#but I’m in this like TERRIBLE cycle of perfectionism

[bugcatcherkit]

hhrgrghr I dropped my ability to have fun and be whimsical when making ocs and it crawled away and hid somewhere. And I don’t know where it went. Pacing around in circles

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Hi Rachel! Hope things are going well for you! I was wondering, since this is a frequent topic on your blog/channel, how do you still enjoy your work while letting go of perfectionism? Enjoying what I write is super important to my process and with keeping me going, but the constant over-worrying and embarrassment of what I put down really slows me down and leaves me feeling terrible lol... I know I need to learn to think differently of my own work but I’m a bit uncertain of where to start and what else I could try and appreciate instead. Sorry if this is too vague or broad of a question! No pressure to come up with a solid, one answer or anything. Just hearing your thoughts/experiences would be helpful!

This is a really, really good question! I wrote THIS ask that sort of addresses this too, if you haven't already seen it!

I think at the end of the day, loving your writing despite perfectionism all comes down to graceful self-compassion. Not every day is going to be perfect. Sometimes I still hate my writing (me! right! now!), and it's good to know that ahead of time. If I'm aware I'm not always going to like my work (which is realistic for me), I can then also tell myself that it doesn't make sense to harp too long on things I don't like when my opinion will inevitably change.

Some days it's really about gritting your teeth and pretending you like the work (also! me! right! now!). Find words or lines or images you like and focus your energy there!

One of the mistakes I made when first endeavoring on my writing self-love journey was making goals that were too big. I remember when I wrote Moth Work, the goal was "let's just dump all my shit writing here and see where that goes" and where that went was me developing severe perfectionism LOL. I then went alllll the way to other extreme and was like "okay well let me make all this writing perfect" which is literally an impossible task! Eventually I found the middle.

Now, I'm able to write something like Seventh Virtue and be like "ah yes, let me dump all my shit writing here" because the project also demands different things. For MW, it made no sense to ask myself of that when a HUGE part of what I enjoyed about writing that book was the actual prose itself (I mean makes sense, it's literary fiction). For SV, the prose is important, but not THE most important thing, so my goal of "don't care what happens I just want to have fun" is more feasible within those genre constraints.

So perhaps look at the project you're writing & see where you can create a realistic goal for yourself? I find asking what I like about the project helps inform those goals. So as I said, I liked the pretty prose in MW, so I wanted to retain that. The goal then became, "alright, I'll draft what I can in the moment, and I'll accept that at points, I'm not going to feel comfortable and I will feel cringe and I will feel embarrassed. But after my drafting session, I'll come back and tinker with the draft if needed" (this is actually how I'm currently writing BODY BACK haha).

For Seventh Virtue, I'm quite sensitive to the plot being causally warranted, so the goal is "okay, I'll try to draft each scene from the previous so a firmer causal chain is created, but I will miss scenes, write scenes that aren't needed, etc, and that's fine because I can address that later."

When I realized I could tailor my goal for the specific project, things really opened up for me because it showed me I didn't need to stick to one writing process. On here, y'all get basically first draft Seventh Virtue (99% of it hasn't been touched since coming out of my brain), but get a franken first draft-ish (sometimes 2nd or 3rd) of BB because I cycle through phrasings in my mind while I write (which I don't do in SV LOL). Those are two different drafting processes, so they deserve two different goals so I can better enjoy them.

Also I would say... don't be afraid of discomfort. Writing is so uncomfortable sometimes. I mean look at me in 2020--I HATEEDDD MW! And now it's like... the best thing I've ever written, IMO. We're not objective critics of our own work when we go into it hating it so much (or being embarrassed/ashamed by it, etc, whatever emotion fits your current situation). So that shows us the feelings we're having are feelings, not facts. And feelings are good to have! But they don't have to dictate everything forever. Feel them, and then *try* to accept them and move on. That might not be easy, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

I used to STRESS so much when a sentence/scene/paragraph wasn't working. Is that how I explain the 30-60k of each novel I cut between 2018-2020? Yep! Now I stress a little less. And I hardly cut things until I get to the actual revision process (~2k/project).

Okay finally, I've been meaning to use this analogy and this is the perfect timing for it. I've been learning the fun fingerstyle guitar in Jeff Buckley's version of Corpus Christie Carol for almost two months now. When I first started learning that song, LOL, I couldn't play ANYYYY of it. It confused me. I was frustrated. But, I genuinely knew that if I kept practicing, it'd sound 100% better a couple months from now. And now I can almost play it well haha.

It's funny how writers (me included!) forget that practice and failing and sounding bad and writing nonsense is a very important part of the process, but how in other art forms, it's just a given. My brother is an incredible musician and I would never expect him to play a riff perfectly on the first go when he's only heard it once or twice. When he makes mistakes when playing, I either don't notice at all or don't care because it's a given. I just KNOW that as a musician, if I keep practicing, I'll eventually get it (and I almost always do--in some cases, it's too hard and I quit, and that's fine to do too).

I'm actually learning a new song on guitar rn, I'll record it and put it in a video as a visual haha. The amount of times you play the exact same note over and over again... The amount of times you KNOW you're playing the wrong thing but keep playing it wrong anyway because it hasn't quite clicked... It's all part of it! I still enjoy that practice, because it's fun! We can apply that to writing too.

[raisedbythetv89]

If I see one more person complaining about having to vote for joe biden again, sowing general resentment and apathy towards voting, communicating to people it doesn’t matter, there’s no difference between the “two old white guys” I’m gonna start commenting crimes like y’all sound like “uggghhh the non-hitler wannabe option just like really doesn’t do it for me enough to care to vote at all” YOU SOUND SO STUPID AND I FUCKING HATE YOU.

SO MANY of the negative repercussions we’re facing today in 2024 are directly because of trump’s 4 years as president he did SO MUCH DAMAGE in such a short amount of time that we will be recovering from for a LONG TIME. Perfectionism is so obscenely harmful but especially in politics. If we actually managed to have the perfect presidential candidate to vote for in November THEY WOULD NOT GET ELECTED because the country is not ready as much as that sucks complaining and being like “Joe biden lost my vote for supporting Israel” does not punish joe biden or the democrats it punishes ALL OF US INCLUDING GAZA by opening the door to a fucking fascist who has literally said if he gets re-elected he’s not leaving the white house. HOW can you fuckers have such a short memory with this istg I’m just screaming and pulling my hair out in rage and frustration. This country is so fucking broken and trying for a couple years only to give up when things don’t go perfectly only helps the people who want things to stay exactly the same/roll our rights back even more.

We can be critical of the system we’re forced to participate in while still being SMART and strategic. We would have had so many more democratic presidents if you fuckers who hate the two party system and therefore “refuse to participate” hadn’t split votes/opted out of voting. I’ve spent my life watching dems spend their whole presidency trying to fix the problems of the last republican caused and JUST as shit starts to get back to “neutral” another republican gets elected and ruins everything again and the cycle continues over and over and over and we barely get anywhere.

I KNOW. I Know the system sucks and is broken and everything is terrible and everyone is too old and democrats aren’t liberal enough but we are still actively trying to keep a fascist out of office so truly just shut the fuck up, suck it up and do what needs to be done and make sure everyone in your life knows to do the same. Don’t be one of those people who treated voting in 2016 like a joke or just didn’t vote and then spent every day after that regretting they opened the door for trump. If you don’t vote for biden you WILL regret it later. Learn from the mistakes of people from literally just 8 years ago I’m BEGGING. Because the difference between joe biden and trump COULD NOT BE BIGGER don’t fall for the defeatist propaganda telling you it doesn’t so just don’t bother. That is exactly what trump wants.

[hawkins-losers]

Nightmare on Elm Street vs Halloween | Robin Buckley x Reader

Summary: You and Robin have a heated cinematic debate about horror movies

Word count: 0.7k

Request: if u haven’t could u do #80 w robin!! (80. crashing your lips together during an argument)

A/N: I do think that Robin is right in this debate and I would love to have cinematic debates like that with her. Anyone else?

‘‘What? You are so wrong and for so many reasons,’‘ Robin argued while stacking the returns after scanning them. ‘’How is Halloween better than Nightmare on Elm Street? John Carpenter is a great filmmaker, but Wes Craven brought originality and a strong premise. He created a memorable villain and unforgettable images- Glen’s gore bed death? The bathtub when Nancy is falling asleep in the bath and Freddy’s hand is the water? The ending? Fucking brilliant! Halloween can’t beat that.’’

