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fiddletwix · 5 years ago

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A Guide for Navigating a World of Rumors for the #SaveDaredevil Campaign

Hey #FandomWithoutFear! It’s been almost a year now since the #SaveDaredevil campaign started, and I thought I’d do a brief PSA to help save your sanity as we enter the second half of our campaign. I’m talking about rumors.

Over the past year, we’ve heard piles and piles of rumors, some causing chaos, others causing despair, some even being really strange and confusing. In fact, our campaign was basically born into a world of rumors as we’ve been combating the ‘The shows are going to Disney+’ rumor since the instant it was canceled. Only recently have we been mostly freed by that one thanks to D23 releasing their starting lineup, but we’re still seeing it.

Giving into rumors can be a trying experience, especially considering our current situation of Marvel being unable to tell us almost anything about the NMCU properties until the two year clause is up and them being tight-lipped by default. However, there are ways of avoiding rumor rabbit holes and the emotional turmoil they put us through.

Before I start, I’d like to point everyone out to #SaveDaredevil’s official website and FAQ. It is loaded with everything we can say for certain about the status and future of Daredevil given the information that has been confirmed by official sources so far. We even have screenshots and citations.

#1 – Encountering the Rumor

So you’re out in the wilds of the Internet and come across ‘news’ about Daredevil. As mentioned previously, simply the fact that there is ‘news’ is enough to raise a red flag. Since everything is on the hush-hush, there’s an 80% chance the ‘news’ isn’t valid right off the bat.

But let’s say there seems like there could be some validity in the claim. Worth investigating further.

#2 – Beware of Clickbait

Websites love dem clicks, and they know the Daredevil fanbase is filled with people who are yearning for news. Many websites will either make up or perpetuate rumors to fill a video or article and then slap a misleading title on it to go fishing for cursors and their precious left-clicks.

While some clickbait is painfully obvious from the getgo, some is harder to discern. The rule of thumb here is that, if it seems too good to be true or if it feels like something that could be molded out of existing knowledge, it’s probably best to avoid it.

Also be on the lookout for words and phrases like ‘Could be’ and ‘Might’ as they are almost always indicative of opinion pieces/rumor mills than actual news.

Reputable articles will commonly headline with a source of a quote, such as ‘said (name) (some important position) at (Marvel or Disney)’ but even those can be misleading, so beware.

#3 – Check the Website Before Clicking

You really, really want to click the link no matter what the title says. Understandable. But before you turn that blue link purple, let’s see where it came from.

Another way you can discern what is likely a rumor from what could possibly be legitimate is by checking the source of the link. Sites like Cosmic Book News (That’s not a typo, that’s the name of the website) and wegotthiscovered are some of the better known rumor mills, but if you’re unsure about the reputation of a site, ask around. However, sometimes the only way to know if a website or news source is reputable is by investigating the content of the link.

Which leads us to….

#4 – You’ve Clicked the Link. Now What?

A few things you should be on the lookout for while investigating the page before even reading the content are the author of the article or creator of the video (if one isn’t listed, that’s a red flag in itself), how professionally made the website looks, the date of the article/video posting (the more current, the better) and how well-written the article is overall. Poor grammar, punctuation and formatting can all be red flags to misinformed or false content.

Sensational graphics, such as pictures with red arrows, circles or obnoxious text – this applies to the video if there is one – can also be an indicator of less than legit sources. Overly produced videos and graphics have become quite common as they are attention grabbers, but they don’t exactly give off the professional air that more legitimate websites and content creators strive for.

Fair warning, while a good chunk of rumor articles are fairly short, many rumor videos can be insanely long because longer videos can have more advertisements crammed on it, which means more money.

Longer videos don’t instantly mean legitimate information. In fact, outside of opinion pieces, many ‘news’ videos will regurgitate information we already know about and go into length about that to extend the video’s run time. Even if you’re only in it for opinions, a significant portion of the video could be padding.

You don’t necessarily have to watch the entirety of the video (or even read the entire article) to tell if it’s spouting nonsense or not. It’s a good idea to do so, but in many circumstances the writing is on the wall within the first paragraph or first few minutes of the video.

They jump to conclusions based on something that is entirely unrelated. They add the could be’s and might’s to the content, instead of the headline. Or they accidentally show their rumor hand by saying the dreaded words ‘I/We heard...’ or even ‘rumor has it.’

Some writers are also tricky about their wording to get you to stay the entire way through by ending the article or video with ‘but this is all speculation. We won’t really know until (blank)’

If the author seems intent on getting you to believe this is all fact and the red flags aren’t quite visible to you, there are still options to explore.

#5 – Read/Listen Carefully

Some writers are particularly good at twisting words around to suit their needs. Even direct quotes can be manipulated in their favor. Read the article or listen to the video host very carefully. Take note of context. Be wary of anything that doesn’t mesh with existing knowledge. You may also find that the content contradicts itself sometimes. If things seem fishy to you, your instincts are likely right.

#6 – Who Else is Saying This?

Daredevil news would be huge, and anything even slightly confirmed by official sources would be plastered on a plethora of news sites so quickly you’d think they were announcing their first born child. When you’re first out the gate, you tend to get the most clicks. However, reputable news sites, as you can guess, want to stay reputable, and jumping on rumors isn’t going to be helping them maintain that status.

Do a quick Google search for the main news item in the headline. Using quotation marks on specific phrases used in either the title or body of the source can help narrow things down.

If there are no very recent news articles from several other websites (Let’s say five or more) containing similar news, it’s probably false. If the initial posting is particularly recent, wait a few hours and do another search. By then, the reputable news sites would certainly have something out if it’s true.

#6 – Cited Sources: They’re Not Just for College Papers

Some rumors do get out of control, however. False information can spread like wildfire, and sometimes reputable news sites make mistakes. One thing can still save you from falling into the rumor rabbit hole – cited sources.

They don’t have to be as meticulously formatted as they have to be for college papers (though that does help!) but having quotes from officials within Marvel or Disney (with context and notes about when and where this quote was said) and links to information sources mean the world when determining if ‘news’ is actually, well, news.

