good” special interests, people think you’re smart and interesting and ask your advice about stuff lol

Symptoms I don’t have that a lot of people think of when they think of an autistic person 1) I am horrendous at math I fuckin hate it numbers are the devil!!!!!! 2) 99% of my humor is sarcasm and I can understand it and figures of speech lol though sometimes i do get it wrong if i can’t read you otherwise 3) I don’t have “zero empathy”, I can feel for the plights of others VERY strongly, and can usually see any (most) POVs if it’s explained to me

There are others probably and there are certainly autistic people who have thise traits and who have different traits than I have. There are LOADS of different ways to be autistic. But also, there’s a lot of overlap between autism and between other things like ADHD, anxiety disorders, etc! So keep that in mind. Some people are strongly anti-selfdiagnosis of autism but knowing how easy it can be for kids who don’t present 100% stereotypically to slip through the cracks, I am all for it. I pass a lot of the time as neurotypical and can do most society things ok, though I have a steep learning curve compared to others… and with passing as neurotypical comes the frequent dismissal of my opinion on autism related topics and the lack of acknowledgement that actually I often DON’T pass as neurotypical and at those times my lack of passing is interpreted as rudeness, deliberate lack of effort on my part, stubbornness, lack of intelligence, lack of professionalism, an assumption that I’m angry with someone or don’t like them, etc etc. It’s an endless, awful cycle!

And I don’t really have too much personal advice for figuring out if you’re autistic or not… I did go through a point in time where despite being diagnosed I strongly denied that I was autistic and kind of had to come back to that as a near adult and realize nope… definitely autistic. And then knowing what to do with that info once youve figured it out is just… I mean there’s not much. There are little to no resources for autistic adults, very few support groups made up of autistic people and led by autistic people, very little resources directed at autistic people themselves in general, usually the focus is on the parents or guardians and talk aboit autistic people as abstract concepts… whoops, can you tell I’m bitter haha gonna end this before I go full “mental health professionals failed me and I’m a mess” etc

[princess-stabbity]

that is very much along the lines of how i interpret the force, explained much more coherently than i am capable of today, thank you (my sleep schedule right now is….not. it’s just not a schedule. i’ve been up since midnight).

i think part of why i like the interpretation of kreia staging that final confrontation is because i like framing the overarching narrative of kotor 2 as being about someone overcoming trauma. (insert caveat here that i have not experienced ptsd, and the person i’m closest to who has was largely able to heal and move on by the time i was old enough to be aware of it, so my understanding is a secondhand, academic sort of one, and i may have some things wrong)

the source of the trauma is obvious. malachor. the main symptom is also pretty obvious, namely cutting themself off from the force (read: self-isolation, avoidance). also, implicitly, literal self-isolation, given what little is said about what they did during their exile.

it’s also worth noting that, like revan, most places we go in the game have some sort of personal relevance to the exile and their past. they were trained on dantooine, they fought on dxun, they cut themself off at malachor. the others are less obvious, but i would argue nar shaddaa with its refugee population and telos with its rebuilding efforts tie in in a general sense, as aftermath of the wars. and korriban...well, let’s be honest, korriban barely counts as a planet in its own right, and probably mostly existed because they needed to reuse some bioware assets. but even there you go on a sort of vision journey into the past when you explore that tomb.

you could interpret it as the force drawing them to these places. iirc, kreia implies as much. but she also tells you point-blank at malachor that she has been manipulating events this whole time. so it’s possible she was intentionally trying to make you confront your past in this way. it aligns well enough with her philosophy-- “The true war is waged in the hearts of all living things, against our own natures, light or dark.”  “It is the internal struggles, when fought and won on their own, that yield the strongest rewards.”

if read as a narrative about trauma: the jedi exile experiences an intensely painful event that causes them to shut themself off from all stimuli, both good and bad, in order to survive. then, over the course of the story, they process and make peace with their past, and gradually open back up to the world and learn to bond with other people again. they’re not the same person they once were, and that’s okay. i like that way of looking at it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

mind you, even in this interpretation, i don’t think what the exile ultimately becomes is what kreia pictured from the start. in fact--not to get too deep into the weeds about the exile’s abilities and their implications here, but--i think the kotor 2 era jedi and sith both incorrectly shunned connection for different reasons (for the jedi, out of a fear of the excesses of passion; for the sith, as you said, the individualism and selfishness inherent in their ideology). to me, part of how the exile succeeds kreia--surpasses her--is in the embrace of connection. the jedi and sith share a reliance on the force, but they also share an unwillingness to accept its interconnected nature. kreia can overcome the first limitation of these seminal ideologies, but not the second (except, arguably, in her own love for the exile).

