#but how much worse does this societal idea of only bad people have that disorder on ppl getting help?!

[ken-katayanagi]

And the whole thing is so funny because you know what would let more narcissists seek out treatment without their brains literally losing it because they’re doing something that goes against the idea that they’re already a perfect amazing person who doesn’t need to change or improve? DESTIGMATIZING THE FUCKING MENTAL ILLNESS!!!

[ghostonly]

Disability, Cures, and the Complex Relationship Between Them

So, I've been thinking a lot lately about cures, just in general, as a concept. I've been watching the excellent videos of John Graybill II on Youtube, where he demonstrates his day-to-day movements as someone with Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy 2a, and updates every year to show how it progresses. I'm currently writing a character with LGMD and wanted to be sure I understand exactly how it impacts his daily life and movement limitations, so this has been extremely helpful, because there's only so much you can glean from a list of symptoms.

Quick Background on John Graybill II

John started this series in 2007/8, back when he was about 30 years old. He was diagnosed when he was 17, back in '95, and, when he started this series, he was very much fighting his LGMD, in a constant struggle, and angry with himself and the condition. In this, he directed a lot of toxic positivity at himself and became convinced he could defeat LGMD with positive thinking, healthy diet, etc.

Now, while I respect that there are positives to this (exercise and eating well is rarely a bad thing, and the stretches he does almost certainly have helped him to lengthen his time with mobility), there is also something to be said for accepting a physical disability for what it is. In later videos, he clearly had shifted that mindset toward something a bit more realistic. Where, in the beginning, he had been certain that he would somehow heal himself through positivity and such, he later says that may never happen, and he wants to enjoy doing what he can, while he can, instead of being in a constant battle with himself.

That being said, he does run an organization (I believe he runs it?) that seeks to fund research and find a cure for muscular dystrophy of this particular variety. And, while watching his videos from oldest to newest, I've been grappling with my complicated feelings regarding cures.

Why Are Cures a Complicated Topic?

The reason cures are a complicated topic is because, for a lot of us, cures are unlikely to ever be developed - at least not within our lifetimes and probably not within our children's lifetimes. Many physical disabilities and disorders are just too rare, too unknown, the cause unclear. For us, we have to just accept that this is something we have to live with, for better or for worse.

The other reason is that people are often proponents of seeking cures for things that don't need curing, such as autism. Obviously I haven't polled every autistic person alive, but I have known and read content from countless autistic people. I don't think I've ever found a single autistic person who wanted to be cured of autism. In fact, I would say most of them were pretty vocally oppositional toward the idea, for good reason. 90% of the difficulty that comes with being autistic comes from societal ableism and accessibility issues on a systemic level.

My Thoughts on Cures

I can't speak for everyone with incurable physical disabilities that are unlikely to have a cure developed, nor can I speak for everyone who's autistic, but, speaking for myself, talk of cures can be extremely uncomfortable to me.

I asked myself why. Because, in reality, there shouldn't be anything wrong with researching a cure for something like LGMD. It causes people great difficulty and often great pain. For certain variants, it causes early death.

And, after reflecting on my feelings for a long while, I think I've figured out why the word and the concept bothers me so much.

Cures Are Often Used as a Crutch for Ableism

There are, broadly speaking, two camps of people who want cures:

People who want to improve their quality of life, the quality of life of someone they love, or who want to prevent future generations from the difficulty they or a loved one have been dealt

People who are uncomfortable with disability and want it to go away

This is a venn diagram with a large overlap. The number of people who are purely in camp 1 is much smaller than you might hope.

Why Is Wanting to Get Rid of Disability a Problem?

Okay so here's why camp 2 is a problem. Let's say, for the sake of the argument, that every disability has a possible cure that just has to be found. Why is that a problem? Disability is bad, right?

Wrong! Disability is completely amoral - it has no goodness or badness. It just is. Ideally, some of the more painful disabilities could be cured to prevent pain and early death. However, the problem with viewing disability, in a vacuum, as bad, is that your opinion of the disability will inevitably rub off on the people with the disability.

When you view disability as an adversary, you view disabled people as a problem to solve.

Just as John Graybill II explains in one of his stair-climbing videos a few years into the series, he had spent so long trying to fight the progression of the illness, that he had spent every day in passive anger and frustration. He had forgotten to just enjoy his ability to climb stairs. And he said that he wished he could go back and just enjoy it - stop timing himself on his stopwatch and trying to beat his times. Basically, even as a disabled man himself, he had spent so long looking at his disability as a problem to fix, he hadn't been properly enjoying being a person and just living his life.

When you apply the same fix-it approach to someone who doesn't have a disability, it's equally easy for them to forget the personhood of the people with disabilities. Only, instead of it being directed at themselves, it is directed at others. They push their disabled loved ones to just try harder, just push harder and for longer, eat right, try this, do that, think right, take vitamins - if you just try hard enough, you can beat this!

Except... most of the time, you can't.

The idea that doing everything right will allow you to beat a chronic illness is just ableism in a scientific hat. You're afraid - of being disabled, of the consequences of disability, of someone you love being different, of them looking weird, becoming weird, being seen in public yourself or with someone disabled, of being uncomfortable, of having to put in more energy and effort into helping someone with special needs.

The list of things people are afraid of is endless, and the positive spin on that ableism is simply fighting to fix it.

Make it go away so that you don't have to deal with it anymore.

And then, when you take that approach and apply it to the countless disabilities that don't have cures and may never have cures, you end up with boatloads of people who are seen as problems to solve. They feel like a burden to their family and friends. They're pushed to do what hurts and will actually cause more long-term problems for them by forcing themselves to do things they shouldn't be doing - things that damage their bodies, which aren't meant to do those things anymore.

The Long-Term Consequences of Ableist Pushes for Cures

So back to that argument about all disabilities being curable with time: what's the problem with making some disabled people uncomfortable if, one day, all disability is cured and there are no more disabled people?

Well, the simple answer is this: that's never going to happen, and if you think that way, you're a eugenicist.

Even if every disability is curable with time, the ends do not justify the means - the means being to humiliate and degrade disabled people by treating them like problems.

And it would take decades, maybe even centuries, of those means to even reach the ends. But we'll stop that argument there, because there will never be an end to disability.

Why There Is No End to Disability

So, the thing about disability, is it will never cease to exist. Even if it was a good goal to have, which it isn't, it's never going to happen.

Disability is often caused by gene mutation. At one point, none of the gene mutations for our current physical disabilities existed. They developed. And, just as the current disabilities developed over time and with gene mutations, so will new and different ones. Even if we cured all of the current disabilities, there would always be new ones, likely developing as fast as we can cure the existing ones.

Additionally, a lot of disability is not congenital. People who are in accidents and lose legs will never be able to regrow those legs. Even if eugenicists managed to prevent any "deformed" babies from being born without limbs, people would lose them from accidents and infection, and all kinds of things.

In a world where all congenital disabilities were cured, what quality of life do you expect people in wheelchairs to have?

Because I think I can confidently say that, if everything congenital were cured, a day wouldn't pass before accessibility laws were thrown out the window. We would be returned to the days where disabled people are hidden away and can't leave the house - kept as shameful secrets by families who resent them, or shown off as paragons of strength and virtue when/if they're able to be fitted with a working prosthetic.

Neither of these outcomes is positive.

The Slippery Slope of Cure Ideology

So, on to another argument: there is a lot of danger in letting cure ideology go unchallenged.

I want to clarify again, that I don't think we should never research cures. I'm challenging, specifically, the social movement behind cures that is often driven by eugenicism and ableism.

So, why is it dangerous to let that exist? Well, let's look back at the reason I mentioned that people are in camp 2: they are afraid of being uncomfortable. They are afraid of what's different from them. They view difference as a problem to be solved - a disease or a disorder.

You can see this exact principle in action when people fight for a cure for autism. It's being fought for by the allistics who know people with autism, not usually the autistics themselves. It's being fought for by parents who are angry that their child is different or won't look them in the eyes. They see them as an obstacle to overcome, not as a person who has a different way of socializing. Even in the best case, where they see them as a person more than a problem, they are seen as a person with a wrong and disordered way of socializing.

Imagine, for a moment, that there was an allistic trait that people treated as disordered or wrong the way an ableist might treat hand-flapping or lining up toys. Let's take a direct comparison - something one does when they're happy - like laughing. Imagine, for a moment, that something you do when you're joyful, is treated like a maladaption. Perhaps, in this alternate universe, smiling is normal, but laughing is disturbing to people. You spend your life desperately trying to repress your laughter, hiding your joy, even though it's the most natural thing in the world to you. How would you feel hearing people chanting positively, with smiles, taking donations, running marathons and dancing, all for a cure for laughter?

Really, really, genuinely think about it.

Imagine living your entire life like that.

This doesn't just relate to autism.

The reason this ideology has to be challenged is not just by the concrete example of people trying to cure autism, it's the root of the ideology, that different is bad. That the majority being uncomfortable means the minority is wrong and needs to be fixed.

Is this ringing any other bells for you? Because autism isn't the only thing I desperately hope they don't find a genetic link for.

If fighting for a cure for anything people deem different and weird enough goes unchallenged, people will attempt to cure anything they don't like. Like being gay. Or being trans.

And I'm not talking about conversion camps that try to brainwash you into thinking you're not gay. I'm not talking about the abusive Christian approach, I'm talking about the eugenicist scientist approach.

If a genetic link were found or if there was some kind of actual biological difference, that could mean people trying to test fetuses for the "homosexuality gene" or whatever. It would give a concrete path for eugenicists to try preventing gay and trans people from ever even being born.

And, if that biological connection is found, how long do you think it would take for people to start excitedly pushing for a cure to "homosexuality" or "transgenderism"?

What is the point of this post?

It's food for thought.

I want, not only my abled followers, but my disabled ones as well, to reflect on how they feel about cures - about being cured or about curing others.

I want you all to ask yourself, am I in camp 1 or camp 2?

Your goal in supporting a cure should be to prevent death, to prevent pain that cannot be overcome through systemic support and accessibility, to help people live lives with quality.

Your goal in supporting a cure should never be to remove something that makes you uncomfortable. If you're abled, it should never be to make your life easier or alleviate your feelings of guilt, resentment, or stress. It should never be to make people normal, especially not people you care about.

And, on a final note, remember that the things you see in a disability you know nothing about may not have anything to do with reality. If you see a disability for the first time and you immediately wish for a cure for it, simply because it looks painful, maybe find out if it actually is first. Sometimes we attribute pain and misery to things that are no big deal to the people dealing with them. And, in doing so, we also attribute heroicism and virtue to the people dealing with them - which they did not ask for.

Don't make disabled people into a project. Don't use them as inspiration porn - putting them on a pedestal and using them as proof that "anything is possible."

Treat disabled people with dignity and respect.

Treat disabled people as people, with or without them jumping through every hoop you think will make them better.

Think about how fucking annoying it would be if, every time you got up from a chair in public, everyone stared at you, or even praised you for it. How uncomfortable would you be if no one ever saw you as yourself but as some kind of ambassador for strong, amazing people who are so so so cool because they can tie their shoelaces.

Think about how fucking infuriating it would be if every tenth person you walked past turned to you, looking sad, and said "god bless you."

Think about how old that would get, and how fast.

That's all. Just think about it.

[hostilemuppet]

Brozone & Acquaintances: Fame and Blunders (The Rise And Fall, The Epic Highs And Lows Of Trolltwt) Part Seven

The Lucky Seventh Chapter: Seven TheyFAB Exes: The Seven Stages of Internet Beef

Viva: After “practising” throwing herself down the stairs for totally innocent and non blackmail reasons, Viva’s egg breaks. She is livid, not just because it’s her baby, but bc she is a fucking monster and only wanted the baby to control Clay, who still didn’t even know she was eggnant. Luckily........

Broppy: They’re expecting! They’re sooooooo happy, they just can’t wait to tell everyone! Poppy insists they get to tell her sister first, and Branch just cant say no to her ♥. However, Viva “talks some sense into them”. How can they have a kid? So soon? Poppy’s barely in her mid 20s! They’re not even MARRIED, are they really going to have a kid out of wedlock? What if they break up? You’d really traumatise that poor kid for your own gain? And so on. They end up agreeing that they should either abort it, or put it up for adoption, and Viva says she will take care of it, she’ll always take care of everything, she’d do anything for you, Poppy, and even though Branch and Poppy leave Viva and Clay’s pod missing an egg and of slightly duller saturation, Viva considers it a victory.

Satin & Chenille: Graciously invited to the Floyd & Creek [LASTNAME]-[LASTNAME2] household for dinner. Creek is the one who invited them, because he used to date both sisters (He dated Satin first, then started cheating on her with Chenille (on account of their societally accepted eating disorders they take a lot of naps at different schedules, and Creek planned around that), then broke it off with Satin to exclusively date Chenille (he’s the one who recommended her a doctor for her liposuctions) who eventually dumped HIM after finding out she was, once again, left with her sister’s sloppy seconds) and wants to “bury the hatchet”. Floyd does not know any of this. He thinks they’re just old friends.

Even though Floyd and Creek have experience pretending to be a normal couple they let it slip that they actually hate each other (in the most /pos /affectionate /sexual intent way possible) after they both get drunk and fight about Brozone, and TrollTube, and lactose intolerance, and lastly the fact that Creek killed their baby, which causes him to pounce on Floyd like an enraged chimpanzee in a way the twins think MIGHT have been foreplay? But was probably just some sort of domestic row. Unbeknownst to them, it was both.

Chenille captures half the fight on her trollPhone 15 Pro and S&C say they will both release the footage AND discuss the rest of their experiences on their podcast, UNLESS they get something in return for their silence. Floyd immediately tries to phone Clay (who does not pick up) to see how much they can afford to pay them off, but the twins say they don’t want their money (Satin still wants their money) and that they both have to be on their show. Floyd and Creek don’t think that sounds so bad! They’re celebrities, after all, they’re used to being interviewed. Floyd is the first to go on the show and he comes back home feeling emotionally violated. He assumes Creek will fare a lot worse but Creek is a sex pest and is not capable of feeling much shame anymore, so he’s doing okay. Really, he’s mostly concerned at the idea his husband will find out he invited two of his exes into the pod, but the twins don’t want people to know that either (not because he’s a controversial figure, since, samesies, but because they’re ashamed of how bad their taste was back then).