Nightmare on Elm Street was a great horror classic, but in your opinion, it wasn’t better or scarier than the original Halloween.

‘’Michael is a much harder villain to escape than Freddy. Freddy targets the children of the ones who killed him. His killings are about revenge. No one stands a chance against Michael. He goes on a stabbing spree without any clear motivation other than to kill every bastard in sight.’’

’’Yeah, but Freddy is scarier. He hunts teenagers in their dreams and kills them in reality. That’s terrifying!’’ A shiver ran down her spine at the thought. ‘’There’s also no way to escape him. You can run from Michael or hide, but the only way to escape Freddy is to not sleep...except you can’t just stop sleeping. Your body needs sleep or else it’s gonna shut down and you can fall into a coma- Is a coma induced still considered sleeping?’’ Robin questioned.

You shrugged, not knowing the answer.

Technically, a coma is a prolonged state of unconsciousness. During coma, your eyes are closed and you do not respond to sounds or other things in your environment. Unlike sleep, you can't be awakened, even with vigorous or painful stimulation.

In a coma, the brain doesn't go through normal sleep cycles. Someone who is sleeping may move if they're uncomfortable, but a person in a coma will not. Therefore, a coma is not the same as sleep.

Would Freddy care though?

‘’Any ways, you’re fucked.’’ Robin looked over your shoulder. ‘’Steve! Come back me up here,’’ she called to her co-worker who was fixing a display some group of kids had knocked over ten minutes ago. ‘’Can you tell Y/N-’’ 

Steve shook his head before Robin could even finish. ‘’Your girlfriend, your debate. I’m not getting tangled into this again. The last time I participated in one of your cinematic debates, you ended up siding together and shouting at me for finding a movie boring-’’

‘’Because you were in the wrong!’’ you blurted, turning on your heels to face Steve. The guy had terrible movie taste.

‘‘The Shining is a masterpiece and you’re just too basic to understand get it,’’ Robin added, making Steve relive his nightmare. ‘’Jack Nicholson gave an incredible performance and so did Shelley Duvall. The staircase scene was shot 127 times due to Stanley Kubrick’s perfectionism, and Jack Nicholson destroyed nearly 60 doors to get the shot to Kubrick's liking.’’

‘‘Do I even need to bring up the iconic elevator scene?’’ 

‘’Here we go again…’’ Steve mumbled under his breath, getting horrible PTSD.

‘’Thirdly,’’ Robin continued where she had left of, taking the stack of returned and scanned VHS to put back on the shelves. ‘’Heather Langenkamp hotter than Jamie Lee Curtis.’’

You couldn’t disagree. You had watched Nancy reminded and paused Nancy’s bathtub scene too many times. ‘’I’ll give you that one,’’ you said, following her to the movies section of the store.

‘‘Ha!’’ Robin exclaimed, turning around with a victory grin forming on her lips. ‘’That’s another point for me!’‘ 

You furrowed eyebrows. ‘‘Another? When did we agree you got a point in the first place-’‘

You didn't get to finish your sentence, Robin's lips crashing on yours, the debate forgotten for a few seconds. Usually, it was you who would kiss her in the middle of a rant. It was nice to have the table turned.

You grabbed her green Family Video vest and pulled her closer, prolonging the kiss. 

If you hadn’t been in the middle of her workplace, she would’ve dropped the stack of movies and kept going, but a customer could walk in anytime - and poor Steve was annoyed by all the kissing. 

‘‘Does that give me a point?’‘ Robin asked. 

You bit your bottom lip and sighed. The hold this girl had on you... 

‘‘Okay, you win,’‘ you said in defeat. ‘’But, I still stand that Freddy is easier to survive. If you are not one of the kids of the parents who killed him, you’re safe. Michael is a deranged, murderous psychopath who kills babysitters. We both are babysitters and we can’t run. Oh, and need I remember you that he killed his sister when he was six years old. Babe, we would not survive.’’

-

Taglist:  @broadway-or-noway @violetsleftfist @thelaststraw3​  @cursedandromedablack  @Slashersimpfor  @savagejane1  @wh0reforbucknasty  @eddiemunson-slut  @slvdsjjk​  @hehehehannahthings  @dreamdancers-world  @grace-loux  @iamharrystyleslover

Robin Buckley taglist: @uhidklol-26 @prettyplant0  @ran-rap  @eddiemvunsongf   @batorchids222  @scarlet-kazuha  @saphmoth  @uhidklol-26  @you-makeme-crazier-blog​  @spongebob-in-the-upsidedown  @swiftbyul

[the-writer-muse]

How to Write the “Gifted” Kid

Intro

First, I apologize for the slightly misleading title when this is also a thinly veiled excuse to rant about being said “gifted” kid. But I also do want to touch on this topic because it’s something I’m familiar with, having seen it in many other people my age. The irony of the system I’ve seen and experienced is that it’s meant to push us up, but instead far more often pulls us down.

Note: I think the idea that people are more gifted than others is complete nonsense, therefore I have placed it in quotation marks in the title. I will not be using the quotations throughout the entire post; however, please assume they are there, just invisible.

Remember too, that this is my experience, and a lot of these are my opinions; you may have had a different experience, and that is also completely valid!

Pressure

“Gifted” kids are often singled out at a young age by the education system. Usually they have desirable qualities like good memorization, determination, and curiosity. Sometimes they’re chosen by their school to take part in a “gifted and talented” program or something similar. The result is that they grow up with a lot more pressure on them to do well in school, and later on, life. They are expected to achieve high and aim for success, all with relatively little effort because they’re “gifted.”

But as they grow older, they become more insignificant as the number of gifted kids increases, and suddenly they’re struggling to compete with a dozen other people at any given time.

And speaking of grades, that’s another thing gifted kids focus on. A lot of gifted kids end up connecting their self-worth to their grades, which eventually leads to low self-esteem, mental exhaustion and low mental health, and burnout.

Perfectionism

Another effect of being a gifted kid is growing up believing that you have to be perfect. This often leads to a huge fear of failure and/or disappointment. 

Perfectionism has always been a huge issue for me. When I check my grades, I get a cold, almost nauseous feeling from the anticipation. I cry when I don’t understand a lesson the first time because I expect myself to be perfect. I hate not being good at something the first time I do it. It’s terrible and it’s irrational, but it’s a habit, and a hard one to break, at that.

Not all gifted kids are perfectionists, but it’s a common trait. You probably know that one kid who complains about getting an A minus or some other grade that’s still good. That’s the gifted perfectionist, on a bit of an exaggerated level.

Gifted kids are held to a much higher standard, and I believe that’s what causes the perfectionism in the first place. Our identities are tied to our success. If other people aren’t satisfied with us, we aren’t satisfied with ourselves. If we make mistakes, we become them. It’s a vicious cycle that’s difficult to break out of, but unfortunately, it’s a reality for many.

Academic career

(Disclaimer: A lot of what I say here applies to the United States. If you live in another country, I would be interested to hear about what the typical “gifted” academic career looks like!)

Gifted kids frequently take honors classes, AP classes, or IB classes in their academic career, and usually more than one at any given time. Also, note that College Board, which runs AP and a bunch of other tests and classes, is regarded as a scam and a rip-off by most people, and it’s something of a running joke among AP students. I’m not going to dip into that discourse here, but I do believe that exams are very expensive and the grading scale is designed to be deliberately detail-oriented and harsh.

All of this is to say; gifted kids spend most of their early lives learning to build toward their future. A frequent problem is, though, that it’s not a future they’ve chosen for themself. I’ve chosen it, but there are plenty who haven’t, or people who want to escape it and can’t.

Burnout and motivation

All of this can lead to declining mental health and self-esteem and close connections. “Gifted kid burnout” is a common condition as gifted kids get older. They work themselves to the point of exhaustion, and use coping mechanisms such as old childhood/comfort hobbies or fandoms. Another popular coping mechanism is procrastination.

Often at this point, productivity sharply tumbles, and the gifted kid is left wondering why they can’t seem to summon any of their old achievements and success. This may bring them to a loss of motivation and increased apathy towards life.

Why it’s problematic

The entire concept of “gifted” kids is designed to benefit only a select few, and then then, after the system is done with them, I wouldn’t call those few “benefited.” And what about those who aren’t deemed gifted? Are they average? Below-average? The system is divisive and discriminatory, and it needs to be reworked.

