#and my therapist had to tell me if you're a particularly bad person around someone who is also a bad person its not solely your fault.

[tatoasting]

Okay hopefully she doesnt check back here anymore. The coast should be clear and if not.... u know who u are anon, go away now please I'll say things u dont want to hear.

Anyway I think its time to listen to the playlist I've been crafting about my ex so I can like, remember that its not my fault and she's just abit crazy. Well, it is in part my fault, but the fact that she sent me a message telling me I suck has nothing to do with who I am now so like. Yeah. Going to probably post some fun lyrics now whooo

[krillest1]

Week 9: Sometimes I Talk to Neo-Nazis

CHECK IT Sorry for the late (but technically on-schedule) post! I've had a hectic couple of days, including finally quitting my job, and wrangling with a broken washing machine (latest update there: I ordered the wrong part, pray that I've ordered the right one today). I have been backsliding, or something, recently. I've been watching a lot more tv/anime, going online, and did not feel up to tackling another Aristotle piece. Instead of giving up, however, I opted to just read some Naomi Klein and Camatte, both of whom were quite interesting to read given the election. More generally, it feels that things are starting to fall apart, for me. I'm less happy, old anxieties about body and knowing are back, and I am spending more and more time in bed. This is scary. Still, I've decided to act with/in faith that gratitude in unknowing, oriented towards the interesting, might be a way through. It's worth noting that a lot of this backsliding (e.g. going on to social media and eating a shit-ton of fastfood) started on Tuesday i.e. on the election. A day before the election, however, I had a conversation that I thought was worth autopsying here.

A FASCIST OR TWO I had the opportunity, on Monday, to speak to an acquaintance about the election. What started off as a typical bitch-and-moan session about the state of the country/politics quickly turned into this person telling me that they are a neo-Nazi. Clearly, I think, there's some part of the way I act that makes someone feel comfortable saying this sort of thing/expressing this sort of sentiment around me. This is probably bad. I think, additionally, that a lot of these things circle back towards language. As a lonely, angry teenager, I spent a lot of time on the internet. I used a lot of different sites, and learned a lot of jargon (including the one you're thinking about right now, probably...). The term dog-whistle gets thrown around a lot, but in this case that is exactly what happened. There was some talk of pills, of longhouses, of degeneracy, and that I could trace the way these terms were related showed that I've been steeped in the stuff; my language gives away that I've been colonized. The closing tet-a-tet is also interesting here: them: I had no idea you were based like that me: I'm not them: What's your plan, then? me: To do nothing, to read, and to react I guess them: Just wait, soon you'll have no opinions on anything. I'm not sure why I typed this out in full, but the texture of the conversation was strange, but familiar. This is not the first time I've had an exchange like this this year (though the one outlined above was particularly egregious). Earlier this year, in fact, I talked with someone who had read and done many or most of the things I had read and done. This was shockingly relieving. I was able, for a second, to step out of my neurotic obsession with seeming smarter than others (note: I'm working on it, hence all the talk of gratitude in unknowing (note: a therapist did not recommend this tactic)) and have a nice discussion. We spoke for a long time about all sorts of things, and ended up at a sort of pessimistic, if not nihilistic, orientation towards the world at large. Both of these conversations speak to some personality flaw that I have, or to the type of person I like maybe

GEMEINWESEN Why, you might be asking, am I fluent in (pseudo?)-Fascist slang? The internet is to blame. The fact of the matter is, this language has been seeping into our collective (un)consciousness for a while, so everyone's been exposed a little bit. More specifically, however, I got obsessed with radical politics/people during some of the unhappier times in my life. I felt (and in some ways still feel) a deep dissatisfaction with the world. It felt good to talk to people who felt similarly, who shared the types of music and images and videos and whatever that I found interesting, and that shared my despair. This is not, I think, an original analysis. What is weird is that I seem semi-normal (politically) to people, I think. Both of the conversations outlined above, for example, started with my interlocutor telling me that they were surprised I knew the language they were speaking. In an effort to move away from ego, however, and practice gratitude in unknowing, I'd like to turn inward. I am a sort-of-Leftist, and have been for basically all my life. I really and strongly believe that a better world is possible, that a material analysis is a solid analysis, and that egalitarianism is one of the highest goods. The left, or the left that I received, was a dead thing. I'm not even, I should note, comfortable calling this 'the left,' as I am not politically consistent or engaged. It's more that I have strong feelings and thoughts which are nominally left-y, so that's the camp I've decided to align myself with. Whatever. The point of interest is this: I feel despair almost all the time. The projects I think are worthwhile are DOA, and I am an atomized and alienated thing. Camatte, one of those French thinkers so steeped in the conversation that I can't quite parse him, talks about how Marx's analysis has fallen apart, and our duty in the world is to build community (gemeinwesen, it's more complicated than this, but whatever). I, however, cannot build community. People find me strange, I've alienated all sorts of people that I care about deeply, and I am not smart enough to be consistent/insightful. While it's one of the more boring distinctions to make, I am weak and others are strong. My weakness is something I'm working to accept, but it's also not a terribly interesting way to make sense of the world (I think). Weak and strong are vague terms, and a shorthand to avoid the more complicated/difficult questions. Still, since I brought it up, here it is: The strong have no reason to help me, or change things; I am weak, and I cannot change things; nothing will change; the movement is dead (the movement, what the fuck am I prattling about). Because I am weak, I cannot build community. People do not like me. Politics is an extension of this. Silly. The place that had people like me (it did not accept me, I can't quite locate this interaction in terms of acceptance) was the internet. It doesn't, anymore, or at least they are fewer and farer(ha) between. Maybe this is how populism works, maybe I'm not in conversation with myself enough, maybe Arendt should get out of my head.