Hairgate: The twins send Creek home with complimentary Nova Swift Brand Shampoo and despite there being clear instructions on the label, he uses too much so his hair becomes frazzled and immobile. Floyd tells him that's just what happens to troll hair once you approach your 30s to mess with him, and even though Creek knows that's factually not true he is still inconsolable. Floyd has to actually help him after he tries to turn his hair into a noose, fails, and crawls into a ball and sobs. Floyd helps him condition with Nova Swift Brand Conditioner and after a week he's back to normal, albeit having once again been put through the emotional wringer. But that's what he signed up for when he proposed!

Demo: Val’s manager and roommate. Gave them a place to stay after they left Barb’s band and crack house and doesn’t know how to begin to tackle the topic of their racism. He can't even ask them to stop smoking weed in the house! At least use the window, Val!

He’s also the guy Gus usually queerbaits with, but only because he thinks Gus is actually gay. He thinks there’s a misunderstanding WRT Gus’ violent homophobia so he tries to “help his friend out”. Gus suggests they pretend to be a couple to get the heat off him and Demo agrees a little too quickly, despite already dating DJ Suki, who knows about the plan and doesn’t care. She and Demo’s relationship was already on the rocks after finding out she uses child labour, and after Gus starts to develop genuine feelings for Gus he breaks it off with her to tell him how he really feels, which goes about as well as you’d expect telling a homophobic straight man you’re in love with him to go. He tries to get back with DJ despite their issues and she says “nah”.

Cloud Guy: After being permabanned on Troll Twitter, he moves back in with his parents. He lasts a month before intentionally dissipating himself into mist. Rest in perspiration. Branch celebrates in the privacy of his own pod because he knows it’s a shitty thing to be happy about. Dante approves of this rare display of Branch’s sociopathy (he’s earned it).

Clay: Viva forced JD to let her see Clay, and she tells him that she’s got an egg, then shows him the little pastel pink + baby blue egg in her hair. He immediately goes back to her, thrilled he’s gonna be a dad, and convinced this is what it’ll take to fix their relationship. It is not. He still tries to make it work, and dedicates every waking moment to either prepping for the baby or doing whatever it is Viva tells him to do (he doesn’t want to provoke her, after all).

Dante: Sends a glitter bomb to Branch’s current pod (he moved out of his bunker. Because of Dante). Since they are trolls, the glitter bomb is treated with the exact same intensity and urgency as an actual bomb, which it probably functions as. Poppy visits Dante’s pod in The Crest and beats him over the head with one of the spikes she borrowed from Branch, because she’s too scared to skewer him, but she assures him that next time she’ll get over that fear. He calls the Classical Crest Cops on her, and you’d think small town police would have nothing on the Queen, but you’d be wrong. She spends the night in a jail cell before Branch is allowed to pick her up, and he has to break the news that Dante’s pressing charges for aggravated assault. They just can’t catch a break these days!

Bedgate: Guy Diamond doubles down on his controversial conservative parenting style and gets very public with how he thinks letting troll babies sleep in beds instead of in their parents’ hair leads to mental issues. His primary source is Creek’s conspiracy video (and accompanying community post) about the links between beds and Autism in troll babies, while Creek doesn’t believe this one bit and even lets his kids sleep in beds. He just says it for the clicks.

Floyd (either under the effects of miscellaneous substances or just wanting to make life harder for his husband) posts a "wholesome family photo" of him and his lovespawn (Creek is absent) in their room with their beds clearly visible, and the anti-bed crowd immediately turn on Creek for lying about his support for the cause.

Guy Diamond goes through Tiny’s phone after the "Tiny is famous Trollex stan account" incident and finds a message he sent on Troll Discord where he says he wishes he had a bed. Guy starts sobbing. It’s a deeper cut than him being Pro-Choice.

Barb throws her hat into the ring, because of course she does. She’s pro-bed, and thinks it’s awful that Guy wouldn’t love his kid even if he does end up "fucked in the head". Guy responds "Are you fucking kidding me? Are you serious right now? Am I being Punk’d? Why is the TERF preaching to me?"

Guy Diamond only bothered checking out Creek’s conspiracy videos because he wanted to reconnect with him after seeing how Creek fanart seemingly overnight pivoted into solely depicting him as a trans man. He now thinks the only reason Creek was so dismissive of him back when they were briefly together (while Guy identified as nonbinary and Creek only dated theyfabs who were not taking T) was because Creek was struggling with internalised transphobia, instead of regular transphobia, which Creek did used to have because he is a cis man and the only reason people draw him with top surgery scars now is because Harper started doing it (for the “representation”) and it caught on. He’s not trans, he’s just short and boyishly handsome. Guy thinks Creek now “accepts himself” (there is nothing to accept because Creek is a cis man) and is worth another shot (Creek is miserably married and has no intentions of ending the arrangement ever).

Veneer: Got hit by a bus. Velvet set up a GoFundMe to hold a proper funeral for him but she has no intention of actually holding a funeral. She spends it all on vanity purchases. Kid Ritz boosted the GoFundMe when it was in its infancy and now he feels super bad about it.

[ladybirdplace]

Vanity

Repeat after me: It is not bad to enjoy looking at yourself in the mirror and have pride for your appearance.

I have seen so, so many people lately considering looking at yourself to be a form of egotism.

I think in my posts, I will say egotism instead of narcissism, because I don’t at all want to further stigmatize people with NPD. I know technically they are two terms, one describing a quality and the other describing a personality disorder, but right now, it’s use as a buzzword has been very harmful to people with NPD, and on a lesser scale, those who do not as well. Since the time in which the Bible was written, a preoccupation with one’s own appearance has been considered a sign of pride, in a bad sense. This isn’t a new thing. But I really think that we should be past that by now.

It’s not wrong to look at yourself in the mirror and like what you see. In fact, that’s very much, on its own, a good thing.

I am rather privileged in that I’ve never had a lot of trouble with my body image. All I’ve had is some fleeting hiccups, which of course seems strange seeing as I’m AFAB and designated female bodies are constantly degraded and policed for how they look at any given moment. But I suppose because I’ve divorced myself from femaleness so long ago, (I socially transitioned at twelve) messages directed at women and other AFAB people did not harm me as much.

And also I’m autistic, so the idea of people disliking me for my appearance does not bother me as much as it would others.

I’ve had some dysphoria and negative associations, but it’s never been overwhelming or intense.

I’ve always considered myself a decently attractive person. But these past two years I’ve realized that I am stunning. Not really because of my physical appearance, but because my body is my vessel, the container and vehicle for my soul.

When I look at myself, I see beauty. Not because of the frank facts of what I see, but because that there that I see is me. And that makes me absolutely gorgeous to look at.

In society today, mirrors are a source of anxiety and dread. For some, a mirror is only there for you to scrutinize your flaws and to denigrate yourself for what The Great Gods have given you. And that’s really depressing to me.

It doesn’t surprise me in a world where physical insecurity is societally ingrained in us from the moment we are solipsized in our own bodies and reinforced daily, that loving how you look and liking to look at yourself is demonized as a symptom of egotism and social dysfunction. But it’s sad.

Personally, I think a preoccupation with your appearance, obsessing over your physical flaws negatively, is a lot worse than liking how you look.

[werevulvi]

I'm starting to slowly understand that this de-transition I'm doing will probably always be pretty rough on me. I'm re-watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for the millionth time. I guess, for being about a hyper-feminine, conventionally attractive girl, it's pretty empowering. And Giles is definitely my favourite, British dork. Buffy is empowering because she really doesn't need anyone to help her out, except when she wants help. She's the furthest thing from a helpless damsel in distress, but she's also vulnerable and in many ways, like any other teenage girl.

I guess I can relate to that, on the level of depths I rarely swim in. Except in reverse. Like I look really masculine, male, and very different from other women, but on the inside I'm still vulnerable, and understanding the world from having been socialised female, like I guess most women are, to various degrees. And I guess I'm holding onto that. Sometimes too much. Sometimes... even to my detriment.

But when your womanhood is almost literally hanging by a thread, and you treasure it... it's easy to clutch too damn hard at it, as if your life somehow depended on that grip. And I guess that's how Buffy got me thinking, really a lot. Thoughts that have been passing through my mind for a while now, finally stuck around long enough for me to grasp.

It feels like there's just no ideal solution for me. I'm still generally at a pretty good place with my gender and presentation now. There's nothing I really wanna change, except from going back on testosterone. But how satisfied am I really? That's the difficult question. I get these moments here and there, when I get... you know, sad. I guess I get jealous of women who still look like women. Like Buffy, and all those other female characters that I relate to (all three of them, lol.) Their ability to blend into society as one of the females. That which I once used to take for granted, and barely even was aware of, and did not even like.

As a teen and throughout most of my 20's, I didn't like the idea of "blending in" or looking "normal" as I saw that as equal to disappearing and becoming insignificant. I liked standing out, to look like a someone, instead of a no one. But for the past couple of years? Not so much. I don't have that same mindset anymore. Now I understand that when people don't pay attention to what I look like... they finally notice my personality. And I really like that. I feel no need to have an alternative style for the sake of expressing myself anymore, although I'm still drawn to tattoos and piercings. If anything, it rather hinders people from truly listening to me, because they're too busy judging my appearance!

Whether I stand out now or not, well... I do have kind of a choice over. Just not so much in my favour. Or well, it is, but at the same time not. I can blend in among men as a "normal" looking guy, which takes no effort and has become my go-to, but I can never do that as a woman. I mean, I'm not just recognised as a woman who is ugly or looks weird, or "too" masculine. I'm not recognised as a woman at all.

And yeah, sure, I'm fine with that. Not a big deal.

But sometimes I still mourn the loss of my ability to be seen as a woman, and not look like trash while doing it. Sometimes... I can't help but struggling to look at myself. It just gets so raw sometimes, and I feel ugly. Society's beauty standards still has a certain choke hold on me. I can't break free from that over night. Especially since I was a makeup addict for a really long time and only just recently stopped wearing makeup altogether. Especially since I struggled with an eating disorder, which I only just recovered from a few years ago. Especially since I previously used sex with men as a way to seek value and worth, but found the opposite, yet still crave that harmful lifestyle. I'm barely a stone's throw away from being the slave of femininity I once was. Perhaps transitioning was my unconscious way of attempting to break free from it. Yes, I think there could be some truth to that. I revel in my masculinity now, but the wounds femininity caused in me, still hurt. It took me about this long to even understand their existence.

My mind still makes these connections, that by "woman standards" I look... absolutely hideous. Bearded, balding, scars for tits, hair all over my body. Yeah, great. I feel disfigured. Like some kind of abomination. I'm just gonna have to live with that knowledge, and what it does to me.

Because sometimes I get lost in what I think other people must think I look like, as soon as I tell them I'm actually a woman. I've gotten looks of disgust from that, and I guess I just haven't quite figured out how to handle that sorta thing yet.

I know that every time I've tried to "present as female" again, I've regretted it and felt absolutely horrible. On one hand it's tragic, because societal beauty standards still make me break down over my appearance sometimes, in desperate attempts to make myself look beautiful again... and that's when I feel the claws of femininity scratching me up from within, all over again. That endless chase for unobtainable, so called "beauty" and the failure that's bound to follow. And I guess it's a little bit sad, that I think I look a lot hotter as a man, than I ever even could as a girl or woman, and that could be part of why I hold onto my male-like appearance as a comfort in my newfound masculinity.

But is that so bad?

This harsh weather of self-discovery demands a comfort blanket. But on the other hand, most days I actually feel great about the way I look, and I can even manage to still feel good about the way I look when I see myself as a woman. That is great progress!

I'm actually starting to be able to connect my womanhood with my masculinity, and when I do, I feel great. That's my "good days" and I have a lot more of them than those "bad days" when I feel disfigured. Because that feeling is relative, not objective. It's relative, not only to social gender norms for men and women respectively, but also to my own inner norms of my own gender, which are highly influenced by the norms of the society I live and grew up in. And I've noticed I actually have the power to adjust that broken compass within me that struggles to connect my appearance with my mind.

I think my dysphoria broke quite badly, when I started poking around in it. I mean, not only do I get envious of other women (who have not transitioned) but as soon as I present as female, I instead get jealous of men again, and feel even worse about the way I look! It's a catch 22!

I do not know what my tired, dysphoric heart craves, or if any physical change would really help me feel better. I still regret my top surgery, but no kinds of reconstructed boobs would be able to fill that empty void. Because it's not nearly as much physical as it is psychological. It's missing and grieving something very specific, which cannot ever return. And that too... I just have to live with.

However, I'm again trying out wearing fake boobs. Small sock tits in sports bras. As often as my deformed ribs can handle. It quickly gets very painful in the dents I caused by binding pre-op. I ordered some oversized sports bras and gel insertions, that I'm impatiently waiting for to arrive! In the mean time I try to make do with what I have, which is too small and too tight, but for an hour here and there, is alright. I feel good with the illusion of small boobs, something like barely a B-cup at most. It feels more like my body when it's not board flat, and it makes me feel better about being curvy as well. Otherwise I still wear the same men's clothes I'd usually wear. Flannels, jeans, hoodies, suits, etc. That's perfect. It feels a lot like me.

I really should have left my chest be. But I didn't. And that's okay. I'll manage.

I reach out to testosterone again for comfort. Familiar comfort that always made me feel better, and badass. I know it won't take my pain away. But honestly, that's okay. I actually want to keep my pain, anyway. Because it helps me heal and feel stronger again. I don't like being in pain, but I feel like it's rebuilding me, strengthening me from within, and forces me to re-think what's not working. Pain is my guide to comfort. That fire in my ass that keeps me moving.

So yeah, I'll live.

I'll keep breaking down sometimes, and feel like I made myself into the ugliest woman on Earth, but even that, I can draw some kinda power from. Being proudly ugly is definitely something I can do! And then I feel untouchable. When I remind myself that my "ugliness" is not only entirely subjective, but also... entirely deliberate. That I choose to not try to salvage my thinning head hair, because I do not need it. That I choose to let my beard grow out, because it brings me comfort. That I choose to keep my chest flat, despite all my difficult feelings I have about it, because it allows me to go topless and braless. And so on.

My deliberate ugliness, worn with pride and survival... I'd say is quite beautiful. That's what keeps me going. Dated: January 7th, 2021.

[irkenheretic]

Does Red have that one genetic disorder? What does it do to Irkens who do have it?

