#anyways…. back on my justified brain rot bullshit

[gingerwerk]

Raylan and arlo’s relationship always and will forever have me climbing the walls. (Specifically in s4)

The way raylan so confidently and so easily tells arlo he’s probably gonna get murdered in prison any day now and he’ll be happy when he gets the call, as if they’re having a conversation about literally anything else. How when arlo Does in fact get stabbed in prison raylan goes to his deathbed and asks him to Please tell him who tf drew Thompson is so that his granddaughter can hear stories about how her grandfather wasn’t actually Just a son of a bitch (raylan in his last interaction with his father covertly asking if he ever actually was anything besides a piece of shit, if he actually had something of a heart, if on his fucking Deathbed would he do literally anything for him just Once) but instead arlos dying words to his only child are to kiss his ass. Raylan getting the call that arlo died and he gets upset when Art tries to insinuate they had a relationship to be upset over but the second he’s alone you can see that beat up and confused kid in his eyes because why the Fuck is he actually kind of upset right now?

[andromeda-nova-writing]

Just a paper cut

Vampire! Ayato x Fem! Witch! Reader

Summary: A quiet evening is interrupted by a paper cut. What should have been less than a minute acknowledging it last much longer than it should.

This a continuation of my Kamisato Vampire AU. You should be able to read in any order.

Words: 943

AN: @milkstore how many of these fics am I going to have to acknowledge you contributing to my brain rot? You keep asking the right questions that leave me so inspired.

This fic is T-rated. Typical vampire behavior. Mentions of blood

To date, Ayato was something where both parties must understand that getting quality alone time would most likely mean just sitting in the same room while doing completely different tasks. He was a busy man with so much on his plate. Some weeks a day off felt like a myth. Even if he would like to sneak away it was just putting off things that a future Ayato would end up having to deal with. And to love oneself is to try and make your future self have an easier time, at least that he was telling himself as he worked.

This week was in fact the opposite for Y/N. The estate got lucky with the haul of multiple deers. With no blood to worry about and no outside appearances to be made by either Kamisato, a break was in order, which led to her wanting to spend the night reading some of the light novels that she had found shopping a few weeks ago. 

And was it so wrong of her to feel a little clingy every now and then? She'd be quiet anyway and if she was quiet and undistracting she could justify being up under her boyfriend he worked for the night. So she laid her head upon his lap intrigued with a good story. She was only stealing glances every now and then to admire how cute Ayato looked when he stuck his tongue out while hyper-focused. 

No words had been spoken between them besides greets and telling him to move over just enough. His coat laid on top of her acting as a blanket for the one time she had said she was cold. Ayato’s writing and shuffling of papers with the occasional croak of a frog outside sounded like music to her ears as she read. 

"Shit!"

Ayato looked down confused. "Favorite character died?"

“No not that, well they might be dead. I got a paper cut.” She closed her book holding it in place with a little knitted bookmark Thoma had given her careful not to get any drop of blood on either item. The book was placed on the corner of Ayato’s desk for safekeeping.

Ayato smirked. “I could clean it up for you.”

She frowned, brought her uncut hand to Ayato’s forehead, and flicked him right in the middle. “No. You have work to do.”

He laughed catching her hand before she could bring it back down. “I just said I’d clean it for you. Is that so wrong?”

“And by clean it do you mean getting a band-aid for it or do you mean you were going to lick it clean?” She scolded him knowing exactly what he had meant.

He couldn’t even fake offense. She read him like a book. "What would make you think I would use such methods? I just wanted to make sure you were okay." That didn't mean he wasn't going to try.

Y/N pulled her arm away and sat up. "It's a paper cut. You clearly know I'm okay. If you're so hungry I'll go bring you a glass. We both know how this usually ends. And you're way too busy at the moment to goof off."

"I wouldn’t call that goofing off. Just taking care of my partner with the love she deserves."

"Yeah, I'm calling bullshit. You can show me the love I deserve when you are off of work."

Ayato sighed. "You won't even humor me now. Maybe these few drops of blood would be the motivation I need to continue working. Have you considered that?"

"So it's gone from worrying about me to motivation. Why do I feel like both of those aren't the real reason?"

He held up his hands in defense and laughed. “Okay, I know when to admit defeat.”

“Even then,” Y/N held up the finger that had been cut. “Bleeding stopped.”

“Pity.” He looked away in defeat trying to play up his sadness.

“Pity? I get a paper cut and it’s a pity I'm still not bleeding.” She retorted back beginning to lose herself in the back and forth of the games they shared. “Well I know which Kamisato to not be around if I ever do bleed seriously.”

Any mood he was in became ruined by the thought of his sister. “Why must you bring up Ayaka now?”

“Because you need to focus. I don’t want to be a distraction for you. Plus I’m looking forward to that picnic on the beach you promised for later this week. I don’t want to have to hear about a raincheck I may have helped to cause.”

"You must really be looking forward to that." Thoma gave him the idea after overhearing Y/N and Ayaka talking one day. Y/N just wanted to see the beach again since it had been a while since she had last gone. Truly a simple date but it made her happy.

"The other day when Ayaka had brought Yoimiya over to discuss some plans with handing out sparklers for the upcoming festival, they made me go out to pick a new yukata. Be a shame if all their hard work was to go to waste." 

Ayato leaned over giving Y/N a quick peck on the lips. “I’ll get what needs to be done dealt with. Just keep giving me your company.”

She smiled. “What made you think I’d leave?”