Like before, even if the article does cite sources, that doesn’t mean much if the source itself isn’t reputable. IE, you may want to use Wikipedia in your term paper, but your teacher won’t let that fly. Check out the links and double check the quotes to be as certain as possible.

Also, if something simply says ‘sources claim’ without giving actual….ya know...sources, they probably don’t have any. Or, if they do, they’re not reputable.

#7 – This Random Youtuber I Like Said This, That and The Other Thing

This is cropping up more frequently, so I thought I’d include it. Just because you like a Youtuber doesn’t mean they’re always right. It’s not even a matter of calling them a liar – many times these people are just misinformed or fell down a rumor rabbit hole themselves.

Dealing with people who are saying this to you is difficult because they’re frequently too blinded by their liking of the Youtuber to listen to reason. All you can really do is explain to them what I’ve explained above and direct them to the #SaveDaredevil FAQ.

#8 – Dealing with The F Word

Another problem that has been frequently popping up over the past several months is the F Word: Feige.

A rumor that has been unavoidable since practically the instant Daredevil and the other NMCU shows were canceled was that the properties would inevitably fall into the hands of Marvel Studios president, Kevin Feige, and DD and The Defenders would be in the MCU after the two years is up.

Feige has never spoken a word, post-cancellation, about Daredevil or The Defenders futures, and for all we know he has no role in their futures considering they were originally with Marvel Television. However, so many people seemingly believe bringing up Feige is enough to confirm or deny all things speculation about DD. Some won’t even humor the idea of DD going anywhere else but Feigeville.

Like with the Youtuber fans, it’s hard to reason with people who seem to hardcore support Feige in everything involving Marvel, and dealing with them is about the same. The main cannon you have in this situation outside of the norm is that, as stated before, Feige has said nothing about this, so they don’t really have sources to cite here, leaving everything up to speculation.

Let me clarify that, if you’re of the opinion that Daredevil should be in the movies, that’s perfectly fine. Everyone has their own opinions on what they want for Daredevil’s future, even if the #SaveDaredevil movement has made their own hopes and views very apparent. However, the story of Daredevil’s does not begin and end with Feige and it shouldn’t be treated as such.

#9 – Scooping the Inside from the Outside

There have been a couple of people, won’t be naming names, in the past year claiming they have the inside scoop on this matter because they either are on the inside (IE an employee at one of the companies involved, such as Netflix, Marvel or Disney) or they know someone who is.

These people may very well have inside information that they’re willing to share with us, but the problem is which information is valid and which isn’t.

The ‘insiders’ I’ve seen seem to work on a system very similar to an old fortune-teller.

Fortune-tellers have a habit of predicting something that they know will come true because of something else they knew ahead of time or just getting lucky on an educated guess. If they’re right enough times on little things, that gives them all the validity they seemingly need to prove they’re right about anything else they claim. They will likely be wrong on numerous occasions, but it’s when they’re right that gives them power. They’ll also likely contradict themselves and double-back on things they’ve said in the past to make it look like they weren’t wrong when they were.

Problem is, you don’t know who these people really are, what role they have in whatever company they work for, if they do, or what relationship they have to whatever insider might exist.

They might act like they have the insider knowledge of a high-level executive, but, in reality, they may actually have the bare bones knowledge of a lower ranking employee or just hear stuff around a water cooler and build off of that information. It’s impossible to tell because they don’t say out of fear of being fired or otherwise getting in trouble with one of the aforementioned companies.

That’s also where the difficulty in discerning fact and fiction/opinion with them comes from. We’re all outsiders and any actual known insiders can’t give us really any information. Debunking them or confirming what they say is incredibly problematic given the limited information we have.

That’s not to say there aren’t people out there who pay a lot of attention to what these people say over time and analyze their statements heavily to see if they hold water, especially if it contradicts something they’ve said in the past. I said it was really difficult to discern fact and fiction with them, but it’s not impossible. When you’ve exhausted every other option with these ‘insiders’ the only thing you can do is wait and see if they’re right or wrong.

It’s been my experience (and this is my personal opinion right now) that it’s best to just ignore these people altogether. They never seem like they have good intentions with their info sharing, no matter if their information is accurate or not. They always seem like they want to make people in the fandom angry or sad with their ‘inside scoops’ then eat up all the special attention they get as a rare person ‘on the inside’ that will actually talk with the masses about the subject. Nothing good tends to come out of hanging on the words of these ‘insiders.’

#10 – Avoid Confirmation Bias

For every ‘news’ source that claims something negative about Daredevil’s situation, there’s another that claims something positive. We, as fans of the show, want to believe the more positive stories that are released while also wanting to combat against the more negatively slanted pieces.

While this is entirely understandable, it’s also very biased. It’s great to have hope and not let the negativity get to you, but allowing yourself to more easily fall prey to positive rumors may set you up for a fall. It’s difficult, but you have to take the blinders off.

Staying objective is important in both ensuring that you get the most valid facts and keeping your emotional roller coaster from going off the rails. Even among less than positive news alerts, we have had many nuggets of actual validated hope spring up consistently, and there’s a good chance we’ll get more down the road, so don’t get discouraged if you find some positive rumors turn out to be just that – rumors.

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As a final note, remember that the community is always here for you to both discuss any ‘news’ that comes up, dig out the real facts, and help get you through any struggles you might be having with campaigning. We’ve taken our share of hits, but like Daredevil, we keep getting back up. #SaveDaredevil has already made it nearly halfway through the two year wait with tons of support, positivity and legitimate good news. Together, we can take on the second half even stronger than before.

We can #SaveDaredevil. We’re #NotGivingUp.

#SaveDaredevil #Daredevil #Marvel #Disney #comic book #news #rumors

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ice-cream-beat · 5 years ago

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Title: Dreaming of You

Author: 深山 Circle: ETERNITE

Series: Tales of Zestiria Main characters: Sorey, Alisha, Mikleo; also some Lailah and Edna Ships: Sorey/Alisha

Summary:

(High school AU ayyyy)

Sorey and Mikleo are at school, and Sorey looks exhausted. Mikleo guesses that he’s still having trouble sleeping and suggests he go to a hospital to get his insomnia checked out, but Sorey dejectedly refuses, finally saying that he doesn’t think the issue is physical.