OOOHHH OKAY SO this is all gonna be headcanon stuff for ANX (watch me forget to tag the post as such lmao) so itll be canon divergent at points

so The Red Eye Thing, which has no formal name because why would irkens name it, is a linked gene between the gene that causes red eyes, and a genetic disorder that leaves an irken with a little extra chunk of chromosome in a sex cell that made them. (a sex cell is like, either the sperm or the egg, one of those) not an entire extra chromosome, that doesn’t happen among irkens, but a chunk.

you can’t have red eyes without having The Red Eye Thing, so yes red does have it! ^^

i just have to go on record and say that in ANX, irkens still reproduce naturally. they dont mate for fun or keep the young, but its still not artificial. smeets are also VERY IMPORTANT in irken society as they are seen as the future of the empire (like, assaulting a smeet is so universally hated that if someone is jailed for it they will 100% be killed before they ever stand trial. smeet assaulters are so hated that the control brains know this happens and they just let it happen)

so given how societally important smeets are, it tends to be Very Bad for Red Eyes that the main problem their genetic disorder gives them is infertility. theyre basically looked down upon societally because they’re unable to do a basic biological function that even smallers and defectives can do. 

i mentioned they also have hyperpigmented skin in my other ask, but im putting it here again anyway. skin colors from that hyperpigmentation can range from “dark, but still normal irken dark” to “i have never seen a skin color as dark as yours before holy fuck” these edits i did of red are what he looks like in ANX, and hes on the way far end of the spectrum- out of 100+ characters in ANX, some other Red Eyes, he’s the darkest one. the hyperpigmentation is a result of the extra chunk of chromosome lmao

also, Red Eyes have trouble detecting pheromones other irkens give off. this can be just dulled senses, or it can be a total lack of detection, like what Red has. (ur seeing a pattern arent u, red has a more “severe” case of his genetic disorder.)

the gene also causes developmental disorders which... aren’t exactly on a sliding scale per se? it’s kind of like autism where every Red Eye acts differently from each other that there’s no real “universal experience” for how this specific thing presents itself.

the red eye gene is passed on from parent to child, it won’t mutate and it can’t be carried- you either have it or you don’t. 

“but how can that be if they’re infertile!” i said infertile, not sterile. the reason Red Eyes are infertile is because, since the extra chromosome chunk was in a sex cell, at least 50% of their sex cells will be affected with the extra chunk, too. irkens have a biomechanism that purges cells with missing or extra chromosome parts (extra-chromosome irkens are relatively fine, missing-chromosome irkens are like, hatched with no brain or are stillhatches so good that thats... there) 

but since those cells are purged, that’s at least half of the fertile cells. of course if they have a more severe case, like red, it would be more than half. so it is moderatley hard to nigh impossible for Red Eyes to conceive or fertilize, depending on who it is. so since only Red Eyes can pass down The Red Eye Gene, and these bitches rarely have smeets, there’s only like.... one Red Eye per generation, maybe two.

(fun facts: there used to be more Red Eye family lines, but some idiot got it in his head that Red Eyes caused defectiveness and that most defect trials were a false positive so in order to save everyone he needed to kill all Red Eyes, so now there.... aren’t..... any more......) (yes the control brains crazy murdered that idiot. they hate him so much sometimes they go “hey remember the red eye genocide guy? what the fuck, right?”)

so tl;dnr: it’s a genetic disorder caused by an extra chunk of chromosome in either a sperm or egg that made the irken. it causes infertility, hyperpigmentation, low or no ability to detect irken pheromones, and a developmental disorder that presents differently in everyone that has it.

tl;dnr 2: irken down’s syndrome. 

under the cut im gonna go on about how society sees irkens with this condition (under the cut because.... sexual assault tw. also ableism tw)

Red Eyes are seen as... well... broken pieces of shit. before red was tallest, there WAS another Red Eye Tallest in recent history- tallest Zim. (NO RELATION to invader zim haha) zim becoming tallest made Red Eyes not be.... as hated, but there’s still this societal idea of “you are a broken piece of shit and your cells should have been purged.... buuuut if you do something above and beyond whatever it is your job is, we Might think you’re cool. also we probably won’t say this to your face but we’re thinking it really hard at you, and you KNOW we’re thinking it, so there’s no point in not saying it, but we still won’t so you cant claim we hate you. but make no mistake, we do.” so red just had, the BEST time growing up.

remember in my last ask, i said Red Eyes are liked a little too well sometimes? well... due to their infertility, they’re frequent targets for rape, especially in the military, since military irkens aren’t allowed to mate. nab a Red Eye and you can have all the fuck you want without any, er, evidence. red honestly was lucky he was constantly stickied to purple as an elite, otherwise Horrible Things could’ve happened.

was the general populace worried about a Red Eye tallest? yes. yes they were, back when it was tallest zim. they thought he’d be shit at it due to how “broken” he was. there was a LOT of public outcry, especially since zim was on the shorter side of tallests. they were ready to be all “see, Red Eyes are NOTHING,” until zim was actually an amazing tallest. he was so good the control brains liked him, and the only other modern tallest they actually liked was miyuki. he did great things for the empire, everyone loved him. when tallest red became tallest, everyone was much less worried. but they were still thinkin it, ya dig. 

is red related to tallest zim? yes, zim is red’s grandfather.

is red’s tendency to forget words a part of his developmental disorder? it could be, could not be. there’s not much of a sample size due to yknow, the genocide, so there’s no-one to compare his symptoms against. the disorder presents differently in everyone so even if red is the only living Red Eye with that symptom, doesnt mean its NOT a symptom ya dig? but im gonna word of god it and say yes it is

can you have the same chromosome thing without being a Red Eye? yes! in this ask i talk about spork having a learning disability- he has the same chromosome thing, it just gives him different symptoms because he doesnt have the specific instance that red eyes have.

can you have red eyes without the chromosome thing? no, the gene for red-colored eyes is stickied to the Extra Chunk gene, and unlike chromosome issues, which can happen to any irken, an irken will not randomly mutate a gene for red-colored eyes.

is the term “red eye” derogatory? it was EXTREMELY derogatory before tallest zim took power. now it’s just a general term for a red eyed irken, but... irkens will still use it in an insulting way. like... “queer” is the best parallel i can draw. used to be a slur, now is a general term, but some people still clearly use it as a slur against others. 

are red eyes called slurs? YES. they are targets for The Word. The Worst Word In The Irken Language, So Bad You Can’t Even Call It “The __ Word” Because It’s Too Close To Saying The Word. It Is Just, “The Word.” it used to be WAY worse before the genocide, simply because there were more of them. it decreased even more after tallest zim took power, but make no mistake, it’s still out there. also The Word translates out to “condemned obsolete bastard” with a side order of “the beginning of The Word sounds like im spitting on you and thats also exactly what it means.” its an awful slur its like if every human slur had an orgy

(was red called slurs growing up- YES.)

are Red Eyes defective? they can be! defectiveness is in the PAK, not in an irken’s biology. that’s why they’re called genetic disorders and not genetic defects, to separate them from the “we are going to execute you” defectiveness. they’re still scorned as if they are defective, though. sometimes theyre called “worse than defectives” as a jab at their infertility- like, even the empire’s worst can do that, ya dig? 

back in The Old Days, there was probably a mix of defective and non-defective Red Eyes. now they’re all defective by coincidence. 

[natrashafierce]

The author of that terrible Your Fave is Problematic Tumblr has grown up and written a great piece for The New York Times expressing regret about picking people apart and talking about how (surprise, surprise) it was really just that she was young and poorly adjusted and had gone through some stuff.

I hope more people can be honest with themselves that most of us are susceptible to weird, spurious extremist stuff online if we’re in a bad enough mood, and you can always just, like, stop and change course and be someone who tries to spread forgiveness and humility instead of accruing points for tiresome, punitive, identity-obsessed nitpicking. I completely forgive the author of the blog and applaud her for this extra step that will surely expose her to the same sort of poorly adjusted person she used to be.

I also hope more people come to understand that they shouldn’t signal boost people articulating extremist things, because all it does it create a contagion of poor mental health and social behaviors that are counterproductive to achieving anything positive. It’s normal for people to get angry, and everyone has every right to rant in their own online space, and you don’t have to invalidate anyone’s moment of anger. But you can comfort them without reblogging or retweeting them. You don’t have to enable their descent into binary thinking by rewarding them with a ton of attention and influence.

It may be “tone policing” to try to tell any one individual how to express themselves, but it is not “tone policing” to suggest that society should not take our cues and policy ideas from people who are hysterical. Almost no one is good at formulating solutions to social problems, and angry people least of all. Every marginalized group has at least SOME people who are capable of remaining fair, nuanced, and rational despite what they’ve gone through, and those are the people to signal boost if you take societal problems seriously. They tend to have a much more complete perspective on an issue than someone who has barely read or experienced anything outside themselves except for the dozens of aggro internet posts that end up in their bubble.

Chronically angry people see everything through the lens of their anger and their ego, do not seek perspectives or explanations that would defuse them, and their ideas for solutions will tend to be unfair and dehumanzing. Now the internet pays people for that, and people psychologically stagnate because their newfound career depends on it and their reputation seems locked in by the long memory of the internet. Grounded people have learned to control their egos, seek genuine understanding of those who disagree with them, and are capable of finding uplifting solutions, but those people are getting drowned out and harassed offline nowadays.

It used to be that people would have their big moments of anger and, lacking any audience except for a few people they knew, had to learn to introspect, calm themselves down, and approach problems effectively. They would often get gently challenged by the people around them and pulled back into a healthy mindset. They would confront interpersonal problems privately instead of trying to tear people down publicly, and extremism only arose in bad social circles or with especially recalcitrant people. But now that everyone gets their basest impulses rewarded by strangers as poorly adjusted as they are, there is little incentive for introspection or growth. This got worse for a lot of us during the Trump years, I think, because the shock of his incivility made it seem like civility had been a losing tactic. I know I felt like that for a few years until I realized how easily I could be manipulated into believing the worst about someone if it played to my biases. Unfettered mass venting just contributed to a bad cycle.

One of the worst things is how the crazed brigades accrue well-intentioned allies who enforce their insane, unpopular ideas and, together, tank public support for what were once important political objectives. SO MANY people were into the Your Fave is Problematic blog and would troll tags for the celebrities mentioned just to harass and intimidate people who were fans, and they were all indoctrinated into a disordered, shallow worldview were they derived their worth from tearing people down instead of cultivating their own talents. Your Fave is Problematic was by no means the first or only vector for leftist identitarian brain worms, but it was an influential one. There’s a whole lot of obnoxious Tumblr stuff that leaks out into the larger world now.

Back then I thought people would grow out of it, but either a ton of them didn’t, or else those who did just got replaced by new people. I thought right-wingers were catastrophizing and exaggerating when they fixated on it because a lot of the time they were, and too many of them couldn’t criticize it without being dehumanizing themselves. But sure enough, it got worse. I realize now that regardless of ideology, extremism always gets worse if there are incentives for it to grow, and the internet supplies those incentives in spades. This stuff didn’t stay on Tumblr; it didn’t stay on some stray college campuses. They said it wouldn’t, and they were right.

And now it has infected more mainstream, influential spheres of life with infantilizing and dehumanizing ideas that train people to perceive everyone as an aggressor or a pinata they can beat up for clout. It’s increasingly ruined more innocent lives, all while people who are ideologically captured keep insisting it’s no big deal because that’s the line in their social circle. The goalposts move every week to provide more targets, and even left-leaning media has quit thoroughly investigating a lot of things in its rush to cash in on whatever social media controvery has been ginned up by unwell people. The corrections, when they come out, are almost never widely circulated.

It’s been surreal and disheartening to watch. People I used to consider reasonable and compassionate just gradually morphed into aggrieved, insecure pod people who can’t handle the slightest challenges of evidence against their worldview. They can’t accept that their insecurities and peeves are frivolous distractions that actually do materially harm efforts to fix serious problems, whether by beclowning entire political parties or candidates, or diverting resources to organizations that aren’t changing anything significant or are making things worse. They all even say the same tired phrases. It’s such a shitshow, but public opinion polling on this stuff has remained mostly sane. A lot of people are snapping out of it like the author of YFIP, so I can only hope that more people feel comfortable to finally push back against it.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Okay, so let me take this back to a week or two ago.

I owe one of my roommates 1200 dollars. My rent is 800 bills included. I make ten dollars over what counts for me getting no food stamps of financial assistance. I kept going to this job, because i was hoping that an opening would soon happen for me to get a job that i had before the closure of the other location. The explanation of this, in order to make it remotely interesting, would be a story in and of itself and would take too long.

I have had a rough go of it. I fell back into an eating disorder this winter, i went to home feeling sick and cold and heartbroken. Every night. I was completely isolated, i never went to anyone's house, i stopped even seeing a future for myself. the best days i had were ones where i would walk around the mall and stare at clothing i couldn't afford. Because the guy i was in love with randomly flipped on me one morning and told me to leave. I felt completely used, and gross about myself, and i just stopped eating. My bus home always took an hour and a half, i was shaking starving and so fucking poor that even if i wanted to eat more i couldn't afford it. I wanted to cry on the bus after work every night, but i forced myself to choke it down. I listened to last podcast on the left constantly to entertain myself. I texted him even though he had hurt me, and he ran back and apologized after, but somehow it was never the same. I'm not even mad. It just wasn't the same.

Anyway, i snapped about three weeks ago. I woke up, did my budget, and realize the reason i was having such a hard time was that i was literally not making enough money. Everything was about suppression and reduction of needs, to the point where i had very few enjoyments, and i was becoming so lonely i was becoming neurotic. And the more neurotic and lonely i became, i feel like the less people would want to hang out with me. After awhile, any attention i got from this guy was better than nothing. If i didn't have someone that paid some attention to me i was losing my will to even get up in the morning. Because what is the point of getting up for nothing, to do another day that makes you sad, with no purpose or friends? I felt like i was withering away, and nobody would even notice when i was finally just gone. I mean, maybe that is for the best, but i don't know. I feel like the initial love i poured into coming to this city has become dark and uncertain, and i miss the early days a lot. I feel like i am always chasing a feeling, that i am whatever chemical combination is hitting my neurotransmitters.