Gifted kids are also forced into competition, both with others and themselves. Their careers become a race against their own productivity and success. And when that fails, they’re left with the dregs of their mental health.

Outro

Hardly any of this was actual writing advice, but I hope some of it was useful, or at least eye-opening. This may not be the most important issue out there, but it is certainly one of the most common ones. When you're writing a gifted kid character, keep these things in mind. Thank you for reading!

[arrozaurus]

Something Rose haters say that I disagree with was when they say Rose made Steven just so she could run away from her problems. In the beginning of the SU and later episodes, it’s shown that Homeworld hadn’t interacted with Earth for thousands of years after the Gem War until they sent the Red Eye. She didn’t know about the Cluster either. [1/3]

The Earth was at peace (albeit the corrupted gems) and it was just coincidence she met Greg at the time and that in the near future, her past involving Homeword and Steven would come up around the same time too. I’m sure that if she knew of the Cluster’s existence and the Homeworld gems looking into Earth again after thousands of years, she would’ve held off on making Steven for the time being and instead focus on trying to stop the Earth’s destruction once again [2/3] 

Bismuth’s bubbling, Spinel’s abandonment, the Diamond’s and a lot of other things Rose/Pink had direct involvement of are things I’m not certain she could’ve had the ability to go back AND amend her wrongdoings too as Rose/Pink and IMO she believed only Steven could correct her past mistakes even at the cost of her reputation, her life and the emotional baggage she would unintentionally bring to Steven. [3/3] (Idk I could be wrong bc Pink/Rose is a very complex character to think about) 

“rose had steven to run away from her problems” not only is a bad take but also TERRIBLY stigmatizing for people struggling with suicidal ideation.

i know you might be thinking wtf op, this comes out of nowhere! because it was first stablished as a noble sacrifice, a mother dying to give life to her son yada-yada-yada. but in the end, “rose is the hugest example of these themes of self-destruction”. rose has always been in a very bad mental place. even in a more peaceful environment, you don’t magically heal from the injuries you were caused, it’s so easy to continue—to inflict to yourself—that cycle of abuse internally without even realizing that the abuser was the one to start it.

anyone that has been/is in that place will know. things as simple as thinking of five aspects about yourself that you like will make you panic because you can’t even think of one. instead it sends you into a spiralling list of everything that you hate about yourself and that you would like to change but never feels genuine enough. nothing positive that it’s said about you feels like it’s you.

the crushing expectations that she was forced to fulfill at homeworld cascaded into an unattainable perfectionism to become the loving caring person she strived to be. but she would never get it (feel satisfied with it), because she was asking impossible things of herself and punishing herself for it.

when she decided to stop existing to create steven, she peaked at that pattern of self-harm. and no one was around to stop her. no one was around to see her suffering past her mask and truly help her. it was a failure of her (albeit limited) support system.

so even if she was avoiding her problems, so what? would that help the person in this situation? would that make her feel less guilty and motivate her to tie threads she’s left loose when she thinks that everything she tries to fix just crumbles under her palms? would that magically make her feel like everyone would be better off with her?

NO, it would just make her close herself emotionally more and not ask for your help when she genuinely needs it. and additionally, you would be contributing to her self-hatred!

if there is something i know about this it’s that it’s complicated. rose’s motivations to have steven were diverse, and above all, heartfelt.

she is very straight forward in the tapes (as straight forward as rose can be). what she says there is completely sincere. she has no plans for steven, she doesn’t want him to do anything in particular... she’s just very excited about all the experiences he would have as a human, the power to write his own story. without expectations, without people "picking him apart”, surrounded by love.

of course it wouldn’t occur to her all these things she’d left behind would just come back to him one day and that he would feel like he had to fill her inexistent shoes. indeed from her perspective, all that hussle had happened a very long time ago. after all, if she had seen the red eye coming to earth, how would steven be able to grow up with all those things she wanted him to have?

[ticktickblog]

Self-Discipline or Self-Torture?

Don’t Let the Excessive Self-Discipline Hurt You

What has caused the Excessive Self-Discipline?

Bombarded with numbers of books and courses aimed at helping us develop self-discipline, together with numerous praises from people around us or on the internet, it seems quite obvious that self-discipline is such a highly-valued quality in today’s society.

This however, may overstate the significance of being self-disciplined to some extent and may thus pressure us in a way that we easily feel anxious and left-behind if we fail to climb over the “self-restraint mountain” built by so many fabulous examples.

People with such anxiety tend to push themselves harder and harder, just in order to keep pace with those successful examples in this life race. Once their energy is burned out or the willpower collapses, some will fall into an extremely down momentum, thinking they just inertly lack the “self-discipline genes” or completely discrediting being self-discipline itself.

This might explain why even just thinking of self-discipline brings us headaches already. It has been pre-linked with so many negative feelings: toughness, pain, huge effort, discomfort, and shame.  

So, is being self-disciplined really a nightmare, or is it just our own misunderstandings or even stereotypes which makes it terrifying?

What does self-discipline really mean to us?

In fact, being self-disciplined never equals to leading a restrictive or punitive lifestyle. Although it seems usually associated with self-control and willpower, it still has to be based on the respect to one’s own free wills, energy flow, effective methods, and positive mindset. 

Examples & Contrasts:

“I wanna work out regularly to be more healthy.” vs. “Even though I hate gym, I want 6 packs in order to be as attractive as xxx on Instagram.”

“Think I’ll skip the gym schedule because I’m too tired at work today.” vs. “I gotta work out even though my energy is drained already.”

“I’m good enough even though I know there’s still spaces to improve” vs. “I am terrible and I have no choice but to change.”

“Forming a healthy eating to reduce pizzas for meals” vs. “Cutting pizzas forever off my diet” 

“Forgetting Curve is a useful way to learn new vocabularies” vs. “I can learn as many vocabularies as possible so long as I invest more time.”

Through the checklist, some may come to realize that you’re unfortunately in a “self-discipline trap”, where you get your heads up and drain yourself all the time, and where any mistakes, failure and laziness are absolutely not allowed. Is this really the way we improve ourselves to reduce anxiety, or a way to cause greater stress and anxiety? I’ll leave you to think about it.

In general, even though staying self-disciplined is beneficial for self-improvement and the quality of life, it’s never a “everyone-must-do” in life and never means self-torture. On top of it, staying healthy is much much more important.

How can we avoid being over self-restrained?

1. Follow your own energy flow and limit

This simply means when your body tells you that you need rest, then it’s high time you should rest. We all have our own energy flow and upper limit. What in return when disobeying it may not be desirable results. For example, sleeping for 5 hours and then forcing yourself to get up for a morning gym sesh. The harm caused by insufficient sleep may overweigh the good brought by working out. Therefore, arranging yourself a work-out when you have enough time and energy to handle it, instead of sacrificing your sleep time just to do it anyways.

2. Follow your own heart instead of following others

Information on the internet, especially social media, has created a hidden competitive environment where numerous good examples lead the trends and define what is good and cute. People who see these consciously or subconsciously tend to follow. However, 6 packs isn’t a must, neither is S-shape. Not having them is also not a shame. My suggestion is listen to your own voice instead of others. Think and identify whether it is what you truly desire or just the illusional self that other people project in your mind.

3. Keep a positive mindset based on self-acceptance

It might sound like a paradox if I don’t deny myself, how can I have the idea to regulate my behavior? Well, try this way: “I accept and love myself, and I also don’t mind making some changes to be better”. For example, staying up late often largely affects my work efficiency and also speeds the aging of my skin. Therefore, I wanna quit this habit because I wish to improve these. This positive mindset that you develop before taking an action can bring sustainable effects, which helps you enjoy and then insist on doing something. Conversely, denying yourself, e.g. “I am a whole mess that I sleep late too often. My work efficiency is also slow and I age fast”, usually brings up a lot of negative feelings, which may be converted to a strong motivation in the beginning, but is usually inconsistent. Once the rush fades, your self-denial is also enhanced. 

4. Adjust your goals and expectations

Some who are excessively self-restrained may also face the situation that their goals and expectations on themselves are too ambitious. This normally comes in two ways: First, they never stop till it’s perfect, despite the fact that nothing could be really perfect. Second, they establish an ambitious goal to themselves. The more unachievable it seems, the more fulfilled they will feel. 

