#any other personality disorders out there

[crazy-pages]

Hey, just to make this clear, first of all yes it is absolutely possible to love bomb somebody without consciously recognizing that is what you are doing. Second of all it is associated with cluster B personality disorders because it is associated with cluster B personality disorders (specifically narcissistic and borderline personality disorder). When somebody has a personality disorder which is correctly diagnosed, it means they behave in a way which meets certain criteria for behavior and self-described thought processes, for psychological reasons associated with learned/induced behaviors as opposed to innate psychiatric difference. Doing things like love bombing is literally part of the diagnostic criteria for these disorders.

These tend to be oriented around common behavioral traits and thought patterns whicy amplified to such a degree that they form a qualitatively distinct behavioral pattern than you see in the general population. And specifically, for these to be personality disorders as opposed to simply atypical behavioral patterns, they must be harmful to the individual, those around them, or both. Cluster B is specifically characterized by harm to those around the person with the personality disorder.

For example, love bombing. The desire to put one's best foot forward in the early stages of a relationship, or overcompensating for the fear of not being deemed good enough by a prospective partner, is common and natural. Not necessarily healthy, but common. Love bombing in cluster B personality disorders represents an escalation of this behavior to such a degree but it must be understood differently.

And it is particularly associated with narcissistic personality disorder (see this dissertation), and also the impulsive and discourage subtypes of borderline personality disorder. There are janky bullshit articles out there about this, but this research ain't part of that.

Love Bombing primarily occurs in the initial phases of many narcissistic relationships and is characteristic of premature, highly concentrated compliments, attention, and gifts indicating interest and love (Perrotta, 2020). This is a strategy that will draw people in quickly and provide prospective partners with a carefully curated set of romantic gestures designed to present a highly attractive image to the specific person they are wooing (Back et al., 2013) and they may seem exceptionally responsive.

According to Lawler’s affect theory of social exchange (2001), when there is an accuracy and intensity to fulfilling the emotional states in a dyad by a partner, this can serve to create stronger attachment to that partner or to the foundation of the relationship, which is also what later can buoy the strength of the trauma bond. As was seen in PNT [partner of individual with narcissistic traits] narratives, love bombing tends to decrease dramatically once the PNT has become enmeshed within the relationship, and more negative INT [individual with narcissistic traits] behaviors emerge (Perrotta, 2020).

It's extremely rare for someone to be love bombing in a deliberately Machiavellian way where they are perching their fingers and saying "hohohoho, once I have finished love bombing them they will find it that much harder to leave me when I start abusing them". What's far more common is for people to find out by trial and error that it works, to learn by example that it works from others in their life, to do so reflexively out of a fear of not having control over whether they are reciprocally loved, or because they feel it entitles them to reciprocal treatment. Or any combination of the above or more.

And approaching relationships in this way, anywhere on the spectrum from unintentionally approaching relationships in an unhealthy way, to accidentally harming others, to maliciously using it as an abuse tactic, are all common ways that love bombing presents itself as a behavior in many people with narcissistic and borderline personality disorder. Again, the diagnostic criteria of these disorders literally includes this as an indicator.

This doesn't mean there aren't problems with the field of psychology and these disorders by any means. Antisocial personality disorder in particular has gaping holes in the methodology in the history of its criteria that you could fly a plane through. Histrionic personality disorder is falling out of favor because it's just not characterized by terribly distinct behavioral patterns and there's a push to get it relegated to particular extremes of personality indices instead. And borderline personality disorder specifically has a really terrible history of being wielded as a weapon against women in relationships with abusive men, because emotional swings and outbursts are very common (and reasonable!!!) when getting out of an abusive relationship, and when combined with common patterns of lies that abusers tell about their partners that can often be misdiagnosed as borderline personality disorder.

And yes, there is also a particularly bad history with discrediting experiences of people with borderline personality disorder, especially women, you're never going to find me going to bat for psychology as a flawless institution because it fucking ain't.

But NPD and BPD literally have love bombing as one of the suggestive diagnostic signifiers, for a reason. This one ain't bullshit, this one is well established by the research. Also, these are not lifelong diagnoses, they can be managed, treated, or moved past. That's admittedly very rare for narcissistic personality disorder but it does happen with less severe examples, and it is not uncommon for borderline personality disorder.