PURR UPU This has gotten dangerously close to directionless complaining. Maybe it has already crossed the line. There are a couple of points I'd like to make, or work through, before closing. The first is that this is not a conversation about this year's election. My situation is unique(ish) in that I have little to no skin in the game. I don't really have a community, or people, or debt, or any of the things that make people feel so strongly about things. Second, I think that this is one of the points of this blog: to remind people that the no-longer-human are closer than you might think. Third, and last, I think that the internet should probably not be as accessible as it is, or something. That's not quite right, but I don't think people like me should be allowed to use it willy-nilly I think that a lot of people think that they have radical politics. I think that the world demands this of us in some ways; the strange is now commonplace, or we need to keep it strange while also centering it ideologically. I think that two further points bubble up from this ramble (or at least from writing this ramble): (1) there is a difference between radical speech and radical action. You know this, I know this. Still, I claim to be left-ish but have done a grand total of zero to push that project forward (I have participated in some bourgeois elections though, yipee). The related, and second point is that (2) I think having a group of interesting people must be one of the greater gifts in the world. I am alone most of the time, and I think that is a good and natural thing. Still, I think that building a space for people to interact is a boring thing (i.e. it's not strange) but it is also good and natural. We all know the third place is dead, but I am asking the strong to help the weak, or something.

CLOSE Another banger of a post, I'm sure. This one was even more muddled than previous weeks'. I need to be more methodical with my writing, and pursue one thought to the end (not touch on many adjacent threads in a knot). I also included much too much personal information this week. That's ok, since nobody reads these, but it's truly terrible OPSEC. The final point is that instead of incorporating my feelings, I centered them in this post. I think that is poor writing and thought: they're there, but they ought to be interpreted or woven in, or something. Generally, things are good. I'm reading, and watching, and being a good and diligent consumer. I've spent a little bit more time on dating apps, but gave up in disgust as I felt ugly and felt that I was judging the people who appeared on the screen as ugly, or something. I haven't talked to people in a little while, which is a problem. I feel that everything up there ^ is intensely negative, so to close: I am grateful in my unknowing. There are things that I cannot and will not understand, but seeing bits and pieces of those things in flashes is exciting. Language is a strange thing, and I am lucky enough to be able to vomit it up regularly. People are intensely interesting, if a little strange. Democracy doesn't come in/through an election, but it remains a real possibility I think. In short, and to re-iterate, I am grateful in my unknowing. Have a good week.

[the-anonymous-vent-blog]

this feels so silly to come to vent blog but here i am lol

i feel like i'm never going to grow out of my insecurity. i'm not insecure in the way i see it portrayed with everyone else. i'm fourteen and if these are what hormones are like i don't think i can do it. i've always had anger issues, i've always been sensitive and i've always been unhealthily jealous but as i've entered teenagehood, it's only gotten worse.

i'm constantly, always lashing out at the people i love and getting angry at them whenever they call me out on it. i hold onto grudges even weeks after the incident has passed and tell other people about it as if it just happened to make myself seem like the bigger, better person. i form wickedly strong attachments to people that i've just met and create such unrealistic standards of who they'll be that when they inevitably don't meet them i come apart at the seams and feel like my life is over and i need to take drastic measures for two weeks, then i lose the attachment and form an arguably worse obsession where i'm bitter and angry and jealous and want nothing but the worst for them but they dont feel nearly as vividly as i do so i feel stupid and it creates this cycle that im really fucking sick of because i've never met anyone who loves or hates as strongly as i do and i feel like im going crazy

i am such an awful person because of my insecurity and i hate myself for it

it's been so long and i'm so young and i know yo7 cant get rid of insecurity overnight andnit's a "self-love" thing but i'm really, really suffering. i wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy. i have periods of time where i'm good, i feel really fucking fantastic and i don't care about other people and online shit and i think "i was just being dramatic, im actually fine" and then something small happens and i fall apart all over again and it gets worse every time

i dont even know what to do. im sorry if this is too much to put on a vent blog, please ignore this if it is im just feeling weird and it's 9pm and thats probably why im so emotional right now i just want to know im not alone

🍎

Alright first things first- never base your perception of anything on the way books or shows, any kind of story made for entertainment, portrays them. They can help if the team making them is particularly attentive, but they little inherent benefit to being accurate.