I made the decision to find a better job, realizing I wasn't going to get out of this mess unless i had money to at least rid myself of the basic and constant fear of not having enough. I'm tired of being in debt. So, i kinda did that. I ended up getting offered this job, and i just let myself run around with my money moreso, for the last few weeks with the mindset that i would have at least seven hundred more a month. I stopped dieting (unfortunately gaining back some weight). It's not that i don't need to diet, but i need something to distract myself if i am going to run around shaking with hunger all the time. I can't live on self hatred, at least not for too long.

Then, the covid 19 virus just started spreading, and at first it was nothing, but then i kind of turned into this thing where sickly people are going down in numbers.  And now nobody is going to hire me because all restaurants are closed and the economy fell apart and everyone is pretty scared, i got laid off from the place i work at now, which i feel like it's not even going to reopen at this point. Thousands of workers in the city just like me now have no way to pay their rent, meanwhile the hospitals will likely continue to fill with patients, and grocery stores are half empty, and this is just a small taste of what the future likely holds. So even when this virus comes and goes and does it's damage, i think things like this are just going to keep happening. And rich people will be fine, but poor people won't be. I mean, funny memes aside. Our entire economic system and healthcare system and so many things are going to collapse in my lifetime, it seems futile to even try to make it now. I know that sounds really pesimistic.

The last few weeks i have been meeting him in secret, but he's not really cuddly like before, and he seems like he wants me to be gone when he's done with me, and he dotes on his other friends and I just feel very taken for granted and when we are with our friends who aren't supposed to know, i just don't feel like someone he's that excited to be around. And he seems to engage in conversation, but with me he just kind of talks over me to imply i am dumb, and i get tired of that. Honestly, there is nothing endearing about it. It's insulting and tiring and i am so deeply worried about the world around me, that even my own heartbreak seems like nothing. I am genuinely very scared about the state of the world, and even an idea relationship would not save me from this. Like, yeah, i feel really used and hurt, but also we are losing animal species and the ocean is polluted and there is a pandemic, and overpopulation in certain areas of the world that are going to be swallowed by global warming. Sometimes this train of thought takes me into an entire three sixty because i wonder if it isn't just best to enjoy every person and experience for what it is because my life might not give me that much to look forward to in the future, and there is only so much i can do to fix the world or the people in it. Do i really want to put my foot down and tell him i don't want to see him anymore, when he's the only person i have, and i know too that he struggles with addiction?

Furthermore, my brother panicked and lost his mind and went on attack towards my sister who he was living with, and now he's moving back with my abusive parents. That's a whole story in and of itself. And that is that. I won't be seeing him anymore. He was so scared about economic and societal collapse. And then my workplace wrote me and said they don't have money to even give me my last paycheck, and i am lucky that my old dad is working overtime at the factory to send me money. Honestly, i was panicked before, but now i just feel resigned and afraid. It helps that there is no way i can get evicted right now, but at this point i just have a bad feeling that things are just going to keep getting worse.

I feel like poor people are being spread too thin, and it's going to eventually create a sense of rage. It's been happening for a long time. They just keep cutting programs, or making it harder to afford rent, or go to school. For instance, i have a friend who is an ambulance driver. He makes twelve dollars an hour, he's literally scraped up dead children off the side of the road, but he doesn't get free healthcare. If he ends up on the other end of his ambulance van he's fucked. It's stuff like this that is unbelievable. You'd think someone with his job of all people would be more than entitled to free healthcare, not that we all don't, but like, it might come with some benefits given he works in the industry and the level of seriousness his job entails. But there aren't any. And truly, he doesn't even make as much hourly as someone who works in a restaurant. It's nonsense. And it's accepted. And we need ambulance drivers.

Anyway, there is a lot that branches off. I don't know what direction i should go in, the mental health aspect of myself, or my family dynamics, the economy, the healthcare industry, my personal strifes, my conflicting relationship stuff, or what the future holds. All i can say is i feel terribly alone and terribly scared and it's hard to articulate it or feel grounded in myself at all. Sometimes it's like a numbness that tells you to keep pushing forward because it's the routine and it's supposed to lead to somewhere, right? I feel like in the last year, i am learning how to put my foot down and say no. I am learning to love people and know i am not loved back, and not even care anymore. I am also exhausted. When i am not around people, i fall asleep. A mysterious exhaustion i have never had before has taken over and i really just want to sleep for days and days straight, and some little part of me just wonders if it wouldn't be better if i didn't wake up again. I am not suicidal, but what's the point?

And I guess lastly, who am I to even complain? So many people have had it worse and now everyone is falling apart and struggling around me, so I am nothing special. It’s just hard to know what to do right now. There seems to be no distraction from the nothingness of it all.

[hcpefulmarshmallow]

Hello friends, this is just a thing that I wanted to mention real quick (you: “stop it Jenny, we know you don’t do real quick”) because it’s been playing on my mind for some time. Trigger warning for mental illness.

 To begin, a (somewhat) brief preface. When I talk about what’s a ‘real’ diagnosis and what’s not, I’m referring to what exists in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-V); and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).

 The most recent edition of the DSM-V was published in 2013 by the American Psychiatric Association, and the most recent edition of the ICD-11 in 2018. They are both common diagnostic tools for mental disorders, offering clear, standardised criteria. The DSM is more commonly used in America and is more universally known, while the ICD-11, despite being less common knowledge, actually has a wider reach professionally and is used more in Europe and other parts of the world. It also has a broader scope than the DSM, covering overall health instead of just mental disorders.

 Please bear in mind that I have not read either resource in their entirety, this is just what I can work out from more general research of the two, compared to patterns in writing that I see all the time. And just know that I’m not calling anyone out or trying to police anyone’s creativity. Consider this an information dump, and inspiration to research what you write.

 So, with all the boring stuff out of the way: what’s my damn point? Why did I take on the mammoth task of reducing a complicated and very nuanced issue to a single post? In fact, what is the issue at hand? 5 paragraphs in and I’ve still not addressed it, I’m a great essayist.

 Well, it all started with the song  “Sweet But Psycho” by Ava Max. And no, I don’t know it -- and neither does my sister who seems to think she does, because I hear the first four lines sung out loud more than I ever needed to: “Oh, she's sweet but a psycho / A little bit psycho / At night she's screamin' / I'm-ma-ma-ma out my mind”. And when you have that catchy but annoying tune in your head, the things you hate about it are inescapable. 

 At this point, you’re probably thinking this is another rant about the glorification (or even, gasp, the cutesification) of mental illness around us and, uh...sort of? Like I said, I’m not here to police anybody. And I don’t think almost anything is truly bad in isolation -- it’s the trend that scares me. There’s not much I, a lowly internet dweeb, can do about the mainstream, but I do think I can educate my fellow peers. And what I want to educate you on today is the use of words that don’t mean what we think they mean, as an example of why we need to mind the subject matter we handle.

 So. ‘Psycho’. In terms of writing, most people use it to refer to their characters who are your batshit off-the-wall cutesy crazy types. Your Yanderes and Jeff The Killers of the fandom world. It’s usually short for two different terms: either Psychopath or Psychotic, and in neither case does this do anybody any favours. Let me explain.

 The term ‘Psychopath’ is often used to describe someone who is cruel, violent, has no care for others, and is often bloodthirsty. These characters are usually presented in one of two ways: as someone who can blend into wider society until their true dark nature is triggered, at which point they become deadly and dangerous; or as someone who is simply unapproachable at all times. Psychopath also has a sister term it’s often treated as interchangeable with, of which I am sure you’re aware: Sociopath. A ‘Sociopath’ is someone who cannot or simply does not experience empathy, sympathy, all those wonderful emotions that make us caring and considerate towards others. As a result, a ‘Sociopath’ often winds up doing radically hurtful things to other people.

 The trouble with both of these words is that, medically, they do not exist. Not how we think they do. We just made them up to be mean to each other. That’s right, you can’t be diagnosed as a Sociopath, or a Psychopath. Yeah, I was shocked too. I got so used to hearing people described like this, I thought they must be real.

 And I’m not saying that these words are invalid, just because they’re not real diagnoses. That’s not how words work. The beauty of language is that we invented it, and we can keep on reinventing it. If people use the term ‘Psychopath’ in this way, it will inevitably come to mean this exact thing, no matter what psychology says. And that’s fine. The trouble is that they are often conflated with real mental illness. Used in the place of a genuine diagnosis so we can still have our crazy villain type without the constraints of real, attributable illness. Because you gotta keep ‘em guessing!!1! In the same way they become real words if we use them like they are, they become interchangeable with actual mental issues if we use them that way. The ‘symptoms’ of being a Psycho- or Sociopath are oftentimes just exaggerated forms of symptoms belonging to actual, diagnosed illnesses. And like I said, trends are worse than individual problems, but when we see a combination of symptoms in an illness, whether that illness is given a fake name or not, in exclusively characters who we’d never want to meet in real life, the real sufferers suffer. It puts a stigma in our minds whether we mean for it to or not; it closes us off to conversations, to understanding these people and how to help them.

 The worst cases are when writers take the opportunity to justify their use of the word by ‘diagnosing’ the character themselves, which takes on a whole new level of Yikes. We’re in such an awkward place in terms of representation at the moment, and I know it’s hard to navigate. I have all the love for people who do so with pure intentions. If, for example, you have a straight character, it’s easy for that character to be themselves. But if you have a gay character, everything they do is Gay, and it’s a representation of the Gay Community, and you will be held to a higher standard because of that. That is the lens through which we look at media right now, and it sucks for everyone, and is so easily exploited, but it is what it is. In much the same way, if your character is the only character in your story with a certain illness and they’re also your Big Bad, or someone who would be genuinely terrifying to approach -- well, I don’t think I need to explain why that could be seen as a major disservice. And of course, if your character is the only one in a whole darn genre...yeah. This is why trends matter. And why the trend of mental health getting misrepresented is so troublesome.

 But I digress: because remember, I did say there were two uses of the word Psycho, and the second is grounded in reality. The word ‘Psychotic’ is, medically speaking, a real thing. Again, used to mean someone who is deranged, possibly murderous - and like I said, if a word is used a certain way, it will come to mean a certain thing. But the term has a psychological basis. Psychotic describes someone experiencing Psychosis - a mental disorder in which the sufferer experiences a break from reality. The most classic case is a war veteran who thinks he is suddenly back on the battlefield.

 But obviously, a sufferer of a serious and damaging phenomenon isn’t what we think of when we hear ‘Psycho’ or even ‘Psychotic’. I don’t want to lean too much into the impact on mental health as a whole; that the idea of being neurodivergent is subsequently glamourised and demonised at the same time; that people latch onto labels that have real, practical use, all for the sake of feeling special. I want to keep it basic now. I want to ask: do terms like these have a place in writing? Specifically, in RP, since that is the form with which I am most acquainted right now. Obviously I can only answer with my own opinion, since there’s no Holy Doctrine to tell us one way or another.

 I’m not going to sit here and demonise everyone I think has mishandled subject matter. Believe me, I’ve not always been good at it -- I’m still not always good at it. And as someone actively playing a character whose mental issues are a major part of his characterisation, and who does things that make him unlikeable because of those mental illnesses, I know the pressure to get it right all the time. That unsteady balance between realism and demonisation, glorification and representation. The desire to put labels to traits, to have an understanding of what’s going on in such a complicated mind. It’s tricky. Everyone’s experiences are different. And I’m not saying we need to get rid of “crazy for the sake of crazy” characters, or view everything through the lens of “but who will this hurt??”; or get rid of these terms altogether. Like I said, societal meaning is still meaning. And I personally like to believe that most authors have good intentions, even those with poor execution. And I’m certainly not trying to shame anyone for falling for societal opinion. Everyone has about something at some point.

 If there’s a point to this at all, it’s this: research. Learn. Adapt. Not even my information is perfect and correct. I’ve seen everything above done a million times in so many ways, good and bad. If you want to follow a trend in writing or in storytelling, do, but try to understand it first so you can execute it better. Give it a purpose, and a place. Seize your right to be creative, by all means, but also take the opportunity to learn something new. And in turn, use your art to not only express and entertain, but educate.

 Tl;dr: The best premise in the word can still be executed poorly, but likewise, a poor premise can be executed well. No subject matter has to be wholly off limits, and not everything has to be a statement about something. But handling matters, so handle your work with respect. Do your research and understand what you’re saying before you say it. Make something you’re proud to stand by.

[attackfish]

I feel so sad that people don't appreciate Ursa's character, especially in the comics. In the show, she was only a loving mother with a secret surrounding her. She had almost no characterization beyond that. The comics showed us a much more complex and interesting character (and I don't think the comics contradict anything in the show), and even though she was not perfect, I don't think she deserves all the hate she gets.

Almost all of the hate Ursa gets in this fandom is from fans who want someone other than Azula to blame for Azula’s cruelty. You can also find these same people talking about how Iroh is terrible and sexist, and if he had been a better uncle, he would have fixed his niece the way he did his nephew, or that Mai and Ty Lee are terrible for “betraying” Azula, and if they had been better friends it would have fixed her, or that Zuko is a bad brother and should have fixed Azula. Basically everybody is responsible for fixing Azula except Azula.

This alone is infuriating, as I talk about in my last reblog here: [Link] because it makes Azula’s mental health and actions other people’s responsibility. This is abuser logic and it’s Azula’s own. She believes she has the right to use other people to prop up her own sense of self without their consent, and if they refuse, as Mai and Ty Lee did, they have wronged her. Mai, Ty Lee, and Zuko are all victims of her abuse, and most arguments that they shouldn’t have “abandoned” or “betrayed” her focus on the fact that she needed them to maintain her equilibrium, or that she really did love them deep down, because her needs and feelings must take preeminence over those of her victims. Her needs deserve to be catered to, and her victims’ should be scorned as selfish and suppressed. Iroh and Ursa are not Azula’s victims, but the fannish logic is the same, the idea that they are selfish for not filling Azula’s emotional needs and thereby fixing her.

This logic interacts in a really poisonous way with society’s expectations of mothers, and this is one part of why the Ursa hate is so virulent. The other reason, I think is simply that she is a minor character and doesn’t have the fanbase to drown out the haters. There is of course no way to be a perfect mother, because mothers are people and people can’t be perfect. And yet the idea of imperfection on the part of a mother is one that we as a society are extremely uncomfortable with. Mothers in media are rarely allowed the same range of humanity as other characters, because we are uncomfortable with their independent humanity and the evidence that they have needs and wants separate from those related to the task of being mother. Real life mothers find their every decision critiqued in relation to how it might affect her children.