There is a long ass gap between "don't automatically tar people with cluster B disorders as inhuman monsters" (reasonable) and denying one of the diagnostic indicators of NPD and BPD is associated with cluster B (unhinged).

Love bombing is not a euphemism for "too much affection too soon," or "high desire for contact."

"Love bombing" is a term originally used in the context of cults to describe a deliberate and coordinated recruitment method that involved feigning friendship and interest in a potential recruit, via flattery, flirtation, physical affection, and very directed positive attention to everything the recruit says in order to lure them into the cult.

Since cults and abusive relationships operate in similar ways and use similar tactics, love bombing in an interpersonal relationship looks like manufacturing closeness in order to trap someone into a relationship in which the abuser has all the control.

And I know these days there's a million bullshit junky articles out there that make you think this is a symptom of cluster b personality disorders, but there is no way for you to be love bombing somebody without realizing it.

If you are an affectionate person and the level of affection and attention you give makes someone uncomfortable, you are not "accidentally" abusing them.

If you are uncomfortable with the level of affection and attention someone is paying you, they are not de facto abusing you.

Love bombing is about using someone's desire for human connection to fast track them into a situation you control that they will feel disinclined to leave.

[genderqueerdykes]

How come you use 'us' and 'we' when referring to things you've done?

Eg: our art

Are there multiple people controlling this blog?

(Srry if I seemed rude I was wondering why it seemed you were referring to multiple people in tags)

good question, not rude!

there are multiple people running this blog, but they all live in my body with me! i have Dissociative Identity Disorder, meaning that there is more that one person existing in my brain! i'm what's known as plural, or a system. :) not every plural or system has DID, but for me, my plurality was likely caused by trauma. i do believe i would've been naturally plural regardless of the trauma, but i experience very heavy dissociative episodes, black out, lose track of time, find objects in my home that i don't remember buying, am reminded of conversations that "i" was present for when i really wasn't the one there, forgetting/not knowing who i am, coming to in places i don't remember going, extremely faulty/poor memory, and other dissociative symptoms.

i have tried to force myself to ignore or try to get rid of my alters, but they never truly go away, so i just choose to accept it as part of my life. i alternate using i and we because of that! hope that makes sense! feel free to ask any more questions you may have

[glitter-stained]

On villains with tragic backstories

Sometimes I'm like "is it really psychophobic, maybe i'm reaching, the character did say that they're not actually crazy they just like killing people" and then the narrative will hit me with "some terrible, dark horrors have happened in your past and this is why you are killing people but it's not too late to get admitted in a psych ward" and I wanna throw the comic through the window and myself with it.

The "mentally ill villain" trope isn't just saying that the villain is crazy or giving them hallucinations. If you're giving a villain a tragic backstory, and that backstory has caused them severe suffering the memory of which is still painful to the day, and the story expects you to believe that the villain's horrible behaviour is explained by the fact that this suffering broke something in them... It's worth examining if you're not just vilifying or demonizing mental illness on accident.

The issue isn't that your villain can't have a tragic backstory, or that the tragic backstory can't explain their actions: the issue is when the suffering itself is treated as a sufficient cause for the behaviour. Say a character was raised and abused by a cult that taught them killing puppies is good and then they kill puppies: not psychophobic. Say a character who used to love puppies was kidnapped and tortured by some guy just for the fun of hurting someone, no brainwashing or anything just pain, and then they get out and kill puppies because of the torture: psychophobic. There's a missing link in the reasoning here, a question of "what about this event taught/brought the person to the conclusion that it was a good idea to kill puppies or gave them a desire to?" The psychophobia is insidious, hiding in the implication that the trauma (because this is what it's really all about) is what made them kill puppies. Sometimes, people with trauma kill puppies. But killing puppies (or exploding buildings with children in it, or shooting someone in the spine, or severing heads and putting them in a duffle bag, or, or, or) is not and has never been a symptom of ASD*, PTSD, CPTSD, BPD, DID, DDD or any other trauma-induced disorder. It's a good idea to verbalise the logic, emotions, needs and desire that motivate your villain and where they stem from, to avoid falling into the trap that thinking their trauma, because of the magnitude of the empathy it's meant to generate for the character, is enough of an explanation for their behaviour. A villain being sympathetic because of their backstory doesn't mean that their actions are necessarily coherent.