For example, losing 10 pounds in a week, quitting smoking immediately and cutting pizza forever off the diet. It then easily goes into an unbalanced and unhealthy cycle that they always set goals but never reach them, no matter how hard they’ve tried. Plus, every time bad habits come back 10 times stronger than before as a payback. 

My suggestion is:

* Perfectionism is a fallacy.  * Attainable is more important than ambitious.  * Huge success always comes from small steps through the time.

5. Work smart instead of working hard

Finding more effective and efficient methods is also another way to avoid self-torture. We might all have ever been stuck in the situation that no matter how much effort we’ve made, the progress is sluggish. Some went further by devoting endlessly. But, reflecting on it, have you found better ways to do it instead of just trying harder? 

For example, if I have a goal of learning 20 new vocabularies each day when learning a language, I might follow the Forgetting Curve to improve the efficiency. When trying to stay focused when working from home, I use the Pomo Technique to maintain a work-life balance.

Be careful, sometimes when you feel you’ve been “super self-disciplined”, you may just be “less productive”. Like what Henry Ford said, “Improved productivity means less human sweat, not more.” 

Takeaways:

Self-discipline doesn’t have to be associated with discomfort, pain or depression. Therefore, when establishing the healthy habit of being self-disciplined, please remember:

* Follow your own energy flow and limit

* Follow your own heart instead of others

* Keep a positive mindset based on self-acceptance

* Adjust your goals and expectations

* Work smart instead of working hard

[roc-thoughtblog]

I am now feeling the great and mighty call, wailing from the abyss of my dysfunctional mind, to abandon this experiment in favour of the charming alternative: absolute jack-nothing. It's a pressure, a really common pressure, that one where you absolutely can't seem to start doing anything, no matter how much you want, should, need to or like doing it. I hate it.

I absolutely reject this call. And I think, for once in my life I'm actually empowered to do so. I have medication that helps me focus. I'm emotionally stable enough to have a consistent degree of confidence. I have a purpose and a goal. I have every intention to completely power through this horrible siren of immobility.

Hell, this was half the reason I started this whole reading/writing blog to begin with, to see if I can keep it up for once.

If personal change can come by spending one hour every day reading or writing, as consistently as possible, I have to do it. I don't know an easier road.

Especially reading, it holds such a unique place for me. I love it enough to constantly want to do it, but my concentration span for novels is so poor that I am basically never at risk of losing control. Watching shows, playing games, spending any time on the sprawling mess of hyperlinks and algorithms that is the internet, I'm so vulnerable to hyperfocusing and losing days and weeks of my life to the unforgiving maw of the un-time.

I just lost the last two or three days like this already, because I accidentally sucked myself back into FE3H. I don't even play the game very fast, or possibly much at all, I just spend hours going into days messing around in the menus. Silly, right? Life shouldn't have to be this way, though, and I am going to Learn Control.

Standard self-management techniques I have ever tried do not work for me. Scheduling and time-management, alarms and reminders, they don't function if I don't have a basic mechanism that cooperates with them. This blog is baby steps, and I will keep fucking walking like the baby I am until I have that basic mechanism that I might then extend to every other part of my life.

I would like to be able to start and then finish personal projects. That would be amazing. And, wow, could you imagine how much better I might be at studying if I could do it?

I restarted a sketching blog too, which I haven't managed to maintain in the past week. But no beating myself up over it, because baby steps involve taking everything you can get first before worrying about more. I'll incorporate it into my proto-schedule as soon as I'm capable of doing so. If I spent one hour every day drawing, who knows how much I could have drawn or how much I would improve.

And streaming! I started streaming on Monday mornings to try to enjoy a game without getting sucked in. And it's working! I played DDLC for three hours the first monday, and then I consciously put it down and waited a whole patient week to play it another three hours the next monday! I didn't get fucking consumed by it! Only one real-life friend is actually watching my terrible quality 480p stream, but who cares! The extra layer of accountability of publicly playing the game has kept my impulses in check and my general brain upright and sane, and the general busywork of setting up a stream and finding convenient, private times to do so has been just enough resistance to stop me launching straight back into things prematurely like I do with a normal schedule I abjectly fail to follow.

I just cannot describe how pleased I am to be able to enjoy something I like doing with some measure of control. Generally I end up caught in that awful cycle where I simply can't do anything I love or want to do because I know that as soon as I do... goodbye life. Being able to play a game guilt free? On a SCHEDULE? That I MAINTAINED? Revolutionary. It even helped me get up in the morning. I’ll be sad when circumstances change to make streaming impractical for me again.

Where was I even going with this, I'm rambling. Rambling is a part of this blog too. I think too much and can't write nothing, which is an absolutely amazing trait to have when you need to write an essay. I want this blog to train myself to just, make my thoughts exist somewhere, on a page, that I can use. Anything. Proofreading is optional, because even basic perfectionism is the death of production. There's a reason why despite the bulk of this blog turning into literature readthroughs, that I started it with a review of Sephiroth DLC for Super Smash Brothers. It was the only thing I could think to write at the time. And I'll take it. I will definitely take anything I can start writing on. Beggars can't be choosers, etc. If I can write more naturally like I am right now, rambling into a .txt, if I can turn that back around into stories or studies... that would be grand.

Anyway, how do I end this. Call back to the beginning and conclude. Okay.

Long story short, I refuse to stop even though all natural feeling compels me to lose interest, because I think I can fight the urge now. AH MOSQUITO. Screw it I'm leaving that in here. It would be so nice to be able to control when I do and do not do things, and I hope I can use this blog to improve my life.

Oh yeah last thing. I want to try and get this proto-schedule such that I will read during the weekdays, but on weekends I'll try to branch out and write about something else. I'll default to reading if I can't manage to get any writing started.

Bit of a long and nebulous to-do list, but I would still like to write a review for Idoru, finish the comparisons on narrative voice with S&S. Also, I took a bunch of notes on No Maps for These Territories I'd like to process along with Idoru. And I did play two sessions of DDLC, with lots of notes! I'd like to write something about that too. And there's so many more small things that strike me every day that could be a good thing to write about. Thoughtblog and all that.

'Kay, it's 3AM now, somehow, so I'mma try to fix my sleep cycle. 'Night.

[counselingwith]

You thought you knew pain but heartbreak has completely overwhelmed you. You can’t enjoy anything you enjoyed before. You want to start healing but you don’t know where to start and what to do. You just know you never want to get hurt like this again.

Eat, love & numb

Tackling pain is so difficult that most people avoid it by jumping into a hot new romance, or numb themselves with substances, food, work, exercise, or just by keeping busy. While this may blunt the pain, but if you have not taken the time to tackle the pain at its source it is likely that you will end up in a vicious pain cycle where you will date the same type of person with merely different names or date the right person but start seeing the same issues you were trying to avoid.

Paradox of pain

After a heartbreak, your natural defense mechanism builds necessary walls to protect you from getting hurt again. The paradox is that even though pain builds these walls, in order to feel deep love, joy, and fulfilment, in order to get out of the pain cycle, you must learn to drop the walls and try to love and trust again. It is very difficult to be vulnerable if the last time you opened up you had daggers thrown at your heart. However, if you can’t develop enough trust and safety to make this switch, you run the risk of staying in the pain cycle: You can’t succeed at relationships because you are worried about getting hurt, you get hurt because you can’t open up and give it your best shot, you get hurt so your defensive wall gets higher and stronger, perpetuating more pain and taking you away from love, joy, and fulfillment.

Rebuilding

As you pick yourself off the floor and start learning to trust again, this time around you cannot rely on anyone who can hurt you again. The reality of life is that you cannot control anything or anyone but yourself. This means that the only place trust should come from is ‘you’. The minute you start relying on people and things to fill that void and feel safe, you will set them up for failure. For example, if you start relying on other people, your work, or your success for your happiness, these things will determine if you are happy or not. In order to feel safe, you may start controlling others which never works and will only hurt your relationships. This blocks joy, creates confusion and chaos and makes you feel like you are on a perpetual emotional roller coaster. Here is what you can do to stop this craziness and take charge of your healing.

Be kind to yourself

Be honest about your pain. You did get deeply hurt, so have compassion and take care of yourself as you would take care of a young child who is hurt. Ask yourself, ‘what can I do to help you right now?’ and then get up and do it. Treat yourself as you would treat a jilted friend. If you have a good support system, take their help, but be careful of people who start taking over. Don’t depend on anyone. If you want healing and empowerment, the main work has to come from you.

