#and being held hostage by executive dysfunction!!

[danidrawsstuff]

playin with the rake brush and using the dysfunctional brothers as my test subjects

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[red-velvet-0w0]

FUCK. i meant to make sebastian solace fanart tonight. yeah sorry doesnt look like thats happening any time soon

[imsodishy]

my brain: we've got the entire next chapter of the fic ready to go. start to finish. it's all up here.

me: cool! so let's write it up.

my brain: ... nah

[roomwithavoid]

executive dysfunction truly is one of the most solid destroying things a person can deal with. i am miserable all the time. i know exactly what i need to do to make existing bearable. i physically cannot do these things no matter how much i try.

mental illness isn’t cute. sure, i’d love to “touch grass” or whatever the fuck arbitrary thing you think suddenly gives me merit, but first i need to figure out how to get myself to shower for the first time in a week and brush my teeth and wash my clothes and all of that seems impossible when i can’t even motivate myself to walk a few feet to the bathroom to piss.

i constantly feel like i’m literally being held hostage inside my own mind.

[rahullkohli]

ever since my dad moved into the elder care home and out of my apartment i have been deep in the executive dysfunction hole. i truly and genuinely feel like i am being held hostage in my own body. if i have had something truly important (like emptying and cleaning his apartment, and then the check and handing over keys and such) i get up and go out and do the damn thing. but everything that is about making my own life and home easier and better for myself i physically cannot do. it's been a month of me being lock on my couch just staring at laundry piling up and cat hair balling up in corners and not being able to properly cook or even eat an actual meal and i cry and cry and cry so much because i just wanna do these things i know are where i need to be to be good physically and mentally but i just can't do it and i am so scared that i won't ever get out of this i hate this i hate being like this i barely sleep and when i do i have nightmares and i feel all of this oppressive energy in my apartment and suddenly i'm scared of the darkness and at once i feel more alone than i ever have but it's also like there's someone or something here that just won't let it's presence be actually known and i knew that as soon as he was out of my place my family would once again go back to never talking to me and i was right i only hear from them when it's about him and the loneliness is so heavy but the thought of going places where there are people is terrifying so i'm just moving between my bed and my couch unless i have to do adult things out of the house and yesterday i canceled my song lesson which i never do not even when my dad was with me it's the one thing i never cancel but i am just so exhausted deep in my bones and i just want this to be over so i can be control of my own life again it wasn't much but it was mine but i don't know if i can ever get there again

[hilacopter]

task paralysis sucks so fuckin bad. whether it's stuff I do for passion like writing, editing, recording for the voice acting project I'm a part of or stuff I need to do like rehearse my lines for the school play or even just answer a text message my brain prefers to just think about it rather than do it. and the longer I procrastinate the more scared I become of doing the task, like the universe is going to scold me for being late or something. it's caused me to steal as a kid because I was afraid of returning books to the library after forgetting, it's caused me to lose friendships because I was scared to re-initate contact with past friends after not speaking with them for long, I've held off drawing digitally even though I got a tablet two birthdays ago because my ADHD simply wouldn't let me touch it and those aren't even half the times it's screwed me over. all I can do is just lay in bed wanting so badly to write, record, draw, edit, do anything but my dumb fucking brain is holding me hostage over my stupid perfectionism and low attention span. we don't talk enough about just how shitty executive dysfunction is.

[wutbju]

A reader submitted a theory for the BJU President #5 this morning, and it's got legs.

Dick "Dicky" Stratton is a BJU faculty kid whose dad's name is already on a building ([Mel] Stratton Hall). He left the BJU faculty to oversee Clearwater until its close from 2002-2012. He was an "executive pastor" at Heritage for two years (never preached), and then he worked for .... (wait for it)....

Jackson Dawson!

Last Fall with little fanfare, he slipped back into the BJU administration -- just as the BJU Board was growing restless with Steve Pettit's lack of BJU-esque standards.

Was he placed in the wings to swoop in when Pettit left at graduation?

The problem with this theory is that Stratton signed the big protest letter to the Board on April 3, 2023:

Did that disqualify him in the eyes of the Board?

This week Holly Stratton posted a long comment about her "prayer" for her alma mater:

Twenty years ago my increasing involvement in mediation efforts stirred my interest in the dynamics of relational conflict. From an online course, to webinars, to book recommendations that I’m still tackling today— I quickly learned how consistently research has shown that human response in the face of conflict is surprisingly predictable. Training in mediation & negotiation efforts centers on that predictability, and it’s become core in much of the training in organizational consulting. A lover of people & relational health, this study captivates me and has proven invaluable for all that God has called me to do.

Insight that has been especially helpful to my current conversations revolves around the findings that demonstrate healthy relational CHANGE within communities (whether families, churches, corporations, or institutions) is rarely seen when we view ourselves as a “community of problems” as opposed to a “community of possibilities.”That when we focus on problems, we unwittingly find ourselves gripped by desires for retribution more than the delights of restitution.

Creating a “community of possibilities” begins with the understanding that we as humans have proven ourselves to be very impoverished storytellers of our communities. Research has demonstrated repeatedly that the limitations of our perspectives, the miscalculations of our motivation assessments, and the unreliability of our memories along with the confirmation biases that emotionally shape our thoughts— all inevitably inject error into our narratives. In addition to this, we are also plagued with personal blind spots that expand in the face of conflict. Studies consistently show that a laser-focus on the problems of those in front of us inevitably blinds us to our own.

Learning to skillfully direct conversation away from the problems of community and toward the “breakdown of community” is crucial in mediation. Because a failure in focusing on that breakdown is exactly what starts the cycle of dysfunction that shuts down the capability of effectively addressing the very problems we want solved.

Storytelling is a vital part of healthy community, but not if we fail to recognize the grave harm of “limiting” stories that keep us tethered to painful personal experience; and not if those stories are told with voices of retribution that offer no genuine ability to be edited. Instead of moving us forward, limiting stories deprive us of loving community and the fresh air of hope, keeping us locked in cycles of relational dysfunction. (i.e. shaming those who shamed; judging those who judged; hurting those who hurt; controlling those who controlled; manipulating those who manipulated.)

