#but that fucking shit is borderline depression inducing

[catgirlxox]

god fuck the topic of benkai’s future kids propels me into a state of I need to go outside and smoke a cigarette

[schnuffel-danny]

actually fuck it here we go

Jack - dpd, ptsd, adhd, autistic Maddie - ocd, adhd, ptsd Vlad (she counts as family) - bpd, c-ptsd, autistic, osdd, unspecified eating disorder, experiences psychosis, lactose intolerant Danny - adhd, depression, ptsd, "shit's about to get much worse" disorder Jazz - borderline, autistic, anxiety Danielle - ptsd, soup disease

GIVE IT UP FOR GHOST PORTAL INDUCED POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER!!!!!!!!!!!*

*Jack, Maddie and Vlad all had trauma before the accident, it just added a lil' spice :)

nobody is ready for my Fenton Family mental illness headcanons

[candychronicles]

best damn show // h. shinsou

A/N: my take on the bnharem villain/hero swap collab! this was supposed to be super super short but oops...

CHARACTER PAIRING: Shinsou Hitoshi x F!Reader

WORD COUNT: 3,918

WARNINGS: a half-assed sex scene, mentions of toxic coping mechanisms, bad mental health, alcohol and mentions of sex trafficking

SYNOPSIS: a dangerous villain is on the loose and Shinsou will find out who it is no matter what. 

Click here to read more fateful encounters! 

Shinsou turned off the TV with a resounding click, huffing in frustration. he had been there last night, seen the carnage, the chaos and pain that was caused by the villain. he didn’t know who they were, what they looked like, what their plan was, but he sure as hell didn’t want to wait to find out. The Hero Commission had instructed every hero to be on the lookout for suspicious activity but all it created was more chaos and distrust in a time when everyone needed to come together to figure out the issue at hand. being the type of hero that he was, one with a quirk that was not necessarily smiled upon, instantly created problems between himself and his team.

it became quite apparent that he needed to step down for a few days. while everyone claimed that it was for personal health issues, he left because he knew that he was being sussed out and couldn’t be trusted. despite trying his whole life to prove that he was a hero, nobody ever seemed to really see that he was one. even Aizawa thought it was best if he stepped away for the time being as tensions continued to rise between coworkers, friends and acquaintances alike.

to be frank, he was sick of being treated like a dog, someone who was there for entertainment and to do the dirty work of the heroes that wanted to keep their shiny crowns spotless. he was sick of being treated like less than scum on the pond, gum on a shoe or even trash littered on the side of the road. there were very few people in his life that truly believed in him and what he could do and while that was normally enough, it wasn’t today. there was someone truly dangerous on the rise, someone who could destroy entire cities if they wanted to, especially with the influence they had, and he wasn’t going to let them get away.

that’s how he ended up sneaking around the site of the initial attack. there was very little evidence there, everything cleared out from the cops, firemen and cleaning crews, but a little flyer about a bar stuck out like a sore thumb between two dull gray cement blocks. he plucked it out with his fingers and examined the barely held together paper, just managing to make out an address.

fuck it, might as well go. the worst that will happen is i get drunk and Kaminari will have to drag my ass back him, but honestly, he’s put me through worse.

with that thought in mind, he strolled to the bar near where the attack happened. the place was small and cozy and certainly not like anything he was expecting. a few people mingled around, chatting and laughing and nobody batted an eyelash when he walked in with his hood up and hands in his pocket. sliding into a chair, he signaled with one hand for the bartender to come and take his order. in what seemed like an instant, a neat whiskey, double, was placed in front of him with a kind nod.

before he had a chance to sip on his drink, another patron slipped in next to him. you were barely paying attention and apologized profusely when you realized you practically pushed him off his chair.

“i am so so sorry! i slid in here like a chicken with my head cut off. have you ever actually seen that happen before? it’s honestly quite terrifying,” you started, laughing at your own antics before continuing, “let me buy you a drink to make it up to you.”

“are you hitting on me?” was the first thing that came out of his mouth as he quirked an eyebrow at you, studying your flushed face and doey eyed expression.

“well, your hood is up so i can’t really see how cute you are. i’m honestly just half assed drunk and feeling extra nice tonight. no flirting here!”

he chuckled before flipping his hood down, cocking his head towards the bartender as he downed his drink in one gulp. you admired his face, the way it barely scrunched up despite the taste, his adam’s apple bouncing up and down.

“one more please! actually, make that two.”

you and Shinsou spent the whole night laughing about what seemed like the dumbest things: how many vertebrae giraffes had in their neck, how many ice cubes you could each fit in your mouth at one time, how crayons were made, and who could take a shot with a straight face. the latter led you two to being absolutely hammered as you stumbled out of the bar at a crisp three in the morning.

“s’nice meeting you S-shinsou! we should do this a-again sometime,” you stated matter-of-factly, laughing at the confused look on his face.

he spent a few seconds pondering the situation before agreeing to meet you here in a few days, sloppily exchanging numbers and hoping that they were right before he walked you back to your apartment, citing that it wouldn’t be fair as a hero for him to not escort you home to your safe spot.

the next morning resulted in a pounding headache as he sat up groggily from the couch, still dressed in all black from the night before. despite not learning anything about the villain that had caused the attack, he had to admit that his night was still nice.

the next few days before you two were supposed to meet up, Shinsou went full vigilante. he spent hours scouring any database he could for underground information about the villain. they were calling themselves “nightcrawler” and they were an internet sensation, spewing opinions about The Hero Commission, how villainous and cruel they were, how people and their quirks were being suppressed by this glamorized shit show. he snorted at the opinions, half agreeing with what they were saying but not so much on the way they were going about the situation.

every lead led him to a dead end. people knew of them but not who they were, what they looked like and certainly not where they were. he was able to gather some minor information from lackeys that claimed a man at an underground fighting ring might know something about nightcrawler but nothing was set in stone.

before he knew it, he was meeting you again at the bar, feeling guiltier than ever for acting like some righteous hero when he was a borderline vigilante at this point. you didn’t seem to care who he was, what kind of job he had or what his boring routine was like. you wanted to hit deep, spilling dark secrets to each other, like how depressed you felt sometimes living a boring life behind a desk, how he felt like he wasn’t really a hero, how you drank to cope with the pain sometimes, how he was doing exactly the same. eventually, he spilled to you how he was technically still a hero but doing some not so legal digging on the side as he got benched due to the distrust because of his quirk.

you frowned as you watched him confess how he felt, emotion after emotion rolling over him in waves, from sadness to anger to confusion to defeat. you sympathized with every word that came out of his mouth, not understanding what it was like to be a hero but hurting with every word nonetheless.

“well, what’s your next move?” you finally asked after a few moments, watching the gears turn in his head as he processed your words.

“i heard through the grapevine that a certain shady underground fighting ring might have some more information on the whereabouts of nightcrawler.”

you prodded him for all the details, grinning in delight when he mentioned the name of where he wanted to go. without saying another word, you yanked him off his feet, throwing cash down on the bar to pay for your drinks as you dragged him out of the place and down only a few blocks. he spent the whole time bewildered and confused but judging by your determined stance and wicked smile, he figured he knew where you were taking him.

the entrance wasn’t anything spectacular. in fact, it was quite dingy, a cellar amongst garbage. you kicked the trash bags out of the way and pulled the doors open, motioning for Shinsou to follow you, pulling the cellar shut tight behind you as you walked down the dimly lit path to another metal door.

knocking twice and then once more, a man eyed you and Shinsou up and down, asking for the password, which you gleefully cheered out. the man grunted then opened the door fully, telling you to enjoy your time. Shinsou jumped when the clang of metal sounded out but was instantly pulled in towards the scene in front of him. there were people all over the place shouting and cheering as two burly men fought in the ring in front of him. none of the people looked like they should’ve been there. people with bright green dyed hair, women in business suits, men lounging around in sweatpants and holey t-shirts, people of all races and ethnicities gathered together to watch.

it was like a scene out of a movie, the chaos and confusion almost being enough to stun a person where they stood, but Shinsou was trained to react to anxiety inducing situations and quickly began scanning around to find the man that might have known what was going on with nightcrawler.

murmuring a quick “stay here,” Shinsou delved into the crowd, spotting the man in charge quite easily, watching the way he cockily examined the fight and all its inhabitants like he owned them.

“hey, we need to have a little chat,” he stated, staring the man directly in the eyes.

“buddy, i don’t know-” the man was cut off as he became enraptured in Shinsou’s quirk.

it took only a few moments before the man was a blubbering mess, but he still wouldn’t crack on who nightcrawler was.

“listen man, she’ll kill me if she finds out i said anything,” he cried.

that was enough information for him to go off and with one final nod, he slipped back into the shadows to find you eagerly cheering on the fight, shoulder to shoulder with a pretty girl with red hair as you two chatted animatedly about what was happening.

“ready to go princess?” he questioned, watching you flush a bright pink underneath the harsh stage lights before you abruptly turned around to smash your lips against his own.

he stood there shocked for a few moments but before you could fully pull away, his lips were back on yours, this time fervent in worship.

the walk back to your apartment was excruciating, kisses being exchanged as Shinsou kept a watchful eye out for any seedy people, especially since you were so close to the latest villain attacks.

when you finally entered your apartment, it was all teeth gnashing together, clothes being practically torn off one another as you explored every inch of your bodies. his hands on your hips, trailing up to tweak your nipples, swallowing your moans with his mouth. your hands tangled in his messy hair, down to the back of his neck to pull him impossibly closer to you, not wanting to miss a moment of him. you didn’t know what he was going through or what possessed him to call you that nickname but you weren’t going to pretend that you weren’t absolutely infatuated with him.

to him, the nickname just slipped. you were so cheesy, so angelic and innocent and yet badass and strong at the same time. the things you went through in life, how you persevered despite it all, made his heart burst out of his chest. it was as if you almost understood him at an atomic level despite only knowing him for a few days. you shared the same morales, the same commonalities, what you wanted to do with your life, how you could change the world if you wanted to. he drank it all up with deep passion, whispering sweet nothings in your ear as he bottomed out inside of you, desperate to hear your moans and whines, to feel you melt underneath his touch.

after what felt like hours and seconds all at once, you collapsed on his chest, drunk off of sex, sweat clinging to your skin like a sheet. you absentmindedly traced your fingers up and down his chest, admiring the swirl of purple hair tufting from his pecs.