Mikleo looks concerned and suddenly asks if Sorey believes in remembering one’s past life--which makes Sorey laugh and wonder if Mikleo’s also been missing sleep. Mikleo gets defensive and insists he’s being serious, but Lailah and Edna interrupt and indicate that he come with them. Reluctantly, Mikleo does so and promises to get back to Sorey later.

Elsewhere, Edna criticizes Mikleo for that “past lives” line, but Mikleo argues that the situation is no longer about Sorey “being a slow case,” as his body is at its limit and the lack of sleep is bound to hurt him if it continues. Edna explains that while Mikleo was probably correct in thinking Sorey’s faulty memory is the cause of his insomnia, attempting to make him remember his past life against his will is dangerous. She adds that the aforementioned cause can’t currently be found, and that it’s meaningless, anyway, if Sorey can’t recall what it is himself--although she’s already figured out what it is. Lailah says she has, as well, but Mikleo’s dumbfounded because he has no idea what it is lol.

Lailah assures them both that things will be alright, since Sorey’s missing “cause” recently enrolled in their school and she spoke with “her” earlier, someone who’s also lost her memory like Sorey has. Lailah encourages Mikleo and Edna to believe in the power of Sorey’s and Alisha’s bond.

Sorey eventually gets up to leave. He bumps into someone in the hall and they both apologize, but he freezes up when he sees that it’s Alisha. She explains that she just moved to town and promises to be more careful; when she realizes he’s staring at her, he assures her it’s fine and quickly goes to leave, wondering why he’s been seized by such a strange feeling. Almost immediately, he passes out.

While unconscious, he dreams he’s talking to Mikleo, who looks like he does in the game’s epilogue. In his narration, Sorey’s confused that Mikleo’s an adult, but dream!Sorey is talking with him and insisting that he hasn’t “changed his mind” about something. Mikleo teases him, saying he’s surprised that the first thing out of Sorey’s mouth wasn’t “let’s go explore some ruins,” but admits that Sorey’s always been full of surprises. Mikleo leads him through a ruin filled with tombs, noting Rose’s and Sergei’s, and mentions that the one they’re looking for is further in. Sorey wonders if it’s really okay for it to be out in the middle of nowhere, but Mikleo tells him it’s what “she” wanted, because “she” wanted to see the ruins. They come upon a grave on an open hillside decorated with Alisha’s lance.

(Surprise not really a high school AU ayyyy)

Back in the present, Sorey wakes up in the nurse’s office. Alisha comes to check on him and says she’s glad he’s okay, and that Rose and Dezel-sensei helped after he passed out, and Zaveid-sensei called the doctor--but Sorey interrupts by sitting up and suddenly hugging her. She’s embarrassed and confused, but he says that he remembers everything now.

“I remembered... I remembered all of it. How could I forget something so important? Alisha and Rose and Sergei... by the time I woke up, all the humans I'd known were gone. Mikleo and Lailah and Edna... and Zaveid... I met them again, and they were all so happy. I found my conviction before I went to sleep, but... it didn't help at all. I never, ever forgot those feelings of regret and helplessness. So I..."

Meanwhile, in his narration: "I finally understand. The reason I couldn't sleep until now... was because waking to a world without you was terrible."

Alisha admits she doesn’t know exactly what he’s talking about, but then hugs him back and promises that she isn’t going anywhere--and says his name for the first time. This surprises him and he asks if she also got her memory back, but she admits that the name just came out of her mouth without thinking.

Sorey realizes she has a while to go before she also remembers, and instead asks if he can make one request: that she sits beside him while he sleeps. She cheerfully agrees to do so and holds his hand. They exchange "goodnights," and the last line is Sorey asking what she wants to talk about when he wakes up.

Impressions:

what I expected when I saw the cover: “aw cute fluffy coffee shop AU probably!”

what I got: CHEST PAINS AND TEARS

First off, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I heckin’ love when Mikleo gets these little moments to shine, even when the story isn’t strictly about him. The idea that he’d try to bend the rules to protect Sorey is just 👌 👌 👌 👌 YES, I love these bros so much and I would die for them and this doujinshi just nailed it perfectly ugh my feelings

Edna also gets a special mention, since she was a bit soft despite her teasing Mikleo a couple times and her attempts to look apathetic on the matter. <3

Anyhow, onto the main characters lol

It’s not completely explained, but I think the point of the premise is that everyone has been reborn into this modern/high school setting, and dreaming is their way of recovering their memory of their past (canon) lives. Sorey subconsciously resisted, because at the point he’d reached in his dreams, Alisha was dead and gone and he couldn’t handle it.

YEAH THIS HURT ME. I was legit getting upset when Sorey was explaining how lonely he felt lskjdfhnnggghhh I didn't ask for this. It pulled some LOST-level plot twist there at the end (except, you know, actually well done) which I WAS NOT READY FOR, THANKS, and while this is actually a happy ending since they all get to be together again (THAT CASUAL DEZEL MENTION ;___; ) I'm still? really?? upset??? :’|

also HEY screw the idea that Mikleo was involved in burying all their human friends t h a n k s I h a t e i t

there's only... one other doujinshi, I think, that left me this shook, so yeah y'all can look forward to that

hnghhh but emotions aside, I really liked it! very nice art, good twist, excellent characterizations all around, also Sergei got some love which was nice!! (is he the overzealous drill-sergeant-of-a-coach in the high school AU, I wonder...)

This was one doujinshi I had to overpay a bit for via a mediator site (~$28 iirc, which... isn't terrible, but it's still scalping :T ) and then found for half the price elsewhere later on rip but it was worth it! 10/10, highly recommend, would cry again.

....I’ll probably think of this doujin every time I use the high school costumes in-game now great

#jay reviews doujinshi #TRIGGER WARNING FOR S A D N E S S #@artist how dare you???#tales of zestiria #sorey #alisha diphda #mikleo #sorey x alisha #sorali #this took me a while to type up bc i wanted to do it justice #still not sure i did but #you should buy it if you can it's great #also i found a good scanning app for my phone ayyyy #now back to screaming about arise

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tenacityblitz · 5 years ago

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all the numbers u haven't done

roleplaying habits questions.