Good news- It isn't just hormones. Yes, hormones can make your issues worse and cause instability, but there is always something you can do to fix this problem by your own hand.

Additionally, you just happen to be asking someone who's gone through something very similar!

Bad news- I got through the worst of it through sheer force of will, heavy dissociation, and several years of unwilling social isolation. So lets hopefully avoid that for you! (Even if it does, its really not the end of your life)

Its going to really tough. I mean it. Sometimes it'll feel like you're not making progress at all. Sometimes you won't want to get better. You might make some Bad decisions.

What do to- therapy. I often recommend therapy, because seriously, it is heavily underrated. Your therapist can provide you with many exercises, resources, and its very good to have someone listen who can respond in a constructive manner. I was able to get therapy because my highschool offered it for free, and by my second year I was old enough to make those decision without parental permission thanks to local laws. See if your school, local community center, or other provides similair services.

Support system! A good support system is essential to getting through this. It's going to feel counterintuitive, but stick around those people that didn't meet your standards. It's important to build a social network, and upon learning to tolerate them, you may find yourself truly loving and caring for one or several of them.

Journaling! When having trouble with your thought processes, this is very good! You can get an overview of your stream of consciousness, physically get a look at the areas you need to improve on, and take steps to correcting your attitude. Changing the way we think is important to healing, and this can help catch harmful thoughts. It can also help you catch bad ideas before you try to execute them irl.

Overall- ^^These are just the things I feel are most relevant to your situation. There are many different steps you can take, and plenty of resources online to help you determine whats best for you. THE most important thing however, is to want change. That seems easy, but none of this will change fast. This is the sort of thing that can easily take years. It takes a determination that can be easy to let go of in favor of instinctual reactions and whatever gives you dopamine. These emotions will come and go, and the best you can do is sometimes simply trying to not let them drown you.

Remember, you're not irredeemable. You're just a kid, and being a kid is fucking difficult. <3

[bogkeep]

ok so actually i have a lot of thoughts on """traumadumping on your friends""""" VS "go see a therapist" that may seem pretty self-evident to me but maybe aren't as evident to everyone else, might as well share them:

i think there's been a bit of a language drift around what people mean by 'traumadumping'? i've seen people refer to pretty much any time anyone opens up about anything in any context as 'traumadumping'. what *i* always thought it meant was like, when someone, especially if it's some rando or someone you're not particularly close to, will just, well, dump all of their trauma on you in an inappropriate context/without respecting your boundaries or feelings about it. i think this happens a lot in parasocial relationships, especially online, where people with larger followings and fans may get a lot of messages from people in difficult situations wanting help and advice from a person they admire or relate to. the whole experience can probably be summed up as that one image of a tumblr anon in a car talking to a horrified fastfood employee who's not being paid enough for this.

opening up and talking to your friends IS good actually!!!! if you have friends who care about you, they DO want to hear about what you're going through, they DO want to be there for you!! people LIKE to help their friends!! i know that if someone seeks me out for advice, i feel honored and touched that they trust me. i personally do not think there's any topic out there that's "too much" to bring to a friend if you have a close enough relationship & consent. the THING is, your friends may not be *able* to help you. even if they happen to be trained therapists there's going to be limits to what they can do for you. seeking therapy is far from a perfect system, and often inaccessible, but in theory you should get to talk to someone who is equipped to deal with your stuff.

the consent part is important! i know people like to poke fun at clinical sounding scripts like "are you in a position to receive potentially triggering information" but like, asking people if they're ok with a heavy talk is a GOOD and USEFUL practice. in fact, having the option to say No to things is a fundamental cornerstone of any sustainable relationship. as i said, i love it when friends want my help or advice, i'm likely to drop whatever i'm doing and settle in for Emotions Talk right away - but that doens't mean i'm always available. i have a life and troubles of my own, and it's not fair to my friend if i can't give them the proper care and attention. also, a lot of us have Trouble Setting Boundaries. one might even get a bit burnt out or triggered by being the Advice Help Friend. if you've been the confidante of someone going through a really horrific and traumatic experience or a really bad mental health break to a point where it's affected your own life, you might have caught some trauma of your own. or if you've had a parent or family member (or overly familiar adult on the internet) treat you as a live-in therapist. or even if you've just been the Helpful Friend Everyone Goes To Advice For But Nobody Asks How You're Doing and you're okay with it because you're just happy you can be so useful to your loved ones and super not a burden to anyone ever, you can totally do this forever and haha resentment what resentment. it can feel so uncomfortable and selfish to make yourself Unavailable to someone who needs HELP but sometimes you Gotta before you crash and burn!!!