“Shinsou,” you started, waiting for his drowsy hum before continuing, “if you could really change the world for the better, would you do it? no holds barred?”

he contemplated you for a moment before responding, “i don’t think i’m cut out to change the world, especially if it means hurting people in the process.”

you hummed in thought before softly whispering, “i think out of any of the heroes, you’d be the one to really change the world. i mean, you’re the one who’s sitting here, kicked out all because the people who you’re supposed to trust with your life can’t even look you in the eye. you’ve suffered so much, struggled so much and yet here you are fighting to catch this villain.”

you paused to collect your thoughts before starting again, “i mean, i don’t know if i could do the whole killing thing. it seems like killing just leads to more killing, and then when will it end? but i don’t think causing a little chaos to get someone’s attention is so bad. property damage to the capitalistic animals that run this country, to the politicians who can look a depressed person in the eye and tell them they should just die, to the people who turn blind eyes to the injustices of this world. i mean, would that be so bad? would that ever really solve anything?”

Shinsou blinked once, twice, three times before shrugging his shoulders.

“i don’t really know if i can disagree with you on that one. i don’t know if i’d ever be able to go against something like The Hero Commission but if i could, i probably would. it doesn’t really matter now though. I’ll probably get kicked out after i find her anyways.”

“her?”

“nightcrawler. the man said she was a woman. it’s not much but it’s a start.”

you hummed in agreement, snuggling up into his side as you began to drift off into sleep, feeling safer than ever in his arms.

the next morning, Shinsou woke up to find out that the man he talked to the night before was dead. you were nowhere to be found and he began panicking before he heard the shower running and you humming to yourself, clearly happy and satisfied with the previous night's actions.

“hey, princess?” he questioned, knocking on the door and opening it to peek inside, watching the steam billow out.

“what’s up?” you asked, peering from around the curtain.

“i’ve got to check something out. i’ll swing by later, yeah?”

you pouted but nodded, blowing him a kiss before closing the curtain to continue your routine.

the walk to the underground club was much shorter than the night before now that his head was clear. there were police swarming the scene but one flash of his hero license and he was let on premises.

a few questions later and he was able to get all the information he needed. nightcrawler apparently found out the man slipped up and sent a lackey to dispose of him. turns out he was also in the sex trafficking business and used the shady underground fight club to hide the even shadier business of women and children. it turned his stomach to hear what was going on but couldn’t help but feel satisfied a sick man like him was no longer around to live.

he spent the rest of the day combing over clues as to who she may be. according to the police, she was there the night he was murdered. rumors spread that she had been planning her next attack as was using the man for intel. how they managed to get that much information but still didn’t know anything about her threw him off more than he could imagine.

before he had a chance to swing back to your apartment, he got a call from the head of his agency asking for a meeting. he swallowed thickly, wondering if they knew what he was doing behind the scenes. a quick ride and he was standing in front of the agencies shiny glass building trying not to throw up.

“Shinsou, good to see you! please, have a seat,” the corporate man stated, motioning for him to sit down across the desk.

he took two large strides and firmly planted himself down, staring the man in the eyes before nodding.

“now, Shinsou, we really appreciate everything you’ve done for this organization, but with the recent rampant villain attacks, we feel it best to place you on temporary leave until things blow over. that may be a few weeks or a few months but we can’t have our agency tarnished by representing someone who is so…”

“villainous?”

“sure, that word could work. i was going to say odd, but nonetheless. all we need you to do is sign right here saying you understand and we’ll make sure to get the checks sent out to you to cover your pay while you’re away.”

he stared at the paper for a few moments before delicately picking it up with his hands and proceeding to rip it in half. he wasn’t sure what caused him to do that but he didn’t care. at that point, he was done being treated like some villain when he was only trying to be the best hero he could be. with a small chuckle at the man’s stunned face, he muttered an “i quit” before walking out of the office with his head held high.

by the time he arrived at your apartment door late that night, he was absolutely panicking. how could he just quit his job as a hero so easily? he fought tooth and nail to be the best version of himself and it seemed to never be enough. he was in near tears when you opened the door, a confused look on your face before you motioned for him to come in and sit down on your couch, offering him a glass of water as you sat waiting for him to speak.

“Shinsou, what’s wrong?” you finally asked with a sigh, placing your hand on his knee to stop it from bouncing up and down.

“i-i quit my job, i just did it. i don’t know what came over me but they wanted to put me on leave and sign some dumb non-disclosure agreement and i just couldn’t do it. they fucked me over so bad and i just didn’t want to be their lackey anymore.”

you signed once more, flopping back into the couch before abruptly sitting up straight, looking him dead in the eye.

“Shinsou, i need to tell you something, okay? and i need you to listen to the whole story before you freak out on me.”

he nodded and that was the only confirmation you needed to continue.

“i’m nightcrawler. before, i was a hero and a damn good one at that. i was trained by The Hero Commission personally to be a faceless assassin. i did their bidding for the greater good, or so i told myself, but the killing became too much for me when they ordered me to kill children. i just couldn’t do it. and so they began framing me, creating me to be the bad guy that they always wanted. they’ve attempted to kill me before but they created a monster instead, someone who can fight and survive even when the odds are stacked against her. that attack that’s being blamed on me? it was them who attempted to frame me. they killed innocent people all to bring me down. the man at the nightclub? i didn’t kill him. i’ve stayed silent for awhile but i’ve been slowly building up my own army, trying to get people to join my side and my cause to fight against the injustices that are being forced upon us. Shinsou, i understand if you hate me for the rest of your life, but i also know you better than i think i should, and i know that you deep down would want to fight with me and for my cause, for the fall of The Hero Commission and the rise of something that would actually put everyone and their quirks first.”

Shinsou stared at you with a blank look in his eyes. you couldn’t tell what he was thinking or what was going on but you waited for him to respond. you would understand if he turned you in, understand if he killed you on the spot, but you secretly hoped that somewhere, deep down, he felt the same way that you did, fed up with being treated like a criminal, thrown to the streets like wild dogs, hunted and chased for sport.

after a few moments, you put your hands out, wrists up and pushed together as you waited for him to restrain you and take you away. he looked at you once again, this time eyes squinted together as if he was trying to figure out what you were doing.

“you can take me in. i wouldn’t be mad.”

“i’m not turning you in.”

you blinked owlishly at him, unsure of where this was going, but before you were able to speak again, he put one finger up to hush you.

“i get where you’re coming from and honestly, your ideas, your plans, they all make sense, but i don’t think i could ever be a part of that. i don’t think i’m the person that ever gets to make change. i’ll always be some outcast, and that’s okay with me.”

“Shinsou,” you started, not sure how to broach the topic, “you’re exactly what we need. a hero who fought so hard to be the best only to get shunned only when you were trying to help. i left the clue about the bar hoping someone would take notice, someone like you, that wanted to fight for a cause that meant something and now here you are. broken, confused, scarred but still strong enough to fight. we need you Shinsou. i need you.”

you held your hand out for him, waiting. you truly didn’t know if he was going to join, if he wanted to become something that he swore he never was, but they pushed him, treated him like scum and it was time for him to fight back. if he joined you, you would make sure he would never be treated that way again. instead, you would make sure he was someone who would always be included, someone who’s opinions and thoughts matter, someone who mattered.

he took a deep breath, fear and determination etched in his face before he clasped your hand in his own, squeezing firmly and looking you in the eye.

“if they want to paint us as villains, let's give them the best damn show we can.”

[liedownquisition]

ugh, fuck freud. I hated when they made me learn his shit (which, admittedly i was already familiar enough to know was shit) but at least my teacher was kind of, approaching it as more of a "these ideas are prevalent and its important to recognize them so you can know when someone's a crock of shit" sorta thing (but also sometimes they're buried so deep its like you learn smth that sounds reasonable until you hunt down the origins of it). Alright, preemptive disclaimer: I am a few years out from an education that never actually got to the point of a degree due to complicated life upheavals. I try to keep up bcs it's a personal passion, but as you've said as well, psychology/ect is a rapidly-evolving field that is still divesting from a lot of older prejudices and yeah, it's very political. You DO have the more recent stuff and I do want to emphasize that I am not so much trying to discredit or outright disagree, just that with where there's overlaps in a lot of disorders (much like other illnesses), you know, understand why one thing vs another, ect. Bcs, again, you've got the most up to date resources, even if they might look different from the ones I'd get if I was able to immediately resume on the same level. (On a slightly other front, I also very much approach diagnosing a fictional character differently than I ever would even suggest IRL, largely in part due to the fact that many discredited or contested disorders, concepts, ect. are used as literary devices regardless of accuracy - Disassociative Amnesia/dissociative fugue, for example, is in particular a rather large one.)

Also some of my terminology is outdated as they frequently adapt them esp wrt as we gain greater understandings of what's actually going on behind the way things present. A vast majority of psychological terms, diagnoses, and symptoms currently do not have the same meanings or usages as their origins. Disassociation, as I recall, even started under the belief of being a "mental/cognitive deficit" and tied to a more archaic version of hysteria - which has a long political history esp tied towards the control & oppression of those diagnosed, often women.

DID is not something I necessarily was thinking of suggesting Jason might have, but rather wanting to bring in that Dissociative Fugue had been tied to other sources, & DID is frequently comorbid with other disorders that can sometimes make treatment of it, or the other disorders difficult due to the disparity - there's no medication for DID, and most treatment is directed largely at the others connected to it & regular counseling. Depression being most frequent esp treatment-resistant varieties, but PTSD & Borderline/BPD (which is also a very popular hc for Jason & includes dissociative episodes) are also not terribly infrequent (as well as any number of other personality, trauma, disorders, actually. It could be said that DID is almost an amplifier, in some ways). (DID, ftr, is also considered to be a trauma-induced disorder, especially tied to trauma starting in/induced in early childhood, and similarly to PTSD has been getting more momentum in recognition/study largely due to WW2. I have had multiple friends diagnosed with it and combined with my family history & OTHER friends who had schizophrenia it was a major factor in my interest in the field from the start, esp to understand where they diverge since they were frequently conflated. Also, an interesting note is that diagnosing DID is almost more about ruling out every other option than it is to diagnose DID itself. One of the biggest issues with it diagnostically is that a lot of the associated concepts for it are not clearly enough defined, & there are competing models for it. It may be the case that there are multiple "types" and it should be used more of an umbrella with more specific sub-branches or even just split into multiple concepts altogether, but admittedly that's a bit more of a personal theory than one I know to be actually considered.)

Where I was considering the Dissociative Fugue idea is largely more due to it's implications wrt mobility. ymmv on if "escaped the hospital and wandered around Gotham" constitutes a significant enough form of travel to qualify under "fugue", but given the emphasis on the comic even before he got hit on him walking several miles further than investigators suspected he could/would have, it seemed a viable consideration. It also apparently became More Explicitly part Dissociative Amnesia in the DSM-V which I guess was published the same year I was... studying... and my class at the time did not fully cover, jfc. That's kind of an embarrassing thing to have missed, actually. I was a bit focused on other things, but...