1. what’s a grammar rule you find yourself breaking or ignoring a lot?

Offhand I can’t really think of anything?? English is my first language so I don’t knowingly break any grammar rules anyway. Unless possible excessive use of commas counts bc I use commas a lot.

2. are there any languages besides english in which you think you could comfortably roleplay?

Unless Gibberish counts bc I learned that stupid crack language back when I was a kid but good lord I would not have the patience to actually type out a reply like that.

3. how often do you reach for a synonym dictionary when writing? how about mentally?

Sometimes but not too frequently. Depends on how flowery I’m trying to write something or if I’m thinking of a word but I don’t like the first descriptive word that came to mind for what I’m trying to express.

4. how often do you need to translate your own or the other’s writing with a dictionary or google when writing and reading replies?

Never tbh. Especially since I don’t RP in any other languages, all my RP partners have a good enough grasp on English that I can always tell what they were at least trying to say in their reply.

5. do you listen to music while your write?

I used to need music playing in the background to help me focus on doing drafts, but nowadays I need more silence than anything to help focus and produce what I think is a quality response to a longer thread. Short one or two liner things idc what’s in the background.

6. do you have ideal writing circumstances when you can do a lot of drafts or tackle really long ones very easily?

I can fluctuate with when I best write. Typically I write better at night when the house is quiet and any noise happening in the house is a noise I make, but I’ve had writing inspiration hit me at any time of the day before.

7. are you a morning, day, evening, or night writer?

Bold of you to assume I’m awake during morning hours that don’t include 5 AM bc I’m still awake haha. When I’m not swamped with commissions to do I typically write better during the day or at night when I’m the only person awake in the house and I don’t have any outside distractions from a person IRL.

8. how does tiredness affect your writing?

Not overly so sometimes, I know there’ve been times in the past where I powered through replies even though I wanted to go to bed just because I was riding the motivation train and I didn’t want to lose it and not get to those last replies for who knows how long. But on Discord at least I often have reply to Discord threads be one of the last things I do before I go to sleep so I go to bed knowing I don’t owe anyone a reply on there.

9. have you ever written a serious reply intoxicated?

Not a serious reply anyway. I’ve been on the dashboard before while intoxicated (ColossalCon East was a prime example haha) but I’ve never really RP’d while that intoxicated

10. how much do you proof-read as you are writing vs. proof-read at the end?

I’ll proof read as I go but also give it one last read before I actually hit publish.

11. when you are writing a reply, how much ahead in the thread do you plan?

Entirely depends on the thread. I could write it on the fly or I could have days to think about it from external factors keeping me from getting to the reply as soon as it comes back to me.

12. is there ever been a time when you’ve had to drop a roleplaying partner because you’ve found their writing style exhausting?

Yes actually, gather round for RP horror storytime haha. Flash back to 2013 while I was still in the Black Butler fandom. I stupidly decided to give writing Sebastian a try at the request of a Ciel I’d made friends with (probably through my old Alois or Lizzie blog). She was a nice enough girl, close enough to my age so she seemed plenty mature, and had been what I thought was a good enough writer to warrant trying my hand at a muse I wouldn’t have otherwise thought to try. Legit within days of me making the Sebastian blog she was getting super clingy in her IC posts making Ciel a whiny baby missing Sebastian, would try and guilt me in IC posts to get on and write with her, and I dealt with it for about two weeks before I deleted Sebastian’s blog without warning and deleted the girl off Skype. To this day it’s the only blog I think I’ve ever consciously deleted.

13. does writing roleplay things in public spaces make you uncomfortable?

Not really? I wouldn’t be crazy about a stranger reading over my shoulder while I was writing bc that’s just weird, but I’ve gone to Starbucks or one of the local malls before on my off days (back when I was still at my last job) and I’d do RP stuff there just to get out of the house.

14. how often do you need to change the icon in your reply while or after writing the reply?

Typically I don’t put in icons until I’m done writing the reply unless I go into the reply knowing exactly which one I want to use, or think of a good one while I’m writing it out.

15. do you first get in the “zone” when writing, or do you start writing and “enter” it that way?

Nowadays I just start writing and then get into the zone after I get the first reply done. Discord replies I can chug out any time of day without difficulty, but for whatever reason Tumblr I have to be in the right mindset for.

16. what is your biggest obstacle to writing every day, if time doesn’t count?

Back when I was at my last job, it would be getting a lot of writing muse while I was busy at work and unable to get on my own laptop or sneak onto Tumblr on an office computer and at least type out the bulk of a reply (yes I was employee of the month many times haha), and by the time I was able to get to my own computer or be safe enough to get on a work computer, that writing muse would be gone.

17. what’s your inbox count currently? what did you do to get it so high/low?

Right now I have 15 IC asks. I won’t lie, two of them are from last years Valentine’s Day bc I was away at Katsucon at the time of receiving them and by the time I got home I still just never got around to answering the asks, but I didn’t want to delete them either so I just kept them for posterity. Some are from this past Christmas that I was terrible and haven’t answered yet bc I’ve been so swamped with commissions, some are from other random meme’s I’ve reblogged and gotten an ask or two for and also just never got around to. I’m horrible at replying to asks most of the time and I know it but I always appreciate whenever people take the time to send me an IC one.

18. how many drafts is a paralysing amount?

I’d guess I’d say over 15 like para thread replies would make me be like -insert meme song- ‘how could this happen to meeeee’. I’m not quite at that point yet but I’ll get there eventually if I’m not careful lol.

19. if you are writing a wrong reply that’s not working out, do you save what you have to be continued at another date, or do you scrap it and rewrite?

Usually I would just draft what I have and go back to it. I can’t remember the last time I scrapepd an unfinished draft and completely rewrote it.

20. longest reply you’ve ever writen on mobile?

N/A because I don’t do replies on mobile. I’ll send asks on mobile but I never reply to actual IC things while on my phone unless it’s something stupid and cracky or one-liner-ish.

21. does the total amount of threads you have going on matter to you, or just how many you owe?

Doesn’t really matter. I can have one thread with one person, I could have five threads with one person. @shinvcho is an example of the latter lol

22. what’s your thought process when you format? any unspoken rules you follow?