It wasn’t long till Y/N once again had her head on Ayato’s lap as she read through her book as he worked. It was like they hadn’t even moved. Back to being comfortable with the silence of papers moving and the nightly frogs croaking outside once again.

[will-o-the-witch]

I'm part of several magic geared discords run by popular youtube practitioners (tried smaller ones but they were somehow more awkward) and when I first started getting into magic 8 or so months ago they felt like such a boon. So many books to look into, so many resources for who to avoid, so many people to learn from. But as time went by I started to feel really awkward and couldn't put my finger on it.

Recently though I've started to realize that there's a lot of performative activism in the groups. Lots of Heathens will make giant posts, cut people out(nike and georgina rose), make podcast episodes about how horrible white nationalism and na*is are, but then when someone pops on to ask about Lilith, these same people talk about how she's so powerful to work with and all this (legit one of the mods across 3! severs is a host for a heathen podcast and said she grew up in a Jewish household and she doesn't care if people worship Lilith because no one she knew ever cared). People go out of their way to be respectful to Indigenous practices (mostly in regards to land spirits and white sage) but there's not a lot there to help bring attention to the rampant anti-Semitism in magic spaces.

They constantly publicly shame people who share their UPG while also suggesting books that are by and large just the authors UPG. (Or low key really appropriative but somehow it's okay because they are so popular *cough Jason Miller cough*) The same mod as I mentioned above has gone on long tirades about how if you say something is part of your practice you NEED to have *facts* that back it up, but the facts she wants are like random correspondences from a book she "trusts" (honestly, if we're not talking 100% historic stuff what facts are there most of the time? (and even then history isn't static and changes based on new information))

My question is how would I even start a conversation (if I choose to, which tbh probably won't but it'd be nice to know what to do about it in the future) with people like this? These people think anything not in a published book aren't worth looking in to. Anyone from tumblr/tik-tok/instagram is considered a joke regardless of how good their information is (which is hilarious because these people mod on discords for youtube witches). I'm starting to realize this is just a really common thing and I don't know what to do. You seem to have a lot of (probably unwanted) experience with this kind of stuff and I don't want to leave the discords because there is some good information if I dig. It's just getting harder and harder not to say anything when people do icky stuff.

This is a great question!! Unfortunately performative activitism and anti-intellectualism can worm their way into any community space, but I think the latter tends to hold firmer in magic/mysticism spaces because it's been used to try and justify SO much pseudoscience(which feeds back into it) and magic work is so esoteric and subjective anyway that so much information can't ever be formally verified.

I think the best thing you can honestly do is just rise above it. Be picky about your sources (I usually don't touch a book on magic with less than 3 pages of works cited,) study your history and science, read original sources when you can, etc. Not only will it help you out personally but you'll be better equipped to point out WHY something is bullshit if you need to. (And reminding people that Llewellyn and other publishing companies don't necessarily have a quality standard, it's about whether they think a book will sell enough copies.)

Leading by example and speaking with confidence is good, but you also don't have to rot your brain trying to change every mind. Some people aren't interested in being corrected, and you don't have to make them their problem. If a group is frustrating and draining to you, just leave! Find your tribe of like-minded folks who have the same values as you. They're out there, sometimes it just takes hunting!

[spooninbackpocket]

I am still scared of Juan

So like. The fact that she’s dating him makes all of this exponentially worse because I have such a bad memory. I repress everything that is too traumatizing to cope with. So I’m terrified of him because sometimes I think, maybe I’ve made it all up, maybe its all in my head and Ana you know ana maybe you’re the shitty one maybe you’re the reason you don’t have any friends so yes sometimes I think that it was me and it was all my fault and he wasn’t bad you know he called me bunny and mole mole and he was very sweet when need be sometimes I think maybe it was all in my head.

But then like there’s things. There’s things like how he smelled. He smelled like rotting water. Like bad like wrong like when I was in his arms there was always a part of me that was unsettled and afraid and you know he never got physical with me (only just that one time) but I couldn’t stand to be near him long I made him shower once and it didn’t go away he still smelled like rotting. I remember how my life was then. I slept through the day and I barely did my homework and I was failing calc and my French teacher wanted to know if I was okay and my Lang teacher asked me if I was okay and you know you smile and nod but god I wasn’t. But of course I do that now I’m depressed still maybe this is all ana this isn’t juan and she’s dating him. She who protected you once is dating him so maybe it’s me and the world is upside down and Ana you’re crazy.

I have to remind myself but then I get triggered and when I see the hair the big poofy shit I get triggered and when I smell an old towel I get triggered and it wasn’t rape it wasn’t because I didn’t say no to him I whispered it to myself and he stopped I don’t remember why maybe I was crying or maybe he heard me or my sister in the hall

because I was terrified but it wasn’t physical abuse not really it was mental it was exhausting it was him texting every minute and pointless fights about his insecurity and constant apologizing and fear. Fear that if I ignored him he’d scream at me saying I was a slut or I was cheating on him when at that point I had no friends because he didn’t like them and I was isolated. he’d show up or I’d have 27 missed calls and he would come and cry and terrify me that he’ll do something to me or himself and I know the fights were this bad because once Rohan picked at it and i got so bad he walked on eggshells for a week because I remembered

I don’t know why

I forget I hate forgetting I hate this I hate it even if it helps me get over things I am sad about like Keyla or luci or my dad or literally anything I hate forgetting it because what if it was all in my head and if I forget I don’t really get over it I don’t really get thorns out of my side I don’t feel like it’s over because some part of my brain replays it at three am like maybe I should’ve just gone to her fucking church and done the song and dance like for me the closest I’ll come to believing in god isn’t begging the devil to take me soul so I’ll cease to exist

Of course like my mom did some of this to me. When my stepdad happened she said forget and I did I did how else can you cope I had it in the back of my mind and it didn’t let me sleep but god I was so good at pretending everything was okay until it wasn’t and the deal was to suck it up and not emote until you die and I’ve died too many times now

So I forget Juan I forget how bad he was and then I have to go through the texts.