I believe you! Implicit learning is a good point, I was mostly concerned about how it would interact with, say, the dissociation in question. Using your house metaphor, if they're lower than the first basement, where they can't see or hear above, then how are they intaking and retaining that information. With a lighter dissociation it doesn't feel like a question, but the deeper in you get, it feels like there would be more of a struggle for that information to breach, you know? (Again, not saying you're wrong. This is just why I had the question/felt unsure of whether or not that specific concept(s) was still applicable under these conditions.)

Is it just me or does Jason not have catatonia in Red Hood: Lost Days?

It's been driving me crazy the more I think about it, his symptoms are way more consistent with dissociation than catatonia (not to mention the etiology fits much better. If you just gave me the list what happened to him and I had to pick what disorder he was most likely to suffer from (in RH: Lost Days) without describing anything, my bet would be on dissociation no question asked)

This is has enormous implications when it comes to the Lazarus Pit and what it can and cannot heal, how to calculate Jason's age, the diagnostic hypothesis we have for Jason and so much more. Am I missing something? Why does Winnick keep referencing to Jason's symptoms as catatonia?

[justasadboi]

⚠️ age regression mentioned⚠️

(Sorry didn’t wanna post it on the blog for that cause it’s more depressing than anything)

Today was a bad day. Got into a huge fight with my boyfriend that basically ended in fighting and me being depressed up until work when I had to get up and not be sad. While fighting my brand new pacifier broke and then I discovered that my stuffed animal had a rip in him and idek how (funnily enough it was both the same character so maybe that’s just a sign). Everything got fixed and is fine now but I realized that my mental health be bad like my first thought was I need to kill myself so that no one needs to deal with my abusivness and then the immediate breakdown and self harm that comes next. I be borderline psychosis I can feel the same feeling I got last time but I think last time was more of a drug induced-thing but it was bad and I lost a month of my life and I don’t wanna do that again but I also don’t wanna help myself because I feel like I should just wait till I have enough courage to just kill my self and not fuck it up this time. I feel the really chronic feeling of emptiness that comes with the bpd but also the depressive episode from the bipolar and many other thing. The Ed is back and better than evea. Kinda hoping that kills me but I be vaping everyday just to really cover my bases. I need a person to talk to about everything but I don’t have that person right now and honest to god don’t know if I ever have or ever will. I had a moment with god today where I said some things I shouldn’t have and literally hours later I got a text from my ex who I have blocked on literally everything but he found a way, and I know that that was god saying hey stop saying that shit or I’ll throw some real bullshit ur way. I’ve made amends no worries there but fuck man. Idk what to do anymore it’s either head empty or head so full I wish it would just fucking explode. Dunno what to do aside from listen to more Mac Miller drink in healthy amount to avoid a relapse and idk pray maybe????? I just wanna not feel this way and the only way I can see that happening is if I die so yeah fun times. And on top of everything I leave my bf to go out of state in less than a week to spend time with my mom and sister and that’s gonna be a shitshow cause I can’t bring any weed and everytime we’re together she feels the need to constantly belittle me and act like I’m not a grown person who has moved out successfully at the age of 18 and buys all my own shit but yeah ig I’m still the fucked up kid who does drugs and lies and manipulates and ig to my parents I’ll always be that person, like ig it’s because I hurt their feeling or whatever but I got my feelings hurt by them too and I have tried my hardest to let that shit go and i just don’t understand why they can’t do the same. 🥲🙃😭😢😟😓😥😰

[fourwingfries]

Notes about self-typing.

I don't see enough people talking about this, but these points have been crucial in my own journey of self-typing and typing others, so here we go. Before you type yourself, consider:

The degree of stress you're under right now: Stress greatly influences how you view yourself, or if you have enough objective self knowledge to have an honest assessment of your own type. While a normal amount of stress brings people into their strengths, continued stress actually pushes you into the worse parts of your personality, and this experience can last anywhere from a few hours to (in borderline-traumatic cases) decades. And it's not an objective assessment of your type if it is only decided based on how you are at your worst. your type is a mixture of your general thought process, your worse tendencies, AND your better choices.

Possible general or trauma-induced dissociation: A lot of people have a general tendency to dissociate for internal or environmental reasons. it's WAY more common than we think, and it happens in varying degrees of "this trait upsets me so i pretend i don't have it/this trait makes me happy so i own it as a defining part of my personality" to "i do things that enrage and/or surprise me, i don't know where these thoughts and behaviors come from, and i'm helpless in controlling them so in my good days i pretend that they don't exist and get shocked/upset when people point them out to me" cases, counting out DID since that one is the obvious case. People tend to have more dissociation towards the parts of their psyche that resides in the [MBTI] tertiary and inferior functions, or the [instinctual variants] blindspot, oooor [in an enneagram sense] the parts of us that keep us from achieving the ideal image we aspire to have, but this isn't always the case. And to have an honest view of yourself, you have to keep in mind that at all times you're a little, or a lot, dissociating from parts of you that is unpleasant/scary/sad to think about, and that it's not only okay, but necessary to be open to feedback, new experiences and new insights regarding yourself. Fear is an inseparable part of self discovery, so before trying to type yourself, you have to learn to be comfortable with fear and be able to sit with it and learn from it. You don't have to 'accept' whatever comes your way and whatever new thing you discover, but you have to be able to entertain possibilities and get comfortable with the uncertainty and complexity that comes with being a human.

Mental illness: this one kinda goes without saying, but mental illnesses of all kinds (or generally being stuck in fear responses) narrows your focus on a very limited number of mental tools you have learnt since childhood for dealing with a shit life. They make it very hard to be present to your whole personality, not what you constantly resort to in times of (perceived or real) crisis. It's not impossible to type yourself when you have mental illnesses, but it makes the process longer, and you need to have more patience and compassion towards yourself.

Your gender: It actually really fucking matters, how you're raised based on your actual or perceived gender, or even the gender your caretakers proffered you to be like. Your own personality and preferences are only a small part of the choices you make throughout your life, and another part of that process is how others react to you and the choices you might make. In some cases, even though your preferences are right there, you may make different choices because there's more reward and acceptance for that choice, even though it's not your actual preference. Or you may make choices because the consequences you'll face for not making them are so high and dont seem like they're worth it. A lot of women don't entertain the possibility of being a thinker because as women they're conditioned to think that they suck at rational decisionmaking and have a natural knack for emotions and dealing with them. As a byproduct of that conditioning, many thinker women have higher emotional awareness and are more in touch with their emotional side than men of the same type - simply because there is a lot of social shaming and pressure on women to be sympathetic and considerate and to be able to emote. A lot of feeler men actually have less healthy thought frameworks and tools around emotions then women of the same type, as society does not expect men or train them for emotional intelligence and thought frameworks generally associated with femininity and women stuff. SO blind women are often more accommodating and mindful of how they're perceived than SO blind men, SP blind men often have more attention to SP and develop more tools in dealing with SP-related works, etc etc, the list goes on forever. The thing to keep in mind is, toss out the stereotypes. Don't dismiss different possibilities simply because "you're not as emotional as the feeling type descriptions suggest" or "you're not as edgy as the SO blinds you've seen" or “you have some hobbies you love dearly so you must be a SX variant”. Different descriptions are written with the majority of that type in mind. They're ripe with stereotypes, and for a good reason. But you don't have to fit with stereotypes to be a type, you just have to share the thought process and the inherent preferences that create its mindset.

With all that said, what is the best approach to self-typing?

Observe yourself when you're in flow state. When you're content, happy, feel safe, and are surrounded with people who accept you and love you for who you are, no matter what it looks like. If you cannot find a context in which you feel like that, imagine yourself 5 years from now, in a context that gives you those feelings. What would you look like if you were surrounded by accepting, loving, sincere people who accept you no matter what and find you enough in and of yourself? imagine that scenario in full details and make note of the choices you would make in that context.

Make notes of what you have generally thought most of your life, before you had mental illness. Be open to any and all thoughts that might come up.

Learn to love yourself before you try to self-type. It's hard to type yourself correctly if you're consciously or subconsciously fighting against parts of you that you consider weak/unacceptable/not enough/boring/problematic/wrong. Be open to your own thoughts and other's feedback and before you try to decide what type you are, decide that whatever comes up is okay, is cool, is enough, and there's nothing wrong with it. Shame and judgement is the enemy of objectivity. consciously decide to accept and offer compassion  to yourself. If you cannot seem to do that, imagine an anxious dear friend of yours, and write down how you would treat them and what you would tell them. Now do those stuff for yourself to the best of your abilities, and tell those things to yourself.

Move beyond typing. Ask yourself why do you want to type yourself, what does it offer you, what purpose do you have in trying out these labels. Do not self type when you feel insecure, sad, depressed, isolated, rejected. Labels are not what you need in those moments, it's kindness and acceptance of who you are.

[inanawesomewave]

AND HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?

It’s been a very long time since I posted and for that I can only apologise, I’m extremely, abnormally, infinitely pregnant (okay, I’m 39 weeks) and I’ve spent this past few months hibernating, and recovering from a bipolar depression that, thankyou alexithymia, I didn’t notice I was having until it went away and I no longer had any thoughts of ending my life. But, I’m back now, happily alive and happy to be alive, and as I’m in these final days of pregnancy, I’m thinking about oxytocin. When you’re ridiculously pregnant you think of all the ways you can induce labour (hint: none of them work). I’ve tried it all, castor oil, clary sage, red raspberry leaf tea, evening primrose, sex, long walks, whatever. And I started thinking today about how the only thing that is proven to work, is oxytocin, and how when it is released, it can make your body think you are breastfeeding and you begin to have contractions now that the baby knows it’s okay to come out and get fed. That’s because oxytocin is a hormone that promotes love, bonding, sociability, friendship. They call it the hormone of love, lust and labour. And I realised, as I was looking up all the ways I could release oxytocin myself at home, that I don’t have a good relationship to it. At all. 

I first realised maybe there was something a little off with my oxytocin during my last pregnancy, and in the first few months of breastfeeding my son. I would pump milk or my son would latch on, and within seconds I felt horrendously depressed and anxious, as if the release of oxytocin triggered a panic response in me. They playfully call this “Sad Nipple Syndrome”, many people confuse it for a repressed memory of sexual abuse, but really, it’s related to a phenomenon known as Depressive Milk Ejection Reflex and is believed to be because of a rapid, brief reduction of dopamine immediately before milk let-down, but I wonder if for me it has more to do with oxytocin.