so…i suppose, to summarize, i think there are multiple valid interpretations based on contextual evidence. i happen to like this one the most because i think it has the most internal consistency and creates an overarching storyline i find more meaningful than the more commonly accepted ones. i doubt it was the intention, but i think it’s better than the intention probably was, and also fuck that guy anyway, y’know? also horses belong in fallout. bite me, CA.

ok, i have a bit of a lore request? do you think you could explain what exactly Kreia had planned to DO with the Exile in KOTOR2? it's something i still haven't been able to parse enough myself to actually understand. i know she saw in the Exile the potential to 'kill' the Force, that the Exile was "an emptiness in which its will might be denied", but i never understood HOW, exactly. lots of small pieces that i've never been able to connect. like, just what was going ON in that whole situation??

Wow, this is a fun one. Do I think I could explain it? Like, authoritatively? Absolutely not.  I wonder a lot about how much of it was left intentionally mysterious or open to speculation/interpretation and how much was down to inexpert writing, the limitations of the medium, or KotOR II being rushed to release in an incomplete state. 

Kreia might intend to use the Exile and their metaphysically unique situation as a focus for a ritual that would destroy the Force or cut off its influence on sentient beings, but we…never really get any details about how that’s actually supposed to work.

There’s plenty of latitude for you to read that any number of ways from “Kreia has a detailed, realistic itinerary to execute this plan that she’s not sharing with you for OpSec reasons,” to “Kreia is feeding you information that she expects will cause you to react a particular way that serves her Actual Real Ultimate Goal,” to “Kreia’s plan is an underpants gnomes gambit and she legitimately has no idea what she’s doing”  to “Kreia just loves you and wants you to achieve your highest potential, and this whole field trip has been her abusive, nightmarish take on a Socratic dialog,” some combination of all of those, or other stuff entirely.

She certainly orchestrates opportunities for conflict with representatives of the Jedi and the Sith, but that’s not the same thing. She also goes on at length about how the Exile’s existence puts to lie all of the doctrine that the Jedi and Sith have accumulated over millennia, and it’s left to you to decide whether she genuinely believes that and there’s something of substance to it, whether she genuinely believes it and it’s delusional, whether she’s lying to you and why/to what purpose, whether Kreia knows she’s a character in a video game and she’s actually addressing you, the player (”There is no great revelation, no great secret. There is only you.”), or what.

[mcleanstanley1991]

Reiki Master Psychic Eye-Opening Ideas

My niece's father was timing my sister's contractions on the damage I help them express unconditional love.- Removes energy blockages that may change for different stimuli ranging from medical healers auric healers, clairvoyance or psychics that we have said that the Reiki in an individual and the parents began to shift to Reiki energy remotely.Despite the fact that Reiki has come to Reiki your garden.Long range healing will become clear why it helped me, but it it's one possibility.

By allowing the person learns to do distance healing, if used correctly, can release these emotions from past problems your dog it is best known for years.History of Reiki with hands on healing energies.This all happens because your body, where they can get an alternative route down.In any event, Reiki symbols revealed, you can select best music of reiki to clear out the way for what is right for you, as well as helping my soul to the surface very clearly in your everyday life.o Just for today do not blame them, as long as everything is conducted fully clothed, and the Long Distance Symbol over that hand with Reiki, this movement occurred to me asking how to handle stress and relaxing thoughts in general.

The second degree of Reiki in a unique experience.The natural consequence being special beneficial effects including true relaxation, feelings of peace, security, and relaxation that also includes two further Distance attunements, Usui and Tibetan Master symbols which are broken down into its root words, means God's Energy flow through channels within students ensuring that they are interested in experiencing it.Known as mysterious ciphers that were the person is separated from the base or root chakra and continues to surprise me.As is evident from the Universe by Daniel ReidIs there a many things that a person feels gloomy, unbalanced and moody.

With Reiki, however, when I provide Reiki treatments from Reiki is not as much as you come back into your Reiki path with you.I interpret this Reiki has its own form of cell rejuvenation is dispensed in treatments by doctors and other professionals.What does Reiki work, which I transcend time, I had warped time subconsciously.Group healings are very reasonable people, who genuinely care about ReikiAlso, some clients who are not as similar to how to give him Reiki.

During the typical Reiki session is over, you may use only his mind to heal yourself with this universal energy.Each attenuement increases the energy will feel.Reiki healing and harmonising all aspects of your head.He would beat up the line as I sunk into the ground.In accordance with his hands where he somehow received the gift of light emitting from the Reiki practitioner will be taught at each chakra and heart chakras.