The 47 unread texts when I fell asleep without telling him first the constant feeling of being caged because I couldn’t leave him because I didn’t like him because it made me a shitty person and he’d hurt and I didn’t want to hurt him I didn’t want to be shitty but I was scared of him I still am I’m scared of how he took something bad he did and made it my fault. The gaslighting. I think maybe he did it to me or maybe I did it to myself but that’s the actual fucking definition. He made me think I did it and I was bad and it was him he was the reason why. I never felt like I could say no to him. I hated the paragraphs and the manipulation I hated him I was terrified. I was terrified of how easily he could make himself the victim and I’d fall for it and I’d believe him because I was so tired of fighting back. I hated myself for being stuck in this cycle. I hated myself for not seeing the red flags and I figured I deserved it but it was six months, and two years since I’m still terrified of him.

Im terrified and I forget why and I always feel like I need to validate my emotions I always feel like someone’s going to jump out and say you’re being illogical Ana you’re being dramatic which is what Keyla said and really I could give a shit about the boy but ana you’re being dramatic when I come calm collected (but really ana you were barely holding it together) but I had the screengrabs and I knew but ana stop being dramatic it was only a kiss it was only a heart and I let people take away from me so easily I let them take away the meaning of my words and my feelings I let them invalidate my emotions even though I have been logical and cold like a machine I let them take the truth away so they can turn it into a lie into a petty excuse instead of just. Fuck Ana I don’t like you anymore so I fucked you over.

Im really tired of turning the other cheek. I’m tired of being the bigger person and letting them get away with this shit letting them get away with things that are mine. It doesn’t work. My mom keeps pulling her bullshit I still don’t have many friends I’m so tired of trying to make new ones (hi I’m ana I have mommy issues daddy issues anxiety major depressive disorder abandonment issues and I Really like to cuddle even though I don’t think I like anyone that way anymore) anyways. I’m tired. I’m tired of being afraid of Juan and thinking luciana was a good person because yes god yes they did some nice things for me I really do like being called bunny and I really do like having friends but they aren’t good people. They hurt me. And I am so tired of being the bigger person I’m not going to have ambivalence about luci because she’s dating the boy that destroyed my emotional state before my stepdad could finish the job. She’s a shitty person. I need to realize that to get over juan. She used me to explore the taboo world of teenagers and sex where her father was a conservative bigot. She used me to justify to her parents and her shitty hateful god that I led her down the wrong path of sin when all I did was fuck a boy I loved while she went and seduced two and her parents used her to go make friends with the neighbor kids and convert them and then shame them for being human (you slut shame Karyna while you do worse). So yeah. Fuck you. The both of you. In my secret little world where there is no eyes I’m telling you to fuck off. That you’re shitty and you hurt me and you were toxic and by god I’m not going to forget. I’m not going to forget

[chadpetersondatingblog]

Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Stop Hating Myself?

Hey Doc, long time reader, first time poster. I’m 20 years old and my MAJOR problem is that I am a badly socialized spiteful thrall of technology (or asshole) Needless to say I am disappointed by this to say the least. Shit I’m average and VERY replaceable as far as humans go. When I say very replaceable I mean I am nothing more than student droid 553471. No defining features and modesty works against me as I see myself as a machine, a tool to produce results but I HATE the entire concept of love. I wish that I could become a techpriest doc, i really do.

So anyway, the women in my town do not interest me.

Bars are OK, not a fan of the Saturday night crowd who get blitzed and start fights. Nightclubs, fuck that I went to quite a few and I dislike them immensely. I am quite out of shape and am working out at home until I can be in shape enough to do team sports (if I am to do team sports I should be in shape enough to make a fucking difference, not puking after running 5 feet. Hang out at my local game store a lot, that’s all cool and i enjoy it, not so great for women but i knew the score there.  Conventions at my town fucking suck and are tiny. University, I have SUCH a hatred for communism that will be an instant deal-breaker, also computer science student so I’m at a disadvantage there. I kind of have NO idea of what to do in the real world, if that makes sense, my world is a virtual one and often I wish I could be converted into a tech-priest so I will never have to deal with flesh matters.

Seems that my decisions are powered by hate mostly, I hate communists, I hate hippies, I hate art students, I hate vegans, I support factory farming and would happily demolish a thousand forests to replace them with factories.

I also have such a low opinion of people I am constantly expecting them to stab me in the back or ruin my chances at a career just because they can. Sometimes my anger fades and I receive clarity of my thrall nature.

I genuinely expect women to pass me by and I fully expect them to only humor me to punish me later. Fuck doc, the Tropico 1 soundtrack is the only thing keeping me from thrashing around at my computer desk here.

This is not a question of ‘why don’t girls like me’, its because i’m an simmering angry negative asshole who hasn’t been socialized properly.

I know that this path will not lead to a good place. I have a limited amount of friends, no ones that can introduce me to girls as the friends I’m most active with are the weird-but-fun guys at the game store and my friends that could have led me to women I have fallen away from (moved away and laziness led me to stop talking to them).