Now I’m not trying to martyr myself when I say this, because largely, I find breastfeeding very rewarding, not to mention practical, and money-saving, and it’s my favourite time of the evening -- when my son is cuddling me, watching his bedtime shows, and nursing. And I’m not battling through some horrendous feeling in order to do that, and really, I’d mostly got used to it. But just recently, near the end of the pregnancy I’m having now, I’m experiencing that familiar sense of dread, anxiety, depression and need to escape when he latches on, and I felt it the other night when I was expressing, and I felt it recently after (hehe) an orgasm. I mean, when it comes to dopamine, I’m fucked. I’m bipolar and I take, to be exact about the dosage, a metric ton of quetiapine (Seroquel) every day just to keep on an even keel, which is an antipsychotic which means its sole purpose is to tell my dopamine to shut the fuck up for five seconds. I’m used to having my dopamine function in swells and droughts. But oxytocin, fucking hell. I have antisocial personality disorder. It makes sense that something about the bonding hormone makes me feel uneasy, or even unwell, like I need to escape the situation. I’ve always said, something about myself and my disorder that I kind of despise, is how I have this bizarre drive to fight my way out of any and all groups I find myself in. Groups of friends, colleagues, schoolmates, peers of any kind, I will try with all my might to be part of the group, then when I realise how cynical I am about that, I will try to at least appear to be part of the group for Machiavellian reasons, and then when I begin hating myself because the pretence is too exhausting, I will find myself subconsciously picking the group apart. My lack of empathy becomes hostile, and if anything, the most toxic trait I exhibit in these situations is to break the group up entirely. If I can’t have it, nobody can. It was worse when I was younger: at school, I’d lie about things one friend said about the other and watch arguments happen, delighting in the collapse of that friendship circle. I’d tell one the other stole from them, I’d tell the other that everyone is saying she spread a harmful rumour. I’ve even gone so far as to frame a person for theft just to watch the fallout. I did that when I was about 8, I did it again when I was 10. I did it a third time in my teens. It was kind of my MO. I’m not proud of that spiteful need to isolate people from loving interaction just because I was so afraid of it. Okay, I’m a little proud of pulling it off. The ease with which you could snap apart even close bonds confirmed everything I loved and hated about how I saw the world: sociability is a lie and empathy is a cool trick to use against people. Even as an adult, whilst not maliciously and actively trying to hurt people any more, I have found reasons to leave groups under a black cloud. I was a poet once, and I hated all my contemporaries except for a few. I used the people I hated the most, got where I wanted to be, and fucked off forever because the game got boring. I did the same when I was a musician. When I was a student. When I was doing both my undergraduate degrees. My God, my need to be antisocial is so strong, it’s ruining my careers.

Now, we all know that research on ASPD is quite scant. They don’t really want to know much about us except for the fact we prefer bitter tasting things, or that people want to fuck us, or that we dig easily accessible rap music. What is out there about us is mostly inconclusive, or the conclusions drawn are highly subjective -- I featured one on this blog a long time ago for example that said we are more likely to use expressive, emotive and loaded language when talking about our life experiences, and the researchers used their personal judgements to conclude that this was further evidence of our heartlessness, which was fucking hilarious. Heaven forfend we might be seen as humans for five seconds. Anyway, today when searching around to see if there’s any chemical link to ASPD and oxytocin, I found this. If you don’t have access to it, that’s fine, it was a study from last year that looked into this very relationship, to see if oxytocin treatment could improve outcomes for antisocial people both with and without diagnosis. The research itself was more an inquiry into an aggregate of 36 previously done studies (because to actually do new research would cost money that needs to be spent on finding out if we ever yawn or if our eyes look weird or if we give a shit if someone jumps up behind us dead scary like and says “boo” or some shit). Results again were inconclusive, but something interested was noted: oxytocin was largely associated with a reduction in criminal/amoral/antisocial behaviour, but in some, had an opposite effect - that is to say, antisocials sometimes respond to oxytocin with hostility toward their loved ones. 

So why is that? Well, there aren’t any answers right now and “further high quality, large sample-size studies are required” (so, let’s not all hold our breath at once), but do I have a theory? You bet I do! 

We know that personality disorders, especially cluster-b, come from neglect and trauma. We can theorise that antisocials have a lack of empathy because we weren’t taught it, or maybe we had emotionally manipulative parents that would prey upon our empathy and later use it to harm us so we learned to be cynical of it, maybe we had to learn how to fake empathy toward our abusive parents so they’d stop beating the shit out of us for five seconds, maybe we learned the language of violence and aggression because it was the language we were taught at home, and maybe we fought our way out of social groups because we were taught not to have friends, or our parents only really loved us when we reflected their own hateful, selfish and volatile traits back to them, so we learned not only that love was pointless, but actively rejecting it was favourable. There are lots of reasons why a person might develop antisocial personality disorder. So surely it makes sense, that if we learn these antisocial behaviours, we also learn to be antisocial to a chemical process in our bodies that is imploring us to be the exact opposite? Doesn’t it make sense that if we feel love, bonding, connection, our instinct is to panic and fight it? To feel sad, to want to cry? And if we don’t know how to cry or connect to that part of ourselves because we never learned emotional intelligence, doesn’t it make sense we’d then convert that feeling into something else, something immediate and easy? Like anger? Like rage? Antisocial people experience everything in primaries: blue, red, yellow. Generic bad, rage, and generic good. When we need to access a secondary or tertiary emotion (something orange like homesickness? Or something even magenta like... fucking... humiliation?), we have to channel it back into one of those primary colours, something we can understand. So, generic good, generic bad, and red red rage are all we have. Oxytocin? Bonding? Who knows where that belongs. Could be any of the three. And let’s be honest, this isn’t restricted purely to antisocial personality disorder. Narcissists respond to love and bonding with a push-back, so do borderlines and histrionics. It all comes out different, but it all comes from the same place: don’t you fucking dare love me. The only person in my life I feel that immediate, unwavering bond with, is my son. Maybe that’s why I’ve been able to breastfeed him despite the sadness and panic of it all, because the initial reaction to the oxytocin is the hurdle and not the reward, and after that I can get to it properly, to look at him and feel intense love, empathy and joy. Maybe it’s evolutionary, the truth of it is when it comes to my children, I don’t care what the mechanism is that makes me love them the way I do or how it ties into my disorder. But how I feel about friends, lovers, and other family members is up for scrutiny, my own scrutiny at that. 

So as I sit here wondering why it’s hard for me to experience oxytocin, I wonder how the rest of you feel. Do you have a good relationship to it? What does it do for your empathy? When you perform a good deed, do you feel warm and fuzzy, or is it a logical step for you? How do you access love? Is it a decision, or a gut instinct? And for christ’s sake, when you have sex, are you doing it to grab hold of the oxytocin, or fight it off? 

[localtransdude]

I hate dysphoria induced insecurity

Like dysphoria is a whole thing on it's own but sometimes it latches on to your insecurities and kills you from there

Like damn I really dont need to be feeling this insecure about myself and how I handle something that was borderline traumatic but here I am, comparing myself to some 5' 9 guy at the scene who has been calm and level headed all the time I've seen him and is so cool and good and i feel like shit man. I hate when you know someone is just blatantly a better person and you yourself dont know how to fix yourself. I wanna go away. I have the urge to just run and leave. I want to escape something I dont even know I'm running from.

I dont want to be mentally a 15 year old and I dont want to have this body I dont want to have this voice and this hair and this face and brain I dont want ADHD or depression I want to not be this fucking disappointment of a person who's seeming good for nothing other than taking up space.

[cliquestitsandicks]

Tracking Kat

Episode 1: Kat is mourning the end of her relationship with Adena. It has been 5 weeks since the breakup in Paris. She's still looking at old pictures of them and posted one. She still hasn't sent Adena's equipment to her, even though Adena has been texting her asking for it. By the end of the episode, she's admitted to (in order) Alex, Patrick, and Jane & Sutton that she is not okay. She is still sad about the end of her relationship. Alex tells her "you're so hard on yourself. You got your heart broken. There's no expiration date on heartbreak. You move on when you're ready to move on and when you *are* ready, you will find someone amazing. Someone who will never leave." Then Patrick is an entitled, invasive dick. She told her girls she wasn't ready for it to be real yet and that's why she hadn't told them... but she broke down in front of them. She'd finally accepted it was over. End of the episode, she makes an instagram post exposing her vulnerability to the world and packs up Adena's things for good.

Episode 2: Kat injects Jane for fertility treatment. She is very familiar with Jane's reproductive system at this point - best friends. She learns the Wild Susan, a club Adena took her to that became a safe space she frequents and which happens to be 1 of only TWO lesbian bars in the city, is closing. She learns the only reason it's happening is because developers want to gentrify the neighborhood. We learn Kat has a lawyer (not sure how that may come up later) that she met through the #BeReal campaign. Anyway, Kat throws a queer prom as a fundraiser to help save the Wild Susan. It ultimately fails because $42,000 in one night from poor people is a bit much. But it was a valiant effort and, as Kat learns, the gentrifiers were well aware of its impossibility. This episode is leading up to her political career. "I've been so into my feelings lately, it feels really good to challenge my energy into something that really matters". I am so proud of Kat. In Season 1, I would have worried she was avoiding her feelings, but the writers made a big deal of showing she's done the exact opposite of that in the prior episode.

Episode 3: Kat has been researching councilman Reynolds and he's a total piece of shit - helping gentrifiers, cutting funding to parks, and voting against paid maternity leave. She's fired up. Our girl is P A S S I O N A T E & informed! We meet the councilwoman for whom she plans to volunteer and her campaign manager, Tia. Tia's a tiny, bubbly boss with natural hair and a bright smile and we see Kat brighten up. We later learn she and Kat have more in common, both being NYU grads (actually overlapping while there) and both brilliant. Tia, however, is not from a wealthy and connected background. In their initial meeting, Kat tells Tia "I'm just looking for something to channel my rage and depression". Kat enlists her besties to help get the councilwoman to unseat problematic Reynolds. Sutton clearly sees something between Kat and Tia because she does a friend's background check (checking the social media) and tells Kat she looks very single to which Kat responds "it really doesn't matter because I'm still getting over Adena" and Jane seems skeptical of Kat's protestations with her silent smirk. We learn Kat has really soft lips. Kat is the voice of reason for Alex, being the first one to acknowledge the hypersexual "dangerous" Black man depiction that will likely be projected onto him if he admits he is the man in his friend's story. Then we see her naturally command the crowd at the rally. Again, I am so proud of Kat. She isn't holding back when she knows she should speak up. She's taking control of her narrative. She's fighting for what's right in a constructive manner. And now Tia, who has way more experience with this than Kat, is recommending she run for office.