yes, if you're really close to someone and have pre-established boundaries & the kind of relationship where you feel safe saying "hey can we not talk about this right now please?" then you probably don't need to ask every single time you wanna talk about a thing. the better you know someone, the more familiar you will be with their moods and limits!

if you're in a relationship where someone tells you all of their troubles all the time and never wants to listen to yours, and that's like, the baseline, you might want to reconsider the relationship! i will always 1000% of the time support someone's right to set boundaries (as in, limits you set for yourself, not limits you impose upon others) - but that doesn't mean you have to settle for crumbs. not every connection we have with another person needs to be fully reciprocal and even all the time, it doesn't have to be transactional, but if someone makes you actively miserable and you don't want to be their friend or date them anymore... you don't have to! (you can of course, try to talk to them about it if you want - there might be a chance they simply did not notice this was a thing they were doing. it happens. but if the problem is that they're not listening to you at all... well.)

i'm not a fan of people using "go see a therapist" as an insult. or even people using it in the same way they would say "have you tried yoga?" to dismiss what you're saying. but i do think that, if your friends who love you ask if you're seeing a therapist, it's because they want to help you but don't know how. they want you to get helped. they love and care about you and it's scary when someone you love and care about is Struggling.

it's not always obvious to everyone else that you're Struggling if you haven't told anyone. it may be obvious to you because you're on the inside of your head, but most people don't analyse your every move and compare it to a database of your regular behaviours and expressions unless it's like, pretty drastic? sometimes all we want is for someone to check in on us and ask how we're doing and see us, but i don't think it's fair to resent others if they don't (not that we can always help resentment. pesky awful emotion). it's not because they don't care about you!!! it's just difficult to know what to do and when for everyone!!

something i've seen happen a Lot due to the commonplace existence of vent channels in discord servers is people who kind of... implode in a void of helplessness. lots of young people who have too little experience and support networks and too much trauma and don't realize how Bad things are until they're so bad that they can't be helped. it passes over, it does, but it's always an awful experience for everyone involved when someone is stuck in the despair hole screaming for help and every hand reaching out gets slapped away in rejection because they can't help. i... don't know if this is like, a pattern that can be fixed, but i think situations like these are much more likely to happen if you wait too long before reaching out.

talking to other people is good, regardless if it's a therapist or a trusted friend! it can be a preventive measure for things getting Even Worse. i know a lot of people struggle to talk about their stuff - talking means admitting there's a problem at all. asking for help is terrifying, because you may get rejected or bad advice or hurt. it sucks and it's hard and it sucks more and it's harder if someone can't listen to you right now, even if they have every right not to. we are however, a social species! we carry heavy burdens together when we can!! life is hard but we are capable of difficult things!!!

idk why there's so much discussion around the ~*morality of traumadumping*~ when it's a VERY solvable social conundrum. all you need to do is ask something like "hey is it ok if i talk about this thing? it's kind of heavy" and respect the answer

[macgyvermedical]

Hey Mac

This is not about fiction or whatever

I had a patient,arrested during my shift-my first patient to die.

They're Old and CPR broke their ribs under my palms-the feeling is aweful,whenever i recall it,it sends shivers down my spine-i did everything i could but they didn't come back

I don't think i can handle this-the feeling of the ribs,the shock of the first time i just don't know.

My Colleagues weren't exactly helpful and my therapist isn't available right now and i can't find resources to get over this

I know i did what i could do but it feels so bad

Any help is appreciated

Sorry i can't give more info

I am honored that you shared this with me. It's such a hard experience to have and I wish I could hug you and tell you its gets better.

Watching someone die for the first time, especially watching someone die violently- and codes are pretty violent when it comes down to it- is one of the scariest, weirdest, and hardest things to experience as a medical professional.

You saw this person alive. Maybe you talked to them. Maybe you connected with them in some small way. And then you watched them pass on. And you helped try to stop that from happening.

And it didn't work, because statistically it usually doesn't.

But in the midst of that, you and those you worked with tried hard to save them. Someone jerked their head around trying to force an airway down their throat. Someone pushed harsh drugs into their vasculature that in any other circumstance would cause their fingers and toes to lose circulation. Someone pushed a button that sent hundreds of joules of electricity through their body. You pushed your own hands into their chest and their ribs broke and you kept pushing.

It feels... inhuman. Almost.

But something to think about- this patient came to the hospital for your help and the help of your coworkers. When asked if they would like everything done to save their life in the event that their heart stopped, they said yes.