Mothers and the choices they make are credited with a near-magical ability to save or ruin their children. Back in the mid twentieth century, a frightening amount of ink was spilled blaming every conceivable psychiatric or developmental condition on mothers. If a mother was too affectionate, she would make her son gay, not affectionate enough, autistic. If she was one way, she could make her child schizophrenic, another, she could make them mentally retarded. She had to be perfect, and if anything went wrong, we knew who to blame. This attitude did not fade away as we learned the underlying causes of many diseases. Growing up, I got to watch doctors, teachers, and just general busybodies blame my brother’s and my own problems on my mother, problems that through my parents’ persistence would be diagnosed as an immune disorder. The difference, I might add, between how my mother was treated and how my father was is stark. So Azula is manifestly and obviously screwed up. In our current societal milieu, it’s not at all surprising that fans looking for a reason would almost reflexively blame her mother. It’s what we do. The fact that Azula had an obvious abusive father does not matter.

There’s another reason Azula fans who are looking for someone to blame for Azula’s actions will look to Ursa instead of Ozai, and that reason is Zuko. Zuko was Ozai’s unfavorite child, the one who was burned and cast off, while Azula was praised and cosseted. If Zuko could overcome the “worse” abuse, what excuse would Azula have? She must have an excuse, since what we are trying to do here after all is justify her behavior. This ignores of course how toxic and damaging being the favorite of somebody like Ozai actually is, and how terrifying being one fall from grace away from being treated like Zuko must have been, something I argue in my Three Pillars Theory of Azula: [Link]. I also have in fact witnessed what the kind of mothering Ursa’s staunchest critics claim she should have given Azula looks like in the real world, and it is not pretty: [Link]

The Azula fans who hold Ursa, or for that matter Iroh, Zuko, Mai, or Ty Lee, responsible for Azula’s actions often claim they want a redemption arc for her similar to the one Zuko got, however, this is pretty clearly not the case. One of the big themes of Zuko’s redemption and recovery arc is that he had to acknowledge fault. He had to acknowledge that yes, he was hurt and hurting, and thought he was doing right, but that he had hurt other people and needed to make amends. People who want to blame other people for Azula’s actions want to absolve her of the very responsibility Zuko learned to shoulder. Another major theme of Zuko’s redemption and recovery arc is that nobody could “fix” Zuko, which is to say nobody could do the emotional work of coming to realize both that he had been wronged by his father and should not try to please him, and that he had hurt people in the name of pleasing his father and in the name of Fire Nation imperialism, except for Zuko himself. Nobody could make amends on Zuko’s behalf, or heal his hurts. Zuko had to do that himself. Iroh could advise and support him, but he couldn’t do it for Zuko, or make Zuko’s choices for him. Most of the Azula fans who want somebody else to blame also want to give her somebody who will love away her damage and pain and make her a good person, which isn’t the way it works, and also is deeply deeply ironic, given that one of the biggest things Azula has to work on is her sense of entitlement to use others to fulfill her emotional needs.

[halsejonell]

How To Keep Tmj From Getting Worse Wonderful Unique Ideas

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How To Go To Sleep With Tmj

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Bruxism mouth guard as a splint, or a bite guard.Long-term management intends to stop teeth grinding with a tire in his face.Strained muscles need to rule out possible causes.When the jaw muscle before sleeping, use a TMJ disorder and could be a real serious medical or health care provider on the subject.Many people believe that the general populace has only one type of surgery being the best results.

Tmj 83

However, the picture more complicated cases, however, there are many causes of TMJ are so common that it becomes a habit that develops over a piece of plastic that is usually caused by a health care professionals to get stiff as a severe liver damage or tooth loss.With advanced studies and reports that more than they are putting themselves at risk for a condition where the recovery interferes with your teeth causing sensitivity to hot or cold pack. Warm compresses can help us do one thing that people with teeth slightly apart.Bruxism can lead to a jaw that hold your neck or even moving your jaw muscles.You will want to focus on a sufferer's teeth.

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[its8simplejulesblog]

Today I Made Kale Chips

Which are four words I really never thought I would say, especially considering my track record of eating 2 cans of pringles for dinner and being the type of person that used to make snarky comments about people that ate kale chips (I mean really..you really have NOTHING else to eat??) 

But I made them, and they were FANTASTIC because I put lemon on them and MMM *italian finger kiss*. I even had to shoo away my parents because they kept eating them and I’m bad with sharing food :) 

However, eating kale is just one small thing in the midst of my self-care/wellness journey. I think that my recent breakup mixed with quarantine mixed with a complete and total change in mindset about my worth and what makes me happy has really led to a passionate interest in health and wellness. I’ve recently found myself so interested about the nutrients that I’m putting in my body and how different actions impact my mental health. 

With that being said, I think the most important thing about health and wellness is that the same effects can be reached through multiple different mediums. It’s likely that not everyone is going to enjoy sitting in absolute silence and deep breathing (I know I talked a little bit about that in my previous post about meditation too) but the fun in experimenting with health and wellness is that everything you try is good for you in some way, and when you finally find a routine for yourself there is nothing more gratifying. For that reason, I want to share a little bit about the things that have made me a lot more comfortable and confident in my own skin. 

I think the first two things that people think about when they hear the words health and wellness are working out and eating right. I know that there are SO many people out there telling you what you should and shouldn’t do so that is not what I want you to see this as, but rather just one individual’s story in the pursuit of feeling better about herself. 

For me, I’ve always loved working out. It used to be something I dreaded because my only experience with working out was through organized sports: either being on a soccer or swim team, running cross country, playing tennis etc. All of those sports were sports I liked, to be fair, but at the end of the day I realized that I was just WAY too competitive for a team sport; and I often found that the presence of a lot of other people made me feel worse and worse about my own athletic ability. Again, this is just my own experience. I know there are people who love the motivation and accountability of having others around. For me, not so much. 

Working out has always been a coping mechanism that I’ve always loved, not because of the way it makes me look, but because of the way it makes me feel. Let’s be honest though, it’s a horrible temporary feeling. If you’re running or lifting or holding a pilates pose it can be fricking unbearable and not everyone’s idea of “fun”. “ However, endorphins really are your friend because when you find the type of exercise that you enjoy it will seem more like fun than work. For me, I’ve really come to love pilates (which is essentially yoga, where instead of holding poses you’re constantly moving) and it’s gotten to the point where it’s something I look forward to everyday. I used to tell everyone that I was a runner and I DO enjoy running, but with yoga and pilates it feels like slightly less of a chore. I usually finish out by stretching and fixing my posture because sitting around all day slumped over honestly hurts sometimes now. 

Whenever I feel good after working out it inspires me to take better care of my body in general, which leads me into my next topic of food. In everything I do I alway remind myself that it’s a combination of both mental and physical. Many professionals say that the biggest mistake that people make in terms of working out/ eating right is setting self righteous/ self centered goals like “I just want to look like...” “I just want to be hot/skinny” instead of “I want to be healthy for my body’s sake” “I want to feel accomplished” etc. I’m not going to lie and say that the former two things don’t cross my mind while I’m working out, but my main goal in terms of working out is remaining mentally and physically healthy for my kids and family in the future, and remaining able to do all the small things that I like to do like going on nature walks for as long as I can and am able. 

The same mindset goes with food. In tandem with working out, I think that everyone and their mother knows that you have to eat right. However, the toxicity in terms of diet arrises when you either a.) overgeneralize  b.) scrutinize or c.) polarize. This is what I mean by this. In terms of “fad diets” overgeneralization is the belief that something that works for one person will work for everyone..that’s plain and simply the reason why they’re called “fads”. Diet never has been and never will be universal. That’s why I am often confused by concepts like the paleo diet etc. It really doesn’t seem logical or safe to me. 

On the opposite spectrum is scrutiny. This is where, unfortunately, we see a lot of the eating disorders come in. Personally, I’ve never struggled with an ed but I know plenty of people that have. It’s this mental capacity where you’re constantly judging and picking apart your own journey to the point where you mentally convince your mind and eyes to see yourself differently and it is very scary and very real. Obviously, the individuals that struggle with scrutinizing their eating habits are the only ones that can change their mentality and for that reason I think it’s SO important to validate your friends that you think may be struggling with this. No one knows what they look like to other people so confirming that they look nice today or making cute lil snacks together means so much. Obviously don’t LIE or say self centered things like “wow you look a lot skinnier” because that often strengthens their obsession, so just be careful. People often subscribe to commonly endorsed lies about weight loss that frequently damage their success and mental capacity because they simply don’t work. For example, eating less is not necessarily healthy and doesn’t mean that you’ll lose weight. Eating raw veggies in bulk is not really good for you either. If you look at diet as a systematic purge then it is actually very toxic. Instead, what you need to do is simultaneously forgo certain items while replacing them with others of better nutritional value. It’s a lot of research and experimentation that has caused me to have a growing interest (I say interest and not OBSESSION because if you scour nutrition labels in a worried tizzy then you’ll work yourself into stress which often causes eating issues)  in reading nutrition labels and looking up health benefits of certain foods. 

With polarization you categorize every food as either good or bad, which when you think about it is really silly because in everything there is good and bad. If you think “this is good for me and this is bad for me” then you’ll never eat pizza and brownies and cookies and ice-cream again and idk about you but that looks like a pretty dark world to me. What you really should condition yourself to do instead is weigh the pros and cons of the foods you’re about to eat and instead of forbidding yourself to eat the bad foods, just hold off or eat less of them or eat them less often. Naturally it’s hard at first, but I’ve found that when I drink less soda or eat less ice-cream that when I finally do drink and eat those things they taste a LOT better haha. 

I know that a lot of people use the excuse that healthy food is expensive and it is and capitalism sucks, I understand; but what I’ve done (and you can do too) is just TRY a little. Ridiculous I know, but all you need to do is search up “2 or 3 ingredient, healthy meals/ snacks/ desserts” etc. and there are SO many options. I was honestly shocked at how easy it was to make food that was so good considering how unmotivated I can be to cook sometimes. It’s almost become like a game/experiment to me. 

I know I talk about perspective and psychology and how I’m feeling a lot in my blog, but I’ve realized that the two concepts I’ve mentioned above in terms of working out and eating right are so foundational to everything else. When you condition yourself to have realistic and selfless goals to a pursuit of something other than a societally driven self image, you’ll come to realize how imperative that is to your mental health. 

In fact, I can’t emphasize how true it is to take care of yourself for your own benefit FIRST and everything else will follow. I have gotten more genuine and supportive compliments about my body, mind and overall attitude so much more now than I ever have. It really does something about the way you receive compliments too because if I kill myself working out every day and force myself to eat things that I hate for the sake of losing weight then someone’s compliment about how skinny I look will only trigger the pain of all that I went through to get to that point. However, when I find things that I enjoy and eat food that I actually like then those compliments will reaffirm that I’m on the right track mentally. I really think that you’ll attract that right kind of attention if you treat yourself the same way. (it’ll be like if someone says you’re hot and instead of it being kind of lowkey creepy and shallow you’ll be like “YEAH BITCH YOU RIGHT” hahaha) 

This goes both ways. When you give genuine compliments you’ll receive them and also you’ll be so much more attuned to realizing when they aren’t genuine. Once you’re good at deciphering who is genuine and who’s not you can give everyone else the boot :) 

Annnnnyway...here are my kale chips hehe (also I’m having pizza for dinner because we don’t limit ourselves yeehaw) 

[aslaton8-blog]

What does "Home" mean?

What does "home" mean when you don't have a family? I mean I have a family, a very large one fact. None of us get along though. My family is wrought with mental illness. Mostly things such as narcissistic personality disorder, hypochondria, sociopathy, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, and above all just flat selfishness. I really can't handle them. They make my issues so much worse. Actually they are the cause of my issues.

My society has been the least of my problems. I made the best decision when I decided to get away from my family and never talk to them again. I was sick of being gaslighted and ghosted being treated as if I wasn't doing anything when I was the only one doing anything meanwhile homeless and struggling by myself. Fuck those people they aren't a family.

So I struggle to understand what family means. I've been invited to be a part of a witch coven. It's actually really cool. I don't hate the idea. I'm just so disconnected from the idea of having a family. I can't even make a friend family of my own. I'm married to my friend family. To the twins Ryan and Daniel Krone. I love them with all of my heart. I don't love anybody else this way outside of the celebrities that have been with me since my childhood. Those are distant feelings though and I'm just a stranger to them anyway.

I feel like I got tossed into this witch coven immediately. I didn't really get a say so in whether I wanted to be a part of it or not. I didn't really have a full understanding of witch covens before they tossed me in there. We had one meeting already and it just felt like a meeting of complete strangers. Is this what it feels like to be a celebrity? Being in a room full of strangers and still feeling completely disconnected from people and community? I'm so glad I never tried that path. I don't like much attention anyway. I mean I like attention to an extent just like everyone else would want to feel a part of life. But I don't need all that. That was too much.

I don't think I'll feel at home with these people unless they stay in my life. I still don't feel at home with these people and I've been hanging out with them for a couple of years. it just feels like another adventure that's going to disappear in time. I like these people don't get me wrong, it's just not a hundred percent there for me. First of all the entire coven is completely white minus maybe one lady who is close enough to being white that she could pass as white. All that does is remind me of our societal problems and all I want to do is keep fighting them. Second of all I'm not religious and I believe in every religion not just one. It's hard for me to feel honest with being in a coven when I don't hundred percent believe in everything their doing.

It seems like all I want to do is fight anymore. I don't want to get along with society. Why is that? Maybe I'm just that full of pain. I feel like I'm walking through the next door of the chapter of my healing. But it feels like a door that I opened and don't know where to go. It's like a room full of mazes. Maybe I shouldn't have opened the door just yet but what do I now? I haven't had much guidance in this life I only have me to guide myself.

People say take the direction that's right in front of you but what if you're not a hundred percent feeling it? What if that road just leaves to falling off a cliff and breaking every bone in my body? I can't take a different path though or I'll be steering away from my husband and his brother who I don't want to be away from at all.

I've been feeling my soul pushing me to form a life outside of Ryan. And that scares me so much because I don't want to think about a life outside of Ryan. I don't want to lose him like Terry lost Steve Irwin. I'm not ready to detach from him yet like that, I mean I haven't even given birth to my child yet. Why are you always pushing me to do stuff I'm not ready for yet world? I vibe with conservatives here. Stop moving and changing so fast let us enjoy what we have right now.

