#and go see my therapist again

[merkerlerspeaks]

So I have been having focus and motivation issues @ christian moots i request prayers that that stops- been doing better with it and I have an ADHD/Dyscalculia evaluation coming up at the end of this month. I want my brain to function without screaming for the tasty hit of Internet Dopamine so I request a simple prayer of 'please help merkerler get her brain in order and keep it that way' thanks

[lycandrophile]

i just got back from my first ever gynecological exam and somehow, despite the doctor being really nice and way more knowledgeable about trans bodies than i was expecting, it still ended up being incredibly upsetting and honestly probably mildly traumatizing. i’m sure it’s no secret to anyone following me that going to the gynecologist is a uniquely shitty experience for a lot of trans guys and i knew that but i really was not prepared for that.

first of all, everything you read says that the pelvic exam and pap smear shouldn’t hurt even if they’re super uncomfortable, but let me tell you, that shit fucking hurt. like, i have a pretty high pain tolerance and usually even when something does hurt i don’t show it very much, but that was maybe the most painful thing i’ve ever had a doctor do to me and it showed. to be fair, i’ve never had good luck with things like that — i couldn’t even use tampons back when i had a period because the one time i did, taking it out was really painful — and i’m on t now so i’m sure that makes things even harder and i was prepared for it to hurt, but i really wasn’t ready for just bad it was. it’s been an hour since the exam finished and there’s still some pain so, yeah, so much for “it’s just uncomfortable, not painful”.

(and a side note: when it did hurt, the doctor told me to relax my muscles because the tension makes it hurt more. what they didn’t seem to realize is that if your brain and body are collectively rejecting the presence of something inside you, making those muscles relax is a fucking herculean task and i for one was not in any way capable of it so it just…kept getting more painful.)

i also was never informed ahead of time of what a pelvic exam actually entails; i had assumed it was a more general external checkup, and that the pap smear was the only really invasive part. as it turns out, i was very wrong, and “pelvic exam” actually means the doctor sticks their finger up you to feel around. she asked me if i was comfortable getting the exam because it was so obvious that the pap smear didn’t go well, but i had no clue what i was saying yes to and it was a total surprise for me when there was something inside me again. and she knew it was my first time, so she had no reason to assume i knew that the exam would be like. by the time i realized i absolutely should not have said yes to it, i was too late and it was already happening. it really feels like common sense that if you’re going to be giving someone what basically amounts to a professional fingering, you should probably make it clear that that’s what’s about to happen, but i guess that doctor would disagree.

and of course, the whole time i was also being misgendered. the doctor used the right name for me, but the other staff didn’t and everything about it was so excessively gendered (i’m pretty sure the appointment i had was literally called a “women’s wellness visit” on the same sheet that had trans man and nonbinary as gender options). not to mention, when i told them i’m getting top surgery and have the exact date set, the nurse made a comment to like“well aren’t you one of the lucky ones,” which really felt like it had “i think trans guys have a super easy time getting surgeries that cis women have to fight for” energy.

and the irony of all this definitely isn’t lost on me — i just did a project this past semester about how trans guys are fucked over by reproductive healthcare practices so a lot of us just never go, and now i got some firsthand experience in exactly why so many of us just say “no fucking way”.

i just want to put this out there for anyone who hasn’t done it before because i think this would have been a lot less awful for me if someone had just told me “yeah, it might hurt way more than you think, and also that thing they call a pelvic exam is actually an internal exam.” i thought i was prepared and i totally wasn’t, so hopefully this will reach someone else who will be better off knowing all of this.

[tecnestheim962]

Guys. It’s 5 AM and I have two exams, a lab, an interview, and a concert today, I’ve gotten no sleep, and yet in the time I was meant to be sleeping, all I could think about was Rosegarden because of course they take up any and all down time I get but

Guys.

What if. At the end of it all. Salem and Ozma have departed the world. The gods have left for good. Everyone is standing in one place, uncertain. And someone asks, “so… what do we do now?” And Ruby and Oscar look at each other and say at the same time, “whatever we’d like”

BECAUSE THEIR CHARACTERS ARE FOILS OF OZMA AND SALEM AND WHEN THEY FINALLY REACHED THEIR GOALS TWICE THATS WHAT THEY SAID BUT FIRST IT WAS OZMA AND THEN IT WAS SALEM BUT THIS TIME ITLL BE OSCAR AND RUBY AND ITLL COME FULL CIRCLE AND-