They said yes because it was worth all that crap for the chance that they could live. And it didn't work, but so what? You didn't do it because it was particularly likely to work. You did those compressions because breaking ribs and scratching up a throat and causing a possible neck injury and broken teeth and maybe even drilling an IO into bone was worth it to the patient that they could have that chance at living a little longer.

You did your job. Your entire job there was to do exactly what you did, and do it exactly how you did it. You were supposed to keep pushing even when the ribs broke. That is what the patient themself wanted you to do.

I'm sorry that your colleagues couldn't help you. I hope that there is someone you can talk to in person about this, whether it is your therapist or a friend who works in medicine.

When a non-medical someone watches someone die as traumatically as being coded, it's kind of expected that they'll have some trauma around it. Meanwhile, when someone medical sees that, they're expected to just go on with their day. It's not fair, but it's also why it's important to keep your counselor and be able to talk to them truthfully about what you're experiencing, and get some good coping skills so that when this happens to someone in your shoes ten years from now, you can give them the support you would have wanted.

[secondhandnewsradio]

SHN INTERVIEW: Rachel Bochner

by Claire Silverman

Rachel Bochner is a singer/songwriter based in New York City. Her career in the music industry began with an A&R internship at a record label, and it was there that she realized her true passion for creating and sharing her own music. Her passion lies in making pop music that resonates with people through the good, the bad, the lighthearted, and the heavy.

CS: Congrats on the release of your song “hating myself in the summer!”

RB: Thank you so much!

CS: The song feels like a song that so many people, especially young girls, can relate to a lot. What initially prompted you to write this song?

RB: I actually started writing this song back in October, so it wasn't written in the summertime. But the phrase in the chorus “I'm tired of hitting myself in the summer” is kind of what sparked the song as a whole. And like you said, it's something that a lot of people, especially young women can relate to. I think it's just something that I have always struggled with for as long as I can remember. There are periods in my life where I noticed, at events or seasons, that I'm feeling particularly self-conscious, and summer is definitely one of those times. There’s this push and pull of “I want to be enjoying myself, and I just want to exist and not be worrying about this,” but there's also a pressure that “okay, my friends are all going to the beach, and I don't love how I'm looking in this bathing suit, and now that's consuming my mind,” and it's a really exhausting thing to worry about. Also as I've gotten older, it’s become so much more apparent that it's not something that actually matters, and it's not something that I should be basing my worth on. So the song is about coming to that realization.

CS: One thing I like about this song is that it's you and yourself, but also it’s you speaking to a lot of people. I appreciate that this song is a pop song, and it's a really good pop song, but it's not about a love story, which is something I really like. I've noticed this type of theme in some of your other songs too. Could you tell me a bit about what kind of messages are you interested in writing about, and what's important to you and your songwriting overall?

RB: It's funny that you say that because this song is on a project that is a collection of songs that are all not love songs. I think, for this project, I wanted it to be exactly that — my thought process and things that I'm feeling and what I'm going through but not really about another person. I do love a love song, and I love the last EP that I put out that had this story of one relationship not working out and like coming into a new one that feels better and more authentic. So I felt like I got that off my chest for a bit. I started with “how am I feeling?: And “what are the things that I am struggling with?” And what are things that I think that other people who are around my age, so high school through mid to late 20s, can relate to? I love being able to write something that feels really personal to me, but when someone listens to it, they might have a completely different life experience and still be able to place themselves in that song.

photo: Sasha Bellentine

CS: Who are the artists that you feel have really influenced you and your songwriting?

RB: I am definitely influenced by a lot of different artists. Some longer-term inspirations for me are Julia Michaels, Maggie Rogers, and Lana Del Rey. I think Julia Michaels’ writing is the kind of pop music that I am really drawn to,  where sonically it’s a bop, but lyrically, you can read into it and it’s a thought-provoking song. Recently I've really been loving Conan Gray. Also, Sasha Sloane is great. I always feel overwhelmed when I'm asked this question because I feel like I need to list everyone. And I also love Taylor Swift. She consistently blows my mind.

CS: I love that. One of the coolest things that I’ve noticed from speaking with female artists around our age is that literally almost every single one of them has been deeply influenced by Taylor Swift. She has really helped create this next generation of songwriters. It's so cool.

RB: And I also love Lorde so much, but I feel like people always kind of name Lorde as their inspiration.

photo: Alex Lyon

CS: So how did you get started in the industry? What made you realize that music was what you wanted to pursue?

RB: I have always loved music. I've always been a singer, for as long as I can remember. But I didn't really start writing and working on my own music until later on. I think part of that was being a little bit afraid of failure. The part of me that wanted to do that got overshadowed by the part of me that was afraid of being bad at it. But I actually started seriously writing during the summer of 2018, which is weirdly recent. For a while, I thought I wanted to work at a label, so I interned at a record label that summer of 2018. I was doing A&R and was listening to new music every single day and looking for new artists. That’s when it clicked for me that I loved writing and I wanted to be sharing my own music. From that point on, I've been focusing on finding my network of people to be making music.