I’m fucking 20 now doc, and that is young and I don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground. I have achieved nothing and if my hate continues I will end up far older with way more problems. Time waits for no one and even Time Lords rot.

Therapy is a darned option, I am putting this here so you will not need to.

Yours Sincerely

BalefulEye

You may have put it your letter BE, but I’m going to say it anyway: more than anything else, you need to be talking to a therapist. A therapist is going to be able to provide you with more, long term support and help you develop the skills you need to overcome your anger, than a loudmouth with a blog. The issues you have are deep and entrenched and some of them may be chemical in nature, which will require medication to alleviate. So before anything else, you need to get your ass into therapy. And I mean booking sessions with a qualified professional, not just guided exercises like MoodGym. You need to be working with someone who’ll keep you accountable and call you on your shit.

But whether you do talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, medication or any combination of the above… the issue isn’t that you hate other people because frankly… I don’t think you do. I think you hate yourself and that hate is directed outwards so that you push people away from you. It’s a supremely fucked up way of both protecting yourself and punishing yourself. On  the one hand, by being this angry ball of hate, you keep people at a distance so they can never get close enough to hurt you. But at the same time… you’re also deliberately pushing away people who might want to help you. People who might be your friends. But you don’t believe that you deserve friends. You’re not worthy  of them or of help. And so… you push them away. You put on this snarling dog persona and snap at people and say provocative things because you believe you’re a pile of shit and don’t deserve anything in your life. You know you’re miserable and that’s good because fuck you that’s why.

Part of it is that you know you’re smart. And as much as I hate to quote TV shows at people looking for advice (actually that’s a lie, I do it all the fucking time), I’m gonna quote some Rick and Morty at you. Because you know you’re intelligent. But you also use that intelligence as your excuse to justify sickness. And in this case, that sickness is the self-hate that you’re letting fester at your core. It’s really easy to come up with reasons for it. You’re smart, you should already be doing better, you should be further along, you shouldn’t be a fat lonely CS student and look at all these other fucking people thinking they’re so happy when they’ve got things you’d kill for and FUCK THEM because they’re happy and you’re not.

And here’s the really fucked up part: you’re also going to fight any changes to get better. Not just because being misery is a way of punishing yourself for your perceived and imaginary sins, but because, quite frankly, not feeling this way is fucking terrifying. It may be miserable. You may be lonely and hate yourself and wish the world would just compress into a singularity… but it’s what you know. Just like you’re terrified of the real world. The virtual world may be leaving you feeling empty and hollow – and I suspect it’s reinforcing some of your issues – but you know it. The real world, as much as you know you can’t avoid it, is scary because it has rules that you haven’t mastered, corners you haven’t explored. Here there don’t just be dragons, there be people, people you can’t just ignore, killfile, block, mute or otherwise shape into what you want.

But you know this has to change. You wouldn’t have written to me if you didn’t want to change. And to a certain extent, I think you’re asking for permission to actually start fixing things.

So while you find a therapist – and Captain Awkward has a couple great posts about doing just that – here’s what I want you to do.

First: I want you to start focusing on getting your asshole brain under control. You know the one I mean: it’s the one that’s dripping poison in your ear and telling you that you’re worthless, that people are just waiting for opportunities to hurt you and you’ll never amount to anything. You’re going to do this by simply being a bit more mindful. I know it’s trendy to recommend things like mindfulness meditation for everything and it has the patchouli stink of the hippies and vegans you hate… it’s perfect for what you want. All you want to do is simply get a handle on your brain and feel things clearly and deliberately, instead of reflexively and impulsively.

You’re just going to sit in a chair, with your back straight, your feet flat on the ground and your hands in your lap, close your eyes and breathe. All you’re going to do is pay attention to your breathing. Just focus on the sensations of your breath going in, your lungs expanding, then contracting and exhaling. This will be insanely difficult. Your brain will go off on a thousand tangents, with at least half of them saying “this is stupid, this is bullshit, what am I doing?” That’s fine. That happens to everyone. When – not if, when – it happens, note those thoughts. Literally “Ok, here’s a thought.” And once you’ve noted that you’re having thoughts… go back to focusing on your breathing. That’s all you do. Sit, close your eyes, focus and refocus on your breathing. Do this for ten minutes every day. It’ll help calm the storms in your head.

(If you’re interested in more about this, you may want to check out 10% Happier by Dan Harris.)

Second: You’re going to stop beating yourself up about where you “should” be in life or what you “ought to be” doing or any of the rest of that. You are going to excise “should” from your vocabulary. There is no “should”, there is just “is”. “Should” is a value judgement based on bullshit. “Should” is part of stealing your contentment from you. “Should” is the cudgel that you’re using to pound yourself in the nuts. You are where you are right now. There are places where you would like to be. But there is no place you should be. Your journey is uniquely your own and trying to force it to a specific timeline or itinerary is going to keep you miserable.

Third: You’re going to embrace imperfection. Right now, you’re using the idea of not being able to do something properly as the reason to not do it.

Case in point: team sports. You want to do team sports? Fine, go do team sports. Stop waiting, stop delaying and stop isolating yourself in the name of eventually joining others. You’re using the fact that you’re out of shape as an excuse to not do what you want to do, and I am here from the future to tell you that you will never reach a point where you think you’re “ready,” because being out of shape is an excuse. As soon as you’re in shape, you’ll say you can’t join because you’ve never played before so you need to learn how to play before you can joint a team. Once you learn how to play, you’ll say that you don’t know how to play with a group so now you can’t.