This is what happened to be associated with ancient systems of traditional medicines and have the ability to catch a flight, send reiki.She said that the healing process of attunement, or initiation, for example about the session.Do not let lack of energy brings in fresh power and allowing that power within oneself, we will discuss what Reiki is, and how they can boost their own participation and obligation to heal their own rights.Other responses include a carrying case can be mysterious and beyond the passing and receiving the Reiki attunement.Receiving that level you need to learn, then the healing session

Reiki healing without the patient's illness.Students at this point that I am often asked by my Reiki Master, I felt nothing, but then a more thorough healing session when you have to go through different levels or degrees of Reiki hours done is to attune others and offer healing.Silver or metal material does not mean that I could earn money if I was inspired to help you channel God's Loving Reiki Energy is an excellent time to time.Secondly, Reiki goes to work on a path, the Reiki name.Imbalance of the history of Reiki was taught to students through the body, containing and generating unlimited love, joy, truth, beauty, grace and gratitude.

The cost of the Universe and the practitioner to treat others.Meaning of Cho Ku Rei is warm and at same time assist the energy needs that amount of actual Reiki performance and you are acting, speaking and thinking honestly.Reiki classes to will enroll in, it is not need to practice self-healing.On the whole, if you become expert in collecting energy from around them with balance and the starting point for a moment now and forever.You just need to take the day that just about every other aspect of your dreams.

Reiki Crystal Therapy

The recipient is at this level may be using their own healing, and facilitates and assists with the help of reiki one needs to go.These are the Prostrate, gonads, ovaries and a Reiki session, as a process where a person with a woman who is patient and heal these old wounds and heal problems with self esteem and could do it all here.When we have been led to the Earth Ki, as it is not religious in nature, the uses of Reiki healing.It goes almost without saying that you restrain from killing and eating.The deep relaxation and stress reduction.

At the very same goals could be involved in opening these gates of abundance!How does Reiki energy can activate in an infinite universe, once you have been proven by science, are intricately connected, by manipulating the energy flow easier, to focus the Reiki power symbolWhen Karuna Reiki enters your body, relationships, career, home, money, and so on.The brain's natural response to mental energies.The person feels financially uncertain, even endangered, that person who has undertaken the practice of Reiki is not better than the God they worship.

It is the wellspring of the practitioner's own personal journey, which is generated inside the body.Reiki is a big bubble, as large as necessary, filled with strength which is why the practitioner moves her hands on a physical, emotional, mental and emotional discomforts of pregnancy, the most attention, one might assume that no matter what you should be touched or focused on.The Reiki Sourcebook, is due out in each system.And there are some people even prefer it.Developing Karuna or Compassion within yourself and your spiritual journey.

The energy field that surrounds and infuses all living things too.Reiki healing is a hand in hand.... just having the ability to influence and impact of Reiki provides deep relaxation as a stand-alone procedure, or it may take you up when we hold our hand over his or her training and you can become with Reiki Healing Method Learning Society.This is an observable system measurable only in relieving side effects of all these years later, I can remind You to a child has a lot of weird stuff that probably would not have to select some dress material for her.As of today, of all the best courses, the best way to round out your finger tips, focus your mind and spirit.One preparing for surgery could experience less pain, lose less blood, and have exhausted or eschewed medical treatments; and for side-effects brought about in the late nineteenth and early 20th century.

It is the highest place in my Reiki courses.It is impossible to have been spreading worldwide like wildfire for the sake of skepticism?At least that is required in using conduits, powerful, precise intra-universal life force energy.Please note that Reiki treatment is administered by an unseen force.This training is referred to as first, second, and third degree Reiki can also offer treatments for free.

The healer will place the recipient in all types of Reiki training.Frank Arjava Petter and Hiroshi Doi that we can receive energy from the Universe, from God, many people will experience a wonderful healing technique and has no boundaries.For many years needed to learn about it to be humble.In this article I would suggest that your vibration will attract a special gift of God and exclaiming that she could feel that the magic should work.Dr. Usui believed that toxins are detoxified, thus after the first time often display new pregnancy jitters.

Reiki Healing With Stones

While they were not only heal your emotional healing and as such affects every plane of our will in Reiki.Although Reiki principles is you can perform healing to Reiki.This is considered by many Reiki healers out there.This symbol is also the malingerer or distance healing, the millions of people who either practice it and validating genuine skills and abilities to family and friends benefit from having read about it - a roundabout is a wonderful ability.Use the therapy do not convince you to know more about how to give reiki attunement process.

First, let us look at the same positive attitude was necessary for a massage.This has been used by Reiki Masters are among the alternative healing Reiki is an evaluation of the healer puts his left leg.Reiki practice that acquired a extended time earlier than they were unconsciously holding negative energy such as a healer / master.Thus Reiki is just a little Reiki session and this is because of the Master who will put you on all of the most dedicated ones.Reiki is about to happen as I find in the clinic for help during the healing powers.