CS: As I was getting ready for this interview, I was listening to your EP 2 AM again, and I wanted to ask you about that EP as well, specifically, your song Ultraviolet. What was the story behind that song?

RB: Ultraviolet was written at the end of last summer, so we were deep in COVID times. From not being able to see people and just having so much time to sit with my own thoughts, I started to understand things about myself that I hadn't previously ever even thought about. I needed an outlet for thinking about that and processing the questions and realizations I was having about my sexuality. Naturally, I wrote a song about it. It created this space for me to explore everything that I was thinking about given the circumstances.

CS: You mentioned earlier with that EP that there was a big emphasis on the storytelling aspect of your songs. Can you talk a little bit about that, and, and the process of that EP, and putting out an EP in a time where playing concerts can’t be a part of a release.

RB: Since I started releasing music right before COVID, I’ve never really lived in a world where playing shows is a part of the release strategy. I'm excited for that to be a thing. In terms of the storytelling, the songs on the EP weren't actually written in the order that they appear on the tracklist. Afterwards, I figured out how they made sense to me, which was fun. Something I like to do in my writing is pull from experiences and emotions that I have personally felt, but also using fiction and applying an emotion that I have actually experienced and I can speak to, but in a different situation. I think as a songwriter it is really important to be able to open yourself up beyond what you've experienced firsthand, and still be able to make it sound genuine and have it resonate with people.

CS: Do you have any news you can share with us? Any exciting things coming up in the future?

RB: Definitely. I have new music on the way [Rachel’s new single “ghosted my therapist” is out now]. I won't say too much, but there's a little easter egg in the music video for “hating myself in the summer.” It's cryptic, but it'll make sense eventually.

CS: Is this the Taylor Swift fan in you putting easter eggs in your videos?

RB: Oh 100% yes.

CS: Can you give us a few recommendations to end with? What are the songs you've been listening to recently?

RB: Conan Gray recently put out a song called “People Watching” and it's so good, it was co-written by Julia Michaels as well, and she’s one of my favorites. There's a song that I literally cannot stop playing and it destroys me emotionally but I am obsessed with it. It's called “I Can't Wait to Be British” by Carol Ades. If you're looking for a song to cry to, that's a really good one. I’ve also been listening to a lot of JP Saxe lately. I'm actively not sad, but I love listening to sad music right now.

CS: It was really nice to meet you, and I'm looking forward to hearing your new music!

RB: Thank you!

[onceuponamirror]

hi sarah! i just want to tell you that you are such an inspiration to me. I mean it, I feel like you're quite intelligent and creative and kind and outspoken and just everything that i aspire to be. I was also wondering if you could speak a little about your high school experience (i mean, only if you want to) because i'm going through it right now, and i feel like i could use some advice imao, do you have some general advice? esp. about peer pressure, staying to oneself but also evolving, etc.

hi there!! first of all—honestly, i am so honored you’d say those nice things. to say i got a little teary would be an understatement. really, i’m so touched. and i’m not shy about pretty much any topic if asked directly, so i definitely don’t mind talking about high school.

i mean, in retrospect, it was a pretty good time of my life. i didn’t really have any of the tangible responsibilities that come with adulthood, and i had a lot of privilege and comfort growing up that i appreciate now that i’m self-supporting. i had a strong crew of friends who were all deeply individualistic and most of which i’m still tight with to this day, even as we all live far apart from one another. 

things weren’t always positive, but with hindsight, i can say i was lucky most of the time.

but it definitely didn’t feel that way at the time.

this gets very long and very personal, so i’m putting it under a cut.

when i was fourteen, i was very depressed. or—rather, i’ve always had anxiety disorders, but those are often misdiagnosed, particularly in females, and i had a series of irresponsibly bad evaluations from guidance counselors and even real therapists that reinforced a narrative that ended up being very destructive.

as in, i walked in with possibly a more-pronounced-than-average case of post-puberty nihilistic existentialism, and walked out being told over and over again that i was sick, depressed, suicidal, something was wrong with me, i needed help.

i think for a lot of people, a diagnosis is a relief. it’s learning to understand what plagues you, and often times, that’s incredibly helpful towards tackling it. i firmly believe that giving something a name is taking back control over it; when forces feel vague and unseen, we feel our agency is most attacked. 

however, when it’s the wrong diagnosis, it can go very wrong, very fast. my mom has had a lot of mental illness/suicide in her family (and is bipolar herself) and reacted very strongly and i was pulled out of school for a semester, even briefly hospitalized, and completely socially isolated. 