So fuck it. Start playing now. Except you’re going to shift your intentions. You’re not worried about “contributing” – another excuse you’re using to not do something, another flogger you use to flagellate yourself – you’re participating. Find the leagues that aren’t there for the competition but for the fun of it. It may be an amateur softball league. It may be bowling. It could be kickball. You want to find the people who are just there to have a good time, hang out with their teammates and play some games. Not only will this take the “should” out – again – but it’ll mean that you’ll get in shape faster and more efficiently. It’s far easier to stick to exercise that you actively enjoy instead of things that you have to force yourself into.

Yeah, you won’t be very good. Fuck it. The fact that you’re doing it at all is a victory. It’s proof that you can do more than your shitty, asshole brain tells you that you can. You don’t need to excel. You just need those tiny victories. Let yourself suck at it… just so long as you’re having fun and playing with people who are there to have fun. You can join the more serious teams later on when you’ve leveled up.

Fourth: You’re going to get off the computers. Remember what I said about your virtual world making things worse? This is part of it. I can hear the edgelord in your letter, and it’s pretty clear to me that you’re spending your time in corners of the Internet where people gather mostly to stew in their anger and hate. I don’t care if it’s Reddit, Voat, 4chan, Gab, Slack or just the people you follow on Twitter. The more you expose yourself to other negative, angry people, the more your own anger and self-loathing gets reinforced. The more you listen to people who tell you that you’re a worthless pile of shit, the more you believe you’re a worthless pile of shit. The more people tell you that you shouldn’t be happy… well, even if you don’t believe them, that shit sinks in and steals your joy. Cut it from your life as much as possible.

Yeah, yeah, safe spaces, snowflakes, etc. I’ve heard all of it before and frankly, those are the words thrown around by people who are literally afraid of silence. They dress their fear up as bravery and iconoclasm – I’m so tough I tell it like it is, I’m not afraid of harsh truths – because if they stop yelling for five seconds, they’ll be confronted by their own thoughts. Rolling around in anger and misery doesn’t mean that you’re smart, it means you’re in pain. Surrounding yourself with vitriol doesn’t mean you’re tough. It just means you’re hiding from yourself. You become like a shark, constantly moving and thrashing because stopping means ego-death. It means listening to all the things you’ve been trying to block out.

But here’s the thing about those safe spaces: they’re an oasis of calm. They’re a balm to your anxiety, a cool hand to a fevered forehead. They’re moments when you don’t have to have your shields up, when you’re not getting blasted by a cacophony of bullshit. And whether it’s just for a few minutes, an hour or longer… you’re calm. You’re at peace. You’re in a place where you can just be, recharge your batteries and let go of every tense muscle and relax.

So you need to dial the fuck back on where you’re spending time in your virtual world, with all of your fellow travellers who want you to be just as miserable and angry as they are. I suspect that you’ll find that some of your anger and rage subsides.

Fifth: You’re going to find something meaningful and pursue it. It doesn’t need to be practical. It just has to be something that speaks to your very soul. It could be anything – you might volunteer to walk the dogs at a pet shelter, you might plant a garden, you might take up painting or learning an instrument even if you never master it. It doesn’t matter what it is – it just has to be something you do in physical space, something that doesn’t harm anyone (including you) and that brings fulfillment to your soul. One of your issues right now is that you don’t have anything that you want or that you live for. Well now’s your chance. You’re going to start doing something – anything – that has meaning for you. What meaning? That’s up to you to decide.

Don’t know what it is? That’s fine. That means it’s time to explore and figure it out. You’ve got all the time in the world.

Sixth: This may be one of the hardest parts, but it’s also the most important. You’re going to forgive yourself.

You need to forgive yourself for all those sins that you feel are weighing you down. You need to forgive yourself for the anger that’s taken root in you and for the ways you’re disappointed in yourself. You need to forgive yourself for all the things that you feel like you should have done by now but haven’t and also for using those achievements as a yardstick to measure your “failure”. You need to forgive yourself for the pain you’ve caused yourself. You need to forgive yourself for “being average” and for the time that you feel like you’ve wasted getting here. And when you and your therapist reach your breakthroughs and you start clawing your way out of that hole – and you will get there – then you need to forgive yourself for the time that it took to finally take the steps that got you there.

I’m not going to lie to you, BE. You’ve got a lot to work through and you’re in a position that’s really fucking hard to pull yourself out from.

But I’m here to tell you: it can be done. You can do it. You have the strength. You have the courage and you have the ability. You just need to take that first step.

It’s going to be a long and hard road. It is going to suck like few things have sucked before. But the journey will be worth it and the destination even moreso.

You’re going to be ok. I promise. 

All will be well.

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How To Not Be Creepy

How To Be Happy

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The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Stop H

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Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Stop Hating Myself?

Hey Doc, long time reader, first time poster. I’m 20 years old and my MAJOR problem is that I am a badly socialized spiteful thrall of technology (or asshole) Needless to say I am disappointed by this to say the least. Shit I’m average and VERY replaceable as far as humans go. When I say very replaceable I mean I am nothing more than student droid 553471. No defining features and modesty works against me as I see myself as a machine, a tool to produce results but I HATE the entire concept of love. I wish that I could become a techpriest doc, i really do.

So anyway, the women in my town do not interest me.