I cried my eyes out last night. I haven't cried in a while so I probably needed it but then that's a paradox in itself because why do we need to cry? I suppose in this case to release a lot of the pressure I have been feeling inside lately. I've got to get started with my photography career because I'm going to quit my part-time job in February and need to make income. I always wanted to start my photography career but I was always so hesitant because I didn't want to turn my hobby into a capitalist dream. I don't believe in capitalism and I don't believe it works. It's like a tool that worked at one time and is now broken and we need to try something else.

If I ever have employees I'll make sure they get half of the income and not this 80/20 bullshit. If they aren't putting forth the effort into the work then obviously I will look for somebody else. Naturally that's all we can do. But for now I prefer to just team up with other photographers that are seasoned and have their own established business that we partner up on. I really love this field and I don't want to steer away from it in any way.

I'm having other fears. Like I said I've been pushed into this witch coven thing. Which to be fair they haven't really pushed me on anything else, she just kind of stuck me in there and I'm welcome to back out if I want to but I feel like I didn't learn enough about it to make a real decision on it and I'm just becoming a part of it automatically because I never made a decision. You people move too fast!!! Now my brother-in-law is dating one of them. *Sigh*

I mean I like her I just have a lot of conflicts in my heart. She favors the character that I was creating for Daniel's character in my story which is really weird because she's like a silhouette of what I already imagined. Maybe this is his dream lover maybe this is where he's supposed to be. But something about it has me really uneasy. I feel like it's all moving too fast. Maybe that's just my fear speaking, maybe it's not moving too fast and maybe that's just how I'm seeing it because I fear people. I also love Daniel very much and don't want to see him get his heart broken again. I feel like we just met these people.

She and I did not get off to a good start either. I was connecting with this lady that I really really liked name Tonya and I was having a bad day and wanted to go see her. This woman was there and Tonya said she would be leaving soon so I wouldn't have to meet new company since I was not in the mood to meet any new company. I feel like I had just met Tonya and didn't get to really get to know her yet before I'm being forced to me all these other people...so I was rude to this woman. I treated her exactly like I felt. I did not want to meet anyone new. We talked about it later and we smoothed over our bad first meeting. We got to talkin and she seems fine and I like her I just did not expect her to start dating my brother-in-law this fast. I understand he's starving for a partner because he loves romance and he deserves a good partner and that will tend to make a dog eat its food too fast and throw it back up. This is my family, my home. I love whoever he loves. But I'm jaded because the last girl he was in love with was a complete psychopath. It wasn't really love again it was starvation for love. Thankfully this woman does not seem like a psychopath. She's a very sensitive empath with a lot of love in her heart. Despite that I still feel so many fears. We got in another fight again when I was just trying to be direct, be myself. I found out how sensitive she really is.

That scares me too because I don't need anybody in my life who cannot handle me and if she's dating my brother-in-law and something comes of it she could one day become my sister-in-law. That's a big deal for me. I've never connected really well with women. I've been connecting with Tonya and I was happy with our slow pace. She's a really cool woman and I like her. So the idea of getting closer to this woman put a lot of pressure on me because I don't want to be a jerk and be completely distant from my brother-in-law's girlfriend because we've already had that issue with another friend and it will just bring up old hurt. I need people who can stand up to me when I'm at my worst moods and I'm beating you up emotionally.

Daniel's new girlfriend did that with me the other night. We got in an argument sure but we also resolved it. She did not run away from the argument and go hide. She broke down and cried right in front of me and expressed every emotion I caused her to feel. Great start right? I hate feeling like this monster that calls out everybody's bulshit including mine. I really was just trying to pull out my conflict and deal with it and not try to put the burden on her for sure but I'm not about going behind people's back and talking about them especially to the people that they are dating who else that I have to discuss this with other than her anyway? I like direct communication. I'm not a passive aggressive person. I can be passive so not to hurt your feelings but I'm not a passive aggressive person. If I've got something to say to you I'm going to say it especially when I am ready and know how I want to say it. It turned out for the better because she admitted that she needed to cry from a lot of pressure from the week and that I was the push that made her move but I'm still worried about future interactions. I don't want anyone in my life I'm just going to beat up by being myself. I need people to be in my life who can separate themselves from my anger and internal conflicts and not take on the pain.

My husband is still learning how to do this. I was ranting and venting away about him being sick and not being able to enjoy my birthday with him and he took all the pressure on as if it was his fault. 🙈 I swear I can't be angry about anything without somebody taking on the pressure themselves. I have to suck it up all the time just so I don't hurt other people's feelings. I think that's why I relate to #Slipknot so much. I've been listening to that band since I was like 11. So that means I've been listening to them for like 22 years. They are a huge part of my life and a huge influence in my life and my healing. Probably number one on my list. They're definitely a part of my soul and I definitely feel the big brother attitude that they have with society. It's beautiful and well needed for people like me. The magic of their music has filled my spirit with so much love in so many times that I needed it.

But before I go on a tangent let's get back to what was bothering me in the first place. Family. I need to work through my fears because it's not like this woman is some crazy monster person like the last girl. The last girl wanted to keep secrets with my husband about me. He immediately told me about it of course but I'm just really jaded by her and my mother because they popped in my life at the same time. They were just alike. It was like my mother pushed herself into my life not only physically but spiritually too. I have so much hatred for my mother I really wish she would die. I know she's going to die one day and I can't wait for that day to end everybodies suffering. She's one of those Santa baby ladies, gold digging, cocaine junkie narcissistic trash. She's somebody else's mess to clean up, I was not here to raise her. I don't want anybody else like her in my life ever again. The fighter in me will really show and I might damage some relationships along the way. I just hope this girl turns out to be fine. She seems fine. I'm just wrought with a lot of trust issues and fears and I'm not feeling at home right now even though I know I am home.

[wittybyrd-blog]

I’ve been thinking about writing this all down for a while now. The end of S6 was so exhausting. I’m not real big with the sharing of personal feelings or emotions, but I have come a long way with it. Even so, people that know me would be shocked if they knew I was putting all of this out there for other people to judge. Deep down we are very insecure. However, I felt like I needed to put it out there in case someone shared this same type of devotion to the show for the way they handled bipolar Carrie over the years and now feel lost after all the shit that transpired in the last two seasons. I’ll put this out there knowing it is really just for me, but if someone is in despair and googles the right words, maybe they’ll find it. Plus, it is way easier for me to share with strangers and if they feel as much anguish about this show as I do, we could probably become the best of friends. :)

When I first heard that this show was in production, I was intrigued. I was given the bipolar diagnosis in my teens. I was anxious to see how they would portray a bipolar CIA agent. I’ve always felt connected to Carrie as a character for obvious reasons. I’ve defended her character over the years based on my own battles with emotional instability. I know some people thought it was unrealistic that Saul could be so close to her and not know, but it *is* possible. Many people that are bipolar could earn their own Emmy, me included. We can flip a switch and give quite the performance. I work with people who have no idea. As long as my medication is working effectively, I can keep my mood even enough to disguise any internal conflicts. I don’t have as many manic episodes anymore. Now I suffer more with all of the lows. Unfortunately, my norm is Eeyore and the lows go really low. But the mania is still there, and I still struggle daily.

I think they’ve done an excellent job incorporating (more than once) the detachment that tends to come pretty easily. There have been several times where significant time has passed without Carrie speaking to Saul. He calls. She doesn’t respond. I’ve been told before that it is like I’m on a moving train in one car and I simply unhook my train car from the rest of the train as I’m waving goodbye. Not exactly a compliment or a good quality to possess, but in retrospect, also not exactly unfounded. It is too easy for me to not look back. It is subtleties like this throughout the show that have made Carrie very relatable to me. I think the main thread that ties every aspect of her life together that is so relatable to so many bipolar people is the obsessive, addictive personality traits. Whether it is an unwavering focus on completing the “mission” or the crazy type of obsessive love for Brody, I get it all. Those are things I’ve had to control in my own life. She finally let this obsession turn the table, and she gave in. When she asked Brody why it hurt so much at the end of S2, he had that line about her giving it up to him completely. It was a perfect line. It almost destroyed her, because that’s what happens to us if we do “give it up.”

This addictive personality trait is pretty much at the core of all of her missteps when you look at the bigger picture. She wound up off her meds and in the hospital (fantastic, realistic depiction, btw) because of an obsession with Brody. After she was out, she couldn’t control her anger and blew an operation. However, the fact that she felt this rage at the surface and yet there was still this obsessive love underneath was so spot on. People who don’t suffer this way can’t comprehend an intelligent, independent woman seeking this sort of crazy need to be loved by this person. Carrie is determined and assertive. Claire Danes does a fantastic job showcasing those qualities in Carrie, all the while doing justice to this dynamic, vulnerable, and unstable side of her personality. Quinn told her that he’d want to rip Brody’s skin off if he were her, which would be the most normal response. But we aren’t “normal.” It takes years of therapy to try to trick yourself into a more appropriate response…believe me, I know. Carrie had many more responses like this that most people would think were inappropriate. Saul told Carrie that Quinn went to him with concerns after Sandy was pulled from the car. Carrie’s defensive response was that Quinn was the one upset by it, and Saul pointed out that would be the more appropriate reaction. This is one of the many reasons why I loved this show. They wrote stuff like this in that I feel is truly fundamental when portraying someone that is bipolar. When you are in this particular state, societal norms are not something you comprehend.  Your reactions can come across as callous and devoid of any real emotion. I am still amazed at how accurate it was through the first four plus seasons. 

When they first introduced Quinn into the story, it became clear to me that they were trying to find someone to fit into the role of a monitor. I knew he was going to be *that* person when he went to see Carrie in the hospital and told Saul he wasn’t okay with what they were doing to her. I happen to think it is a must to have someone like this in your corner if you want to fight the battle with this disease. There aren’t a lot of people who can take on that role and stick with it long-term. We can be incredibly hurtful and completely self-involved. But this is the shit we do when out of control…reckless abandon with no acceptance that there will be consequences in the end. That was basically S4 for Carrie.

It was hard for me to accept they were making Quinn that person, because I adored Quinn for totally separate reasons. I know the reality of what can happen to those relationships in the long run, so I actually felt sad for Quinn when I saw how deeply he cared for her. I know that sounds totally fucked up, but it typically doesn’t end well for someone with a heart of gold that tries to love you unless they’ve actually done their own research on how to love someone that is bipolar. It is actually a thing, trust me. They even have therapy groups for families and spouses, just like they do for someone who loves and cares for an alcoholic. Here Quinn is with this compassion and love, all the while fighting his own demons. Quinn isn’t a bad guy, even though he wrestles with that deeply and feels a pull to darkness. Carrie lives there all of the time. You can control it, but you know it is always there. It can easily pull you back in if you allow it. Sadly, Carrie still hasn’t dealt with the disease the way she needs to, and Quinn suffered because of it.

I thought they did an excellent job at the beginning of S4. I was worried they were going to show her having moved on easily after all that happened at the end of S3. That would have been totally unrealistic. The fact that she left Franny was not shocking to me at all. She was self-medicating even more with the drinking. That’s totally on point. Unfortunately, this is very common with bipolar disorder. If the answer to the question is drinking, then the question is, “How can I possibly make things worse?” Of course you don’t see it that way at the time. The bathtub scene was I’m sure horrifying for so many people, but it was actually quite realistic. In that moment, it seemed like the easy way out for Carrie. If you don’t keep your emotions in check and your head in the right place, you won’t be anything other than selfish. Her emotions were all over the place. That scene in the church at Sandy’s funeral laid that out pretty clearly. Like Quinn explained, it isn’t always about her. But in her world, it is. I was very much like that during different periods in my life. That’s why this show got to me. I had to relive the damage I’d done many years ago when it played out on the screen in front of me during S4. It was actually very therapeutic. I don’t ever want to forget the pain of realizing the hurt I caused, because I don’t ever want to be that person again. I asked myself quite often during S4 if I would have made those same questionable decisions Carrie was making.  The answer was always yes.

The truth is that Carrie never stood still after Brody’s death, moving quickly ahead to the next “mission.” It was inevitable that she would be reckless. Carrie was truly out of control in S4, even though some may not think it was as bad as the end of S1. It was, because it was basically this big long stretch of denial and manic behavior. She never truly came down. She was off the rails for most of the season, and that’s always where Quinn came in. It seemed like that was going to be his sole purpose for a while…try to be Carrie’s conscience. He had to fix the shit she fucked up or was about to fuck up, like having to shoot her. I was glad when they wrote in so much more for his character. I just want to cry every time I think about how her disease really destroyed him in the end. He deserved so much more. By the end of S5, I felt much more of his pain and found myself relating less and less to Carrie. I can’t imagine that was the intention of the writers since the show is about Carrie and by this point they clearly had no problem screwing over Quinn. But regardless of the intended outcome, I think most people longed for Quinn to find happiness and related more to him than Carrie…even those of us that are bipolar.

The end of S4 was truly heartbreaking for me. Even though a lot of people wonder if Carrie ever really loved Quinn, I know she did based on the one scene where she was really honest with him. Carrie is fucked up, but unless you’ve been there, it is very hard to comprehend the magnitude of it. She knows that they have this amazing bond/friendship along with this other attraction. Carrie does right by him in this episode. She acknowledges she will fuck it up, and it is legitimately inevitable at this stage. For one, I don’t think she has fully mourned Brody or truly dealt with what happened in Pakistan. Not only is she not emotionally available to Quinn at this point, she tries to make him understand that it isn’t about them just knowing each other’s shit. Truth be told, it really isn’t. She even says, “But you don’t have my condition.” It is very hard to explain to someone what it is like to be inside our head. Just because you’ve seen someone strapped to a gurney in a mental ward or being hauled off kicking and screaming doesn’t mean you’ve seen us at our worst. The worst is the selfishness, belligerence, promiscuity, and on and on. Medicine can help, but that is only part of it. Meds stop working and dosages have to be changed more frequently than most would think. Some people start feeling better and decide they don’t need medicine anymore, which can lead to suicide. That happened to my aunt. That’s why we need someone who gets us enough to know when there is trouble brewing and intervene before it is out of hand. Maggie played that role for Carrie when the show started, but that plot line sort of dissipated over the years.