I’ve kept to the same formatting for years and years tbh. I’m too lazy to do excessive formatting beyond italicizing and/or bolding specific words for emphasis and spacing out the start of a new paragraph. Anything more than that to me is just tedious and unnecessary; I don’t want to make it difficult for my partners to read.

23. how does your follower count affect your mood?

Anyone who says they don’t appreciate or enjoy even a small spike in followers is a liar, because we live in an age where validation is held in high regard and it feels good to get the validation of seeing more people enjoy what we do on our blogs enough to put us on their dashboards. But it also doesn’t really matter to me when I lose followers because I have a mutual checker so I can unfollow a mutual back if they did so first so I don’t feel uncomfy still following someone who no longer wanted me on their dash lol.

#ooc #THIS IS WHY I QUESTIONED HOW MUCH U ACTUALLY LOVE ME I HAD TO DO BASICALLY ALL OF THEM LOL #creturae

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crownvestige-blog · 5 years ago

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Before I start working on a proper theme for this blog + start roleplaying & actually putting myself out there ... here are a few base rules for all of you who might be interested in interacting with me in the future + aditional information !! you don’t necessarily have to read these rather boring guidelines for now ( since I will put the actual rules on my blog once the theme’s done ), but I’d highly appreciate it if you did !! so... yeah !! thank you. ♡

RULES

First and foremost, this blog will be extremely selective during the first few tries at roleplay / development. I am fairly new to the Danganronpa fandom & I do not wish to make a fool out of myself with a poor portrayal of Sonia !! She means a lot to me, and so, to keep her that way, for the first few weeks ( & while I try to get a good grip of her character ) I am going to be selective with the people I interact with. Please, don’t take this to heart !! If all things go well, this is just a formality for the upcoming weeks !!

I am a very respectful & peaceful person. Even so ( & due to my experience roleplaying on tumblr ) I know that sometimes people may be offended by my words or actions, even if they’re on accident. Instead of soft blocking or ranting on other social media about me, I appreciate it if I was talked to directly & the matters were resolved on peaceful, friendly terms. Long story short: If there is something that bothers you, please tell me as soon as possible ! May it be a wrong credited image, a code that is not functioning, a mistake on my grammar !! ANYTHING !! I am really open to everything and I am a huge perfectionist with lots of insecurities & memory problems.

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL!!! That is not really a rule but rather a detail I’d like to write about. MY MOTHER LANGUAGE ISN’T ENGLISH, so please, don’t mind if there are some spelling mistakes in my replies ! It’d be very much appreciated if when you notice a mistake, you tell me about it so I can fix it. If you shut up and don’t answer instead, I’ll just feel horrible and I might very well lose any interest in writing with you. It’s better to correct people than to leave them hanging;; just saying ! If you’re one of those roleplayers that won’t want to write with someone incapable of “your level or writing” please unfollow me asap, because even though I know I am capable of writing and speaking fluently, there WILL be mistakes. Any interaction with people unwilling to help others improve is extremely unnecessary. I am here to have fun and write as I please, not to please others and be judged by my capacities.

I absolutely loooove shipping & to develop a relationship between two muses ( may it be romantic, a really neat friendship, brotherhood, etc. ). While Sonia is a Remnant of Despair, I am a huge supporter of Hope. I like to look at things on the brighter side and ... love love !! All things considered ... it won’t be easy with o develop many relationships with Sonia easily. On another note: developing a romantic relationship will be even harder & as much as I do love love, this is not what I am here for.

Besides interactions with all of your amazing characters, I am also a people’s person !! Which means ... even though I am quiet, chances are that I am most likely dying to meet you & become friends with you !! So don’t be shy at all & come talk to me. If not ... just you wait until I gathered enough courage and hit you up !!

About exclusivity ... I, personally, am not a fan of it ? The sensation sometimes may make me feel slightly uncomfortable ... however !! I really like having people I can call my mains because it’s easier for me to talk to them in case I have a certain plot or idea in mind.

ADITIONAL INFO

About myself ... the name’s Asra !! ~ I’m a 21 years old European fella ( aka you are allowed to use she/he/them pronouns to me as I consider myself to be nonbinary & pronouns to me ... are just words ). I am very, very cool to hang out with ( or rather, I like to think that I am ) & a really friendly person.

I am willing to give other contacts upon formal request. Don’t expect me to go publishing information about me and my personal life over here. That will only happen in case it’s either necessary or I am extremely ... in need. Sometimes I don’t have it easy thanks to my loving ( note the sarcasm ) family, so ... every now & then the bubble bursts & it’s not pretty.

All things aside, I like my own space and I tend not to easily trust people ( I legit have trust issues asifhasoihdajkwe ) ;; I may seem sometimes strict and kinda mean, but I swear that is not my intention. I’m a silly bean who is looking forward to having lots of fun in a new blog, with a really nice muse !! So, in case you are interested, come talk to me that I’ll welcome you in the warmest way possible. With pie and iced tea.

I ask you to keep in mind that there’s life outside this screen… which often takes more time than I’d like it to take. I have friends, family, a lovely girlfriend who I love very much, and many other people and things that I like doing such as cosplaying and the obvious… I’m a gaymer !! Sometimes it may take me a while to get to people/replies/starters, but I have a good reason to that.

#tbt //#rules //

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angelinuhh · 6 years ago

Note

Hi there A! Could we get a public review from you? Thank you so much and we hope that you have a breathtaking upcoming week! ~ Admin Catie

DISCLAIMER: this review is onlyreflective of my own opinions and is intended to provide constructivecriticism. there is no obligation to listen to or agree with anything said.

OVERALL:

the reality tv junkie in me loves this concept of this rp. and, asI look around, this typifies exactly what I love about the genre: characterdevelopment, fast-paced events and, of course, a healthy dose of competition. Ilove your color scheme and your theme. for a contained theme, I found it incrediblyeasy to navigate—which was a real and true blessing. however, I do think that there are still many things to improve, Ithink a little more consistency and editing in your descriptions and overallaesthetic could really elevate your rp and make it more accessible andattractive to prospective members. I also would like to see a change in yourrules, both in policy and in tone. overall, I wish you guys the best of luck.