Episode 4: We start the episode with Kat describing what would be her district and job description to her best friends. She's looking excited about the potential to do something that matters and really help people. In her conversation with the Toby (?. don't know, don't care), we get to see more of Tia being supportive of Kat and Kat being confronted with whether she's motivated to actually run or just wants someone to beat Reynolds. We learn Kat had an abortion in 2013 when she was 20 AS IS HER GOTDAMN RIGHT BECAUSE IT'S HER BODY, but it's something she's felt some sort of shame/concern over seeing as nobody close to her knew about it. Then, and this is so great, after telling her friends she has the conversation with Tia. Tia shares that she's had one as well and completely understands not wanting it to be public knowledge, but in sharing her experience educates Kat on yet another way vulnerable people are having their rights stripped, this time through manipulation and "crisis centers" that shouldn't exist. Tia remains supportive and doesn't pressure Kat at all with her decision. "I am by your side if they come for you, but you gotta do what's right for you". When we get that great speech from Jacqueline we see Kat being moved my the statement that you'll never know what you're capable of if you don't take a leap faith to face challenges that frighten you, then you'll never know what you're capable of. [i'd like to pause right now to say Jacqueline is fucking wonderful and i love her like my white auntie. also Sutton needed to hear that again just as much as Kat and i really appreciate this entire moment.] When Kat leaves Jacqueline's celebration, she passes by one of those "crisis centers" Tia told her about and decides to use her voice to help others. "I like to think of myself as a pretty strong, empowered, forward-thinking, open-minded woman. But, up until now, I haven't been able to talk about my abortion. If me putting myself out there helps even one woman to feel less alone, less ashamed, and less guilty then it's worth it." And just like us, dear Tia is blown away. She actually exhales a breath she didn't know she was holding and biiiiiiiitch (!!!! excitedly). and then they're dancing! This is the episode, upon rewatch, when i recognize how often Tia touches Kat unnecessarily.

Episode 5: Kat's entire recap includes Tia, ending with Sutton saying "she seems to be very single". Her very first scene, Tia is complimenting her walking out of some campaigning event we later learn was a Town Hall. Can we just talk about Kat's blazer for a second? First of all, i want it. Second, how did they find something so perfectly her? It's colorful but still semi-professional, fun, but still about her business. Heart-eye inducing. ok. So the next time we see Kat, she and Tia (whose last name they finally mention as Clayton) are reviewing campaign platform and doing debate prep at Kat's apartment. Tia's complimenting Kat almost continuously at this point. Clearly she's impressed, borderline gushing. and Kat tries to brush it off. Tia's not letting her. And there's this moment when Tia forces herself to break eye contact with her (around 5:40 of the episode). The show tells us Kat still hasn't dated since Adena, but Sutton brings up the "stupid smile" she gets whenever Tia's mentioned. She's making better decisions than Patrick and her being compared to Patrick is lowkey happening a lot. I'm starting to wonder if they're setting up Kat taking over digital if she doesn't win the campaign. Ok, the song choice as they pan to Kat and Tia... "I never normally check my phone 10 times in a minute. I'm not the girl to be kept on hold 10 miles from the finish." Again, Tia is very touchy with Kat, never anything inappropriate of course, but the hand is always on the back or the arm. and their interaction is just.. lovely. I squeal. it's so cute. they're so comfortable. Kat invites Tia to the dinner BEFORE (i got the timing on that mixed up before) Tia says she's "a boring straight girl" [the test determined that was a LIE... nah, my good sis Tia is dealing with some internalized homophobia which is no joking matter, but we don't learn that until the next episode]. Apparently, Kat can cook now? So she just liked Adena's food better i guess? idk... anyway. I get why some of the things Tia said can be taken as flirting, but i still believe that you accept what someone says is their sexuality until they say otherwise. yes, that's even when they're saying things like "when i see what i want, i go for it" and "Annndd she can cook. it's hot" and looking at you like that. Kat telling Jane to apologize because he's her boss and she got suuuper disrespectful and would absolutely deserve getting fired makes me proud. She's the mature friend now. She's the one with a level head on her shoulders. Kat finally makes her feelings known to Tia, but this is after Tia has already stated she's straight. Tia reiterates that this is a professional relationship and apologizes for Kat getting the wrong idea. I'm reminded of when Alex Danvers told Maggie Sawyer she was into her and she was rejected... but in that example i was floored and heartbroken for Alex because ugh, i just didn't see that coming. With this, however, it felt like Tia was clear in her words even if it shocked the hell out of me what the words were. So i didn't feel heartbroken for Kat. I thought... tbh... she brought it on herself for refusing to respect Tia's "no", however soft it was. But the writers did let us know it wasn't over with the music selection... Kat looking at "You and Tia make a great team :)" as "I'll go to war for you" plays.

Episode 6: All the emails have been released and Kat has no worries at all about that because she's a professional. And we get to see her be a boss addressing the entire group. Patrick isn't there this episode (YAY for our sanity!) and i think Kat being a boss so often when Patrick isn't around is intentional. When we see Tia, she says last night is forgotten but she thinks it's a bad idea to remain Kat's campaign manager... which is clearly a hard rejection. One can argue that it's too harsh for someone merely admitting they were into you. But it's just as easy to argue that it's appropriate after telling someone, very clearly, that you are not into them romantically and them ignoring that and saying that you were flirting with them on this date they never called a date before you were already there?? so i'm not mad at it. At the end of the episode, we find out that Tia was rejecting herself, not Kat. Turns out, Ms. Tia Clayton has known she's attracted to women since she was in high school, but she "didn't want to want it". Tia is so TINY AND ANXIOUS ABOUT HER SEXUALITY AND MANY OF US HAVE BEEN THERE. But... and i say this in jest... for someone who is really trying not to be out in the open with her gay, she sure was comfortable kissing Kat all outdoors for anyone to see. My good sis is smitten. I'm excited for the story. Again with the music during their scenes though... "I cannot fallll in love with youuuuu. I cannot feeeeel this way so soon, so soon." Also, my girlfriend and I have watched the gifset of the kiss over the phone and swooned (we live in different states for now). This episode, we also got the flashbacks (i missed Lauren so much). Kat's got red streaks in her hair, is a friend to strangers, has regrettable sex with men who taste like pickles, and is cute as a button. She also called Jacqueline "Mama Jackie" and that's it; that's her name now.

[behardonyourself]

From Couch to Ironman in One Year?

Today I was browsing the interwebs looking at triathlon and training related articles, when I saw a link to a thread on a popular triathlon message board asking if it was possible to go from a couch potato to an Ironman in one year.

All I can say is that I’m glad I was too dumb to go online and start asking others for their advice to find out if it was possible.

A little background here - in December of 2018 I was quite a bit more than a couch potato:  I was drinking 5-6 days per week.  My diet was 90% fast food.  I hadn’t swam a lap since 1995.  Just two months earlier, I had nearly died by running less than ¼ of a mile, and aside from the freestyle and BMX bicycles from my youth, I had never ridden a bike.

Understand that my initial goal was not to become an Ironman in December of 2018 - I was simply just tired of being tired, fat, drunk, and depressed.  I needed something to motivate me to change.  At THAT time, I assumed I would need six months or more to train for a 5k obstacle course, race, so I chose a Spartan event here at the home of the Dallas Cowboys in AT&T Stadium.  That race was for June 22, 2019, and I thought that I needed every second of that to get ready so that I wouldn’t: A) Die at Jerry’s World, B) Embarrass the shit out of myself in front of my wife and kids, and C) Just say “fuck it”, quit, and not finish the race.

After signing up for that race and motivated as hell, something happened…  While my body obviously wasn’t crazy about running, confidence in my physical ability that I assumed was gone forever started to reappear.  I still clearly remember distinctly run/walking and thinking that before too long, I may be able to run one mile without stopping.  The idea of that had me thinking that maybe I could do a little more than just a 5k.

A few weeks later, I committed to training for an Ironman.  Of course, going from a 5k obstacle race to an Ironman was borderline insane, especially how untrained I was at each of the specific disciplines - by no stretch was I to be confused with a runner or a cyclist, and I promise you, no one was confusing me for Michael Phelps.

Maybe people make the decision to race Ironman all of the time and don’t make it for any number of reasons.  They train to get ready to just “sign up” and never do.  They get injured and have a legitimate reason to back out.  

Or maybe they just realize that the body isn’t designed to swim 2.4 miles, bicycle 112 miles, and then run a 26.2 mile marathon within 17 hours.  I am sure there are a number of reasons why 3000 people sign up and don’t cross the finish line (or start training for it and never even sign up).  In my case, Ironman was probably just a “fool’s errand”, and something that seemed like a good idea in the comfort of my living room while I’m fed, hydrated, and rested.

By no metric was I capable of becoming an Ironman.  But fortunately, I am a bumblebee.

From a physics standpoint, a bumblebee’s wings are too short for it’s over-sized body, and hypothetically, no matter how hard a bumblebee flaps it’s wings, it is not capable of flying.  

The only issue with that is that the bumblebee doesn’t realize that it isn’t supposed to be able to fly, so it just does it anyway.

Simply put, I am too stupid to realize limitations and to recognize impossible when I am staring dead at it, so I just do it anyway.

I am asked multiple times per week for advice on Ironman,  People want to know what training program I follow, could I train them, are there books to read, websites to visit, videos to watch, etc.  To be frank, yes, I could absolutely design a training program that if followed could get most anyone ready to finish an Ironman.  

But in reality, Ironman is way more mental than it is physical, and the reason that most people don’t sign up, show up, and/or finish an Ironman race is because they don’t believe they can.  Somewhere along the line they let the noise within their own minds and the opinions of others talk them out of their goals.

Had I believed everything that I heard, read, and even thought, I would not have experienced hearing Mike Reilly say “Boyd Myers, you are an Ironman”.  

My advice is simple.  If you’re serious about running an Ironman or any other seemingly different physical feat, being too stupid to realize that you can’t do it is where you need to start.  It doesn’t have to be an Ironman, an ultra-endurance event, or anything physically related at all - we talk ourselves out of greatness because we become too smart to just follow our instincts and do what we need to do to not only survive, but to thrive.  

My other bit of advice would be this: Just get fucking started.  Analyzing it, talking about it, thinking about it, planning for it - those things are great, but somehow the smarter we get the more we find ways to convince ourselves as to what is possible and that we are limited.  I can tell you, there are a lot of nerds in triathlon that love to throw fancy training terms, philosophy, phrases, and ideas at you.  They’ll start a pissing match about what you’re doing versus what their trainer says, equipment, time, future races, past races, or anything else in the world making you think “I’m totally out of my element”.

Understand  that you cannot be too dumb to be a triathlete, however, like anything else, you can be too smart to do it and “think” yourself right out of doing something amazing.  While an amazing part of being human is learning from our pasts and using logic to determine the best course of action, it is also a poison that in many cases serves as a self-induced limiter as to what we realize we are capable of.