On top of that, it's important to take in account other factors such as the original background of the character, their vulnerabilities, their age (super important when writing childhood/teenage trauma/young villains!), but also their ethnicity, gender etc etc. This is important for realism and accuracy, because trauma is neither a magical button that creates heroes nor sociopaths, but also because psychophobia interacts so easily with other forms of discrimination slipping through the cracks. Now that you've identified that your woc character becoming a manipulative, sociopathic "crazy ex" because of her trauma was not just a consequence of her trauma but the interaction between the trauma and personal factors, what are those implicit factors that contribute to make her manipulative, obsessed with her ex, etc.? And now that you've extracted them explicitly, like a zip file, can you examine them to see how many of these personal characteristics have to do with her being a woman of colour?

I hope it's clear that I'm not telling you what to write- I think imposing the idea that villains can't be poc, or queer, or working class, or disabled, or mentally ill, etc. is harmful, because it reduces potential representation, it's based on the assumption that I know what you're gonna write and it's gonna be fundamentally ableist, and it puts this pressure on fictional characters to be perfect icons of representation rather than actual characters with depth and personality (kinda like thinking you can't write a female character who cries because it implies women are weak). This is just to encourage you to be mindful about what you're doing when writing that tragic backstory, because it's not necessarily what we think about when we talk about mental illness, and it's important to analyse what you're writing with a measure of introspection: why am I writing this? What does this imply about the character? What's my reasoning for this character's reasoning?

I have zero issue with a mentally ill character kicking a puppy as long as the narrative isn't trying to tell me that it's a symptom of mental illness to kick puppies. But of course, perhaps the story could also be a critique of those stories about mentally ill people kicking puppies, and the satyre is flying way over my head; or perhaps there will be a secret plot-twist that happens after I stopped reading that explained why the character was kicking puppies, perhaps the book was an attempt at guiding and manipulating the reader into realising the flaws in that reasoning on their own, or perhaps it was a metaphor for something else entirely, etc, etc. I don't know. The point is, write whatever you want; but write it self-aware.

*in this context, ASD meaning Acute Stress Disorder

Two examples of comics I think do it pretty well:

> Arkham Knight Genesis: for all its flaws (i didn't really like this one), I think it does a pretty decent job of getting us to understand how Jason got where he is, that it wasn't just "tortured until evil", all the reasons for his resentment, all the brainwashing and manipulation are pretty explicit. Kind of an "easy mode" because the plot revolves around brainwashing, but solid on that front.

> Red Hood Lost Days: this one I'm more mitigated because there's this whole "pit madness/the pit made him a psychopath" thing Winick introduced to limit the damage of previous runs (and rightfully so imo, Pit Madness is a much better explanation for some of Jason's most batshit ooc runs than just trauma), but there are some pretty solid elements, especially when you know earlier comics. I'm thinking specifically about when Jason says something around the lines of "you murder people; i put down a lizard", as a direct echo to Judy's "I put down a mad dog", that's one of my favourite comic lines ever, I cheered seeing that parallel like yes, I can see the reasoning, I understand where you learned the lesson and what the thought process is and I support it.

[morsobaby]

It's really apparent how so many queer people's search for a cool club that They can Also belong to clouds them to the fact that they should be dismantling the whole system about who "Gets" to belong to some club in the first place.

By virtue of needing someplace else to belong in, you should automatically already do mental work to realize that the fact you Don't already belong means there needs to be a change. And you don't make that change by gatekeeping who deserves to belong to this "Rejects only" Club that you've found from the queer community.

All of us should focus on unlearning harmful biases, the existence of which led to us being "Other" in the first place.

Like this is about how so many queer people are still phobic (or racist) against other types of queers. Like, no, honestly, being queer isn't actually about finding a new exclusive club just for yourself. It's about recognizing that society at large should not be separated into clubs at all.

This applies to alot of mental illness/neurodiversity as well btw. Like you're autistic but you still call people with personality disorders inherently abusive. When in fact you should be advocating for the fact that people with any kind of mental condition deserve all the same rights and decent treatment. That's the bigger picture. You shouldn't have been ostracised, because nobody should.

You having gained an entry pass into a group considered a minority doesn't mean you transform out of your existing biases. It's your job to keep listening to other people still.

Like I understand that being ostracised by society makes you crave the feeling of belonging. I feel that every day. It's not inherently harmful to have and want communities of people similar to you. But that's not the whole picture. You should recognize that you have this feeling in the first place because you were branded too other. And you're capable of enacting that feeling onto others all the same.