PLOT:

I really do love the rp idea, but I do think the plot page leavesa little something to be desired. For appless rps, especially ones withoutblurbs on the sidebar, you really do need something that is concise, both eye-catching and attention-grabbing, all the while getting to the point. while the content you have on this page isn’tbad, you have a long-ish block of text that can read a little dry at time.

I’ve taken the liberty of editing your plot to take on a more activetone to show you what I mean. while you have no obligation to use it, you dohave full permission to:

There is no greater motivation in theworld than money – and nowhere is that more present than in ParadiseIsland, MTV’s new reality television show. Sent to a private island inpairs and forced to compete challenges and tasks set by the producers, contestantsoften find themselves doing things they wouldn’t normally do, all for a chance at$750,000.

Here at Paradise Island, the fun never stops. With 24/7 Streaming, viewers are given a real-time seat to the drama,the romance and more! While binge-worthyshows are great, the 12 million daily viewers know the truth: they never have to find something new towatch again.

After a rigorous application process, including video essays about why theywould like to be on the show, interviews and even a test challenge was preparedto see which finalists caused the most drama or had the most chemistry, thehundreds of potential applicants were narrowed down to just 40. The producersrandomly assigned each contestant into pairs and, for the duration of the show,these partners were to share a room in the mansion and work together to win thegrand prize.

But what happens next—will loveblossom? Will greed step in? Witha 1/20 chance of winning the $750,000, most of the contestants will do anything to get their hands onthat money, but there can only be one pair of winners.

Who will be victorious in the first Paradise Island?

paradiseislandhq is anappless 23+ pairedmuse roleplay based on reality television. Contestants have been sent to aprivate island and must work in pairs for the chance to win a grand jackpot of $750,000w/ additional prizes. We focus on weekly character development tasks &challenges, plotting between members, in-character drama, and. of course- vacation vibes! Applicants are free toapply for a wanted connection partnership or to have one picked at random foryou!

If you would like to take a crack at it, here’s what I tried to fix.

Have a more ACTIVE TONE

thisis a purely stylistic choice, but i would suggest varying up sentence structureand utilizing your bold and italic keys a little more as most people in thegenre do.

Try to avoid going on tangents

Inthe beginning, you start with the motivator of money above all and thenimmediately move to love and status, thus weakening the power of your opening

Ialso did not particularly think the tangent about streaming services in thethird paragraph was necessary. Your goal is to emphasize that the show is 24/7—you don’t necessarily have to explain that.

Is it… $750,000 or $750,000+, because both were used. That needsto be clear.

The first thing I always look for is the synopsis at the bottom,but yours is a little bit long.

Iwould center it as well. You can do this by entering into the html and putting , I think.

Side note: make sure your navigation tab’s blurb matches the one on this page.

I also spotted a couple of grammar errors. Your biggest and mostfrequently repeated error is run-on sentences and a lack of commas.

RULES

bh, your rules page was a hugeturnoff for me. I don’t think it was your intention, but it was very blunt, alittle wordy (ik ik… im legit the most wordy person on earth) and read kind of…rude. A a potential applicant and as a reviewer, I just- I wasn’t feeling itand would likely be very wary of applying because of it. There are also quite a few run-on sentenceshere, so watch out for that.

I’m not going to rewrite the whole thing, but here are a few specificchanges I would make and alternate wordings to your statements.

Edits

(++) I would put in a HOW WE RP section and add in the stuffabout the tasks, points and challenges. Because that should not go underinclusivity. I also do not understand how it works and I need much moreexplanation. I can guess, of course, but I shouldn’t have to. You need toclearly outline how this rp will be run and how tasks will be delegated and pointswill be awarded. Vaguely stating that there will be challenges and points andwhatever will not work.

(++) Your muses section is very confusing. Especially the agebut also the diversity part. I understand that you feel strongly about this,but I brought it up to some friends and many of them were just as confused as Iwas. I read your FAQ and things did not get any clearer. If I were you, I wouldsimply say “all muses and fcs must be older than 25. Please aim to make yourcharacter’s age believable with your faceclaim.”. And that, “to encouragediversity, if you have more than one character, at least one must be POC.” Asyou have it, it is very murky and kind of defensive?? almost. Like I reallywant people to be over 25, but I guess they can play 23, but also they canactually be 40 but they can play in their 20s. It’s convoluted and I get alittle frustrated trying to read it. In my opinion, you just have to pick asingle age and go with it.

I feel like your unfollow rule is extremely lenient for one ofthese rps. It may lead most of your members being inactive before they getunfollowed.

Alt wordings (some suggestions)

Although it is expected that in-character partnerships will needcharacter development, please make an effort to interact with all member.Bubble RPing is NOT permitted and we aim to make an inclusive environment whereall muns can explore their characters.

Youroriginal statement really put the onus on the RPer like they’re already doingsomething wrong.

We are happy to oblige with hiatus or semi-hiatus requests. Lifecomes up and we want all of our players to be comfortable. However, we onlyaccept these requests through asks that come through our inbox.

Reallythe CAPS and the Do not inform by im… don’t really feel like you want me tocomfortable.

We allow small/medium gifs. Please do not use large gifs. In orderto be accessible we do not allow gif icons under 90x90. >>>>In order to be accessible, large gifs and gif icons under 90px are not allowed.We prefer small/medium gifs.

Feel free to cause in character drama. However, no OOC drama willbe tolerated !! >>> While in-character drama can be fun, OOCdrama will not be tolerated.

idk why but those exclamation points were felt in my soul, man. Sdfjdkf. Look, it’s just a little intimidating.

ACCESSIBILITY :

I knowthis sounds like a small thing, but I really am impressed.Container themes are notoriously hard to navigate but I had little to notrouble going through yours. If your rp grows, that muse tab is going to behell to update so I admire your commitment.

My onlycritiques are that

youneed to finish updating your nav so there are no broken/nonexistent links—whichI’m sure you will do

on your/map page, you have ‘wanted connections’ spliced so both wanted and connectionare links.

I’dmuch rather see a page with all the tags to track than just having them floataround on the navigation. But this is totally up to you to change.