Right now, my long term race focus is on ultra-triathlons - doubles, triples, Ultraman, etc.  I’m hooked.  In the short term, my next event is a 100k run.  Considering that Ironman Arizona 2019 was my first ever marathon (and the furthest I have ever run), I am excited to push myself past what most people believe is humanly possible (especially for me).  Now, however, it seems that I have a lot fewer doubters than I had during my Ironman prep.

By the way, I don’t know if it is possible to go from the couch to Ironman in twelve months, but it is absolutely possible to do it in eleven months.

[imaginarybabies]

eightysixed​:

“It ain’t just the fucking,” he explains, staying right there where she asks him to, moving his hand up and down her side. “It’s kinda…having a girl at all. Eddie thinks women are a distraction,” he says the last word like it’s meant to be in quotation marks, ridiculed. “But Craig, another trainer at the gym says that’s old fashioned to think about shit like that, and long as I stay focused it don’t matter.” It wasn’t his fault if Muhammad Ali got distracted and couldn’t handle some pussy. Tyson was perfectly capable of multitasking. Or at any rate, sure, maybe his anger when he started out had fuelled him somewhat, but now that’s gone he’s no less motivated to keep going. Or so he thinks. Or hopes. “That’s kinda part of the reason he took me on. He saw me punch a dude. Downtown, at a bar.” He licks his lips, had decided long ago he wouldn’t tell her about this, but here he was, telling her about it, lifting his head off her shoulder. “Was like a week before my birthday. I was drinking, depressed and shit. The usual. I started talking to some guy, about you, about…everything. I dunno. He was easy to talk to, it just poured out of me. Total stranger, but he seemed like he understood. Then turns out, he was one of your clients.” He looks her in the eye. Able to say these things partly because they’re in the past now, or maybe precisely because of it. “He said some shit. I swung on him. Not too hard, he was kinda old so I felt bad. But I still hit him. They threw me out the bar. Then Eddie was helping me up.” He laughs through his nose. “He said ‘you got a mean hook. You ever try boxing?’” And the rest, as they say, was history. 

Though he hasn’t broached the subject with Tierney given the fact everything had happened in the past 24 hours, he’s sure she’d be fine with it. And if not, he’d make sure she was fine with it. Like everything else. That or he’d ask Nate for a spare room to put Sasha in, or something. He’d figure it out. “Yeah. Sure. She won’t mind,” he waved away the roommate concerns. But then her own concerns…for a bit, she said. Did she not want to stay with him longterm? Did he want that? He wasn’t sure. Deep down, Tyson had fears. What they had was strong, but every time he moved in with a girlfriend, that seemed to be the turning point when everything went downhill. With Amalia, with shudder-inducing to even think of Gemma, with Lauren. He only had his past history to go off of but somehow, for whatever reason that was always the point when shit would start to go bad. But who knew. They were different. She was different. “Baby, you’re my girlfriend,” he says, deciding to put his foot down, like he did this morning. “You’re stayin’ with me. What kind of fucking boyfriend would I be if I made you bounce around people’s couches?” Sounding borderline pissed about it — not at her, but at the hypothetical situation that could entail. 

She snorts, both at the way he says the word distraction and the fact he said it at all, at Eddie’s whole paranoia about the concept. “Huh. That’s random.” Tyson lifts himself from her space to launch into a storytime, one that has Sasha pulling her own legs to her to wrap her arms around, chin perching on a pointy knee as she listens on, expression confused and disbelieving. Something straight out of a TV show, one she’d probably be laughing at if it was just that, one she can’t really do that for now with how close to home it hits. He ran into one of her clients. And told him about her, and punched him. Her hand is back at his face, shaking her head. “What’d he say to you, baby? About me or — about you?” Chest filling with the most bittersweet softness again at her Tyson getting thrown out of bars because of her, the need to tell him about her own adventures away from him back with a vengeance now that there’s no danger anymore of him running downtown with his gun on him again.

Sasha gives him a long, careful look with the topic’s shift back into the practical, relieved for Tyson to be calling the shots again, even if said shot has her insides in a twist. It’s not that she’s not happy to be staying with him, heaven knows if she could she’d move inside his skin, even with the added nervousness of never having lived with a boyfriend before. Or having a boyfriend at all, the extent of her actual dating history something along the lines of some older man waiting for her outside her high school or a client she got along with enough for either of them to fool themselves. This though, the unease, is more of a case of never having anything she wanted just handed to her for free no questions asked, the barrage of good news making her all kinds of antsy and leaving her subconsciously bracing for the catch. The possibility of her having bought this moment fair and square after four years at Frank’s not even crossing her mind; she never was one to bargain with the universe. “Alright then. My boyfriend. Didn’t wanna be very, uh, easy to spot on anyone’s bills but — if you’re good with me staying here then I’mma stay here.”

[xaziroot]

A star, in a sea of darkness.

This is going to be a long one so strap in for the ride. It's going to get real too. I was prompted to write this by my psychologist and complied, I've learnt copious amounts in these past few years and this could help anyone in a similar situation. Gender and mental health talks. This is like a letter to myself and some documentation on things I've had happen.

Some background on me:

I'm Alex, 18, and my main condition is 17β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase deficiency. A condition which impairs sexual development inside and outside the womb. I'm biologically male with XY chromosomes and basically a dick. I'm not trans though before I could have been classed it when not in line with my biological sex. Intersex is what I am. A decision to raise me as female was made and this is the fallout of it all and what I've done after. This is my mental decline and struggling with myself as a human being.

Fights, football and falling out of trees:

I've been going to Great Ormond Street Hospital since the age of 2 and been in psychology since 9. I'm now 18. We're entering the latter part of a decade now, I've had people tell me I'm special but at the same time "a normal kid". But which kid? What was normal? Where did these guidelines come from?

From a young age I knew something was different about me compared to the girls I was lumped into. You oft assume children don't know what they're talking about when it comes to themselves, but I’ve found this to be evidently the wrong mindset. I looked completely different to girls and had a totally different mindset - I was hairier than them, naturally more aggressive and headstrong, liked to do all the stereotypically male stuff; football, fights, falling out of trees the list goes on.

Kids are shit, let's get that out of the way. I remember being taunted with the words gorilla and baboon by family friend’s sons, they pointed at my arms and made remarks like “that's ugly” and “only boys have that”. It did also slightly terrify them so I chased them round with my arms and legs in plain view. I laughed but it really did hurt. This was one of the first times I felt inordinately uncomfortable with my body and myself as a person. I was 5. I continued with laughing at my own pain and not dealing with it for years.

Feelings of not belonging from a young age were ever present and I honestly toiled with my image. I vividly recall in my first psychology session, I was asked what I thought I was. Without hesitation, I stated a boy trapped in a girl’s body. The premise of being a boy completely petrified me however. I was always a tomboy esc child, short hair, loud, wouldn’t mind getting into fights, its goes on. I was certainly a handful and a half.

Condition/Puberty :

My condition means I make zero sex hormone which regulates moods, bone density and one of the most important factors; puberty. A gonadectomy was performed when I was 3 to remove what were my cancerous testes at the time. The fear was if I was to leave these in, when something doesn’t work correctly, it oft turns cancerous. I still think this is horseshit and they should have left them in. (Gonads are what turn into ovaries or testes in every human being when forming inside your mother)

No gonads mean minimal to no sex hormone. I was continually told I needed to take tablets, injections or patches to go through puberty. This onus to medication created this image of I was a freak in my mind. I wasn’t normal and wasn’t a real person. I was but a broken husk of a person. My body nor my mind felt right. To counter this, puberty was induced by a motley of oestrogen based tablets and patches. I absolutely resented these.

Growing up in a conservative east Asian household, I succumbed to the will of my parents and what they wished with no regards or free thoughts of my own wellness. They willed for me to be a girl and that’s what I did. Muted, I got on with life for a few years still feeling horrifically uncomfortable with myself. I scrolled through the internet and browsed through pages upon pages on my condition, further feeling alienated with myself, until I stumbled upon a site which showed, gender wasn’t all black and white.

I scuttled to call my psychologist and let her know the good news. “I IDENTIFY AS A DEMI-GUY!!” She quickly congratulated me and I spoke to her on the spectrum of gender and how it was rather than black and white; a rainbow. Always more masculine and more of an androgynously presented female. Woefully this wasn’t to last. This was around the time I lost a rock in my life; my older brother. I had a younger brother to whom I had always acted like an older brother too, rather than a sister. I also felt I had to step up as the elder male in the family, yet my family considered me nothing of the sort.

They continually told me, stop this mess, you’re a girl get over it. I forcibly resented them and pushed and yelled and fought my way around saying no the fuck I’m not. They tried to make me do typical girl things, wear girl clothes and the like. I had none of it. My sisters, constantly told me, this was but a phase, when I grow up I’ll grow out of this. I’ll be a girl one day. I told them I would rather die. I felt like I would rather die. I had no place in this world.

Boys don’t cry and girls don’t force out their emotions. But, in a family where you’re considered neither, what do you do? How do you cope? I had my mother nor father to speak to, as they said this was all a phase and I was to grow out of it soon. I remember the week before my 15th birthday, I was in the car going to the supermarket with my mum and I yelled, I don’t want to be a girl, I’m not a girl and I want to be a boy. Why am I not normal? Why was I born this way? I don’t want to be alive anymore.

She broke crying saying no one would love me if I did, I wouldn’t be a normal boy and nothing I would do could really work. Well I wasn’t a normal girl so what do I do? I was pushed to the side lines I noticed and my parents focused more of their attention to my younger brother. When I struggled with depression they just pawned it off saying it’s your fault. When my younger brother was diagnosed they rushed to be with him, doing everything for him and stating how I wasn’t a great influence. By 16 I had been diagnosed with chronic depression and anxiety along with borderline personality disorder. This was the real start of my downfall mentally.

College and later:

At college, I still struggled with who I wished to be presented as. I said I wanted to change my name and asked everyone to refer to me as Alex. A typically androgynous name, and could be used to refer to both a female and male. I made who I call my best friends now and got into art. I was extremely aggressive towards myself and others. Destructive behaviour was normal, I broke my hands, ripped my knuckles open, tore my skin open with glass shards, razor blades and anything sharp I could get my hands on. The scars of these still run deep on my skin. I had no idea how to cope with myself and others mentally.

My first best friends, absolute nerds like myself. One drew, the others played D&D and got me into it. We wasted hours on end, playing our characters. My character, a weretiger dwarf with god like strength. I had never had so much fun or felt like I was part of something. For some reason, I ended up hating this when it was pointed out, I immediately felt sick and distraught and panicked at hearing it.

By this point I had been off hormone for a few years which was really starting to take its toll on me. I had violent mood swings swinging from angry to happy to sadness within the frame of a few minutes. I hated everything and everyone, feeling as if the world was against me and nothing good was forecast for me.