Unsubscribe from perfectionism

Embrace the reality that perfectionism is ‘fake news’. It’s unachievable because it’s not real. It only causes pain and confusion and it prevents you from tapping into your real self where all the guidance and answers lie. Know that you are the only one who can hit the ‘unsubscribe’ button.

Forgive yourself

The first person you have to forgive is yourself. Organize your thoughts by making a list of what you hold yourself responsible for (e.g.: “I can’t believe I didn’t realize she was cheating on me this whole time”). Replace this list with things you would say to a friend who was beating down on himself. Write down statements of forgiveness: “I forgive myself for not knowing she was cheating on me”, “I forgive myself for not being able to protect myself from this pain”.

Let the past go

As you start to head towards healing and start recognizing what you did wrong in the past, don’t sit in anger, shame, or regret. Know that you did the best you could at that time, that those behaviors probably saved you from doing something more harmful. Respectfully let them go by saying, “thank you for helping me, but I don’t need you anymore” and kindly keep them aside. If you don’t do this, the guilt and shame will not let you move on.

Take Out the Head-Trash:

The forgiveness list gave you a pretty good idea of the head trash you carry that keeps you in a negative spiral. Tune into your self-talk. What are you saying to yourself? How can you connect with yourself so that you can take control of your thoughts and feelings rather than the other way around? Louise Hay’s mirror work gets you there faster and deeper, here is how I use it to help my clients:

1. Don’t Should all over yourself

Write down a ‘should’s list’ that has all the little things that gnaw at you as you are going about your day. I should _________ (lose weight, be happier, get over it). Now change word ‘should’ to ‘could’: I could lose weight, I could be happier, I could get over it.

This vocabulary:

Changes the mood of your self-talk.

Takes the meanness of ‘should’ out, it discourages perfectionism and thus allows creative thinking.

Calms you down enough to actually be able to tackle things on the list.

Reminds you that it’s in your hands and there is no need to be mean about it, you’ll get to it when you can.

2. Don’t criticize yourself and accept compliments graciously

After all, how can you respect and trust someone you can’t feel compassion and value. If you find yourself being mean to yourself (“Of course I dropped this coffee on myself, I had to mess things up somehow”), apologize to yourself with the same sincerity that you would apologize to a friend if you said the same statements to her. If someone compliments you and you undermine it or even put yourself down, apologize to yourself the way you would if you interjected with negativity when a friend was getting a compliment.

3. Show up for yourself

You cannot start relying on someone without proof that they’ll be there for you when need them. The next time you feel hurt, instead of calling a friend, reach out to yourself. Go to the mirror and ask yourself ‘what is bothering you’, and talk to yourself as you would talk to a friend.

You will find that ‘you’ are someone you can rely on, because no matter what you’ll find ‘you’ are always there for you. Say things to yourself in the mirror that you would say to a friend “Don’t worry, I’ll be there for you, we’ll do this together”, “I am so proud of you” or “I’m sorry I doubted you”, “I can see that this is hurting you, you are not alone, I’ll always be here for you no matter what”. Statements you always want to hear, but for the first time you can actually count on them.

4. Why the mirror? It’s weird and uncomfortable

Most of us are visual learners. It is much easier for us to tap into our moments of pain, fear, joy, and pride when we have the ability to see our micro expressions in the mirror. It helps us treat ourselves with the same courtesy and compassion we usually reserve for others. This helps us become better friends with ourselves. Once you have done this work in the mirror a few times, you can recall the expressions and the compassion when you don’t have the mirror as well. If you can’t get over using the mirror, for now, just do the rest of the work until you can get to a point where you can face yourself.

Warning

As you take on the task of managing your pain, please remember that this process is not linear. You can have a few perfect, strong days, then have a terrible day where you feel completely broken as if you have not made any progress at all. Expect the bad days so that when one comes you can say ‘I was expecting some bad days and today is one of them’.

One day at time

As you head on your journey, even though the random appearance of the ‘bad day’ doesn’t go away, it’s frequency and intensity lessens.

Get help

The chaos heartbreak leaves behind is very difficult to come out of, and if not done right it can lead to a lifetime of unwanted consequences. Share this article with your therapist and they will be able to guide you out of this turmoil in a relatively short period of time. Don’t let other people’s presumptions about therapy keep you from getting all the help you need as you tackle possibly the biggest pain of your life.

Learn more at https://counselingwithadifference.com

[satanfm]

hello! this is my smol messy child with a heart of gold lux !  i’m very excited to rp with all of you beauts, so pls give me all of your affection & plots 🥺 lux is twenty-three, a singer and professional nuisance to record companies, managers, collaborators, exes, and basically anyone who’s ever met her. positive traits are often overshadowed and forgotten due to the intensity of her negative traits.

chicago’s very own lux santana has been spotted on madison avenue driving a range rover , welcome ! your resemblance to sofia jamora is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty third birthday bash . your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re aggressive , but being confident might help you . i think being a leo explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be being soft and stone cold at the same, broken guitar strings, & singing songs under her breath. (lux doesn’t want children, so when she got pregnant she had an abortion and lied about it to the father by faking a miscarriage) & ( cis female & she/her) + ( hailey , 19 , she/her, cst)

— “ basics ! ’ 〉

full name. lux santana. 

nicknames. friends can her lux, and enemies call her satan. 

age. twenty-three. 

date of birth. july 26. 

occupation. singer/songwriter. 

sexual orientation. pansexual. 

birthplace. chicago. 

zodiac. leo. 

spoken languages. fluent in english, spanish & some french.

— “ backstory ! ’ 〉

satan ... i mean lux santana was actually born delilah humpries and raised in chicago. her father is one of those important political bigwigs and...all she knows about her mother is that she’s never known her mother.

her dad was the typical rich successful man who showered his child in all of the presents and money that she could ever ask for in order to make up for the fact that he was always too busy working to ever spend any actual time with her and instead left lux to be raised by a revolving door of nannies

from a young age it was obvious that lux had a talent for music & ofc her dad was willing to pay for her lessons so long as it kept her occupied so she started with singing and piano but moved on to learn a few other instruments including the guitar and even began dipping her toes into songwriting. by the age of 14 she had written and recorded a whole demo album in her bedroom and once it was done, she started sneaking out at night so that she could go hang around the local big name recording studios in the hopes that she would catch a producer leaving for the day and hopefully convince them to listen to her demo

she never did

sis really tried though. now ofc her dad could’ve paid a record company to just hand her a contract and she knew that, but dammit. lux wanted music to be her lifelong career and she wanted to earn it herself. she knew that she was genuinely talented even though her demo album was probs lowkey garbage lmao and she knew that she could be successful, and she didn’t want anyone to be able to say that she didn’t truly work for her career

she was so determined that she spent y e a r s relentlessly hounding record companies but no one would give her the time of day, so she developed a different strategy after seeing some flyers around the city and at the age of 16 she joined a local bar band who happened to seeking a lead singer...and got kicked out like two weeks later for being absolutely fucking insufferable

join local band in need of a lead singer. attempt to overhaul said band and push all of the other members into the background. face resistance from said other members. get angry, lash out, get kicked out of the band, repeat. it was a vicious cycle that went on for a couple years.

it was while she was in the midst of this vicious cycle that she met her (now ex) boyfriend and they were...whew. A WHOLE MESS. he was the frontman of a different band that was gaining more and more popularity by the day. he was older and he seemed so cool, and so ofc lux fell for him hard. they got together and appeared to be madly in love, but all was not perfect at all.

they were veeeery on and off, the type of couple to get in a screaming match and “break up” over nothing only to get back together like ten minutes later. this guy also wound up getting lux hooked on drugs, getting her arrested, getting her name plastered all over the tabloids for everything except her music, which was something that she still hadn’t quite found her footing in yet

until finally at the age of 19 she landed a record deal and, at the age of 21 after a lot of delays that had to do with her perfectionist nature and tumultuous relationship her first album was released and turned out to be a major success with all of the singles charting, lots of streams and airplay and a sold out debut tour that would unfortunately get cut short

so basically what happened was her bf showed up after one of her concerts and ofc they got high together, but then lux started to overdose. she passed out, but her bf thought she was dead and ofc he freaked out so, uh...he ran. literally bolted out of her tour bus and lux has not seen him since

fortunately she was found by someone else in time and rushed to the hospital. of course the rest of her tour was cancelled so that she could recover and she subsequently did the obligatory few months in rehab only to get out and immediately go back to using. that was over a year ago now and since then she’s been working on her second album aaaand it’s almost finished! people are starting to wonder what’s taking her so long and the answer is honestly just the fact that she’s nearly impossible to work with tbh