You shouldn't have been ostracised because nobody should.

[velvetvexations]

apologies, but i'm about to use your inbox as a dumping ground, because i cannot STAND this idea that trans women are uniquely susceptible to "social murder" and that trans m&ms are uniquely capable of perpetrating it

in college, i was a part of a big queer group. at the time i was pre-everything, but openly identifying as nonbinary, and visibly afab. there were about 20 of us in this group, all around the same age (18-22), and a solid mix of genders and expressions. i'd say there was a roughly even spread of genders and gendered experiences, not substantially more of one than another.

at first, everything was great! i had a ton of friends! sure, they socially ostracised a (cis!!) girl, and made it a point to make a second group chat without her in it, and avoided her....but hey, that's justified, she's annoying, whatever. (aside: as a grown adult, i know now how big of a red flag that is, and it'd send me running in the other direction nowadays.) the fact that she was neurodivergent and asexual was probably irrelevant.

once she was gone from the group, they picked someone else. this person was genderfluid, also autistic and asexual. they did the same thing to her, froze her out until she stopped trying.

she was gone, they picked another. cis gay guy, also neurodivergent. outright threw him out of his dorm room because he had the audacity to have sex when his roommates were on vacation.

i was the next one (for the record.......also neurodivergent, also asexual). and i have to say, bullying when it's the group you've built your social circle around, and when they're people you LIVE with.......it's really, really rough. i had a roommate watch me develop an eating disorder and tell me to my face that i was "appropriating fat struggles." i had people follow me to where i was eating breakfast and make thinly veiled threats from right behind me. they talked to my professors about me; the rumours were so vitriolic that i was kicked from a class outright. there was an entire DEPARTMENT i could no longer take classes in safely. i struggle with all of that to this day, almost a decade later, and i have never received an apology from anyone.

you know who did that? cis people, men and women. trans people, men and women. nonbinary people of all stripes. to me, a "tme" or whatever.

"social murder" is always a possibility when your social circle is necessarily small; it's weird to pretend that queer friend groups never blow up spectacularly, or that the fallout isn't particularly damaging when your other options for friends are limited by who doesn't hate you on principle. but to act like it's along GENDERED lines exclusively, or that it's always worse when it's a trans woman, ignores all other intersections (when in my own experience, it's been neurodivergence and disability that have contributed more to "social murder" in queer friend groups than any identity) and is just.....not just cruel, but maliciously ignorant.

I'm so very, very sorry that happened to you anon. <3 I love you.

[corinescorner]

Throwing in my two cents to the whole conversation on the harm of fakeclaiming & faking

Fakeclaiming, honestly, has a LOT more capacity to hurt actual systems than it does someone faking. Because if you accuse someone who is faking of faking? They likely aren't going to admit to it, and it likely won't bother them because they already know that. But you fakeclaim someone who either isn't intentionally faking (in which case they likely have a similar problem and just need time to figure it out) or someone who actually is a system? It's a lot more likely to do harm, because they aren't intentionally faking, and both with similar disorders to CDD's and CDD systems... it can cause a lot of symptoms that would cause them to be more affected by fakeclaiming. Even if they're diagnosed! CDDs come with symptoms like derealization & depersonalization, which can make it easier for fakeclaiming to alter their self perception and begin to question or even deny being a system, which can cause a lot of problems. And even systems who don't deal with this problem, it is a lot more likely that fakeclaiming will hurt them than it will "the fakers" because it generally sucks and is hurtful to have people tell you that your experiences are not real when you are being genuine about them. It can also end up pushing systems out of spaces and resources that were helping them, and make them feel unsafe, and like they have to hide who they are.

Meanwhile faking, by itself, honestly... doesn't do that much harm, I'd argue. Especially in comparison to the harm fakeclaiming can do. For one, a lot of faking isn't going to be found out/confirmed unless the person outright admits to it. And unless it's found out it's effects on other people are... not really different from the effects of any other system existing openly. And when it is found out, most of the 'harm' I've seen talked about that that does is people using fakers as an excuse to not believe or even act discriminatory towards other systems. Which, I'd argue, is on the person using that excuse to act that way, as they are the one causing the harm. The other major 'harmful' thing I've seen people say fakers cause is spreading misinformation. Which, yes, is harmful. But it is nowhere near exclusive to fakers or even really heavily prevalent among them in comparison to other groups. Non systems, who have never claimed to be a system, spread misinformation about systems all the time. Hell, I've seen several diagnosed CDD systems spread misinformation. Misinformation is harmful regardless of who spreads it, there's not some special harm it does that is exclusive to fakers.