Bars are OK, not a fan of the Saturday night crowd who get blitzed and start fights. Nightclubs, fuck that I went to quite a few and I dislike them immensely. I am quite out of shape and am working out at home until I can be in shape enough to do team sports (if I am to do team sports I should be in shape enough to make a fucking difference, not puking after running 5 feet. Hang out at my local game store a lot, that’s all cool and i enjoy it, not so great for women but i knew the score there.  Conventions at my town fucking suck and are tiny. University, I have SUCH a hatred for communism that will be an instant deal-breaker, also computer science student so I’m at a disadvantage there. I kind of have NO idea of what to do in the real world, if that makes sense, my world is a virtual one and often I wish I could be converted into a tech-priest so I will never have to deal with flesh matters.

Seems that my decisions are powered by hate mostly, I hate communists, I hate hippies, I hate art students, I hate vegans, I support factory farming and would happily demolish a thousand forests to replace them with factories.

I also have such a low opinion of people I am constantly expecting them to stab me in the back or ruin my chances at a career just because they can. Sometimes my anger fades and I receive clarity of my thrall nature.

I genuinely expect women to pass me by and I fully expect them to only humor me to punish me later. Fuck doc, the Tropico 1 soundtrack is the only thing keeping me from thrashing around at my computer desk here.

This is not a question of ‘why don’t girls like me’, its because i’m an simmering angry negative asshole who hasn’t been socialized properly.

I know that this path will not lead to a good place. I have a limited amount of friends, no ones that can introduce me to girls as the friends I’m most active with are the weird-but-fun guys at the game store and my friends that could have led me to women I have fallen away from (moved away and laziness led me to stop talking to them).

I’m fucking 20 now doc, and that is young and I don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground. I have achieved nothing and if my hate continues I will end up far older with way more problems. Time waits for no one and even Time Lords rot.

Therapy is a darned option, I am putting this here so you will not need to.

Yours Sincerely

BalefulEye

You may have put it your letter BE, but I’m going to say it anyway: more than anything else, you need to be talking to a therapist. A therapist is going to be able to provide you with more, long term support and help you develop the skills you need to overcome your anger, than a loudmouth with a blog. The issues you have are deep and entrenched and some of them may be chemical in nature, which will require medication to alleviate. So before anything else, you need to get your ass into therapy. And I mean booking sessions with a qualified professional, not just guided exercises like MoodGym. You need to be working with someone who’ll keep you accountable and call you on your shit.

But whether you do talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, medication or any combination of the above… the issue isn’t that you hate other people because frankly… I don’t think you do. I think you hate yourself and that hate is directed outwards so that you push people away from you. It’s a supremely fucked up way of both protecting yourself and punishing yourself. On  the one hand, by being this angry ball of hate, you keep people at a distance so they can never get close enough to hurt you. But at the same time… you’re also deliberately pushing away people who might want to help you. People who might be your friends. But you don’t believe that you deserve friends. You’re not worthy  of them or of help. And so… you push them away. You put on this snarling dog persona and snap at people and say provocative things because you believe you’re a pile of shit and don’t deserve anything in your life. You know you’re miserable and that’s good because fuck you that’s why.

Part of it is that you know you’re smart. And as much as I hate to quote TV shows at people looking for advice (actually that’s a lie, I do it all the fucking time), I’m gonna quote some Rick and Morty at you. Because you know you’re intelligent. But you also use that intelligence as your excuse to justify sickness. And in this case, that sickness is the self-hate that you’re letting fester at your core. It’s really easy to come up with reasons for it. You’re smart, you should already be doing better, you should be further along, you shouldn’t be a fat lonely CS student and look at all these other fucking people thinking they’re so happy when they’ve got things you’d kill for and FUCK THEM because they’re happy and you’re not.

And here’s the really fucked up part: you’re also going to fight any changes to get better. Not just because being misery is a way of punishing yourself for your perceived and imaginary sins, but because, quite frankly, not feeling this way is fucking terrifying. It may be miserable. You may be lonely and hate yourself and wish the world would just compress into a singularity… but it’s what you know. Just like you’re terrified of the real world. The virtual world may be leaving you feeling empty and hollow – and I suspect it’s reinforcing some of your issues – but you know it. The real world, as much as you know you can’t avoid it, is scary because it has rules that you haven’t mastered, corners you haven’t explored. Here there don’t just be dragons, there be people, people you can’t just ignore, killfile, block, mute or otherwise shape into what you want.

But you know this has to change. You wouldn’t have written to me if you didn’t want to change. And to a certain extent, I think you’re asking for permission to actually start fixing things.

So while you find a therapist – and Captain Awkward has a couple great posts about doing just that – here’s what I want you to do.

First: I want you to start focusing on getting your asshole brain under control. You know the one I mean: it’s the one that’s dripping poison in your ear and telling you that you’re worthless, that people are just waiting for opportunities to hurt you and you’ll never amount to anything. You’re going to do this by simply being a bit more mindful. I know it’s trendy to recommend things like mindfulness meditation for everything and it has the patchouli stink of the hippies and vegans you hate… it’s perfect for what you want. All you want to do is simply get a handle on your brain and feel things clearly and deliberately, instead of reflexively and impulsively.