— “ fun facts / headcanons ! ’ 〉

lux is lux, not delilah. she uses the stage name in order to a) be pretentious and b) distance herself from her family name as a way to shut down the argument that it’s the only reason why she’s famous/successful. as for where the name came from? but yeah. lux, not delilah, or she’ll get all huffy.

pan af, has dated & hooked up with people both before and after her disaster bf and sometimes while they were “broken up” for all of ten minutes. tbh she kinda...gets with people solely to use them as songwriting material and then just dumps them when she’s gotten some material out of them? yikes! so she can be a bit of a heartbreaker.

since music is really the only thing in her life that she takes seriously, it’s what most of her energy tends to go into and it’s why she can be so impossible to work with. she’s always full steam ahead and she always thinks that she’s right, which doesn’t really pair well with the fact that she’s also very stubborn. recording studio employees have literally quit on her in the middle of a song more than once before bc they just couldn’t deal with her anymore. she’s that bad.

she’s quite intelligent and empathetic and genuinely talented but unfortunately her stubbornness and perfectionism and short temper often overshadow her best qualities and become all that people are able to see when they look at her. lux, surprisingly, doesn’t seem to realize that dialing back the attitude might help her in her quest to be just be taken seriously for fuck’s sake

she is the embodiment of ' 5′1 but attitude 6′2′.

can be v reckless, willing to try anything once.

she's v free spirited but can be flighty, never wanting to settle, always on to the next thing, whatever it may be.

big on living in the moment, future who?

— “ wanted plots ! ’ 〉

some potential wc i’m terrible at thinking of these so please don’t feel limited by this list!

best friends

step siblings

cousins

perhaps someone from her mom’s side of the fam

attempted good influence

exes ( she probs has a bunch who hate her )

former / current hookups ( again, she probably has a bunch )

ex friends / bridges she’s burned ( probs has more of these than anything else lmao )

straight up enemies

other singers or musicians who have tried to work with her

people she’s written songs about!

[jvnxa]

zoe kravitz. cis female. she/her.  ／ alissa adelman aka jynx just pulled up blasting celebrity skin by hole— that song is so them! you know, for a twenty-five year old singer, i’ve heard they’re really volatile, but that they make up for it by being so empathetic. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say oversized band tees, missed call notifications, and loose pages falling out of an overstuffed notebook. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble! (sam, 22, est, she/her)

jynx aka alissa adelman was born and raised in nyc’s upper east side. her father is one of those important wall street bigwigs and...all she knows about her mother is that she’s never known her mother.

her dad was the typical rich successful man who showered his child in all of the presents and money that she could ever ask for in order to make up for the fact that he was always too busy working to ever spend any actual time with her and instead left jynx to be raised by a revolving door of nannies

from a young age it was obvious that jynx had a talent for music & ofc her dad was willing to pay for her lessons so long as it kept her occupied so she started with singing and piano but moved on to learn a few other instruments including the guitar and even began dipping her toes into songwriting. by the age of 14 she had written and recorded a whole demo album in her bedroom and once it was done, she started sneaking out at night so that she could go hang around the local big name recording studios in the hopes that she would catch a producer leaving for the day and hopefully convince them to listen to her demo

she never did

sis really tried though. now ofc her dad could’ve paid a record company to just hand her a contract and she knew that, but dammit. jynx wanted music to be her lifelong career and she wanted to earn it herself. she knew that she was genuinely talented even though her demo album was probs lowkey garbage lmao and she knew that she could be successful, and she didn’t want anyone to be able to say that she didn’t truly work for her career

she was so determined that she spent y e a r s relentlessly hounding record companies but no one would give her the time of day, so she developed a different strategy after seeing some flyers around the city and at the age of 16 she joined a local bar band who happened to seeking a lead singer...and got kicked out like two weeks later for being absolutely fucking insufferable

join local band in need of a lead singer. attempt to overhaul said band and push all of the other members into the background. face resistance from said other members. get angry, lash out, get kicked out of the band, repeat. it was a vicious cycle that went on for a couple years.

it was while she was in the midst of this vicious cycle that she met her (now ex) boyfriend and they were...whew. A WHOLE MESS. he was the frontman of a different band that was gaining more and more popularity by the day. he was older and he seemed so cool, and so ofc jynx fell for him hard. they got together and appeared to be madly in love, but all was not perfect at all.

they were veeeery on and off, the type of couple to get in a screaming match and “break up” over nothing only to get back together like ten minutes later. this guy also wound up getting jynx hooked on drugs, getting her arrested, getting her name plastered all over the tabloids for everything except her music, which was something that she still hadn’t quite found her footing in yet

until finally at the age of 19 she landed a record deal and, at the age of 21 after a lot of delays that had to do with her perfectionist nature and tumultuous relationship her first album was released and turned out to be a major success with all of the singles charting, lots of streams and airplay and a sold out debut tour that would unfortunately get cut short

so basically what happened was her bf showed up after one of her concerts and ofc they got high together, but then jynx started to overdose. she passed out, but her bf thought she was dead and ofc he freaked out so, uh...he ran. literally bolted out of her tour bus and jynx has not seen him since

fortunately she was found by someone else in time and rushed to the hospital. of course the rest of her tour was cancelled so that she could recover and she subsequently did the obligatory few months in rehab only to get out and immediately go back to using. that was over a year ago now and since then she’s been working on her second album aaaand it’s almost finished! people are starting to wonder what’s taking her so long and the answer is honestly just the fact that she’s nearly impossible to work with tbh

and now for some quick little fun facts!

jynx is jynx, not alissa. she uses the stage name in order to a) be pretentious and b) distance herself from her family name as a way to shut down the argument that it’s the only reason why she’s famous/successful. as for where the name came from? well, a jinx is defined as a person or thing that brings bad luck. and if you just read that whole pointless and Extra™ af bio, then you know that jynx is no stranger to bad luck. as for why it’s a y instead of an i? it’s bc misspelling things is edgy and cool that’s literally it. but yeah. jynx, not alissa, or she’ll get all huffy.

pan af, has dated & hooked up with people both before and after her disaster bf and sometimes while they were “broken up” for all of ten minutes. tbh she kinda...gets with people solely to use them as songwriting material and then just dumps them when she’s gotten some material out of them? yikes! so she can be a bit of a heartbreaker.

since music is really the only thing in her life that she takes seriously, it’s what most of her energy tends to go into and it’s why she can be so impossible to work with. she’s always full steam ahead and she always thinks that she’s right, which doesn’t really pair well with the fact that she’s also very stubborn. recording studio employees have literally quit on her in the middle of a song more than once before bc they just couldn’t deal with her anymore. she’s that bad.

she’s quite intelligent and empathetic and genuinely talented but unfortunately her stubbornness and perfectionism and short temper often overshadow her best qualities and become all that people are able to see when they look at her. jynx, surprisingly, doesn’t seem to realize that dialing back the attitude might help her in her quest to be just be taken seriously for fuck’s sake

her only vc rn is halsey btw!

some potential wc i’m terrible at thinking of these so please don’t feel limited by this list!

best friends

step siblings

cousins

perhaps someone from her mom’s side of the fam

attempted good influence

exes ( she probs has a bunch who hate her how very hal of her )

former / current hookups ( again, she probably has a bunch )

ex friends / bridges she’s burned ( probs has more of these than anything else lmao )

straight up enemies

other singers or musicians who have tried to work with her

people she’s written songs about!

[someabstractthoughts]

on perfectionism and productivity

This is my first post, hi. 

I thought it would be fitting to start with the reason it took me like a month to finally write this post. 

I’ve had this blog in mind for a while now, I decided to do this late one night among way too many deep conversations with myself. I wanted to share my thoughts with the world, with the lovely anonymity of the internet. I wanted to motivate myself to be better, to share my love for science with the world, and encourage others to see science and math the same way I do. 

I brainstormed all this amazing posts and began writing down some ideas I had, how I would post all my art, and my science-y updates. Yet I could not bring myself to start. Why? 