Our human “justice buttons” become increasingly insatiable in the midst of unresolved conflict and no retribution ever proves to be enough, forcing all future flourishing to flow from the benchmark of past problems. Held hostage to those past problems, the potential for CHANGE is stifled enough to only ever be superficial.

Being a storyteller of possibilities is not about pretending problems don’t exist, and it’s certainly not about sweeping them under the rug. It’s about leaning into the grave limitations of our humanity enough to care as deeply about the narratives that we create about others as much as we care about how, when & to whom we tell them.

Once conflicts swirl wildly enough to be brought in the open for public consumption, there is one thing we can KNOW without knowing another thing: the sown seeds of discord began with a breakdown of community, not with the problems of that community. My earnest prayer for my alma mater is that every room will find healing wherever there is breakdown of community— from the dorm room, to the classroom, to the conference room, to the board room.

Lord, please teach us to be wise storytellers by weaving your Story into our hearts enough for us to be known by the love we have for each other. Humble us. Disarm us. And fill us with the joy of your goodness enough to peacefully rest.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

“Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.” Prov 25:15

How do you read the situation? Is Holly tipping her hat that Dick will be BJU President #5? Or is it the opposite? Holly seems to indicate that it's the opposite:

Remember it's not whether or not Dick is qualified for the presidency (he is). It's not whether or not the alumni would like Dick as the president (they would).

It's all about what the Board wants. Would the Board want the former Clearwater president? Would they allow a man who signed a protest letter to take the helm? Would they want a non-preacher in the pulpit?

[zooterchet]

Mission Briefing From Agent Brown (Program Vicar-1)

Royal Irish Navy: Labor control forces, the label of "Irish" in the Hebrew Geneology listings; police labor.

Canadian Mounted Patrol: Influence and art media, through call centers and backtraced lines; sum data, held in computers, through felony invoices on recording sheets of prior imprinted felony against controlled substances acts, or support groups thereof.

B'nai B'rith: The sheriffs division, those hired at mercenary private detective to enforce law no longer in status or force or removed, through any politician, worldwide, to be enforced anywhere, worldwide.

Counter Terror: The Quaker Oats fund, to study factories and warehouses and grain silos, to export cereals productions overseas to train workforces to produce armored warfare and vehicles status produce.

Goldman-Sachs: A talent organization out of Broadway, specializing at the removal of negligent sectors of urban tract, through art movements, encouraging immigration by homosexuals, those practicing Lutheran logic; sterile men, by pituatary dysfunction, and barren women, through improper stance of lotus, scoliosis.

Saks Fifth Avenue: Sales of chemicals similar to Rohypnol, however herbal, and in terms of texture beneath nose, often used by CVS corporate executives out of Coens, Hitlers, and Murdochs.

Macy's: Hedge funds basis out of Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, New York City; used for the common coverage of any number of wars overseas with American involvement, to export illicit substance as common industrialized labor for pogrom of sectors of collegiate study; "genocide", actually, an anthropological study, in produce of queer labor, Protestants.

D-Company: Extension of Silk Road and East Indies Company, the holding share in Dutch Country, Boer South Africa, and Uighur West China.  Used in calculation of media movements and script shares, for particular breeding of assassins, out of a single economic role, held by the main character's child; however, if matching proper byline, now hired into contract by necessary partnership organization out of military ally's accounts.

Delta Blue: British Airways overlay, into Thailand, out of Delhi and Amsterdam.  The traffic in sex commerce, through inmates held in Indochina; used as specialists in technical sciences, in any commercial social science entering the common media as a secondary function of commercial product.

Israeli Defense Forces: Neo-Nazi forces held in reserve by Lutheran Iranian alliance, out of Judea and Samaria; held as "Arabs", actually Americans, Hamas, hostage, to sport fight from World War 2 forces ruled as "Hebrum"; Jewish-Americans, as converted to Christian Arabianism, and slurred as "Muslims", homosexuals, without being aware of such attachment.

Paramilitary Reconnaissance: Mercenary forces out of Italy, "Mafiaso", dealing in a third party isosceles triangle for a foreign broker, for development of a market by shift of relationship in a simple thread and peg, on a pair of logical points out of fiction discussed by product imported; Kabuki theater in Japan, prior to Douglas MacArthur.

Israeli Air Force: Training programs and pilot programs as being the same, instead of the foreign model, of an Air Force program as intelligence forces, and an academy being for flight of civilian and military craft.  Used as munitions export, through mercenaries recruited out of the entertainment community.

[dreamofbecoming]

me @ me: gO the FUKc to Sleep!!!!!!!

[echhosworld]

DAY 1 OF POORLY DRAWING THE NAMELESS GHOULS UNTIL I CAN GO TO A RITUAL

thought i might give this a try because i

1. am shit at drawing without focusing at all the details

2. struggle with sharing unfinished art, sketches and art in general

3. need to find my inspiration to draw again

4. am being held hostage by executive dysfunction

i sincerely hope this helps at least one of the points!!

anyway rain.

[absynthe--minded]

The Consent discourse regarding the sex scenes?

oh boy this is gonna be a long one.

tl;dr up front: MDZS is a romance novel, and I’ve read a lot of romance novels, and I think it handles its consent issues way better than a solid 95% of the other books in this genre that I’ve bothered to go through cover to cover. that being said, nobody should ever have to feel like they need to defend or tolerate something that triggered them, or upset them, or hurt them in some way, and I am absolutely fully in favor of these issues being discussed and talked about in a way that warns people they’re there. I am fully in support of anybody who doesn’t like the book because of the presence of dubiously consensual sex. that’s a super legit reason to be uncomfortable or triggered or upset. I’m also not ever going to say that not liking dubcon in a story is a bad thing. my frustration with the consent discourse is basically that I feel like it’s a conversation being held by people who aren’t familiar with romance as a genre, or with the places where MDZS rises above other romance novels, as well as a conversation that ignores that romance uses sex as a narrative device and a metaphor and not just as an idealized portrayal of true love.

more below the cut - tw: discussions of rape, dubcon, and consent in fiction.