You’re just going to sit in a chair, with your back straight, your feet flat on the ground and your hands in your lap, close your eyes and breathe. All you’re going to do is pay attention to your breathing. Just focus on the sensations of your breath going in, your lungs expanding, then contracting and exhaling. This will be insanely difficult. Your brain will go off on a thousand tangents, with at least half of them saying “this is stupid, this is bullshit, what am I doing?” That’s fine. That happens to everyone. When – not if, when – it happens, note those thoughts. Literally “Ok, here’s a thought.” And once you’ve noted that you’re having thoughts… go back to focusing on your breathing. That’s all you do. Sit, close your eyes, focus and refocus on your breathing. Do this for ten minutes every day. It’ll help calm the storms in your head.

(If you’re interested in more about this, you may want to check out 10% Happier by Dan Harris.)

Second: You’re going to stop beating yourself up about where you “should” be in life or what you “ought to be” doing or any of the rest of that. You are going to excise “should” from your vocabulary. There is no “should”, there is just “is”. “Should” is a value judgement based on bullshit. “Should” is part of stealing your contentment from you. “Should” is the cudgel that you’re using to pound yourself in the nuts. You are where you are right now. There are places where you would like to be. But there is no place you should be. Your journey is uniquely your own and trying to force it to a specific timeline or itinerary is going to keep you miserable.

Third: You’re going to embrace imperfection. Right now, you’re using the idea of not being able to do something properly as the reason to not do it.

Case in point: team sports. You want to do team sports? Fine, go do team sports. Stop waiting, stop delaying and stop isolating yourself in the name of eventually joining others. You’re using the fact that you’re out of shape as an excuse to not do what you want to do, and I am here from the future to tell you that you will never reach a point where you think you’re “ready,” because being out of shape is an excuse. As soon as you’re in shape, you’ll say you can’t join because you’ve never played before so you need to learn how to play before you can joint a team. Once you learn how to play, you’ll say that you don’t know how to play with a group so now you can’t.

So fuck it. Start playing now. Except you’re going to shift your intentions. You’re not worried about “contributing” – another excuse you’re using to not do something, another flogger you use to flagellate yourself – you’re participating. Find the leagues that aren’t there for the competition but for the fun of it. It may be an amateur softball league. It may be bowling. It could be kickball. You want to find the people who are just there to have a good time, hang out with their teammates and play some games. Not only will this take the “should” out – again – but it’ll mean that you’ll get in shape faster and more efficiently. It’s far easier to stick to exercise that you actively enjoy instead of things that you have to force yourself into.

Yeah, you won’t be very good. Fuck it. The fact that you’re doing it at all is a victory. It’s proof that you can do more than your shitty, asshole brain tells you that you can. You don’t need to excel. You just need those tiny victories. Let yourself suck at it… just so long as you’re having fun and playing with people who are there to have fun. You can join the more serious teams later on when you’ve leveled up.

Fourth: You’re going to get off the computers. Remember what I said about your virtual world making things worse? This is part of it. I can hear the edgelord in your letter, and it’s pretty clear to me that you’re spending your time in corners of the Internet where people gather mostly to stew in their anger and hate. I don’t care if it’s Reddit, Voat, 4chan, Gab, Slack or just the people you follow on Twitter. The more you expose yourself to other negative, angry people, the more your own anger and self-loathing gets reinforced. The more you listen to people who tell you that you’re a worthless pile of shit, the more you believe you’re a worthless pile of shit. The more people tell you that you shouldn’t be happy… well, even if you don’t believe them, that shit sinks in and steals your joy. Cut it from your life as much as possible.

Yeah, yeah, safe spaces, snowflakes, etc. I’ve heard all of it before and frankly, those are the words thrown around by people who are literally afraid of silence. They dress their fear up as bravery and iconoclasm – I’m so tough I tell it like it is, I’m not afraid of harsh truths – because if they stop yelling for five seconds, they’ll be confronted by their own thoughts. Rolling around in anger and misery doesn’t mean that you’re smart, it means you’re in pain. Surrounding yourself with vitriol doesn’t mean you’re tough. It just means you’re hiding from yourself. You become like a shark, constantly moving and thrashing because stopping means ego-death. It means listening to all the things you’ve been trying to block out.

But here’s the thing about those safe spaces: they’re an oasis of calm. They’re a balm to your anxiety, a cool hand to a fevered forehead. They’re moments when you don’t have to have your shields up, when you’re not getting blasted by a cacophony of bullshit. And whether it’s just for a few minutes, an hour or longer… you’re calm. You’re at peace. You’re in a place where you can just be, recharge your batteries and let go of every tense muscle and relax.

So you need to dial the fuck back on where you’re spending time in your virtual world, with all of your fellow travellers who want you to be just as miserable and angry as they are. I suspect that you’ll find that some of your anger and rage subsides.

Fifth: You’re going to find something meaningful and pursue it. It doesn’t need to be practical. It just has to be something that speaks to your very soul. It could be anything – you might volunteer to walk the dogs at a pet shelter, you might plant a garden, you might take up painting or learning an instrument even if you never master it. It doesn’t matter what it is – it just has to be something you do in physical space, something that doesn’t harm anyone (including you) and that brings fulfillment to your soul. One of your issues right now is that you don’t have anything that you want or that you live for. Well now’s your chance. You’re going to start doing something – anything – that has meaning for you. What meaning? That’s up to you to decide.

Don’t know what it is? That’s fine. That means it’s time to explore and figure it out. You’ve got all the time in the world.

Sixth: This may be one of the hardest parts, but it’s also the most important. You’re going to forgive yourself.