I struggle with being a perfectionist, I love planning exactly how I’m going to do stuff, but when it comes to actually doing the thing, I often can’t bring myself to do it. I’m an expert at taking refuge behind these “perfect plans”. My plans are really good, and I can convince myself that they will go great, and if I never actually go through with them, I never have to face the possibility of them not going great. 

I hide behind my fear of failure, and end up not doing a lot of things that really excite me, then I feel terrible about not doing stuff, and plan how I’ll make up for it, but never get to doing it, and the cycle repeats.

So I’m here, writing it all out, and putting it out into the world. It’s not perfect, it might not be the “perfect” way to start a new blog, but who cares. This is me facing my issues, and just going for it. 

I know that if I keep waiting for the perfect time, I’ll never do anything. It’s time to do the thing. Take this as a promise, to myself and to anyone who might be reading this, that I will work on writing not-perfect posts and making some not-perfect art,  and sharing it with the internet. 

If you made it this far, thank you! And take this as a sign to do the thing you’re putting off. Pick up the sketchbook, face the blank page, send that email, text that person. It will be fine. 

[jlf23tumble]

Of course I know that Louis doesn’t owe me anything. And I would never want him to go back to a One Direction-esque timeline because that was treacherous. But like. I do not care if he wants to take another year or two or seventeen! I don’t care if he never wants to release music again. I support him! But if that’s the case I wish he would say it instead of pretending that something is about to happen for two years when he knows it’s not. It’s misleading and not fair to people invested.

anon 2: Also people have to get over the “he lied to us” thing. Have you been around at all? He does it constantly. We’re all here saying he doesn’t actually have a girlfriend or a child. We’re no special kind of fans he would never lie to. We’re not his friends or his family. I’m sure he appreciates all the support but we’re a group of people who need to be managed as a collective - people for whom images are crafted and perceptions shaped… They’re selling stuff to us not trying to become our bffs.

anon 3: Oh I totally think he was lying and i would never criticize him for that his fandom is a mess like i get it, i respect that, and i probably would have advised him to do the same

+++++

I’m gonna group these here because #2 and #3 really help answer #1 way better than I could. I’d only add some questions, like, why are you so invested in this album’s release schedule? Why does it bother you so much to wait for six months vs. sixteen? Is there some sort of project in your own life that’s hinging on this album’s release? Do you follow any other bands? Are you aware that most of them go through an announce and wait cycle, like, pretty much always? I feel like there’s an inflexibility here that puts Louis in particular into a “no win” situation. I also have a lot of thoughts about his perfectionism and the album’s theme and how much control he has over that theme, and I would imagine this album has shifted shape multiple times (see: Harry’s album and how “Medicine” was the first song he wrote for it, and yet. AND YET), in addition to his team shifting, too. A chunk of my inbox would tell you I’m a terrible fan, though, so maybe I’m the wrong person to ask.

[seedlingjournal]

1. The problem isn’t that I like to work on a bunch of projects. The problem is that I like to work on a bunch of projects AT THE SAME TIME. Not as in I have lots of things going on over time, as in I have five projects laid out on the table/open in browser tabs and I flit from one task for one project to another task for a different one. I lose my focus, drain my energy, and so many things stay unfinished because of this and too many unfinished things leads to overwhelm leads to indecision leads to stagnation.

2. The solution is: one thing at a time. Duh.

3. The foundation has to be simple so that the layers built atop it can be complex, not the other way around.

4. I’m a chronic overexplainer and I’m getting real tired of that shit.

5. keep some of that power to yourself

6. Throughout the day I’m constantly refilling my mug to ensure I have a drink at all times (it’s a lifestyle, man) and I think of this as a teeny life/death/life cycle in itself. Full, draining, empty, full again. And so it goes.

7. “And so it goes”... Why am I reminded of Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut? I should reread that.

8. Maybe just jump into things without expecting it to be cathartic. Don’t wait for it to mean something terribly profound. Just do it for the process. Do it for the experience. Do it because the doing matters.

9. During my rough weeks, extreme perfectionism is my biggest crippler.

10. Play happens when perfectionism is released.

[ghostmartyr]

Obsession and Fandom

2018 being a year of doing better, apparently I’ve decided that being overly honest about fandom and my interactions with it is an A+ idea.

I think most people on the internet these days have no idea what OCD is. Even the people who know enough to understand that it’s a serious problem don’t often examine it past that. Something to do with washing hands and perfectionism, only damaging and crazy.

OCD is built on doubt.

Pick a thing, any thing, that you believe to be true. You turned off the lights. You didn’t run anyone over on your way home. You would never hurt a child. Your God is real. You love your significant other. Your house is not currently on fire. You don’t live on a fault line. Your hands are clean.

Where OCD starts is in the anxiety of uncertainty. In panic loudly suggesting in your own voice, “what if?” You can’t just remember that you turned off the lights. What if you were wrong? Human memories are so fallible. What if your electricity bill spikes and you can’t pay it and you get kicked out and you don’t have enough money left to eat?

Go check.

Twenty times at four in the morning.

Then one more time, to be certain.

Always one more time.

The cycle itself is very simple. Something makes you anxious. You react with compulsions to wave off the anxiety. The compulsions upgrade the importance of whatever made you anxious. The next time the source of anxiety hits, it’s worse, and the compulsions just keep digging into the rut.

Part of what makes that cycle so hard to shake is the obsession aspect.

The general rule of treating OCD is that you need to cut out compulsive behavior. That’s the component that’s keeping everything running. Understandably, this is harder than it sounds.

OCD is a broken coping mechanism. The compulsions put distance between you and the anxiety. Every time you check, and it’s all okay, your brain rewards you with relief sweet enough that you don’t draw the link between that compulsive behavior and the terror that spawned it. The compulsions are how you’re fighting the anxiety, and not fighting means that this great threat will certainly kill you.

Enter the importance of the obsession.

Someone once made a chart about tumblr, and how it treated emotional response. I don’t remember the specifics, and can’t find it, so I’m kind of just hoping I’m not grossly misrepresenting the example, but it was a simple bar chart, illustrating how tumblr did away with a balanced range of highs and lows. Every bar went through the roof.

Obsession is a time-honored way of describing passionate interests. You don’t just like a movie; you’re obsessed with it. It makes your heart beat faster and consumes all your waking thoughts, because that’s just how much it means to you. It is The Thing for you.

In fan circles, this is perfectly normal. We all show up because we love a thing (or hate how we should have loved a thing), and are willing to devote hours and hours of our loves luxuriating in it. This thing, which is just a movie or a comic book or a band, has intense value to us. It matters. Fiction matters to our reality.

What happens with obsession is that you lose the ability to correctly perceive something’s importance. Because whatever it is you’re obsessed with is The Most Important.

Fannish obsessions are, ideally, about enriching your life. They add joy, or some other sense of fulfillment. OCD obsessions impede life. Things that may or may not be inconsequential become so Important that it’s impossible to think that chilling out about them is even advisable.

It matters that you know the lights aren’t on. How could your brain think otherwise? Worse, it’s dangerous to think otherwise. A clear threat to your livelihood is presented in knowing whether the lights are on or not. Are you really going to be so careless as to disregard that?

It matters.

No, you can’t just shut up about this and go about your life, because it matters.

One of the fascinating things about psychological disorders is how quite a few orderly humans have usually brushed against symptoms. Most people don’t have depression. Many people understand feeling depressed. Most people don’t have anxiety. Pretty much everyone has felt anxious.

Plenty of people have superstitions and rituals.

Plenty of people get obsessed with things.

Unfortunately, that can make it hard to communicate the problem. People relate to other people through their own experiences. If you tell them something that sounds like something they’re familiar with, they’re going to assume that it’s that thing they’re familiar with, not something different. Going with depression, since I think that narrative’s the most common to hear nowadays, many people have had terrible days, and felt really broken, and sad, and like the world is ending.

Then a good night’s sleep happened, or the next day, or the next week, and the trauma was over, so it passed, and it was all good.

So don’t let a few bad days get you down! :) :)

It’s well-meaning, but frustrating. Sounding the same does not equal being the same.

I'm trying to be extra careful about that here, because OCD is misunderstood frequently enough without my help. Discussing behaviors I’m more aware of thanks to an anxiety disorder is not the same as saying those behaviors only ever belong to that thing.