I’m not a scholar of romance novels the way I’m a scholar of Tolkien, so I can’t really trace the development of trends in the genre, but I do read a lot of romance, because I’m a lesbian and I like urban fantasy and historical fiction and stories about women having fun adventures and getting what they want, and romance novels are an easy way to get those things as fast as possible. most of my observations are in this kind of fannish capacity.

but. romance has a consent problem, and it’s had a consent problem as long as the genre has existed.

this isn’t the post for a long drawn-out exploration of things like “how many humans on average tend to have rape fantasies?” or “why is it a statistical average that most people are bottomy in their sexual fantasies, rape or otherwise?” but one of the things that I think is worth bringing up wrt MDZS and WangXian is that constrained consent or a lack of consent and how the characters react to that is often endemic to romance as a genre. and I’m not just talking about sex scenes, either (though we’ll get to the 80s bodice rippers, I promise)

you’ve got plots like “My shitbag father fucked over an angsty rich guy so he’s keeping me hostage in his mansion and I’m not allowed to leave” (Anne Stuart, Night of the Phantom) or “I was going to be executed for stealing food but the local lord took pity on me and brought me to his house explicitly to be his wife and I’ll be expected to sleep with him whether I like it or not” (Amanda Ashley, Beauty’s Beast) or “I’m the heir to a substantial percentage of England in terms of sheer amount of land and I’m an orphan and the King has to marry me off to someone who’s both popular with the common people and strong enough to fend off attempts to seize my assets” (Kinley Macgregor, A Dark Champion). you’ve also got the eternal urban fantasy plot of “I’m a normal human woman/human-seeming woman with Power I Didn’t Know About who saw something forbidden to mortal eyes/otherwise became a target of the bad guys, so now I’m being held against my will by a brooding angsty magical creature so he can Protect Me”. that one is actually worse than a lot of the others because the woman in the standard urban fantasy plot usually tries to escape or constantly talks about how she’s being kept hostage, and it’s intended to be a signpost to the audience that she’s not a weak and passive damsel in distress but that she has Backbone and Intelligence and all that.

all of these are, on some level, about the main character(s) being placed in situations they didn’t consent to, and how they cope with that. (a lot of the time there’s also really clumsily written Threats To The Heroine’s Virtue from a cartoonishly unrealistic would-be rapist, in addition to whatever else is going on. the amount of times that I’ve read a book where a hero all too happy to dubcon his way into the woman’s bed then turns around and saves her from Evil Snidely Whiplash Rapist as a way of proving he’s a good person underneath... sigh.) and a lot of other plots are that way too! the Consent Discourse about MDZS is tapping into a conversation that’s existed wrt romance as a whole for a long time.

here’s why I think MDZS is different from basically every other romance novel: it knows it’s about consent.

the vast majority of the stories I alluded to up there really don’t seem to know that they’re dealing with a plot that centers around the heroine (and sometimes hero) coping with a loss of autonomy. she winds up being totally happy to be held hostage, or married off to some stranger, or protected by a brooding angsty dark magic man, or bound up in destiny and fated to fall in love. the violation of her consent is the framework for getting her in the same environment as her love interest, and we-the-audience are supposed to accept it as - well, if not okay, then acceptable, because it’ll all work out in the end. (there’s a lot of sometimes-unintentional commentary here about how specifically AFAB people in Western societies are often expected to deal with/make the best of/find happiness in situations outside of their control, but that’s also for another post, perhaps.) MDZS doesn’t do that. MDZS addresses the fact that neither Wei Wuxian nor Lan Wangji have been taught how to effectively communicate with one another, and their failings have consequences.

Lan Wangji ambushes WWX and kisses him while he’s blindfolded. This is done without permission, and without WWX even knowing who it is that’s put him in this position. He then goes on to treat it like one of his most egregious moral failings, and lose confidence in his ability to be honorable when it comes to dealing with WWX, and this matters to the story. LWJ viewing what he did as more or less unforgivable means he doesn’t open up to WWX about his feelings, which means WWX has no clue LWJ loves him. And as one of the many consequences to this, they spend the majority of the book married but one party has no idea it’s actually happened! They blunder around, and refuse to acknowledge how they feel, and need alcohol for any semblance of honesty because it breaks down their inhibitions. They almost completely fail at being a couple because when it comes down to brass tacks they cannot spit it out.

this lack of openness and lack of communication manifests in their lives further when it comes to the various dubiously consensual moments of intimacy that they have. their sexual incompatibility is a direct consequence of their failure to talk. they do have problems, and when those problems come to light, they’re meaningful and impactful. there is dubious consent in the first time they have sex, in their making out, in their near misses and their brief meetings. this is the point. they’re not supposed to be a healthy, functional relationship yet. they have sex for the first time and then have to deal with the fact that it happened under false pretenses and due to miscommunication. the theme of the book is learning how to come together and work together. they have to learn to communicate before their dysfunction is fixed.

and they do! the climax of the book is WWX admitting his feelings for LWJ, and LWJ realizing the depth of their miscommunication, and both of them coming together finally. the theme of this book is made manifest in their healing and joining. and only then can they have a true healthy marriage. and I like that? I like that the problems and the issues matter, and that both parties have to resolve it? I also like that just because WWX liked being kissed doesn’t mean his consent wasn’t violated and that this transgression doesn’t matter, because that’s in stark contrast to the 1980s bodice rippers where the heroine can be basically sexually assaulted or raped but it’s totally fine, she secretly enjoyed it so it doesn’t matter. (there’s yet another post I could make here about how this is a direct response to sexual mores harshly applied to women, where the only way they could feel safe admitting their desires was in situations where resistance was impossible, but that’s not for here)

I’m just one person, and this is a lot of text about consent, but ultimately? I like that MDZS deals with these issues realistically. I like that violation and miscommunication and unintentional deception are all weighty and meaningful.

this is one of the most realistic-feeling romance novels I’ve ever read, and its flawed characters that are supposed to be flawed are part of that.