It was around this time I decided I needed an outlet to pool all my energy into. My psychologist suggested the gym but ultimately, I went for art and drawing. I started seriously drawing in January of 2016. It was the end of my first year in college, summer was here and I decided to really knuckle down on art and get serious. I scrolled through my Instagram and the limited artists I followed. I found a drawing by an artist which left me dumbfounded. It was the coolest thing I had seen ever. I started to speak to this artist who we’ll name Manny for the time. Manny was the kindest, most accepting human being I’d ever met to that point and still, to this day, I hold as the biggest influence in my life.

Manny had been through a lot themselves, neither of our lives, exactly peachy. But they were obviously doing better than myself, something I couldn’t see. Years of mental neglect and struggle flooded out of the gates and I put more pressure on Manny than thought. I had no idea how to cope, I pawned everything bad onto others whom I spoke to, blamed myself for everything and was a glowing disorder of negativity and hatred. Come to the end of the year and Manny had ended up becoming my first S/O. This time, though plagued with issues, was easily the happiest and simplest time of my life. Friends, someone who loved me, a job and a roof over my head, I was on track to be in the worst place mentally ever.

Manny was unrelenting in saying how much I meant to them. This was the first time I had ever felt wanted and needed in my life. The feeling of belonging and genuine appreciation for my existence was something I had never had before. This lasted for a few months until they called it off. I understood but didn’t at the same time. But I accepted it and let it happen. I was sick for a week after this. Lovesickness is a thing and so is heartbreak. Coupled with my brutal mood swings, I grappled and competed with myself and further chipped away at the little self-worth I had. Oddly this affected me for months to come.

Now looking back, neither of us was in a place to be together but I’m glad I did it. I had no idea the sheer joy someone can bring you, the feeling of wanting to be better for them and everything about them. You love their little mannerisms, their little jokes absolutely everything. Nothing feels wrong and you feel nothing can bring you down. Though I had no clue how to cope at the time, this gave me my first taste of what affection is like. You learn what you can cope with and what you can’t.

It was around this time, I was coming to final talks on who I wanted to be.

I had enough. Years of feeling neglected, and feeling chipped away at had taken their toll. It’s odd, you think the small things don’t hurt as much but they really hurt the most. Being called she dozens of times a day, I pawned off but this ultimately hurt me the most. I still struggled with seeing my worth as a human being, still feeling broken. You would be surprised at how much having minimal sexual hormone really does affect you. I couldn’t see the worth in living often and blocked myself in my room and wanted to wither away. I tried overdosing, bleed outs and trying to starve myself into a coma. I once didn’t eat for 2 weeks.

Family constantly still said, get out of your phase now, it’s not real you’ll not be a real boy. But I started Testosterone in December of 2016 against everyone’s wishes. Within a few months, my voice had broken, I was far more muscular, acne to shit and loads more which arrives with the wheel of puberty. I felt a feeling of belonging in my body which I didn’t previously. I still didn’t feel right for months to come until now, November of 2017.

I did a 180 and really started to work on myself. I started going to gym, losing weight, growing my hair out and spoke to my psychologist more on how I could accept myself. It’s tough, when you feel everything is on a fundamental level, wrong. One thing I was told to do was go to a mirror, look at myself and tell myself I love you. The first time I did this, I looked at myself, became so enraged and punched the mirror. I went to work at a networking company 9 - 5 and separated from my college friends, 15 miles away in a different town. I slowly moved away from my friends and Manny themselves said they didn’t want to speak to me anymore. Spending time in hospital with skin issues was more a blessing than a curse.

You’d think losing my best friends, would rip me apart but I felt nothing. I spoke to my psychologist and asked her, was I broken? Why did I struggle to feel anything? Even today, I still toil with my emotions. I don’t have the fix for this now man, but work at it. Gain your friends respect back. Not their approval. You value them as people and not the need to be wanted.

But I’ve come to accept myself more. Now, this may be extremely trivial but I like my face. I think I’m cute. I look fucking beautiful with long hair. Me this time last year, was 180 the other direction, hating myself so much I was tearing my skin apart and wanting to be dead. But I’m happy I’ve lived through it. Bro you’re bomb af and I’m so proud of you. You’re not 100% right now but holy fuck you’re cute.

I’ve learnt a lot in the past few years, but if I went back in time to speak to myself, I would say:

Don’t underestimate yourself.

I’ve had experiences and emotions many people don’t feel during any time in their life. This was something I was told for 4 straight years, month after month. My psychologist continually spoke about how monumental the things I’ve had to deal with are, continually putting others before myself and never caring about how I felt.

Don’t neglect yourself, mentally nor physically.

You might not see it now, but fuck you’re amazing man. You’ve soldiered through shit keeping everything else on top of your shoulders. Your body might not be perfect, but you can work on it. Don’t keep taking it out on yourself. It’s ok. You need to yell, scream, should, punch, kick? Go for it. Cope, don’t feel bad for being by yourself a lot and just wondering round.

Don’t pressure your friends.

A difficult one I will admit since you have no idea how to cope yourself. But in time, you learn. Things you shouldn’t do, things you can do. Friends are friends man! Not psychologists. Love them, appreciate them, don’t be afraid to tell them you love them. They’re there for you and oft family. Don’t offload to them constantly and scare them off. If you struggle, they struggle.

Love yourself.

You’re more than good enough to be alive. Your legs may hurt, your insides might not work perfectly and there’s no more of you but you’re breathing, competent and can love. It’s okay dude! I love you now. I’m what’s basically your older brother, with all experiences. Your dark chocolate eyes, soft flowing brunette hair and pale skin is all good! Your spider hands are cool af and you sound like a 36-year-old man. I’m proud of you kid. So are friends. People who stuck up for you in secondary school are proud you’re becoming the person you’ve wanted to be.

Life is a rollercoaster.

It’s never always going to be sunshine and daisies. It’s a ride with a set number of seats. People come and go but if you think people are worth keeping, you strive to improve yourself. Earn their respect and make sure they’re people whose respect means something to you. Take heed of friend’s words, they have experiences you don’t and may know about something better.

Real family isn’t perfect no matter what you’ve come to believe.

At times, they care when they need something and could toss you aside when they don’t. But don’t worry. Don’t take what Dad or Mum say to heart. They care, in the crudest sense possible. Your sisters, are still a grey area. They’ll still refuse to call you by your name but take it in your stride and like water off a duck’s back. Don’t panic it will pan out in time. They’re just scared for you but show them, you’ve got it down. Don’t rush to gain their approval it’s honestly not worth jack.

You won’t improve your character overnight.

As heart breaking as it is and how you want to see progress there and then, chip away at it. Do little bits and do what you can and change does happen. You’re not perfect and people may suggest things, you’ll not get it right first time, second nor the third. But keep at it. You might go completely the wrong way but attempt it.

You cannot help everyone.

Often its better to remain quiet man.

We all cope in different ways.

Pain is relative. Do not compare yourself to others. You might be able to be hit by a car but a gash is worse for the other person. Nothing is a competition. You may be hit constantly with bad news but take it as it comes and deal with it. Don’t go comparing your pain to others, it’s bad news.

Illness isn’t the end of the world.

Don’t panic or come to believe it’s the end of it all. Won’t lie, you have potential osteoporosis on the way and your nerve damage gets worse but take it as it comes. You’re still ok. You find methods to cope with it.

Finally man, you're growing up and smashing norms within our culture. You've even been called a pretty boy twice. Life moves in mysterious big guy.

Anyone wants to speak to me about anything, transitioning, changes, coping anything, send me a message. I’m not perfect but I'll really try and help you.

[fuckthisshitttt4-blog]

8:48 PM // white lie

Why do people lie? I said in a previous post that we are lied to 200 times a day on average. Why is this? Why do we lie? Even if it is something as trivial as, “I’ll be there in 5 minutes” when it will really take you 15? You may say that the reason you lie is to spare somebody’s feelings, but is that really a valid reason? Is there ever a valid reason to lie? What if they found out that you were lying, wouldn’t it crush them even more than the truth? I know that from personal experience, I discovered a lie being told to me 8 months and 26 days ago and it still hurts to think about. The string of lies, the benefit of the doubt that was given when it shouldn’t have been, the crying myself to sleep, the nightmares, the depression, the anxiety it caused, the broken trust, the constant wondering... Why wasn’t I good enough for the truth? And is this really better than the truth? Is me being as broken as I now am, better than telling me the fucking truth? You fucking broke me for your own selfish reasons.

What’s the opposite of a white lie? A white lie is classified as a “small” or “minuscule” lie. But that doesn’t make sense because if you lie about shit that doesn’t matter, you’d lie about anything. If there is no reason to lie then why do you? Pathological lying (pseudologia fantastica) is where you make a habit out of lying. Lying to the point where you constantly get the urge to and actually WANT to lie. But who wants to lie? Who wants to crush another soul? Who actually wants to deceive somebody? Who goes out of their way to do that? It is a self induced mental disorder that is associated with borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, or just being a flat out asshole. You can’t lie through your teeth, looking into the eyes of another human being and still pretend like you care about them. You can’t crush another person and still claim that you care. You can not lie and expect everything to remain the same when in fact, NOTHING will remain the same after a lie. You can’t betray somebody’s trust and expect them to not be hurt. You just can’t do that to somebody.