AESTHETIC/GRAPHICS:.

Lovethem. Whoever did them, mostly, did a good job in maintaining the color scheme.My only critique is that I’m not really feeling the headers for, like, the plotpage and the wanted connections…etc. These harsh black borders and script fontsstand out a lot and, while the images are nice, they have a completelydifferent color scheme (dark blue-ish tones to the warm and tropical orange ofthe rest of the theme). I wish they would! Because otherwise, I really do likewhat you have here.

MORE.

I would edit or remove the first question onyour FAQ.If anyone asks the question, you can say to promote age diversity andthat’s reason enough. As it stands, the question and the answer just makes me confusedand, some of the statements like “actors over 25 have more resources” is justuntrue.

thebiggest flaw that I see in your RP is inconsistency and occasional lack ofclarity. here is a list of things I’ve found that varied from page to page.

1. Sometimesthe jackpot is 750,000. Sometimes it is not.

2. Theblurb on your navigation does not match the blurb on your plot page

3. Yourefer to this rp both as appless and semiappless.

TLDR; what i would like to see changed, vaguelyin order of most of least importance. Feel free to ignore any or all of these.

REDO your rules page to include a HOW WE RP detailing thepoints, tasks and challenges

CHOOSEa clear and consistent ruling on your age bending/limits. It might make senseto you and promoting age diversity is very admirable, but, look, we’re alldumb.

EDITyour rules page to be… more affable. It’s not bad as it, but it just helpspeople get through it.

i wrote a few alternate phrasings you can look at

EDITyour plot to be more engaging and concise to really grab people’s attention.

i wrote something above that you may use

DOUBLE CHECK all your pages to make sure that you don’tcontradict yourself in various places.

as a last note and reminder, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE ANY OF MYSUGGESTIONS. There is no ill-will from me to you. As always, this is notintended to be hate and I genuinely want the best for you guys. However, I amterminally cursed to be nitpicky. I’ve done my very best to make sure my adviceis constructive, but please call me out if you find any of this offensive orcrude.

I genuinely like the idea of the RP and appreciate the work you’veput in. Seeing Dev Patel used--- makes my day. Thank you for your time andpatience.

If you have any more concerns or questions, please feel free tocontact me.

#rpt #rp review #rpo #rpc #paradiseislandhq

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simplemlmsponsoring · 6 years ago

Photo

New Post has been published on http://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/blogging/how-to-handle-complainers-and-rude-emails-to-support/

How To Handle Complainers And Rude Emails To Support

This article was originally published in 2008, then totally rewritten and re-published in 2019. Which explains some of the dates on the comments below.

Enjoy!

There is a simple fact of life when you run a blog or online business. Heck, this is just a part of simply being alive. And that is…

You’re going to have people complain.

The things people complain about can vary from legit concerns to trivial matters that you can’t believe they just bothered to email you about. Things like:

Typos and grammar errors People taking offense on something you said, or a word you used. People ripping you to shreds over trying to sell something. People jumping to conclusions and calling you a scammer over the smallest things, or because you didn’t reply back to them fast enough.

I don’t list these things as an attempt to make fun of them. Not at all. However, these are some of the kinds of complaints I’ve seen over the years.

Sometimes they’ll email you privately or email your support address. Other times they might post it publicly on social media, in a blog comment or elsewhere.

So, how do you handle these things? What do you do about it?

Should You Let It Bother You?

Fast answer = NO.

In some cases, it may be hard to take. Sometimes you’ll have people really tear into you. It can be hard to be called a scammer or to have somebody tell you they’re offended by something you said. Not everybody can take the criticism.

It is important to maintain perspective. Always remember:

Most people are good, decent people. Many times, a complaint was sent to you “in the heat of the moment” and the moment you reply back to them they will apologize. I’ve had it happen more times than I can count. There is always a small percentage of people who will find a way to be upset by something. Life is a big confrontation to them. It is sad, but the problem most definitely isn’t you.

Working with a lot of students over the years, I have found that beginning entrepreneurs who are making their first attempts at sales with their blog can be the most sensitive to negative comments. The moment somebody calls them a scammer, they just wilt. If you’ve ever felt that way, please check yourself.

When you stand up in this world and do anything out of the ordinary (and putting up a blog and/or selling something online is out of the ordinary), you’re more likely to get an arrow in your back. This is part of having an online presence… and it could get more common the more popular your site gets.

So, definitely don’t let a complaint bother you or get to you personally. This is simply part of life online.

How To Handle Typo And Grammar Complaints How do you handle it when you get people complaining about typos and grammar errors on your blog? Like so…Click To Tweet

Guess what?

When you create a lot of content online, you’re going to make some typos and grammar errors. This just goes with the territory of doing something a lot.

Also, sometimes the way we type isn’t exactly grammatically correct. When I create content, I do so in a conversational way. I write in a conversational way. This is because my purpose is to effectively communicate ideas to you and to get understanding. My purpose is NOT to impress an English teacher! Truth is, when you are communicating effectively online, not everything you say or write is going to pass a grammar check.

And so, you have to take these kinds of complaints with the proper perspective. There are certain kinds of people who are just sticklers for proper word structure. To each their own, but just because they are that way doesn’t mean you have to change the way you wish to communicate on your own blog. In the end, words are meant to communicate IDEAS. And it is the IDEAS that are more important than some of the nitty-gritty rules of grammar.

So, how do you handle people who point out typos and grammar errors?

You handle it politely, of course.

Here’s what I do:

Read the email and see what the error is that they’re pointing out. Reply back and thank them. That’s it. You really don’t need to comment any further on it. Just thank them for reaching out on the issue. Review the actual issue and decide whether it needs to be corrected. If so, do it.

If it is a legit typo, go fix it. If it is a gross grammar error, go fix it. If, however, it is just conversational speak, works just fine despite the fact that it might earn a red mark from an English teacher, feel free to ignore it.

How To Handle Rude Comments And Emails

What do you do if the person is just being rude? What if they’re calling you names? Should you even respond?

As I said before, don’t let this kind of thing get to you. In more cases than not, they emailed you in the heat of the moment and aren’t actually like that. In some cases, they’ve just got issues.