Not every rectangle is a square.

So. Let’s talk why I’m bringing all of this up.

Humans like labeling things. That means that nearly everyone with OCD who has gone and investigated themselves on the internet is familiar with very specific ways to denote how their OCD presents.

Disaster OCD. POCD. ROCD. Harm OCD. Pure O.

To be as clear as I possibly can, all of those extra unique titles are just a fancy way of saying, “I obsess about X.” It is all OCD. They are useful categories when it comes to explaining your personal experience, but the diagnosis remains OCD. The extra fluff of other letters or words is just shorthand.

What I have would be called Pure O. It stands for “pure obsessional.” Like several bits of naming vernacular OCD communities adopt, that’s a misnomer. It gets the name because with Pure O, the compulsion is obsession. All of the compulsions are relatively invisible because they happen internally.

To be even more specific, one of my themes is moral scrupulosity.

An obsession with being moral.

If I’m angry over something, my mind wants five hours of pacing and detailed thought analysis explaining why, in order for it to judge if it is acceptable to have those feelings.

If something hurts me, my mind wants five hours of pacing and detailed thought analysis explaining why, in order for it to judge if it is acceptable to have those feelings.

If I like something untoward, my mind wants five hours of pacing and detailed thought analysis explaining why, in order for it to judge if it is acceptable to have those feelings.

It isn’t enough to have feelings. Those feelings have to be Right. They have to be justified. If I can’t justify them, they shouldn’t be there, because I need to be right. I can’t just dislike something. I can’t just be angry. I definitely can’t like things.

There have to be Reasons.

Before I went to therapy, that was my entire life. Not letting any of my emotional responses go, because the most Important thing in the world was being a good person, and the only way to know that I’m being a good person is to have a solid copy of every argument that I can come up with that’s even slightly to related to whatever it was I was thinking about.

Usually, the end result (using ‘end’ loosely) was a bunch of exhausted, dizzy thoughts, and deep emotional unrest. Along with hours of my life that I’d spent entirely inside my own head, contributing nothing to the outside world.

Fandom right now is such a trip for me, because it’s full of people validating my worst moments. They dance with the rhetoric that the hell inside my head invented for me, and that’s considered right and proper.

Everyone gets so worked up over whether or not something is problematic. Everyone gets so worked up over whether or not it’s okay to ship a thing. Everyone gets so worked up over there only ever being five ways to ethically enjoy a problematic thing. Everyone gets so worked up disagreeing.

Everyone gets so worked up over proving their point.

Because it’s all so important.

When I was first seeking treatment specifically for my OCD troubles, I talked to my therapist about its qualification as an anxiety disorder. Yes, I told her, I spend hours and hours and hours turning things over in my head, it makes me miserable, and it is a problem, but... I don’t feel, like, anxious about it.

She asks me what happens if I stop. I stare at her blankly. ...Stop? ??? What do you mean... stop? There wasn’t any answer to that. Not following through on my compulsions was such an impossibility that I couldn’t even figure out why it was so important to do them.

The compulsions are a broken coping mechanism to keep the anxiety at a distance.

Put in the terms of standard human interaction, it’s a layer of crap meant to distract from the real issue.

The real issue is the feelings, and the refusal to let yourself have them.

You treat OCD by cutting out the compulsions and letting the anxiety happen. Instead of prolonging it, you let all of the torment wash over you. You don’t engage. You just allow it to exist.

Slowly, you ease out of the rut the compulsions dug. Are the feelings fun? No. Does every part of your soul want to kick and scream and defend yourself? Yes.

Will that ultimately make the pain worse?

Hell yes.

There are so many different ways to look at my mental history, look at fandom, and start going off about how damaging certain things can be. I honestly wouldn’t know where to start if I wanted to get through them all. I began this post without a clue where I’d end up.

The thing about making stuff Important is that then you can borrow from other Important things to illustrate your point. After all, it’s all on the same level of importance. This creates a loop of intensity, where the Importance keeps growing, and growing, and any threat to the Important thing is worthy of unholy wrath for the sake of all that is good in the world.

Very, very quickly, rival ships aren’t just an unpleasant thing. They’re dangerous. They caused you discomfort, pain even, and here’s ten thousand reasons that make an ironclad case for destroying every trace of the evil.

Borrowing rhetoric feels good. It turns your uneasy feelings into something bigger than yourself; something righteous. You aren’t just a tired human who wishes fandom liked what you like more, you’re a crusader against injustice.

We’re all tired humans.

Whatever you’re feeling, however awful or good it is, one of the most destructive things you can do to yourself (or others) is demand a reason for it. Humans are emotional idiots capable of feeling more for people who don’t exist than for each other.

It’s okay to have feelings just because you have feelings. They don’t need to be right or wrong. You are allowed to exist without reason. You can read a book or listen to a song and take it however you want.

The people around you can, too.

Obsession steals away perception. It makes small things feel more important than anything else. Shouting at other people for doing things wrong becomes more obviously meaningful than building up what you find to be right.

The most important thing in your fandom experience should be yourself. It is not supposed to hurt you. Pain is the universal sign that something is wrong. Experiencing it during something that should be enriching your life is a problem, and just because other people can set it off doesn’t mean that they’re the cause.

Whenever someone brings up fandom and its purity kick, I remember what it’s like to be trapped in that type of thinking. It’s still something I struggle with. Daily. People diving into it blindly because the train tracks are all set up and ready to go is distressing.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to get at with all of this, so I can’t wrap it up very neatly. I just wanted to share, on the off chance that someone might find something valuable in it.

[katiecaseycounseling-blog]

Breaking the Perfectionist Cycle

There are a lot of other ways we can numb out or avoid emotions: alcohol, drugs, food, sex, and technology. One way that I think is just as detrimental but is a lot harder to identify: perfectionism and it’s close friend, control. They like to do things together, you rarely see one without the other, and they are best friends. It's because when we believe the lie that we need to be perfect or actually can become perfect, we try to control our lives to reach that ideal. That’s where the perfectionist cycle begins.

"Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame."  -- Brene Brown, Gifts of Imperfection

I've known people who have worked themselves crazy in the attempts to control everything and appear like they have their lives together. So often, it makes them feel like they were OK to pretend like everything was going along fine. Here lies the big deceit of perfectionism: if things are perfect around them and you spent all that time to make it happen, then you aren't really paying attention to the things going on within you and how you feel is OK. In other words, if everything is good around you, then you are OK. This never happens though and usually, things are a hot mess. Sound familiar? 

Here’s the thing, that fruitless pursuit towards controlling everything to looking good and being perfect while ignoring, stuffing down, and numbing out actually brings more pain, anxiety, and heartbreak into your life.  Then, with all those unhelpful emotions coming up, it's typically to continue the perfectionism cycle to numb out those painful emotions that continue to come up. What a terrible, destructive cycle.

It doesn’t have to be that way

That cycle can break. Life can be different. And that’s a miracle too because we can only be on that hamster wheel for so long before it comes off its hinges, and our mental health goes right along with it. Here are three simple ideas that can help you start to break this cycle:

Perfect doesn’t exist: Repeat it with me. Perfect doesn’t exist. Repeat it till you believe it. Somewhere, somehow, you came to believe perfect was real and achievable. Now, it is time to learn something new. Another great way to do this is with some great affirmations. One of my favorites to use in this area is “I’m OK as I am.” 

The opposite of perfection isn’t weakness: I know it might feel that way at first try to break that cycle. If we aren’t perfectly put together, it doesn’t mean we are weak. I think the opposite is actually a strength. Because when we are able to feel open and honestly, be our true selves, and live freely (with all the pressures around us to do the opposite) takes a ton of strength.

Vulnerability sucks: Yep the therapist said vulnerability sucks. It is often not an enjoyable thing. Here’s the kicker though, it is oh-so-necessary. It might be painful to live freely and be your true self at first, but it’s way better than that darn perfectionist cycle. Be a little uncomfortable now, feeling truly and sincerely, for the alternative of feeling a whole lot worse later because you have stuffed it all down pretending you have your life together. Also, when we are able to feel our emotions as they come (no matter what) we are able to feel more of the emotions that we want.

Along those same lines, I encourage you to watch this TED talk by Brene Brown. Even if you have watched it before, watch it again and again. Watch it till you can live it out. Her work on shame, vulnerability, and much more is fantastic if you have never explored it.