[eyesaremosaics]

A few nights ago, my depression was so severe, that I drove to the Golden Gate Bridge. I sat there in my car for three hours straight. Just sat there quietly in the darkness, thinking, staring at the steering wheel. Feeling nothing. Like an echo would go right through my chest. My eyes focused on the lights from the bridge, my heart hammering in my head, praying for the courage. Silent tears, streaming my face. Barely able to breathe, my chest aches so deeply, like I have a collapsed lung or something. I know I am loved. I know people care. People keep telling me wonderful things. That I'm loved, that I am special, that I'm talented, that I am touched by fire. Yet I can't see it. I can't feel it. There is no getting close to it for me. When someone tells me I am beautiful, my heart breaks with rage. My self hatred is so deep, that compliments infuriate me. I cannot conceive of any of these words attributed to me. It feels surreal, not genuine. Just words. "Why can't other people see me for what I really am?" That's my inner dialogue. How sick is that? Slept through work today. It's a miracle I didn't get fired. Thank god the Healy's are so understanding. Robin is unfailingly kind and compassionate. Yesterday, received word that I've been dragged into a nasty court case. The director of a theatre company I worked for over two years ago, filed me as secretary on the board of directors. He is being sued for fraud, and now that my name is on there, I'm liable for the damages. Have to get a lawyer, which I can't afford. More fun shit to deal with. Can barely afford food right now. My heart is still fucking broken. No hope for the future at all, I wake up every day and feel worse than the day before it. I only have one week left with the boys I have nannied for, we've been together for seven years... Been through so much together... Their mothers death, their grandmothers death of a broken heart less than a month later. Not to mention... Every break up, my dads cancer, Jenny's death... They comforted and loved me through all of it. They feel like my children. I have been their surrogate mother ever since Christy passed away. I can't conceive of my life without them. Letting go... Is the biggest challenge in life for me. I feel like I am literally incapable of doing it. I can't let go. Of anyone, or anything. Ever! I leave claw marks on anything that tries to leave my life. Abandonment issues so strong... They induce borderline psychosis in me. Still haven't found a long term replacement family to take Eric and John's slot. There are no words for how much I am going to miss them. No words. I can't even process it, my brain can't handle the separation at all. Every time I think of it, I start to have a panic attack. I can't breathe. All the air has been squeezed from my lungs, tightness in my chest, vision goes black. It feels like I'm literally dying. Anyone who's had a panic attack, knows how horrible the feeling is. So many endings. All at once. It always happens that way, doesn't it? Self care is paramount right now. Please universe: bring me a warm loving family, that will hire me long term for a lot of money. So I can afford to go back to school, to better market myself professionally and get my career rolling in a positive direction. I am ready to be in the having now universe, not the wanting. I am ready for good things. For a successful artistic career, for inspiring, warm, loving friends I can trust, for a community to immerse myself in, to travel, join a gym, get medication, see my therapist more often, to turn my life around. To meet someone successful, kind, and loving towards me. Who loves me as much as I love them, who I have an amazing sexual intimacy with, who cares about my dreams, who supports me, shares my interests, likes to go out. Someone who wants to be with me, and only me. Not five or six other girls. I want to be enough for someone. More than enough, I want to light up their life with my love. No more possessive, controlling, judgmental, philandering, demoralizing, abusive, negligent, manipulative, trust-less, limiting, unrequited love relationships. Fuck that. I have lived through so many of those, I will not survive it another time. I have no clue what a healthy relationship even looks like. Went out on a date the other day, the guy went to put his arm around me, and I winced involuntarily. How sick is that? When someone is being kind to me, it goes in one ear and out the other. Like I didn't even hear it, or it didn't even happen. My brain can't compute it. It can't register, because it is not used to it. Especially not from men. I am distrusting. My assumption now is: you just want me for sex. You just want to use me for something. So they keep calling after the first few dates, all obsessed with me, and I just stop responding to texts. I just ghost people out. I don't mean to, I just... Can't deal with it. These dates I've been on... There is just no connection there--for me. They seem to find me fascinating, but I am beyond bored. It's unkind for me to continue when I am not feeling it. At this point, I fear men so much that I can't even hate them. I feel like a caged rabbit, and start kicking my legs helplessly when they try to pick me up. Just so very overwhelmed right now. Tired of fighting so hard to exist. Tired of trying so hard, and feeling like nothing is getting better. It feels completely hopeless. What people do not understand about manic depression, is how Fucking hard it is just to make it through each day. Every day, I think about killing myself. Some days, it is all I think about. Everything becomes so black, you cannot conceive of a tomorrow. People who don't wrestle with mental illness, don't understand. One minute you are trotting along, feeling like your higher self. Giving your light in abundance, so that you inspire the best in others. Everything falls into place, magic starts happening for you. You feel strong, vital and beautiful. You feel witty, charming, and full of energy. Like the bubbles in a glass of sparkling champagne. Full of so much life, and passion. You go to bed, and the next morning...it's like the sun has been eclipsed from the sky. The clouds are heavy, and everything fades to gray. Food becomes flavorless, inedible. Your heart sinks like a stone into the river. Your chest begins to flood, until the ribs crack as floorboards under pressure. The ocean spilling through the hull, sinking the ship of your heart. It is violent, this feeling. Like a jolt of electricity coursing through you repeatedly. It feels like being slowly tortured. It is without your control. People say: just get over it. Just move on. Just feel better. Just love yourself. Uh, fuck you, I literally can't. I feel at the mercy of my emotions. They overtake me like a hurricane. Like a storm raging inside me. A war in my mind. People peering in on a private moment from the outside...to them I just come off as annoying. Every day that goes by... I can see myself getting older. My hair is already turning gray, from stress and malnourishment. My mother pointed something out to me earlier on the phone: "it's hard for you to relax, because you live in a constant state of stress. You are stuck on survival mode. Living paycheck to paycheck." Yes. Exactly. Please bring me more money universe. I want to be able to afford to enjoy my life. My whole life we've been poor. At one point, we were grindingly poor. I hate living in this constant energy of starvation, deprivation, of not having. No more. I'm tired of living like that. So fucking exhausting. I'm also tired of loving people more than they love me. I'm tired of being cheated on, treated badly, put down, ignored, unwanted, manipulated, gaslighted, told I'm too much, that I'm crazy, that I'm unloveable. I'm tired of believing that garbage, because I do. I really do. I'm tired of crying, of aching, of feeling not good enough. I hate that I don't feel deserving of love. I'm so sick of hating myself, every second of everyday and wishing I could just die. I'm sick of it. It's so exhausting to go back and fourth With myself as I do. I want to live, I want to die. I'm amazing, I'm worthless. I'm silly and playful, I'm bitter and angry. When I go over the limit with my drinking... God. It's like I channel some demon. A demon comes through me, and it is mean and cruel. Bleeding hearts like mine, are like an open wound to the world. We are 3rd degree burns exposed to steam. Everything hurts. We are a dead star, a black hole, a swallowing cesspool. Left unloved, we die, or disappear. I want to love myself, I really do want to get better. I just don't know where to start. I truly don't see my own value. It is not a cry for attention, or pity party thing, I really don't see anything in me worth loving. How do I change that? I try affirmations, I try exercise, I try listing all my supposed "good" qualities. It just feels empty and meaningless. I force myself to do it, but it doesn't absorb. All this shitty luck is just exacerbating the problem. It is making my suicidal depression ten times worse. I can literally feel the cortisol bubbling inside me. Like a cancer. So creepy. My skin looks aged, I can see the lines forming in my face. I drink to numb out, which of course only makes things worse. Chain smoking, not eating. It's just a mess. Horrible nightmares, making me fearful of sleep. Lack of sleep=deepening depression. Fuck me, I just can't. At the end of my rope here. Trying so hard to change things for the better. There is all this red tape in my way. Money, time, roadblocks. Go to this window, fill out these forms, wait a month to hear back, on hold with elevator music. Fuck. It's like waiting in the cafeteria line for some slop in prison. Trudging along, doing your boring duty, day in and day out. Numb with the monotony of it all. Please universe, please let this difficult time of transition pass without pushing me over the edge. Please bring love and joy to my life. So tired of suffering.

[mdwatchestv]

The Walking Dead 7x12: Say Yes (No)

I am going to preface this post by admitting something to you all, and that is that I am not a fan of “Rick/Michonne”. Yes, they are both very good looking people and both ultimate badasses (badassery compatibility is key to a successful relationship in the apocalypse), and yes Michonne deserves love and Rick sort of does too. But ya’ll they got ZERO chemistry and are making each other weird and stupid. Also I am freaked out by the fact that Rick’s last two loves (and I admit neither were as badass as Michonne) died horribly. Consider the nightmare of having to lose a compelling, powerful, and straight up awesome character such as Michonne simply to fill up Rick’s brood bank. Today is a Day Without A Woman, and I could not handle a day without Michonne. Danai Gurira has taken a character that could so easily spin into caricature (she is a lady with pet zombies and a samurai sword) and made her flesh and blood. Michonne’s journey has been subtle but powerful and emotionally realistic. She is one of the most complex character’s on the show and, to me, the most beloved. I have NO CHILL about losing her. 

                          I WANT TO GO OUT WITH YOU DEER

But let’s cut back to the weird and stupid part of all that, because boy they were taking some crazy pills this episode. If you thought the smiling during the Death Metal Cult negotiations was unnerving, they cranked it to a whole new level this week. We had smiling, giggling and Rick even had a full on The Notebook moment (it ended badly). And yes it was refreshing to see characters show any shade of happiness, and even more so to see Rick begin to lean back into living life. This episode meant to serve as a bit of relief from the otherwise crushing season of darkness and depression, but the extreme pendulum shift in tone felt befuddling rather than comforting. For example, hearing Michonne and Rick’s riotous laughter after falling through the roof (also thought we had learned our lesson about those) was truly disquieting. Instead of inducing an “aw those crazy kids” feeling, my only thought was “they have truly gone round the bend”. When all’s said and done- still nice to see Rick a bit happy instead of scowly and crying, but he I worry he has bypassed ‘happy’ and gone to 'unhinged’. You have children Rick, you can’t be climbing shit to shoot at CGI deer. But, after all my complaining about the show’s unyielding nihilism and darkness, it was nice to have a sense of hope for a positive endgame finally injected no matter how heavy handed.

This was also an episode where I felt like a lot of leads were buried. The Mystery of the Haunted Fairground was by far the biggest missed opportunity. (PS can we also address that R+M are riding around in literally the Mystery Machine?) Our twosome stumbled upon an outpost that ranneth over with guns, food, and intrigue- and yet this subplot was barely addressed. As they briefly touched upon, something terrible and borderline inexplicable had clearly happened in that location. Beyond the fairground itself, the walkers boasted both soldiers (complete with weapons slung over their soldiers), and civilians (some of whom had their hands bound as if taken prisoner) and there were almost no signs of struggle (CSI: The Walking Dead Episode 2). This was also a location within driving distance of Alexandria that the Saviors had yet to pillage despite the fact it had a full on ferris wheel advertising it. This was a mystery most excellent, and I will hope against hope the story returns to it in some way.

                    Stop trying to kill all my bad bishes TWD

Also Sasha and Rosita essentially formed a suicide pact- a jarring moment that also felt a little underplayed. Despite their understandable desire for vengeance, having them both go to their deaths (especially Sasha) ultimately negates Abraham’s sacrifice. It seemed a bit odd that at the very least Sasha would not be stalled by this, she also has has additional responsibility to Maggie (I miss her)  and her baby versus Rosita who more reasonably feels as if she has nothing left to lose. I do also understand that Sasha has to go and be the lead of a CBS (All Access!) show so may as well blast off into space in a blaze of glory.

                           Even Tara is surprised to see Judith

We were also reminded that Judith is still alive- hooray! She looks like she has aged at least five years.

                                                 Extra.gif

Finally, Tara decides to reveal the existence of the all-lady all-killer group she discovered in her horrible episode earlier this season. While I love that group of ladies and would love to see them come fuck shit up, I also can’t seem them joining in with Rick in a way that involves graceful storytelling.

Next week, that inevitable death I predicted happens and forces King Ezekial to reconsider going after Negan. Also it looks like Carol is back in action, so that’s something to live for.