while i think it’s important to give attention to people at risk, in my case, that domino effect of a hospitalization, homeschooling, and being put on tons of meds very much backfired. because i no longer felt comfortable expressing myself, was terrified any time i voiced even the slightest bit of anxiety or questioning of things, i’d be shoved back into square one.

it was only until a couple of years ago that i felt safe going back to therapy, and why i found a lot of my own psychological explorations safer done within books, not people. it created my depression, and this remains the most traumatic time of my life, particularly because it was already an age of confusion and heavy change. 

it was very difficult to get over this, to regain my confidence, let alone overcome the subsequent social anxiety, and it was in waves of success that didn’t really stop until around 19-20. 

but in order to pull myself out of it, one of the skills i ultimately taught myself was to never again let someone tell me who i was or what i was feeling.

and that’s why i shared this story—never let someone else tell you who you are. 

honestly, you probably won’t know who that is until you’ve looked back on this time in a few years. but luckily, it’s a lot easier to know who you’re not and what you don’t like. 

so start there. it feels counterintuitive, but: what bores you? what can you never see yourself doing, or being happy with? because once you’ve got a few of those answers, you can cross them the fuck off, and start looking in the other direction. 

for example, while i had my adolescent pipe dreams, i didn’t know for sure what i wanted to do with my life when i was sixteen, but i knew what i didn’t want to do. i didn’t want to take another science class. sure as hell didn’t like math. so i focused my attention on the arts, and eventually followed that all the way to college. 

rather than trying to stretch myself thin across all avenues to appease some idea of a college application, i focused on what i liked, and thus got a lot better at them. and thus that turned me into the person i am, as well as gave me my career. 

even on the days where i feel low, or my confidence is sapped and i’m lying in bed wondering why in the hell i chose a career that’s kind of cyclically always vulnerable and i don’t know who i am—i still know who i’m not.

that’s the touchstone that keeps me together, every time. i know what i don’t want my life to look like, and therefore i know i have to keep trying. 

this all applies to peer pressure too, to which my direct advice is to, well, get mad. 

i mean, i’m not saying to start hoarding negative energy, but basically, how dare anyone tell you who you are? who is anyone to pass that kind of judgment?

i personally get outraged when i’m told i have to be a certain way or do a certain thing. i don’t like the idea that there’s a force, direct or unseen, telling me to follow a certain path. this is why i followed a degree that lead me to freelance, why i know i’m not suited to a 9-5. 

because if i can get mad, i can get through anything. as in, it forces a challenge to push past, rises me to the moment. 

(obviously, when nuances of privilege come into the discussion, it becomes a more specific conversation. i can only speak to my own upbringing, which, in the topic of full disclosure, was upper middle class and therefore the kind of societal pressure/problems i faced were vastly different.)

(but being aware of privilege is also an act of agency, and obv very important towards finding self-actualization) 

so that’s my story and general advice. i’m more than happy to talk about specific things or anything else you’d like to know. hopefully this was helpful. 

i wish you all the luck and love; high school is incredibly difficult, often volatile, and will be your harshest critic. but it can also be great, because there are few other times in your life that are so freeingly self-focused. 

you’ve really got the leg room to learn a lot about yourself, particularly in the age of online discourse. so it’s actually a great time to be a high schooler, honest to god. 

xxxxxxx

[daughters-of-liberty]

I see where you're coming from, but let me lay out my problems with people in my family, using your tags as a good layout, lest I go into a tirade...again.

First off, what makes you think I hold myself to a lower standard than those around me? On the contrary, I hold myself to the highest standard, while everyone around me routinely let's me down and gets away with it scott-free. But sometimes the standards are totally achievable and they still wildly disappoint me. For example, I would never, say, ruin my granddaughter's birthday consistently, year after year and make it about me, where I wanted to eat, what I thought would be the best gifts to get her, not about what she wants. I would never do that. My grandmother always did, though. And damn you if you brought this up to her! She'd make an even bigger scene! So, no, I am not harder on my elders than I am on myself...and they're still disappointing.

See, in my family, if I try to communicate my hurt feelings, they'll tell me "you're being overly emotional" or "you need to grow a sense of humor!" But when you hurt their feelings? Oh, boy...you might as well have just violated the Geneva Conventions. Yes, even if it was unintentional.

I'll give another example here, my mother is otherwise pretty great, but she had this nasty habit of calling me a twig, because I was the skinniest in my family for a loooong time, whereas she had gained weight after having me and constantly struggled with losing that weight and had poor self image issues ever afterwards because of it; she routinely referred to herself as a beached whale.