The conversations between Quinn and Carrie were never about why she was acting a certain way. Was she taking her meds? Do they maybe need to be adjusted? That was never the story that played out between them. She never truly opened up to him about the illness other than to warn him off. Part of me believes she didn’t want to burden him with her demons when she knew he struggled with some of his own. I do believe she knew deep down she’d end up destroying him and the bond they had. She had finally just let someone in, really in, for the first time. It’s a little hard for her to distance herself from the outcome of that relationship. The problem is that she doesn’t trust that he will still love her if he sees all of it. We tend to feel very unworthy at the core, and definitely fear rejection from those we let in. It is easier to just tell him she will fuck it up than be honest about how scary it would be for her to really let him see what is under the surface. It is easier for her if he believes she is just manic and crazy. The hysteria only masks the vulnerability and insecurity that is deeply ingrained. Bipolar individuals tend to make the outer shell seem bulletproof and impenetrable. It often makes us come across as callous and unsympathetic. For those of us that finally come to terms with the fact that meds alone can’t fix our problems, those traits disappear and you get to see the good stuff. When Carrie says she always thought being bipolar meant you can’t be with people, she’s not wrong. I think it is one of the best lines in the show. If you’re in denial and unable to step back and see you aren’t actively doing anything to try to help yourself, then you can’t truly be with someone. At that point, you truly aren’t good for anyone. She’s exactly right.

Quinn is obviously gone by the time she calls him after having seen her mother, but the truth we don’t see is her relief. As we know, Carrie’s obsessive tendencies make her unrelenting when there is an end game for her. Do you think if she wanted to find Quinn that anything would have stopped her? I’m not buying it. She would have pressed the issue, hunting down the poor guy that was held back with the letters to find out where the plane was headed. If Carrie really believed she could be with Quinn at the end of S4, she would have made it happen. She did love him in the only way she knows how at this point in her life, which is to let him move on.  

Nothing was more fitting than seeing that Carrie had moved on with her life at the start of S5, away from all reminders of her past. She’s now in a superficial relationship with someone “safe.” She’s convinced herself she’s better off now, but I don’t buy that she really believed that. Claire Danes said in an interview that Carrie was “happy” now. You will very rarely ever hear someone bipolar describe their life as “happy.” Most of us don’t even know what that means. When she went off her meds, she didn’t even tell him. When she finally did, she had to try to explain to him the signs he should look for, etc. Had they been together this long and never really talked about what could happen at any point in their life together without much warning? That tells me she wasn’t terribly invested, so “happy” was a projection. When you have someone who loves you unconditionally, you tend to drive them away. It is easier to be in a safe relationship where you never really let that person in.

From a bipolar standpoint, S5 was kind of a mess. There were parts that stayed true to our “brand” of bipolar. The truths of bipolar were well done in those first episodes. The superficial relationships, the scenes with the insults, great sex, and paranoia when she went off the meds, the brilliantly inserted scene in the last episode that couldn’t be more bipolar…all fantastic writing.  She tries to self-medicate with sex in one of the most inappropriate life situations instead of owning her emotional instability in the wake of everything that just transpired. It’s what we do…a sad symptom for someone to actually acknowledge fully.

The rest of S5 was a total bipolar disaster. At first I thought they were going to have Carrie finally face her demons in a way that she needs to. I wasn’t surprised she didn’t tell Quinn that she was going to say yes when he left two years ago. I think a lot of people wanted that because Quinn deserved to know she loved him, but she is just too fucked up to say it. But then the writers went totally off the rails with Carrie’s behavior from that point forward. He’s back in her life to try to save her *AGAIN*, and he ends up walking away to go die somewhere so she will be free. Okay, Carrie. It is time to cut the bullshit and face your feelings for him, regardless of how that ends. She is flat out asked if it registers that Quinn is going to bleed to death trying to protect her. I’m thinking, okay, maybe this will be her wake-up call. But no, of course not. The next time we see her she is asking Otto to help her get out of town. What? Hello? Remember how Quinn is bleeding somewhere? The guy who keeps risking everything for you? Then she finally says it out loud. “I am the problem. I bring down everyone.” For a bipolar person to finally own this and actually say it out loud to someone else, this is rock bottom much like an alcoholic. This is the crash and burn part of the program, except that it wasn’t. The writers took Carrie somewhere else for the purpose of the story. Okay, I get that. The show’s focus was never bipolar disorder. But when you’ve done such a great job of writing up to this point, don’t go and fuck it all up. Carrie would have never uttered those words and then gone about selfishly like she had been. “I am the problem,” oh, and by the way, I haven’t seen Quinn for like nine days so I should probably go look for him. What the fuck? I don’t care if someone was trying to kill her. She wouldn’t admit to destroying everyone and then leave Quinn out there to maybe live or maybe die, especially after she just said she didn’t take care of him the way she should have. Here’s an idea. How about starting now? The whole sequence was infuriating…total bullshit. Like I said, don’t do a fantastic job writing in all of the small aspects of being bipolar just to blow it to bits in just a few episodes. I’m always the first to defend Carrie because I “get” her in ways that others can’t, whether I like to admit that or not. I just can’t defend this shit because it makes zero sense to me. 

Would I have risked Quinn’s life by waking him up for information he might not even have? I don’t think so. I did personally understand Carrie on this, though. Her addictive personality doesn’t allow her to leave things unfinished, and in her mind, she has to stop the attack at any cost. Knowing the decisions that Carrie has already made in the past, was anyone really surprised? I was more surprised that she struggled with the decision at all based on the fact that she left Quinn out there bleeding to death in the first place. If the writers hadn’t just subjected us to that shit sandwich, I might have believed she was torn. But they did, so I figured she’d do whatever it took to stop the terrorists. In her defense, she would want Quinn and Saul to wake her if the roles were reversed. She has to complete the mission. She also was right about what Saul wanted when he was captured. Quinn obviously stopped her and seemed a little surprised when he found out that Saul really did want her to make that call. There was that scene in S4 about it being incomprehensible that saving someone’s life could be the wrong choice. I thought about that scene quite a bit when they were making this decision about Quinn. I say “they” because it seems like everyone has forgotten that Saul was pushing for the doctors to wake him up even more than Carrie. She’s the one that was having doubts. 

I’ve been off social media for the last few years because of this show. I couldn’t take the hatred out there about Carrie, because through the first four seasons, that hatred could have easily been towards me at one point in my life. I’m pretty much watching all of my mistakes, bad behavior, and personality traits play out on screen right in front of me. It’s kind of surreal. After the finale this year, I wanted to see what people were saying. S6 was just awful, and I was curious about the reaction. Plus, I can no longer relate to Carrie. They have her using her bipolar disorder now as an excuse, a crutch. I feel like they are now misrepresenting the condition entirely. It’s sort of hard to explain.

As for S6, what a clusterfuck of epic proportion. It is hard to even describe the disappointment. So has Carrie been miraculously cured? You’d never know she struggles with being bipolar. After what happened to Quinn and having read that letter (no words for that, btw), there was no dark pit of anguish unearthed? I call bullshit, especially after her supposed epiphany in S5 about actually being the problem. Now they’re writing her like she never loved Quinn the way I know she did. They put all of these signs in there about how much she did love him, and they were especially recognizable for someone who is bipolar. It was like they made a U-turn and hoped we would forget all of that. If she had truly believed the things she said to Otto, there is no way she wouldn’t have been honest with Quinn. She would have told him they woke him from the coma and why they made that decision. It wouldn’t have been this dark cloud overhead that causes a catastrophic storm, leaving pieces of Quinn’s heart in its wake. Quinn finding out later from Dar, who is clearly trying to spin the narrative, was such a cruel story arc. All that accomplished was to shine an even bigger spotlight on Carrie’s selfish behavior. It appeared to me that the writers were trying to suggest that she was more worried about him never forgiving her and losing him for good instead of just laying it out for him and dealing with the consequences, whatever they may be. Quinn would have been devastated regardless, but I think it would have been less about her making the choice she made and more about the fact that she was able to follow through with it. Let’s face it. Even knowing it is what Carrie would have wanted had the roles been reversed, does anyone really believe Quinn could have actually gone through with it? Knowing that one of the risks was death, he would’ve never made that call. He loved her too much. She was able to make that call, though. Quinn having to come to terms with that is just heartbreaking. 

I feel the writers seemed to be trying very hard to make us believe that Carrie really was taking care of him out of guilt and not love. With what played out in S5, she would have answered honestly as to why she saved him. But they’re writing her as running scared all of a sudden, and a bipolar individual is only scared when they’ve made the decision to actually face it all. She’s still acting selfishly, and that is the time you would be the most unselfish. The writing was so contradictory and inconsistent with each new episode. Again, Homeland was never meant to be a show about bipolar. I totally get that, but the way it was woven in through the first four seasons was masterful and accurate. Thank you, Meredith Stiehm. If you don’t want that to be a point of focus throughout the entire run of the show, don’t introduce it at all.

As for my love for Quinn as this beautiful, unselfish human being, it only grew stronger from S5 on. He believed he was flawed, but he also owned it. Even though he had this hard shell and didn’t let a lot of people in, he loved Carrie and tried to be a moral compass for her. I do think the writers did a disservice by showcasing Carrie as somewhat immoral and not ever really letting Quinn in on the real reasons why. Most bipolar people aren’t immoral at the core. They’re actually quite compassionate because they feel so deeply and their emotions run so strong. But when the disease isn’t in check, they make completely irrational and snap decisions that can lead them down that rabbit hole. The brain’s complexity is a wonderland to most of us. Quinn was owed a happy ending by this disaster of a show. What was the point of bringing Astrid back only to have her murdered in a way that would lead to Quinn feeling responsible? How tragic for Quinn to finally realize this woman loves him in the way he loves Carrie before she dies. I just don’t understand what happened to this show that I once loved so much.

I’m not sure how much of the show was rewritten to be relevant (whatever the fuck that actually means), but I’m surprised that Claire was okay with how this was written for Carrie. She’s a producer, after all. I know she did a lot of research when she took on this role, so she had to know that this arc would not be received well by most of the bipolar community. It would have been better for Quinn to have died at the end of S5 and start S6 with her finally owning her demons and trying to come to terms with everything she’d done. When you’re still in the denial phase as to the depths of the selfishness this disease can cause, the only people you truly hurt are the people that deeply love and care for you. That’s why the narrative was so off in S5. If you believe you bring everyone around you down so much that you’ve decided the only solution is to go away for good and take all of your problems with you, the rest of S5 would have played out very differently. I know I keep going back to that, but as someone who truly knows the effects of this disease, the train flew off the tracks for me in S5. I remember Claire saying back in ’13 or ’14 that she was always monitoring the depiction of her condition because she wanted to do right by those with this disorder. She never wanted it to be a convenient gimmick. I’m really surprised based on those comments that is has become just that.

Due to the horrific writing, I would understand if Rupert Friend had some hard feelings. He wants to play a character he’s proud of. I did see some people unhappy with Rupert’s comments about Carrie after the finale. I’m sure much of that was because they wanted a happy ending for them, but that was honestly a pipe dream. I think they could have been together under a certain set of circumstances in the future, but Carrie would have had to evolve a lot before that ever happened. I didn’t have a problem with his comments at all. He readily admits he never actually watched the show, so he never saw it put together the way we did. When he speaks about Quinn, you can tell how much he loved him. I think that is very endearing. He did write the letter himself, after all. As far as he’s concerned, it was Carrie alone that forced the doctors to wake him up. Quinn doesn’t know she struggled with the decision or that Saul was a big part of it. Quinn doesn’t know a lot of things about Carrie that we know from being on the outside looking in at the bigger picture. He finds it tragic that Quinn died thinking he was never really loved, and why wouldn’t he? He did research for his character, not Claire’s character. The real effect of bipolar disorder on intimate relationships was never addressed. Carrie loved him deeply, but she would have never been able to love him the way he deserved until she really dealt with her shit. Rupert Friend isn’t viewing Carrie through a bipolar prism like I am, so his comments seemed quite fair to me. In the end, I didn’t see Carrie through that prism either. The writers destroyed that for me in S5. I felt deeply for Quinn, not Carrie.

I would like to pretend there was no S6. They did a disservice not only to the bipolar community but to veterans physically wounded and suffering from PTSD. Why bring Rupert back to tell that story if you weren’t going to do it long-term? What a fucked up mess. Rupert was fantastic…Claire, I don’t know what to think. I think she should have realized this season would make Carrie someone many of us don’t even want to root for anymore. Believe me, I have always been Carrie’s biggest advocate. I understood her behavior, especially in S4 when many people didn’t. About the only bipolar thing Carrie did in S6 was get defensive with Saul about Quinn’s death and apparently never grieved for Quinn the way she should have. “Maybe I didn’t know him as well as you think.” Yeah, okay then. This really means I’m going to be defensive and deflect because I’m unable to react to this like a “normal” person. If I stand still for even a second, I’m going to lose it (the way she should have realistically already lost it). It’s a real thing. It doesn’t have to be about facing reality or mourning death. It can be as simple as working 60 hour weeks for a few months. A “normal” person would crash for a while, get some sleep, and move on. We become unreasonable, belligerent, and defensive when we’ve hit that wall. A MAJOR downward spiral occurs that isn’t easy to climb out of. If they want to be real next season, she will finally stand still and hit that wall. With everything that’s happened, I hope for her sake that it is THE wall. The wall that has to be taken apart painstakingly and slowly, brick by brick, so that you can finally walk through and face all of it with the realization and desire of knowing you don’t ever want to end up back on the other side. 

I was so pleased with the writers in the beginning for adding in so many of the more minor aspects of Carrie’s personality that I could relate to. I realize every person suffers in different ways. If it sounds like I’m making generalizations that ALL individuals with bipolar have certain tendencies, that is not my intention. However, there were many things *I* found quite relatable. I believe that self-reflection is a necessity, but it is scary as hell and the fear can paralyze you. There’s a reason Carrie is such an asset to the agency. It isn’t just the addictive and obsessive personality. She also isn’t afraid of putting herself in incredibly dangerous situations to get the information she needs. We aren’t afraid of death. Hell, many of us try to take our own lives. It isn’t death a bipolar person fears. It is the reflection in the mirror when you’ve been in denial. Who am I and what damage have I done? When you finally become self-aware enough to deal with that person looking back at you, that’s when you truly crash and burn and start to rebuild. She clearly isn’t there. “I can’t lose another one” translates to this is still all about me and my selfish needs. I don’t know if the writers will ever really go there. If they don’t, there won’t be a realistic happy ending that so many want for Carrie, including Claire. It just isn’t possible. And that would be a tragic way to end a show that was once so brilliantly written…

[mdye]

How do politicians get so comfortable with lying? One theory: practice.