Sorry that was VERY long, I have Many Thoughts on this and wanted to share after the other anon you got & the post you made

This is very true. Thank you for this response! :)

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

hey so by the way going to a post where someone is giving people hope in this shitfucked fandom and saying said shitfucked fandom is pretty nice actually is a massive dick move

we have been genuinely hurt by these people, in this specific fandom, and there are a lot of them. our friend has been hurt. people we care about have been hurt. deeply

we had someone thank us and express how relieved they were that we weren’t ableist in a post about ford having personality disorders. this is not a problem we have run into in any other fandom. we have never come across people being worried just at the mention of a disorder because they’re scared of being hurt in any other fandom

gravity falls? it happens a lot. it’s the main ammunition for why ‘ford is bad’

fun fact: we tick all the boxes for the things folks in this fandom target for no reason

we don’t like singling people out. but we are angry and we aren’t going to pretend we aren’t. you can’t ask to be our friend and then turn around and say a place that has hurt us and people we care about irreparably is pretty nice actually

you know who you are. and ae’m sure you can tell that we don’t like you very much after that comment

do not fucking undermine the shit we and the people we care about have been through. we are far more concerned with their best interests than with anyone else’s

[live-laugh-legolas]

I was reading this post by @just-a-little-cellist and I was inspired to do something similar but with the fellowship

I’ve done a few more specific mental health hc’s but this is just their general relationship with mental health as opposed to how they handle others with something specific if that makes sense

Also I’m not trying to diagnose any characters; you shouldn’t make assumptions about others, these are just my hcs for some version of the characters, whether canon or not, we will never know

The Fellowship and mental health

Aragorn:

-He is very knowledgeable about different mental health disorders

-Very quick to pick up on it

-I don’t imagine him having any personal experience with any of it though

-I could imagine him having ADHD as a kid and although it doesn’t just go away he has learned to mask it incredibly well

-He has mixed thoughts on medication; he’s not against it but he personally won’t take anything

Legolas:

-I think elves are a split bunch

-Their knowledge of mental health is scattered

-Elves are not shy with feelings but I don’t imagine them having many problems when not in a time of grief

-And I think Legolas was especially sheltered from any mental health discussions

-Maybe the woodland elves are less open to the idea since I think Elrond knows everything about mental disorders

-A cultural difference I suppose

-He loves learning though so he will ask lots of questions

Gimli:

-Dwarves are not strangers to troubled mental health

-They are openly emotional and expressive

-But they don’t put names to it; the idea of disorders is not in their nature

-Like they will openly discuss having trouble but don’t tell them they have depression or something

Boromir:

-I could totally see him having anxiety that he’s learned to suppress because his father is a dickhead

-He knows about the more common disorders and is very supportive

-He doesn’t always understand and sometimes he accidentally comes across as dismissive

-I’ve mentioned before that I kinda picture him to be similar to Arthur from BBC’s Merlin (but when he learns to be a bit nicer lol)

-He’s trying his best; he needs a little patience to learn is all

Frodo:

-He reads a lot so I don’t think he’s any stranger

-I think PTSD from the events in LOTR is the first time personally experiencing neurodivergence though

-Bilbo’s definitely got a pinch of something but I couldn’t tell you what

-So he doesn’t really question anyone; he’s kinda like “well, if I meet someone quirkier than my uncle it will be a wondrous day”

Sam:

-I think he’s pretty naive to mental disorders

-Not because he doesn’t want to learn; but he just doesn’t know better

-He may be a bit judgmental at first

-Like I could imagine him making a comment like “what’s up with them?” kind of thing

-But he truly doesn’t mean to be offensive

-He doesn’t branch out much from the people and things he knows so anything new is strange

-But he will be so supportive and will never live down his own regret for saying something even slightly offensive

Merry:

-He knows every disorder, every sign and symptom, and everything to actually have the disorder

-Like this guy has read every version of the DSM

-He finds it fascinating how people’s brains work so differently

-He totally thinks he can diagnose people though; which isn’t great Merry

Pippin:

-Literally doesn’t care

-And I mean he doesn’t judge and it doesn’t change how he thinks of someone

-It’s just kinda like “yeah they do that sometimes; it’s part of their charm”

-Will stim with someone absentmindedly; he is just inherently a copy cat

Gandalf:

-Obviously he knows all the shit and doesn’t discriminate against anyone

-Violently protective if someone makes an inconsiderate, presumptuous, or offensive comment

-Gives kind advice if someone is struggling; but he won’t be overbearing or draw a lot of attention to it

-Ik for some people it is part of their identity and he respects that, but he isn’t going to make jokes or anything (like example: a majority of my friends, which isn’t a lot tbh, are autistic and I joke with them that clearly I have ✨a type✨)

———————————————————————

I personally have my own struggles and experience with my own mental health but I am not the most educated despite this. I know my own diagnoses pretty well but it’s only a small amount compared to the vast number of different disorders.

If anything in here is written in a way that is offensive please let me know; I try my best but it’s entirely possible I am blinded to certain things

Anyway love everyone and I hope you all are doing well :)

[someverygaymoth]

ello's! any thoughts i can steals from you :3

Have a general summary of how I characterize the bad sanses!

Nightmare: Immortal being that does horrible things with little reason but to survive. He's been around for thousands of years now and he feels like his empathy meter is a little broken, which is ironic for an empath. He's just a person though, a lonely one. He collects the boys in a hope to cure his loneliness, caring for them to keep them sated. Somewhere along the way he realizes that empathy he thought was gone, is always there for them. He cares. He loves. (And he hates puns)

Killer: hardcore unstable for a long time. He's actually greyace, but probably has a personality disorder with a side of ADHD, resulting in manic highs with a lot of hypersexuality and flirtiness and severe depressive episodes where he feels little to nothing, eats little to nothing, and hardly leaves his bed. (I've written a little oneshot about that before) Nightmare helps him get the right care and gives him a support system in which he can thrive, and the mania becomes less severe, and the worse depressive episodes become few and far between. (He loves a good pun but prefers to make dark jokes more than anything else)

Dust: High key schizophrenic and has serious C-PTSD. LV causes overactive magic which causes chronic pain and irritability. He's grumpy and quiet, with the classic traits like an affinity for puns and bad humor, but after a while with the boys and NM, and learning how to manage the symptoms of his psychological and physical problems, he becomes a lot more talkative and less brash.

Horror: A caretaker and provider above all else. He does bad things strictly for the benefit of those he cares about. Serious food security problems, serious PTSD, a lot of physical health problems resulting from malnutrition, and his head injury. He's blunt but kind. He still cracks up over a good (or bad) joke. He doesn't get defensive over his food, but he will over others'. Least to say, there is absolutely NO playfully stealing food off other's plates at the table once he joins the team. Nightmare nurtures his physical health, makes the kitchen homely, and the pantry and fridge forever full to help his food security problems. He teaches Horror to cook and allows him to oversee the majority of the team's nutrition. It helps him see that he is still capable of caring for the people he loves, and that what happened in his AU was no fault of his.

Cross: Strong and commanding. Organized, orderly, and strictly disciplined. He was made to serve. He's also traumatized beyond words and freaks out whenever he's unable to be orderly enough, and all authority scares the shit out of him. He loathes puns. Nightmare makes authority about rewards and kindness rather than punishment, and provides him with the space and support to deconstruct his ideas about order, organization, and strictness. Cross learns to think for himself and question authority in a healthy way, he learns that he's more than a tool/soldier and he's allowed to have a personal life, love, joy, peace, reprive... he gets to be at peace now.

[psychotic-tbh]

Hey cynical and disabled folks, how can I support my fellow community members without shoving positivity in your face?

I want to support you without pushing my beliefs and my worldview onto you.

I know that what helps me may not help others, so I want to ask: how can I better support my fellow disabled folk?

[equalperson]

people mostly talk about splitting as literally all-or-nothing--"I love you" or "I hate you"--but I personally experience an in-between point sometimes.

I don't know what I'd call it other than "thin-ice devaluation" or something along those lines.

like, yes I devalued you recently and I realize now that I was being irrational, BUT if you say something even slightly suspicious, hurtful, or incorrect, I'm going to assume that you're evil and/or useless again much faster than I would have before.