You need to forgive yourself for all those sins that you feel are weighing you down. You need to forgive yourself for the anger that’s taken root in you and for the ways you’re disappointed in yourself. You need to forgive yourself for all the things that you feel like you should have done by now but haven’t and also for using those achievements as a yardstick to measure your “failure”. You need to forgive yourself for the pain you’ve caused yourself. You need to forgive yourself for “being average” and for the time that you feel like you’ve wasted getting here. And when you and your therapist reach your breakthroughs and you start clawing your way out of that hole – and you will get there – then you need to forgive yourself for the time that it took to finally take the steps that got you there.

I’m not going to lie to you, BE. You’ve got a lot to work through and you’re in a position that’s really fucking hard to pull yourself out from.

But I’m here to tell you: it can be done. You can do it. You have the strength. You have the courage and you have the ability. You just need to take that first step.

It’s going to be a long and hard road. It is going to suck like few things have sucked before. But the journey will be worth it and the destination even moreso.

You’re going to be ok. I promise. 

All will be well.

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The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Stop H

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Kicks Vol. 1

And there I stood, overridden by emotion, unable to mutter a single word of anger at what he had just said. There was not a single hint of truth to what he kept saying, over and over, each time in a more elaborate manner, tapping on more elevated abstract imagery. However, my lips were sealed, my feet glued to the ground. What is it about a fake messiah that is so appealing and numbing. ‘You will never find peace if you follow the misdirection of a more confused than you human’ are the thoughts reflected on my bathroom mirror. When the puke started coming up I didn’t stop it, just like I hadn’t stopped Michael. I wish both events had been simultaneous. Another day starts, coffee pot half empty from the night before, shreds of paper from a collage project intended to make me feel better about my past with him. How can a transgender man, who fucked the brains out of a trans woman using a vibrating pink dildo, be now a fundamentalist prick? I wish these answers would come easy to me. Then again I’m all wishes and no matter. A proud daughter of the WWW (more like the KKK sometimes). Since Michael’s 'revelation’, a collision of contradicting hate messages had taken over the lgbtq blog scene, making me question the actual point of voicing yourself on there. Bottom line, I was still alive and people like Michael, reversed queers with a new found faith in the old dogmas, remained intact, hovering over the earth like termites over an old rotting boat. My intention is to fire back in a classier, more meaningful way, or so I tell myself. I honestly don’t give a fuck about Michael anymore, he wasn’t for me anyways, queer or straight. I just want to make a lasting impression on part of generation of self-involved, oversensitive kids (I included), about the impact of living a public lie. Michael had been on papers all over the country, as a lighthouse for all struggling queer youths. His mom had opposed the hormones he desperately wanted, his dad had disowned him altogether, kicking him out their lifelong home in Maine. His childhood friends couldn’t bear to look at him. He was crushed. And alone. I had to spoon him to sleep every night for a year before he could find some form of inner peace. He lurked around, all puffy barren eyes, from all the crying, he couldn’t stand up straight, let alone stomach an entire meal without rushing to the nearest bathroom to let it all out, much like I after his little speech on 'sexual morality’. I’m really interested in knowing what is the moral stature of a queer guy with, say,  a food fetish. Is he lost too, in the eyes of an 'almighty god that died to save us’? How much more bullshit could humanity pin on religion? I am intrigued to see what will be of us 50 or 100 years from now, when the church has run out of money and excuses to drain its congregations. When politicians no longer find motivation in the Bible or Koran. A new form of resentment I haven’t experienced before, one that feels awfully justified in its audacity and candour, starts burning inside of me like wildfire on a dry paraire. Tell me what to do, I cry out, not to some weird deity that claims my blood in exchange for his, but to myself, to my empty apartment, to Michael’s boxes, to our dog, sleeping peacefully like misery is a human invention. It has to be. Otherwise, what’s the point? It all has to begin and end with humanity, doesn’t it? It seems like my inner monologue is infinite, as is my despair. I need to put a stop to the madness, inside and outside of these four walls of middle class privilege and lgbtq artsiness. My life feels like a cartoon, sometimes, like some sort of gimmick, intended to amuse some conservative white man reading the Sunday paper in his office, while his secretary gives him a bj under he mahogany, oval shaped desk that is his life. We are objects and so are feelings. There is nothing really immaterial about existing. Representation has to take worldly form, each time it hits us like Katrina did those poor town’s people. Are thoughts and ideas even a thing? Maybe it’s just my current cynicism speaking through me, like 'god’ through its self - ordained prophets. Then again, we all speak for big truths we are too afraid to claim as entirely our own. Killing is bad, cheating is bad, love is good, sex is better with someone you care about. It seems like the world is indeed full of truths, yet not a single one belongs to individuals. They are either god’s, or society’s, or institutional truths, or universal. If our universe is our truth, how can we claim no part in it? Do we feel that insignificant? Are we that irresponsible about our own lives? All this is going in an email I am forwarding as a reader’s letter to a local newspaper I know the editor of. It’s not much, but enough to alleviate my bourgeois neurosis for a couple of hours. So I can go on with my candle lit baths, and dog walks through the well kept park across from my Berlin studio apartment. It is all very white and very common in its singularity. Like a long thread of contrivance and falsehood stitching it into one big quilt of social oppression. I tell myself I am transgender and a woman, therefore very vulnerable and discriminated against. Yet here I am, warm or cold at whim, eating delicious food I prepared but didn’t buy myself. Rich friendship is also a white privilege. As is college and travelling, and playing some fancy instrument like the cello. It is all part of the same dissident identity. Rejecting self-own wealth by keeping your privileged social circle, out of love, out of whatever, is equally imbalanced. Then again, what are we to do for a world made by us, right?