[phaselockandload]

Phase’s informal list of BL3 grievances.

At one point in time I planned to write a review. That time was before I had played the main story campaign of Borderlands 3. Now I am broken and instead have used my remaining sanity to start a running list of grievances. Each one these could easily be their own essay if I had the time or soul left to delve into the previous canon and potential that existed before BL3 managed to squander it all.

- Siren Lore Decimated. We were waiting for the mystery of how Sirens were connected to the ancient Eridians, eridium and the Vaults. What we got was... power swapping. The transfer of powers is an incomprehensibly bad concept that isn’t even applied consistently, muddles the existing lore of sirens being born, and the hunters searching for them. It also creates a troubling implication of inherited power on a cosmic scale. It’s disempowering to enable sirenhood to be a dynasty of power that could conceivably be consolidated and held onto forever. The departed Sirens bodies and personhood feel secondary to who is getting their power next.

- The Degradation of Angel. On a related note, we get a mission with ECHO recordings of Jack & Angel. This framing of young Angel the latest in a long line of revisionist history effort to distract from Jack being an abusive father, who drove Angel to take her own life. Her power gets handed off to Tannis, a historically unstable woman Angel had no relationship with. This all for no apparent reason other than to rehash the big Siren ‘reveal’ moment that is in no way narratively satisfying for any of the characters involved because it isn’t earned. It sucks and Angel continues to deserve infinitely better. Everytime I hear Balex at the helm of the Sanctuary ship I whisper into my void “WHAT IF Angel.”

- The Calypso twins are a great idea executed poorly. The writers took the unique concept of twin Sirens and turned them into half-baked Handsome Jack wannabes. Narcissistic, overly talkative, and a destructive family dynamic (that is heavily implied but never explored or consequential to the story). They ignore the canon consequences around eridium use. Fan favorite Siren Maya (the most played character of BL2) is thrown under the bus without a fight in a desperate attempt to raise their threat level beyond forever holding your comms hostage. These characters are offered little to no depth, nor the opportunity to escape the shadow of Jack cast over the Borderlands franchise.

- The Vault Hunters should feel like family but instead they’re mostly absent. For a game that seems to want to say something about family it is baffling that they dismantled the found family unit of the Vault Hunters. The beloved group of misfits who started over on Pandora and bonded through trial by fire. These characters were loved by players who spent hundreds or thousands of hours with them and wanted to see their stories continued. Their ‘stronger together’ vibe should have been the counterpoint to the betrayal and destruction caused by the many examples of dysfunctional families (Jack & Angel, The Calypsos, Hammerlocks, & Katagawas). The game provides no discussion or justification for why the VH fam disbanded, and most have no presence in the story at all. Thanks, I hate it.

-  TOO MANY VAULTS. TOO MANY. SO many f**king vaults and vault key fetching. The opportunity to open a vault was once established to be a rare event in this universe. I have completely lost count of how many we’ve visited now. Vault openings have been sapped of all their intrigue and drama. Now Pandora’s moon, Elpis has a vault and is a vault key itself? To open the great vault Pandora... which also is a planet that has several vaults (VAULTS IN YOUR VAULTS). The narrative build up to vault opening used to feel like a focused goal and made the campaign feel rewarding. Now opening a vault is like going to Starbucks, there’s one on every corner no matter what planet you’re on.

- Lack of variety in the expanded universe. The unhinged ‘madness’ that was previously understood to be a result of survival on the hostile border planet is now just the ‘Borderlands humor’. This expanded Borderlands universe never succeeds in feeling like a sprawling epic because entire universe is apparently populated by loud, brash NPCs screaming ‘funny’ one-liners. The lack of diversity in the people and cultures make the universe feel infinitely smaller even as we leave Pandora for other planets. A part of the brand consisting of internet memes and nostalgia references which feel dated almost immediately on launch. Exceptions to this (like Jakob Wainwright) are too isolated to turn the overall tide.

- Callbacks that serve no purpose but to feel stale. There are countless moments in the game that seem to want to remind you of the much more coherent, emotionally resonant and all around better previous games. These recycled elements feel empty, boring, and completely took me out of experience of the game I was currently playing because they serve no purpose other than to remind me of when these elements were well crafted and important story beats in the previous games. They don’t feel like history repeating itself in any thematically relevant way. They just want you to remember how much you liked BL2 while you’re muddling through BL3.

This is far from being a complete list. Just an overview of the pain points that continue to needle me as I try to digest this game. The disappointment is super real.

[uberrapidash]

This is a post I made on Facebook, but I’m also putting it here since I can tag it and find it again later.

Hey, guys.

This post is somewhat self-reflection, processing, and validation, and somewhat PSA-ish/FYI-ish since I am posting it online.

Mental health is nuts. It affects everything. I took an Adderall this morning for the first time in over a month and a half, and it changes everything. I know I have shared about how Adderall changes everything for me before, but this time is different in some important ways because of the circumstances.

At some point during the spring semester this year, I began seeing a new PCP and a new psychiatrist, since I'm in a new city and actually have health insurance. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 29, this year. It was like a dream come true, because it was so incredibly validating, but also because I thought I would be able to get all the help I needed because I had this Very Important Answer now.

However, that was not the case. Upon diagnosis, I asked the psychiatrist if there were any support groups or resources that I could access to learn about my newly-confirmed Neuro-Divergent Brain™. She said she didn't know of any. So I have been learning about how my brain works through Youtube videos, Reddit posts, and the experiences that other people share with me.

At the same time that this was happening, I continued searching for answers about my ongoing mysterious health problems. One of the FIRST things that my PCP jumped on was to tell me, in clear terms, repeatedly, that I needed to ask my psychiatrist about putting me on something for "psychological pain." What she means by this is that she thinks that my body pain happens because of something going on in my brain, or that my brain is heightening normal aches and pains for some reason. And so I began taking Cymbalta (prescribed by the psych). This was later in the semester by now.