How does a person get so comfortable with telling lies?

It’s a question we have reason to ask this week.

There are big, serious, scary questions over whether President Donald Trump is lying about the rationale behind firing FBI Director James Comey. As Vox’s Matt Yglesias explains, Trump has a history of lying, often. He’s lied about his own questioning of President Barack Obama’s birthplace. He’s lied about tweeting that climate change is a hoax planted by China. He’s lied about how he’s voiced support for the Iraq War. And if he is lying, it means a great many more people — including Attorney General Jeff Sessions — are lying on his behalf.

By age 5, almost all of us have learned how to lie. But some of us grow up to be prolific liars, while others are honest to a fault. Research psychologists have come around to a simple hypothesis that helps explain the difference: To become a prolific liar, it takes practice.

We learn to lie on a “slippery slope”

Before we dive in, let’s be clear: Psychological research makes predictions about the behavior of groups; it cannot necessarily explain the behavior of an individual. So we can’t say for sure what the source of Trump’s — or any other politicians’ — lies are.

But researchers do have some new insight into how a person might grow more comfortable lying over time.

The hypothesis is that we gradually become more comfortable with lying (and other forms of immoral behavior) with minor acts that build up over time. Researchers call this the “slippery slope” model. And there’s some good evidence for it.

A 2015 paper in the Journal of Applied Psychology had participants play many rounds of a Sudoku-like game. Correct answers in each round yielded a higher and higher cash reward, and the design of the study allowed for participants to lie about their scores.

In one arm of this experiment, the cash rewards increased very gradually, around 75 cents per round. In another arm, the cash reward jumped abruptly and dramatically to $2.50. Participants were more likely to lie about their scores in the gradual change arm. Which shows we gradually habituate ourselves to lying, and become comfortable with it by little steps, not huge ones. “Exposure to slippery-slope conditions more than doubled the rates of unethical behavior in our studies,” the authors concluded.

These gradual changes, they hypothesized, allow us to slowly become disengaged with our sense of morality. It’s a type of self-deception, they explain, where we slowly convince ourselves the immoral behavior isn’t all that bad.

As we learn to lie, we undergo an “emotional adaptation” that makes us feel less bad about the lying.

Another paper, published last year in Nature Neuroscience, described this experience as an “emotional adaptation.” It’s similar to what happens when you’re exposed to a strong smell. At first the smell is extremely noticeable, but eventually you stop noticing it as much. With time, any stimulus — a loud noise, a strong perfume, etc. — is likely to provoke a smaller response. The same goes with lying.

We get desensitized to our own lying as the areas of our brain that correlate with negativity become less active. This makes it easier for us to lie in the future, the study concludes.

“The first time you cheat — let’s say you’re cheating on your taxes — you feel quite bad about it,” Tali Sharot, a University College London neuroscientist and one of the Nature study’s authors, said. But then the next time you cheat, you’re less likely to get that negative feeling. That makes it easier to lie again. And the cycle escalates from there.

This study was similar to the one in Applied Psychology: Participants were led to play a game where it would be really tempting to cheat.

The participants played the role of an adviser in a two-person game. They looked at 60 photos of glass jars with differing numbers of pennies, and were told to advise a partner (who was really a researcher in disguise) on how much money the jars contained. The participants were told they’d receive compensation based on the accuracy of their partner’s guesses.

In some of the trials, the participants were incentivized to be honest: If the partner guessed correctly, they’d both get the prize money. In other trials, the participants were incentivized to lie: If the partner overestimated, the participant would get more. (The study gave the participant the impression the partner had no idea about this arrangement.)

When the participants were incentivized to lie, they lied more as more trials were conducted.

“They started with small lies — let’s say lies of around £1 — but this grew, and they ended up with large lies, of around £8,” Neil Garrett, also a University College London neuroscientist and a co-author of the study, said.

The authors then took the study a step further to understand what this looked like in the brain. A small subset of the participants played this game while undergoing fMRI, a brain scanning technique. It appeared that the more the participants grew accustomed to lying, the less activation there was in the amygdala, a region of the brain associated with negative emotion.

“Arousal is one of the telltales of lying,” Sharot said. It can take the form of sweating and faster heart rate — what polygraph machines look for to detect lies. So if the brain is less aroused by lying, that might mean a person is getting used to it. “If arousal goes down, people may be less likely to catch you in a lie,” Sharot said.

Caveat: The subject pool for the fMRI section of the study was very small, only 25 participants. So these neuroimaging results would have to be replicated for a firmer conclusion. Also, the study design was not preregistered, which increasingly is seen as a safeguard against false-positive results. “We will need to wait for a replication of the fMRI results,” Sharot said. And fMRI results are notoriously hard to interpret: Read more about that in my earlier piece.

And there may be another way to interpret the results of the study: The participants are simply learning how to be liars. Oriel FeldmanHall, a neuroscientist who studies morality at Brown University and did not contribute to the Nature Neuroscience study, says the structure of the game may be what’s causing the lies to escalate, since there are no consequences for gaining more money through lying. “Rather than demonstrating a dishonest snowball effect, [the authors] may just be illustrating successful learning,” she writes me in an email. But then, people learn to lie in the absence of consequences in the real world too.

The social norms around lying can change — fast

In the 1960s, Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura showed how easy it is to teach kids to act violently — by showing them an adult acting violently.

In this famous experiment, Bandura showed young children — between 3 and 6 years old — a video of an adult wailing on an inflatable “bobo doll” (see in the video below). Other children in the study did not see an adult behaving aggressively to the doll.

And sure enough: The kids who saw the aggressive behavior were more aggressive themselves when playing with the doll later on. It’s a simple experiment with a simple conclusion: As humans, even at an early age — we learn what’s socially acceptable by watching other people.

So when prominent people change their behavior for the worse, and don’t suffer the consequences — the theory goes — acceptance of the bad behavior spread, and more people start to mimic it.

Here’s one example. In 2004, sociologists Thomas Ford and Mark Ferguson found that exposure to a racist or sexist joke increased tolerance of further discrimination in people who held prejudicial views. Hearing the off-color joke, they write, “Expands the bounds of appropriate conduct, creating a norm of tolerance of discrimination.

When prominent people — politicians perhaps — lie, and get away with it, acceptance of the practice spreads.

There’s some small evidence that societal-wide corruption trickles down into everyday lying. In 2015, researchers in the UK found across 23 countries that people are more likely to lie when they live in societies where corruption is rampant. “If politicians set bad examples by using fraudulent tactics like rigging elections, nepotism and embezzlement, then the honesty of citizens might suffer, because corruption is fostered in wider parts of society,” the study authors wrote in Nature.

Is there a way to stop people from lying?

It’s clear that some people are more prone to dishonesty than others — and are unlikely to change. Here’s one reason: Research suggests some people have a stronger physiological response to moral dilemmas than others. And extreme forms of lying, like compulsive lying, may be indicative of an underlying personality disorder.

But let’s assume politicians aren’t abnormal in this way, and that they are just normal people who are in an environment that rewards lying. Is there any way to keep them honest?

Sharot, the author of the Nature Neuroscience study, has a simple suggestion: “Perhaps we can nudge people away from dishonesty by calling them on their lies even if they are small, and try to reproduce an emotional reaction,” she says. In other words, reminding people they’re lying could help revive the negative feeling that may have been lost. Though this could backfire: People can become defensive when being called a liar.

Social norms play a big role, too, for ordinary people at least. David Rand, a Yale University psychologist, has found that when cooperation and truth telling are established upfront as the norm, people are more likely to play fair in the future.

Even politicians may listen to nudges to keep the fibbing to a minimum. In a small study, political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler found some evidence that down-ballot candidates who were sent letters reminding them "politicians who lie put their reputations and careers at risk, but only when those lies are exposed" were somewhat more truthful in their campaigns, as measured by newspaper fact-checks.

I asked Sharot if she thinks her work has any bearing on politicians. Can a long public life of small lies make you completely comfortable with lying?

“If someone has been repeatedly engaging in dishonest behavior, it is likely that that person has emotionally adapted to their own lying,” she says.

Further reading: political psychology

7 psychological concepts that explain the Trump era of politics

The dark psychology of dehumanization, explained

How politics makes us stupid

[alfarey1]

Looking at Drugs Honestly is the Only Way to End Drug Abuse

Based on my examination of the function of laws, specifically drug laws, as well the evidence-both scientific and theoretical-I can make the rational conclusion that a law prohibiting marijuana is unethical. This is because more people are affected negatively as a direct result of the law than are protected by the law. Drug laws tie people up in a flawed system that only exacerbates the concerns and worries, which may have led a person to use marijuana or other drugs in the first place.

Drug laws, for the most part, attack non-violent offenders, often times entering them into a justice system that presents the victim with circumstances that create a vicious cycle. Furthermore, it is well documented that the culture of prisons can turn a non-violent person into psychopath. Mandatory minimum sentencing, which has finally been seen for the problematic mess that it is, is responsible for putting harmless marijuana users into the company of career criminals, many of which are violent people. After living in such a perverse environment such as prison, many drug law offenders leave prison mentally changed for the worse.

Nevertheless, the common punishment for petty possession of marijuana in most states is a year of probation, a ton of fines, and some form of community service. While this certainly generates extra revenue for states and towns, it puts people in a position where they must make major sacrifices in their daily life in order to avoid jail time for violating the terms of their punishment. In an economic system such as ours where the cost of living is often beyond the means of many, forcing much of the population to rely on credit, added expenses such as fines and lab fees for drug tests are more detrimental than they are rehabilitating.

Certain states have acknowledged this, causing them to change their approach towards prosecuting drug law offenders. Drug courts are examples of this as they save people from jail time by sentencing them to rehab and community outreach programs. While this is the first step towards fixing the backwards mentality our culture has developed in regards to drug laws, it is not nearly enough to end the rampant drug abuse in the country.

I firmly believe the severity and prevalence of drug abuse in the United States is due to the antiquated notion that all drugs are equally bad. In the 1930s, after the failed prohibition of alcohol and the inspired campaign against marijuana, prohibitionists such as Harry Anslinger were going around preaching that marijuana was no worse than heroin, that it turned people insane after one puff, and that it caused people to go on murderous rampages. Not only is this utterly untrue, but incredibly disturbing that this was accepted at the time.

Since then, we have slowly, but not entirely moved away from the belief that marijuana is on par with heroin. Certainly, in a modern context most people will find such a comparison laughable, however, when we look at our drug education programs we can see that the concept is still very much with us. Rather than taking an honest approach towards educating the young, our school systems use the simplest tactic towards getting the point across: generalization.

While generalization is an effective form of education as it allows people to memorize and retain more information, it neglects the specifics, which are vital in regards to developing a fully informed and legitimate understanding of a subject. Generalization in regards to drugs is incredibly dangerous as we have seen. Since all drugs are different just as all people are, it does not make sense to promote the idea that a drug is a drug and all drugs are bad. Given the nature of young people to often ignore the warnings of the older generations, it is inevitable that at one point in their life they will experiment with drugs as a result of curiosity or peer pressure (or both).

Now don’t you think the potential to try harder drugs is greater for a kid who has been brought up being told all drugs all the same? After all, if that same kid tries marijuana, a mild psychoactive drug with a short-lasting high, would it be such a reach for him to make the logical conclusion that all drugs are the same therefore all drugs are just like marijuana? Of course not, but this is the culture we have created and are slowly working to reverse-the operative word being “slowly”. A recent study done by John Hopkins University determined the gateway drug myth in regards to marijuana is just that, a myth. The conclusion came as result of two findings: one being the fact that many people tried alcohol and cigarettes before ever trying marijuana because both are legal and socially acceptable. The second reason is due the educational background that a person has, which aids them in making decisions.

To get personal, I was straight edge my freshman year of high school-meaning I didn’t do drugs of any kind (alcohol included since our society often feels compelled to say alcohol and drugs, which baffles me since alcohol is a drug). Granted, that’s not that impressive since I only lasted one year, but the reason why I only lasted one year is because I realized my opposition to drugs was irrational. I was a product of the dishonest drug education I received, the kind of education that used fear as a deterrent rather than honesty.

The summer following my freshmen year I heavily researched every major drug as objectively as possible. Now remember, I was anti-drugs when I began this investigation into them. After extensive research, reading as many medical journals and studies that I could find, I came to the conclusion that some drugs are simply not worth the adverse affects. Such drugs being: cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, inhalants, and so on. I discovered that responsible use of drugs such as marijuana, LSD, and psilocybin is not nearly as dangerous as I once believed. In fact, I was shocked to find that LSD is considered the safest drug in moderation-moderate use of LSD being a common dose (50-150 micrograms) once every three to six months. Nevertheless, most psychologists will emphasize that people with a family history of psychological disorders such as schizophrenia and manic depression should avoid serotonin-like psychedelics entirely, which furthers the point that honest education in regards to drugs is necessary in order to lower drug abuse rates in the United States.

More importantly, it is the emphasis on responsible use that should be at the core of all drug education programs. The recent societal concern over binge drinking is both a sign of progressive ideologies regarding drugs and the realization, whether outright or not, of failed drug education programs. By allowing alcohol to be socially acceptable, its dangers have often gone overlooked, mostly by the young. The debilitating nature of alcohol addiction is something I have witnessed first hand in addition to the moronicism that is binge drinking. If we can recognize that the young have been misguided in their notions about alcohol then we must also stop ignoring the same problem in regards to illicit substances. One could make the case that any drug can be used responsibly, but as stated above, there are certain drugs that have a much more immediate negative effect while others such as marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, alcohol, and cigarettes can produce adverse effects down the road if they are not used responsibly in moderation.

How does this all relate to ethics? It shines light on the gross ethical negligence that is responsible for creating a situation where irrational perspectives have been given credence to shape our cultural ideals and legislation. For you see, by allowing such nonsensical beliefs to be the norm, we as a society have failed the most important test in regards to ethics: the pursuit of the truth, no matter how much it conflicts with our own personal biases.

from Drug Rehabilitation http://alfarey.com/looking-at-drugs-honestly-is-the-only-way-to-end-drug-abuse/