One night, we were making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and she asked to grab the peanut butter from the pantry for her. I asked if she wanted smooth or chunky, "chunky" she said. Now, we always bought Skippy brand peanut butter and their chunky PB is called "Superchunk". Instantly, I started singing "superchunk" to the tune of "Superfreak", which is a song about a girl. "She's a super chunk, super chunk, she's super chunky." And my mom started inexplicably crying and locked herself in the bedroom for the rest of the night. I was at a loss, my dad (who was also overweight) was totally confused, and I didn't know what I did wrong. I should mention I was 12 at the time and just singing a silly song, something that was a normal form of humor in my household growing up.

Later my dad told me it the reason why mom wigged out over my impromptu song. I felt bad. But also felt like...idk, she kinda overreacted? And every person I've told this story to has agreed with me, including my therapist, who is very good at seeing things from other people's points of view.

So there's one story of how I hurt someone's feelings in my family, completely accidentally. I won't begin to list all the times I've had my feelings hurt, sometimes intentionally, with the aim of giving me "a thicker skin". God, I would LOVE to communicate my feelings without being told I'm too emotional or a crazy bitch. I would kill for that.

See, that's the problem, here. This is how I go through life. This how I've gone through life since my earliest memories. I've constantly walked on eggshells to make others happy. And the few times I thoughtlessly attempt to make jokes or be silly, like the above situation, I end up hurting someone. I'm so sick and tired of people telling me to think about others. Again, what makes people think I don't do that?

I give myself literal migraines and stomach cramps trying to calculate what I say and how I say it are going to affect the people around me. And then, the people around me wonder why I'm so quiet all the time. 🤦‍♀️

And this isn't your fault; you're a random person on the internet. You don't know me. You might even be a bot! I don't know!

But the fact that my family, the people who "know me best", assume I'm careless in my interactions with them when, at every conversation growing up, I felt like like I was in a scene of Game of Thrones, particularly, any scenes between Sansa and Cersei. I didn't even know what Game of Thrones was at the time! But that's how it felt; one misstep and I was done for. But they could blatantly insult me to my face and I'd have to say "thank you for your generosity".

That's the saddest part: they don't know that they're abusive. Because, again, I try to communicate my feelings and I'm the bad guy. But also because the one trait that my mother, my father, my grandparents on both sides, and my MIL all have in common is: "I'm. Always. Right."

There is no reasoning with them. There is no telling them what you need to change.

Indeed, the few family members I've gone no contact with always tried to tell me "I can't guess what's wrong, you need to tell me". I did. They just weren't listening. "I can't fix it if I don't know it's broken."

Well, you should've known it was broken from the last, I don't know, DOZEN times we've had a fight about something and I say "you'll never change," because you never do? I know it's ignorance, but I just can't tell if it's willful or not.

I'll finish this with a question for you:

Is that good enough for you? Is that actually okay?

Because, let me tell you, as the ONLY person in my life who is a) going to therapy actively, b) managing without medication, and c) managing without illicit drugs or alcohol, I gotta say, it gets old when people tell me I'm not working hard enough on my mental health issues when they're not even working on theirs, period. Add being pregnant on top of that, and yeah... I'm bout damn ready to block all of them.

Again, I'm the bad guy for not changing fast enough when they're not even changing. I'm the bad guy for setting up healthy boundaries. I'm the bad guy for being firm in protecting my feelings. I'm the bad guy for taking breaks from certain people in my life who are exhausting for me to be around when I'm not pregnant. I'm the bad guy for taking my health into my own hands. I'm the bad guy for debating family in regards to MY birth plan.

My family can use and abuse me until the cows come home, but I'll be damned if they treat my children the way I was treated.

So you gotta ask yourself, too: even if you can contend with your mother not going to therapy and not changing her behaviors, can your children? I genuinely hope you never have to cut her out of your life one day due to these behaviors. I genuinely hope your children never cut her out of their lives due to these behaviors. I genuinely hope your kids never confide in you about something really hurtful your mother said them.

But, God forbid, if they ever do, I hope you do better than my own mother did and tell her "hey, you gotta go to therapy or you can't see the kids anymore." You gotta stand up to people who are being hurtful, if not for yourself, then for your kids.

So, going back to your original statement, no. I will continue to hold my elders to the same stages I hold myself. Only now that I'm not only fighting for myself but also my baby, when they disappoint me, because they always do, there will be consequences.

I'm gonna say it: I actually hate being pregnant.

I'm tired all the time. I'm hungry all the time. Everyone is so excited and I'm not. Everyone is offering me advice I didn't fucking ask for. Everyone is telling me what to eat and what prenatals to take. We've already picked out names either way, but my MIL wants the middle name to be her name if it's a girl. I just feel like everyone is making MY pregnancy and MY baby about them, and I'm sick of it!!

And I swear to God, if I read one more pregnancy article, trying to find an answer to a question I have, and I read the words "you got this mama!" one. more. FUCKING. time... blood will be shed, I don't give a fuck.