After being on the Cymbalta for about a month, I could no longer take my Adderall - I found that any time I took Adderall, I became extremely anxious, would physically shake and feel ill, and it was just all around a bad time. (Adderall is not a drug that you need to keep in your system - you can start it and stop it at any time. Cymbalta is one of those drugs that has to build up in your system. It takes like a minimum of two weeks to even start seeing how it affects you.) There was clearly something going on between the two drugs, so the clear choice was to not take the Adderall while I got in touch with the psych.

Now, at this time, I did not have an appointment set up with the psychiatrist, because she wanted to go two whole months before seeing me again (which seems like a really bad idea considering that I was still new on the Cymbalta... it baffled me when she told me that and I was not happy with it). So I made a mental note that I needed to make an appointment ASAP because this wasn't working.

Except... It's now July, and I still have not made an appointment. I have run out of Cymbalta and cannot get a refill because it needs to go through the doc. And I am in this situation because that's just how low-functioning I have been since starting the Cymbalta.

I needed to have been closely monitored. I needed to have frequent appointments. And when I didn't pick up the phone or return the calls to the psych's office, they should have kept calling me.This is the nature of mental illness. It controls everything. Your brain controls everything you do. I need someone to be assigned to my case to make sure that my life isn't falling apart, especially when I've been given new meds. I'm not the only one. And this isn't my first time going through something like this. The entire mental health field needs a lot of work.

Anyway... I haven't had Cymbalta in a few days, and I took Adderall today for the first time in a while. It's like putting glasses on. It's like an enormous heavy fog has been lifted. It's like I have been pulled out of a pool of molasses. 

So... I am now capable of making that appointment, which I actually needed months ago. How fucked up is that?

__________

This is what it's like to be on the wrong meds, or to be unmedicated:

Every day for over a month, I have woken up every morning thinking about all of the really important things that needed doing, but as if I were chained to a pole or being held hostage in a cage, I could not do them. I was so sick that I had thoughts of telling Aaron that I needed help doing these things, but I couldn't even communicate it to him. That might sound impossible to someone who has never experienced any sort of mental illness or brain fog or executive dysfunction, but I and millions of other people are crying out about how so very real it is.

Today, after starting to gain some separation from the Cymbalta and after taking an Adderall, here are some things that have been different that I wasn't able to do before: 

- I told Aaron basically the above paragraph ^^^ (Contrast: remaining silent on these problems... not communicating my plight at all whatsoever) 

- I reached out to two (2) dear friends because I wanted to know how they are doing (Contrast: not reaching out to the people I love, ever) 

- I drink water when I notice thirst (Contrast: becoming so thirsty that it's too distracting to ignore, getting a headache, increased body aches) 

- I changed clothes once I recognized that what I was wearing was too warm (Contrast: suffering for hours until I felt sick from being too hot and couldn't do anything else, until doing something to alleviate that suffering) 

- easily and efficiently gave my body breakfast (Contrast: not eating anything until I feel sick/am extremely physically weak) 

- nearly automatically cleaned up after lunch (Contrast: leaving the mess until it's in the way at a later time) 

- easily and efficiently picked up some dishes and trash in the apartment (Contrast: seeing dishes/trash, thinking "I want to clean that up/put that away," and not being able to make my body do the thing) 

- not running into things when I walk around, being able to carry objects easily, and being able to efficiently pick up and put down multiple items without much effort. AKA - better motor control 

- scheduled a time to go grocery shopping today (and I'm going to make a grocery list and meal plan after I'm done typing this) (Contrast: another day without having gone grocery shopping, another day of fast food)

The list goes on and will continue to go on...

__________

Shame on my PCP for pushing on the "psychological pain" thing instead of doing more to actually discover what is wrong with my body. Shame on me for seeing that red flag, but going along with it anyway. I feel like I'm constantly torn between wanting to trust medical professionals, who have had years and years of education and practice, and wanting to fight them. I thought I was in good hands. But add this onto the list of stuff that quickly built up with that doctor... I won't be seeing her again.

[obsoletehumanity]

now playing: headlights by charlie cunningham

whew. it's 4:30am on the last day of 2020. I can't sleep. and somehow I've found myself back on Tumblr, posting on this, because I can't use Twitter as a scream sandbox anymore. too many of my tutors from undergrad and other people are following me. so here I am, heh.

the funny thing is that despite all this time, it feels like I only go in circles. yes, I'm doing much better at this life thing. I'm no longer a failure in an academic/Asian sense - if it's not enough being at Oxford for postgrad + getting first class honours for undergrad at Bristol... well, fuck me.

it is true that the things that I worry so much whilst I was in JC and letting down people and being castigated to the ash heap of history and people's lives have passed. it hasn't been that bad. in a way, I've proven myself. in some ways, I should totally give the middle fingers to all the teachers at Hwach who have wished to see me fail in one way or another. fuck you, to the one who wrote "why do you even bother doing physics" on my prelim exam script. fuck the teachers who still give me nightmares 7 years after I've left Hwach. to those who act faux-compassionate and went out to set up tuition centres, may karma find you.

but above all that I still feel like a bloody failure. I don't have a job lined up after graduation. I have so many things I still need to do (yes, I don't have abs and all; I can't master Dutch for nuts; my net worth is still... bleh. I don't have a student loan and my stocks have done pretty well so I do have somewhat more money that most of my peers at my age, but still...), and ultimately, I can't find the energy to love myself. I just can't get over the fact that I'll never be enough and that this is who I am - I will only be this ordinary person that will get casted out and sidelined by people even if I try my hardest and my very best, and for arbitrary reasons. I know this world is unfair. it always is, but it feels like I'm always working against it in some ways and for what?

and I feel like what I've been doing for the past 2.5-3 years has been trying to reconfirm that. I know I'm broken so I make myself even more damaged so that I prove that no one will ever want me or think I'm salvageable. having a bit too much sex for the last few years. when I can't count the number of nationalities I've screwed with both hands. when I've fucked someone on the three trips I've taken in 2020 before Covid happened; and 8 at Club Church just before I had to take a flight back. me at Club Church? 18 year old me would never think about it. ha. but here I am.