[prince-liest]

cooking anon! I really like your takes. I haven't thought about how Alastor might value hard work from his one bit in Dad Beat Dad (wonder if this is something he values in friends *early era Vox ?cough*) But! I am intrigued! Do you have any headcanons/ideas for the scenario where Al can only derive nutrition via cannibalism?

Aw, thank you! I felt a little bad that I took it in a tonally totally different direction from what you intended, haha, so I'm glad you enjoyed nonetheless!

I totally think that this is one of those things that fits in with Alastor's general vibe of prioritizing traditional values - which I mean not in the religious sense but in the "hard work and good manners" sense. I think a lot of his dislike of Lucifer stems from the fact that not only is Lucifer swanning in to threaten Alastor's position as hotelier....he's doing it by snapping his fingers and using his powers as royalty to offer to bougie the place up just like that while being super judgmental of the things that they've put together. Alastor also snaps his fingers and summons shadows to do construction work, but Alastor is occasionally a fucking hypocrite. Also his shadows don't provide champagne and caviar while implying people are 'the help.'

And I totally think that this is something he valued in Vox before Vox went off the deep end of perpetual self-improvement in a way that threw the baby out with the bathwater. I feel like Alastor is one of those people who thinks you should warm leftovers up using the stove or oven instead of the microwave, and meanwhile Vox is out here inventing Voylent Blue because eating normal food takes too long or something.

As for the cannibalism thing: I don't know if this is meta canon or word of god or just popular fanon, but I've seen the idea floating around that all sinners come to hell with a curse designed to punish them. I really enjoy the idea that Alastor's is that he is an obligate cannibal. I am in general perpetually fascinated with various forms of disordered eating in fiction, and I like to write Alastor as too skinny under all his layers, perpetually hungry, and really only able to eat people. He gives me the vibes of a rangy, starving predator hidden underneath all of his pizzazz.

[queervegancryptid]

What's funny to me about this is that I have Medicare and Florida Medicaid, and let me tell you: compared to other countries with socialized medicine, we are getting absolutely shafted. It's been going on for a long time, at least since George W. Bush was in office. That's when Medicare Advantage plans started becoming a thing, and in Florida and at least some other states, there is no public option for Medicaid. You HAVE to pick a private "managed care" plan. (UHC, Humana, Florida Blue, Molina, and Sunshine Health are the companies that come to mind. I think there's one or two more in the mix for Florida Medicaid. YMMV.)

My Medicare and Medicaid benefits are administered in one dual special needs plan (D-SNP), which is the best option for me in a lot of ways... except here's the thing: I get those benefits because I'm disabled. Legally, my disability benefits were approved on the basis of PTSD, eating disorders, and severe anxiety.

It is impossible to find an eating disorder recovery program, online or in-person, that accepts Medicare. So I have a disability, and I wouldn't even have insurance at all if I didn't go through the process of sitting in front of an ALJ after nearly three years of waiting time, for her and the hired assessor and fuck knows who else to determine that my eating disorder is a major factor in why I can't work.

So you might say I only have this insurance because of my eating disorder.

So you might even go so far as to say the reason I have this insurance (any insurance, really) is CATEGORICALLY excluded from the benefits offered by this or ANY OTHER plan available to me that includes Medicare. Almost no Florida Medicaid plans are accepted by any eating disorder specific program or facility, and the way it works is that Medicare is billed first, and it seems like no one really knows what that means for people like me.

I currently have a D-SNP, but I could switch to having separate plans for each of Medicare and Florida Medicaid. It might be worth doing, but I can only switch plans once a quarter, and it seems like switching is the only way to find out. But if it doesn't work, and it might not, I could be without benefits I desperately need for months before I even get an answer. I've heard of the whole being more than the sum of its parts, but somehow, Medicare + Medicaid in one plan may do less than two separate plans.

Oh, and my plan? I won't name it, but it's UHC. Private insurance companies run Medicare Advantage plans and D-SNP plans like mine. I have this plan mostly because it covers my prescriptions. (Well, for now, anyway. Fully expecting to lose coverage for HRT within the next year or two.)

The psych facilities in-network to me are okay... if you don't actually have to do anything above outpatient therapy. I would be goddamn terrified to be sent to one of them for inpatient care. Just based on the Google reviews alone.