[lesbiangracehanson]

~~~~

[moregraceful]

it was once observed by a dear friend that the hours in which i am most alert are like 7pm to 2am which probably explains a lot about how my posts get worse throughout the evening. but also sometimes i look at today where i was just sort of gnawing the couch all day until about 5pm when i wrote an entire fic in two hours and then another entire post about kaapo which to be clear took another two hours bc i had to chase links and explain my passions in a kind way and this was in addition to a church meeting. i would excel as the person who lights and then extinguishes lamps in the night

[ef-1]

girlhood

[girlpetrarca]

gang I'm not sure I have the courage to come out to my boxing coach

[microknifeyuri]

uh. vent art. or something. losing yourself and losing everyone who you cared about as a result

[gayteddy]

so i realized last night that the pain medication my doctor prescribed is also an anti-depressant and could possibly be the cause of me feeling like a person for the first time in 4 years. who knew i needed to be medicated.

[bleue-flora]

if a therapist came to the dsmp to treat the characthers they would need therapy after doing it probably

[context]

You and @piscespixiewastaken think alike it seems.

Indeed they would. In fact, this point actually pushed me to ask my sister-in-law, who is a therapist/counselor about it just out of curiosity. 

Here’s what I learned:

Despite what my counselor said, not all therapists were required in school to do counseling themselves to get certified. Some counselors have actually never even been to therapy themselves (not sure how I feel about that to be honest… not to deter people from going to therapy - please do if you are able) something my sister-in-law didn’t seem to be a big fan of.

When asked if she felt like she needed counseling after/because of a specific client she said that yes that can definitely be the case. She noted that empathy fatigue is often common after listening to people all day, which makes sense and that would be a common reason for some needed personal counseling. As expected, while she hasn’t had to deal with a lot of it, she did note that dealing with people with antisocial behavior disorders (ie narcissistic, histrionic… think sociopath disorders) can be especially taxing.

Given that the dsmp is a group of povs of the same story and events, I was curious on whether she often found herself taking sides when she does couples counseling. She said that there can be an initial bias at first when the base facts are presented to her, which is something she often has to check herself on, but that actually she finds that usually there is truth and wrongdoing on both sides and there is no true ‘bad guy.’ Though she did add that she has not dealt with any relationships involving more intense abuse especially relating to antisocial behavior disorders. In other words, the couples she sees likely came willingly and are sound enough in mind on both sides to want to fix the problems, if that makes sense.

So in other words, there are, much to my surprise, counselors who do not go (may not have gone) to therapy themselves, but that doesn’t make it healthy and considering the characters in the dsmp it would likely be recommended that this counselor also see someone. I will say though the implication that people in the dsmp are more problematic then real world people are is perhaps an underestimation of irl mental illness. Just because the dsmp members wear armor and carry around weapons doesn't make them more troublesome than people irl, though perhaps that is me viewing it from their world standards which I assume the therapist would be from. In either case, whether the therapist was from the realm of Minecraft world circumstances or more irl, I do imagine they being either inhumanly sane and not need a therapist of their own, or they get together with another therapist and perhaps drink over all the dsmp insanity. And whether they would be inclined to take sides I think is hard to say since there are definitely some characters who need a psych ward. Anyways… hope you enjoyed my info dump. :)

[dykecadence]

one day i will stop assuming everyone wants nothing to do with me. one day

[tex-now]

My therapist once and only once used the term neurospicy

I made sure it was the last time

[goldkirk]

I DON'T HAVE TO LIE ANYMORE!

[gibbearish]

ive seen ppl saying smth in the wider plagiarism discussion to the tune of "don't worry anxious people, it's impossible to accidentally plagiarize!" and i feel like that lacks a lot of nuance that anxious brains like mine latch on to to just dismiss the possibility outright, as well as a lack of life experiences fueling it.

it is possible to "accidentally plagiarize" in that you can read something, forget about it, then a while later have your brain spit the ideas back out without telling where it got them. so of course you just assume they're yours and share them as such, because That's Where Most Of The Thoughts In Your Head Come From! and it both is and isn't plagiarism, you weren't /intending/ to pass someone's else's work off as your own, i'd even say in a way you were just as much a victim of misinformation as your audience. but you very much so did still resuse the work of someone else, even if you don't remember it.

but in my experience, this kind of thing also happens to a lot of people. you tell a friend a joke then wake up in a cold sweat two days later realizing the reason they didnt laugh was because they'd told you that joke a month ago. you reply to a friend's text and after sending you realized you ended it with the same exact phrase as theirs. you're writing edgy poetry and write a line you really like only to see it in a text post two days later saying youve already liked the post. like, it happens. so if it DOES happens and you're just honest and explain, people will understand. something like "oh shit im sorry, i totally have read that, i mustve forgotten and only remembered bits and pieces and just thought they were mine. thank you for letting me know and for the source" works wonders.

people know you can forget things. people won't automatically doubt your apology just because all true plagiarists say it was accidental. HOPEFULLY people can understand the nuance between a genuine remorseful explanation, and a thief who hoped no one would find out scrambling for excuses for why they did it. and those who can't, that's a them problem, not a you problem, you've taken responsibility for your actions as much as you can. they think the answer is simple, that the only thing stopping you from saying "yes i did it on purpose, i knew the whole time and deliberately copied them" is shame/inability to admit to your actions. but sometimes things AREN'T that simple, so imo ppl who are shitty to you for not following the script they made up for you in their head should be ignored

[good-wine-and-cheese]

Just feel like talking a little about interesting behaviours that have come out of this version of Tenma I'm writing in my fic. Specifically, about his relationship to "parental instinct". There are two passages that made me think about it, as follows:

In this state, Hiroshi could not comfort his child. Tenma wasn’t sure that he could, either. But… He put his hands on her shoulders, then gently drew her closer. This – it felt familiar, painful. But she fit there in his arms just as Atom, just as Tobio; and he was filled with it, some kind of an automatic instinct that told him this was what he was supposed to do.

In the first he's only really conscious of it in passing; the urge that he should hug Uran is strange and alien. "It" - something that sounds ominous to him.

Tenma could feel it again, that same sense of urgency as when Uran had run to him for comfort. It was a piece of human programming that had a superseding power, the kind that demanded he follow it above all else. Right now, it urged him toward Atom.

And then there's this one; he's more aware of it happening now, and associates it with programming that overrides his natural state of being. Like he's being puppeted.

It's just an interesting thought process that I like thinking about. He definitely has parental instinct, but it's been repressed so much for obvious reasons and is associated mostly with pain and failure. So he almost can't think of it as something internal to him, and instead views it as something that takes over him. Like it's a computer virus, like mind control. Something that "happens" to him - he's not responsible for those feelings and can safely separate himself. And even though it's generally a positive force (telling him that he should be comforting Uran and Atom respectively) he kind of hates it. Probably because he knows it's a part of him.

I dunno, just interesting things that have worked their way into writing Tenma.

[aromanticbastards]

i should just find the board of my insurance and try to kill myself in front of them. maybe that will lead to something.