I remember the time good friend S was worried about me being on Grindr and everything. Maybe... he still should, but I don't ever want him to worry about me. I told him before that I don't gain much pleasure from it. I don't. but he doesn't know that at the end of the day I just want, for a split second, to feel accepted and "loved", and that's the thing that I gain from it. aaand this is ironic because my first hookup with a guy, Calvin Harris and Sam Smith's Promises played in his car just after we screwed and he wanted to bring me to somewhere where you could see the Clifton Suspension Bridge. and the entire meaning behind Promises is literally having someone for the night. but yeah. me, using sex and me being promiscuous as a way to just make myself broken, damaged, and unrepairable to the Asian gaze, so that I prove myself right. go me!

I know I'm incoherent. but I guess what I want to say is that all my life what I wanted is just to be accepted for who I am but it always feels so distant. And I seem to be actively self-sabotaging that by making myself for damaged. I don't seem to be good enough for anyone, and people have proven that to be true before. and maybe all I wish is someone to just like and love me despite all the damage that I am, how 'used' and filthy I am. this is stupid and idiotic, but I wonder if the shorter-than-me and smaller-than-me robotic surgeon in Melb did have his way and raped me, would it make much of a difference, given that I already feel so dirty as a being myself?

also - I don't think I'm even good enough for my friends... I really feel I'm just a huge burden on my life, and it is true, I am. will anyone remember me if I'm gone? maybe a few will... but that's it.

but I won't ever yeet myself because I lost a grandparent to suicide and I've seen first-hand how that stuff really screws people up. and I've been trying to make sure people don't go the same path. life is shite, but there will always be a glimmer of hope. and even if I can't see that myself sometimes, I just hope others do. in a way I feel like my life... is just about being there for others. is this ego death? I don't even feel like my life is really that important except having enough money to survive and not be emotionally abused or held hostage to the whims of my parents or to society at large. I'm not sure if I'm truly motivated by anything except 1) being financially independent (so that I don't have to deal with being held emotionally hostage), 2) care and concern for my friends and 3) just a huge desire to be accepted and loved.

as for 2020... I know people hate the year a lot, and I do too. but were it not for 2020, I don't think I can achieve this level of personal growth, and confirmation that I'm the only person that I can rely on for myself. I do have regrets though. I regret not having enough balls to yeet way more money into my two biggest holdings (which are up 10+ times as of today) when my hand hovered over the button, or loading more stocks in March, or buying more VIX options when I knew something was happening (I hated myself so much for this). Maybe if I did I could somehow (no, I WILL) have seven figures in the bank, lol. But hindsight is 20/20 and I still believe playing things somewhat conservative will save my ass time and time over again. Plus I'm only 24. I still have time.

I also regret having my progress on trying to love myself regress after the entire debacle with * last year. I regret not chilling down more often and instead being stuck in a purgatory of executive dysfunction + stressed not-doing-anything, all the time. But the year has been pretty okay bar the pandemic. At least - I've graduated and for what the degree is worth, I have a pathway to jobs. somehow. and I don't have to live in fear that I have had over the last 20+ years about being cut off by the family because of anything I've done or not done. and hopefully that position will get strengthened further once I'm done with Oggs.

what about 2021? I'm just going to focus on 1) strengthening my financial position (which translates to less emotional turmoil if ever induced on the family front), 2) getting a job (and hopefully staying in the UK/Europe), and 3) being a better friend to people; and 4) being a better person to people in general. 5) Survive and thrive, because 2020 had royally screwed my plans to, so they aren't going to get in my way for 2021.

it's 5:30am now. and I'm not sure if I wrote anything useful or readable for the last hour. I just really hate myself at times and I wish I could just be enough for my friends, if I'm not good enough for anyone else. I really fucking do care about all of them, and my two sisters. I just hope they know. I hope I've done enough and will continue to do enough and be enough for all of them.

-

is this how K felt when I read his posts and knew his inner thoughts? this isn't even going to my finsta, and never will. I just hope K's alright. I really hope he is. I'm not used to radio silence from him. and to the eyedealmentality dude I follow on here. hope you're well too Mikey, I haven't heard from you in years. and to the person I once loved and probably still will forever. I know I will never be the person you want, and that's okay. I don't think we were meant for each other, and that is fine. I just hope you are well too. stay safe, take care, and may your future be brighter than what you've expected in your wildest dreams.

[bountyofbeads]

Inside Trump’s shutdown turnaround

https://wapo.st/2FPJyQ7

A fascinating summation of Trump's HISTORIC CAVE to @SpeakerPelosi WOMEN RULE 💪💪💪💪

Inside Trump’s shutdown turnaround

By Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey & Seung Min Kim |

January 25 at 8:00 PM EST|

The Washington Post | Posted January 26, 2019 |

His poll numbers were plummeting. His FBI director was decrying the dysfunction. The nation’s air travel was in chaos. Federal workers were lining up at food banks. Economic growth was at risk of flatlining, and even some Republican senators were in open revolt.

So on Friday, the 35th day of a government shutdown that he said he was proud to instigate, President Trump finally folded. After vowing for weeks that he would keep the government closed unless he secured billions in funding for his promised border wall, Trump agreed to reopen it.

He got $0 instead.

Trump’s capitulation to Democrats marked a humiliating low point in a polarizing presidency and sparked an immediate backlash among some conservative allies, who cast him as a wimp.

Elected as a self-proclaimed master dealmaker and business wizard who would bend Washington to his will and stand firm on his campaign promises — chief among them the wall — Trump risks being exposed as ineffective.

“He was the prisoner of his own impulse and it turned into a catastrophe for him,” said David Axelrod, who was a White House adviser to President Barack Obama. “The House of Representatives has power and authority — and now a speaker who knows how to use it — so that has to become part of his calculation or he’ll get embarrassed again.”

Trump’s quest for at least some portion of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is not over, however. Friday’s agreement only temporarily reopens the government, providing a three-week ­period for Congress to negotiate a longer-term spending agreement. The president said he would continue advocating for his signature campaign promise and threatened to again shut down the government or declare a national emergency to use his unilateral powers to build the wall if Congress does not appropriate funding for it by Feb. 15.