But who cares about mentally ill poor people. If I had a drug or alcohol problem, I'd have no problem finding a rehab in-network for that, but I'd still never check into one on an inpatient basis. The only ones of those in-network to my plan have the same problem as the general psych facilities near me. I would survive, but I'd probably come out worse, not better.

Original Medicare (Parts A and B) is more predictable in some ways, but it doesn't cover all of what the Medicare Advantage plans (Part C) cover (no prescription drug coverage at all without enrolling in either Part C for all your Medicare or at least a Part D plan, which deals with prescription drugs). Also, you still have to pay a monthly premium unless you're dirt poor and qualify for Medicaid and "Extra Help." So calling it socialized medicine the way Canada does it or the way the NHS does things in the UK or whatever, for example, is seriously stretching the limits of that idea.

Anyway tl;dr I've been dealing with this for a while and have a lot more to say about it, but the point is, if you think Medicare and Medicaid are examples of "socialized medicine" the way other countries use the term, you have been misled and will end up extremely confused and frustrated if your situation actually demands complex care of any kind. And for certain specific conditions, apparently, you're just fucked. You end up nearly dying of anorexia three or four times because there's literally no help for you that won't cost tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket.

Sorry for the rant. I'm incredibly frustrated about these things and just venting a little, I guess. But I also feel like this kind of shit should be common knowledge, because I'm definitely not the only person dealing with it, except somehow no one ever seems to talk about it.

I can hardly wait to try to get an autism assessment covered.

saw someone say the only people who don't approve of Luigi are old enough that they basically DO have socialized health care (medicare or whatever) and as such literally don't understand what everyone else is going through. made me think.

it definitely matches up with the idea that people's political and cultural positions are largely a superset of their material interests

[angelnumber27]

violently forcing myself to have better days

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

wanna ask how you feel about the eridan bpd headcanon/theory(?? not sure what to call it!) you're so good at your character analysis and i'd love to see your outlook on it

Since I don't have a degree or any formal training in psychology, I feel deeply uncomfortable diagnosing characters. I've made an autism joke before but only because I'm on the spectrum. He's definitely traumatized and anxious, but I mean those as descriptors of his behavior rather than capital-D Diagnoses. I try to focus on those when I can - the cause and effect of cognition, self-image, and behavior - and those factors may very well match up with DSM criteria, but I try not to touch an actual diagnosis with a ten foot pole unless the author has explicitly stated that X character has Y condition.

[naivety]

okay i need feedback from the autism mentall illness website um. this is going to read like an AITA post. brother vs half-sister (who are currently my dependents do to their own individual disabilities + ptsd/depression) spat i will skim the details on but i'm worried my sister will discount my take since i'm not autistic myself so. am i crazy to call it ableist to look at an autistic person (23) who is clearly going through it dealing w long term depression, a world that doesn't give a shit abt him, unemployment, very self-isolated and burnt out barely leaving his room because the world is an ableist dumpster fire with zero opportunities for him, and then bring up childhood abuse he's suffered and his diagnosis as reasonable factors on top of this to worry he'll [checks notes] abuse my cat just to hurt me or even worse have a breakdown and kill me and his other sibling in a violent episode, a train of thought i probably wouldn't even be having were he not [checks notes] mad at me for the first time in my life?

like i don't have any other read on this kind of fear-based characterization other than ableism. like those are very real things in his life but she never points out any current violent behavior, of which there are none, only the one (1) instance of him lashing out when he was like 14 and Officially Diagnosed Low Empathy she thinks is a concern and Hateful Looks toward her since he stopped getting along with her, that's it. i tried explaining to her why i, someone who's lived w him his entire life, can vouch for how unlikely he is to do anything like that, especially when it's again not based on anything he's actually currently doing except for isolating in a way that is much more indicative of him potentially being a danger to himself than anyone else, and being cold towards her specifically, and i thought she had let it go, but when i brought it up off-hand in a conversation tangentially related, she continued to defend and justify her Concern about the potential directions his behavior could lead to because [checks notes] other people in similar situations have lashed out and killed their entire families according to. true crime books or videos she's watched on youtube as far as i'm aware. ignoring the fact that her and i have had the same or Worse childhood abuse and have acted similarly isolated in the past, or for her literally just as currently as him, and she's not expressed any worry past or present about either of us doing anything like that, in my opinion obviously because i haven't cut her off due to our differences like he decided to. like am i big sibling biased because this is pissing me off so bad.