“Let me be very clear: We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier,” Trump said Friday. He also tweeted in the evening that his decision “was in no way a concession.”

But when Trump stood alone in a bitter-cold White House Rose Garden on Friday afternoon to announce that the government was reopening with no money for the wall, he punctuated five weeks of miscalculation and mismanagement by him and his administration.

This account of Trump’s stymied pursuit of border wall funding is based on interviews with more than a dozen senior administration officials, Trump confidants and others briefed on internal discussions, many of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly.

For weeks, Trump has sought an exit ramp from the shutdown that would still secure wall funding, and for weeks his advisers failed to identify a viable one.

Trump repeatedly predicted to advisers that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would cave and surmised that she had a problem with the more liberal members of her caucus. But she held firm, and her members stayed united.

“Why are they always so loyal?” Trump asked in one staff meeting, complaining that Democrats so often stick together while Republicans sometimes break apart, according to attendees.

As for their negotiations, Trump and Pelosi had not spoken since their Jan. 9 session in which the president stormed out of the White House Situation Room. In a meeting with some columnists on Friday, Pelosi was asked why she thought Trump had not created a more potent nickname for her than “Nancy.” She replied, according to a senior Democratic aide, “Some people think that’s because he understands the power of the speaker.”

Trump and his advisers misunderstood the will of Democrats to oppose wall funding. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, emerged as the most powerful White House adviser during the shutdown and told colleagues that Trump’s plan for $5.7 billion in wall funding would get Democratic votes in the Senate on Thursday, astonishing Capitol Hill leaders and other White House aides.

Kushner, who Trump jokingly says is to the “left,” pitched a broader immigration deal and had faith that he could negotiate a grand bargain in the coming weeks, according to people familiar with his discussions. He pitched a big deal to Latino groups this week and also with members of the Koch network, the people said.

Trump, who fretted about the shutdown’s impact on the economy and his personal popularity, cast about for blame and pointed fingers at his staff — including Kushner — for failing to resolve the impasse, according to aides.

At a meeting Wednesday with conservative groups, the president accused former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) of having “screwed him” by not securing border wall money when Republicans had the majority, according to one attendee, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. He said Ryan should have gotten him money before he left but he had no juice and had “gone fishing,” according to two attendees.

Ryan had warned the president against a shutdown and told him it would be politically disastrous, according to a person familiar with their conversations.

All the while, Trump vowed he would never capitulate to Democrats. At the Wednesday meeting, “he said there would be no caving,” Krikorian said. “Everybody who spoke up applauded him for not caving, but warned him that any further movement toward the Democrats’ direction would be a problem.”

White House aides had been monitoring Transportation Security Administration data on airport security delays and staffing levels several times a day. Officials said Thursday that the situation was worsening and would probably force the end of the shutdown.

But events at the Capitol on Thursday are largely what triggered Trump to conclude that he had run out of time and that he had to reopen the government, his aides said.

Trump lost control of his party as fissures emerged among exasperated Republican senators. Six of them voted Thursday for a Democratic spending bill, and others privately voiced frustration with Vice President Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) during a closed-door, contentious luncheon.

“Everyone who saw the floor action realized we were basically at the same place where we began and we needed a different solution,” a White House official said of Thursday’s votes.

McConnell called Trump on Thursday to say that the shutdown could not hold because some of his members were in revolt. The president did not commit to ending it in that call, but he phoned McConnell back that evening to say he had concluded the shutdown had to end, according to a person with knowledge of the conversations.

Under attack from some Republican colleagues, McConnell told senators on Friday that Trump had come up with the idea for a three-week deal — and that the president would be announcing it.

When Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) visited the White House on Thursday, he said Trump was in a “pragmatic” mood, mentioning the failed Senate votes and saying he wanted to make a deal.

Pence and Kushner presented the president with several options that would reopen the government, according to a White House official. They included using his executive authority to declare a national emergency and redirect other public funds for the wall, an option Trump said Friday he was holding in reserve. Trump also briefly considered a commission that would study a wall, according to a senior administration official.

On Thursday night, the president grew annoyed at Mick Mulvaney when the acting White House chief of staff talked with him about policy prescriptions for the next three weeks and what an eventual deal might look like, according to one person familiar with the conversation.

Administration officials began immediately on this next phase; Mulvaney and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen met privately with a handful of Republican senators at Camp David on Friday evening to start discussing what a border security agreement might look like, according to multiple people familiar with the gathering.

Ultimately, aides said, Trump was willing to table debate over wall funding because he is convinced he can win support from some Democratic lawmakers over the next three weeks.

Friday’s agreement allows for a conference committee made up of rank-and-file members from each party to negotiate border security funding, which White House aides said they believe will enable more flexibility than existed during Trump’s stalemate with Pelosi.

A senior White House official said the administration’s negotiating team has received “dozens of signals from Democrats that they are willing to give the president wall money,” but declined to name any such lawmakers.

The administration may have been referring to a letter written by freshman Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) and signed by more than 30 House Democrats, which merely called for a vote on Trump’s border security proposal once the government reopens.

But “that vote would obviously fail in the House,” one senior Democratic aide pointed out. “This is just pathetic spin.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said, “The poll numbers tell a very stark story, but it’s only part of the more enduring longer-term effect on the president’s credibility. He essentially held America hostage for a vanity project and a campaign applause line that the American people saw clearly was never worth shutting down the government to achieve.”

Trump’s approval ratings have fallen in most public polls, including a Washington Post-ABC News survey released Friday that found 37 percent approve of his presidency and 58 percent disapprove.

Trump risks further angering independent voters who do not agree with the prolonged shutdown and conservatives who disapprove of him caving after 35 days with no win.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter, whose criticism of Trump in mid-December helped inspire the president to shut the government in protest over wall funding, registered her disapproval of his Friday decision.

“Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States,” Coulter tweeted.

For months, Republican senators had been trying to warn Trump against a shutdown. Last June, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the chamber’s point person on Homeland Security funding, met privately with Trump not only to tout their bipartisan border security spending package but also to nudge him away from a confrontation over the wall.

“I just said, ‘Shutdowns are miserable,’ ” Capito said Friday, recounting that Oval Office conversation. “The last one was miserable. And this one was double miserable, and so, you know, maybe you have to live through it to really get the sense of it.”

King faulted the conservative Freedom Caucus, led by Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), both Trump confidants, for steering the president in the wrong direction.

“I hope he ignores them for the next three weeks,” King said. “It’s the charge of the light brigade. It’s the valley of death.”

[kansascityhappenings]

‘House of horrors’ animal shelter director faces slew of cruelty charges

NEWARK, N.J. — The executive director of a New Jersey shelter that has become infamous within the animal welfare community has been charged with animal cruelty.

The New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NJSPCA) announced charges against Roseann Trezza, executive director of Associated Humane Societies, for incidents at the Newark location.

The charges, which included eight criminal counts and eight civil counts of animal cruelty, were filed in Newark Municpal Court Wednesday, according to WPIX.

Trezza, 70, of Matawan, N.J., is being charged with failing to provide necessary care to multiple animals, with violations ranging from filthy water bowls to commingling sick and healthy animals.

These charges are the result of a multiple-month, multiple-visit inspection and joint efforts of the State Department of Health, Newark Department of Health and NJSPCA Humane Police. A court date of 4 p.m. on Dec. 7 has been scheduled.

A recent joint inspection by the City of Newark and the state’s Department of Health uncovered a slew of violations, including animals kept in cramped enclosures without any exercise or light. Many of the animals are getting euthanized before being held the required seven days.

The problems at this so-called “house of horrors” date back much longer, to the 1980s, according to state investigators.

The images are heartbreaking. Dogs and cats forced to lay in their own squalor. Most are sick, some are on the verge of dying and a majority are neglected.

Those are the claims being made by over a dozen former and current volunteers and workers at Associated Humane Societies in Newark – one of New Jersey’s largest and busiest animal shelters which services over a dozen municipalities in the state.

To their disbelief, inspectors also discovered a live skunk in a carrier, covered in blankets and sitting directly in the sun.

For over two months, WPIX investigated numerous animal cruelty allegations from former workers and volunteers at the AHS Newark facility.  Video obtained by WPIX gives just a glimpse of the conditions. The footage shows dogs locked away in a cellar. They rarely get exercise or have human contact, a source tells us, all while loud music and constant alarms sound off in the background.

“It was bad, you had to carry the dogs in and out because they didn’t want to go back in,” a tearful Debra Ann Honan said.

Honan worked as a volunteer at AHS for 3 years and, according to her, when volunteers or workers speak out against the horrid conditions – it results in immediate termination.

“It starts at the top – there needs to be changes,” she said.

For decades, AHS in Newark has become infamous within the animal welfare community.

Deplorable and horrendous conditions at the facility date back to the 1980s – something state investigators acknowledged in a scathing 2003 report. Inspection reports in 2009, 2011 and now in 2017 turned up the same – if not worse – conditions.

People interviewed by WPIX say the person at the center of the dysfunction is the shelter organization’s current Executive Director Roseann Trezza, who has served on the AHS Board of Trustees since the 1970s.

Former workers – some who did not want to be identified in fear of retaliation – described the culture within AHS as “maddening.”

According to inter-office emails, management appears to be aware of the dysfunction but doesn’t seem to care.

“It’s like a teacher teaching in a classroom and not liking kids,” said a former worker who did not want to be identified. “How do you have someone running a facility that has no compassion whatsoever for animals.”

What’s even more disturbing – according to sources – is that under Trezza’s direction, the shelter would regularly hold animals with compelling stories hostage until the not-for-profit would raise a certain amount of funds through donations.

One of those cases involved a pit bull nicknamed “Vinnie Van Gogh,” a bait dog that suffered a number of injuries. His story of survival went viral in 2014.

“They held that dog for months from being adopted,” an anonymous source said. “Just to keep the donations coming in – there have been so many cases like that.”

Vinnie was eventually adopted.

When WPIX made a recent unannounced visit to the Newark shelter, it appeared the horrific conditions detailed in the state’s inspection had – at least for this visit – improved.

The facility is currently running with a temporary license while it makes improvements to get back into compliance.

Assistant Director Jill Van Tuyl, who is fairly new at the shelter, acknowledged there are problems at the facility and insists the staff is currently working around the clock to remedy the situation.

“There are things that we changed now that I would’ve liked to have changed sooner and I think it’s a good thing,” she said.

Despite a track record of violations and years of failed inspections, the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals  – the state’s law enforcement agency for animal cruelty – took no action against AHS.

The agency itself was the subject of a blistering report by the State Commission of Investigation, where it was dubbed “wolves in sheep’s clothing” full of so-called “wannabe cops” who fail to investigate animal cruelty cases in a timely manner.

With a questionable reputation of its own in the spotlight – and on the heels of  the WPIX investigation – the NJSPCA finally closed in on the organization’s executive director Wednesday.

Trezza was charged with 8 criminal counts and 8 civil counts of animal cruelty including failing to provide necessary care to multiple animals, with violations ranging from filthy water bowls to commingling sick and healthy animals.

It’s the first step to fixing what one volunteer described as “Newark’s House of Horrors” where animals are said to struggle to stay alive amid dysfunction.

“The animals that come to these places are at the mercy of these people,” former SPCA chief officer Stuart Goldman said. Goldman currently works as a private investigator who specializes in animal cruelty. “If they want to leave an animal in the hot blazing sun, they want animals sneezing and coughing, (with) bloody diarrhea, there’s nobody there to stop them.”

Numerous interview requests were made to Roseann Trezza for this story. None were answered.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2017/11/16/house-of-horrors-animal-shelter-director-faces-slew-of-cruelty-charges/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/house-of-horrors-animal-shelter-director-faces-slew-of-cruelty-charges/