Either way, don’t take it personally.

First, always look at whether there is merit to what they say. Even despite the unfortunate tone and even if it is highly inappropriate, there might be a legitimate concern behind that email. Did you fail to deliver on a promise? Did something not get delivered? Did you go too long without replying to them and they felt ignored? Always look. Always look at any complaint as a potential symptom of a breakdown in how you are managing things. If there is something you need to fix, fix it and make it right.

Sometimes nothing is actually wrong, but they think it is. Perhaps they misunderstood something. If that’s the case, clarify it to them. Realize, however, that if they misunderstood or missed something, others might have as well and just didn’t bother to tell you. So, look and see if there’s something you need to change to make it simpler to avoid the situation again.

In some cases, you’ll just have people complaining for little to no reason. Well, like I said… sometimes people just do that. Not every such complaint has to be actionable on your part.

Now, do you reply?

In almost all cases, yes. In fact, often you’ll just make the situation worse if you ignore them. One of the worst things you can do online is to fail to acknowledge somebody’s communication.

Now, do you get defensive? Do you tell them where to shove it?

I wouldn’t. I always look at whether I’m in the right or not. If something needs to be corrected, I always do. However, if I evaluate things and determine the person is being rude and unfair incorrectly, I will put them in their place. I never respond in kind, but I remain firm.

In that rare case where a person is just being rude for the sake of being so, you can make a decision on whether you choose to do business with them anymore. For instance, in the last several years, I’ve probably had a couple of people who emailed into support and just ripped into my virtual assistant. Called her names, etc. I have zero tolerance for such things and will ban a person from my business for doing it.

In the end, you are the owner of your business and nobody is forcing you to do business with anybody. If I don’t want to deal with a person, I don’t. The good thing is, as I said, I think I’ve only had to do this a couple of times in my many years in business.

How To Handle Threats

It does happen (again, in rare cases) that you may get rude emails to you which threaten to do certain things. I’ve had people threaten to call the attorney general on me for a bad review of their product, for instance.

Ah, good times.

Sometimes, people will express dissatisfaction with something you send on your email list and they’ll threaten to unsubscribe. My response? Help them do it.

Honestly, that just tells you they’re not the right person for your business anyway. It isn’t as if they’re doing you a favor by being on your list. If they don’t want to be there, show them the exit.

Sometimes, people will express dissatisfaction with something you send on your email list and they’ll threaten to unsubscribe. My response? Help them do it.Click To Tweet

If you get threats about calling the news media, reporting to the BBB, or some other agency, you can pretty much ignore it. In almost every case, they’re just blowing smoke in order to try to get a response. It doesn’t mean that you ignore the fact that they emailed you and they’re mad. You treat it like any other complaint. When people are mad, they often say irrational things. So, just look past it and evaluate it with an even keel.

What If The Negative Comment Is Out In Public?

This is often when people get the most worried about complaints is when it is out in the open. Will it hurt business? Will it affect what people think about you? Should you just delete it and go private with it?

As a general rule, you will make things worse if you delete the comment. For instance, a company I work with recently got themselves into a little PR jam because they handled a price increase pretty poorly. In the resulting reaction, they ended up banning one of the figureheads of their Facebook group from the group because he tweeted his dissatisfaction. The fact that he was banned caused even further PR damage and ultimately they reversed it, re-joined him to the group, complete with a pretty lame excuse for what happened that likely wasn’t even true. In the end, it just looked really bad.

People will usually make assumptions to fill in what they don’t know. And often those assumptions will be against you. They’ll assume the worst.

So, when a negative comment is in public, I say leave it there and respond to it in public. Be honest and transparent.

Did they say something snotty in a blog comment? Well, if it is a real comment from a real person, leave it there and reply to them.

Did they say something snotty on Facebook, Twitter or some other public forum? Leave it there and reply to them.

If what they say is incorrect, then correct them. If it is a customer complaint, handle it. Be polite and write your response knowing that others may read it that aren’t part of the transaction. Use it as an opportunity.

One Last Thing…

You are the owner and founder of your own blog and your own business. And guess what… you get to run it the way you please. You get to say things the way that you please. You get to do business with who you please.

Own it. Be confident in that. You always want to be fair and treat people well, but never lose sight of the fact that you are in charge.

There’s the old saying that says “The customer is always right.” Well, guess what… sometimes the customer is just plain wrong.

There’s the old saying that says ‘The customer is always right.’ Well, guess what… sometimes the customer is just plain wrong.Click To Tweet

The idea that “the customer is always right” carries with it the connotation that you must do whatever it takes to please them, to placate them…. no matter how unreasonable it may be. And that’s a rather large load of BS, to be frank.

All transactions are voluntarily. They can choose to read your blog, interact with you, or do business with you. Likewise, you get to choose who you work with. If you get yourself into a mindset where you feel you need to grovel for whatever you can get, then that’s not a mindset that will lend itself to success.

Always do what is right in your business.

Always treat people fairly and seek to over-deliver.

Always create the best content that you can and try to help others find meaningful solutions.

And, be willing to correct course if you got something wrong.

If you do all that, you’re in the right and you’ll do just fine. And for those rare cases where you might get yourself a person with a chip on their shoulder, you just let it roll off and treat it accordingly.

Besides… the fact that you even get complaints at all means they’re paying attention. So, well done!

The post How To Handle Complainers And Rude Emails To Support appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.

Read more: blogmarketingacademy.com

#always #handle #just #people #them #they #things #your #BLOGGING

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omgxiaoch · 8 years ago

Text

Monsta X and their conforming s/o

requested by anon~

a/n: okay at first i was confused whether it was comforting or conforming then it was conforming (iactuallysearchedthewordlololololsorry) so i hope you guys enjoy this! i apologize for any misspelled words or wrong grammar and if ever i’ve offended someone... huhu i didn’t mean to tho. credits to the owners for these gifs!

masterlist

Shownu;

this boy would be clueless about you being conforming about traditional customs, standards, and expectations

once the boys told him about the signs of someone who is conforming, he’d still be clueless

ever since they told him about the signs, he would observe your actions, words and many more

however, once he finally saw a green light to all of the signs he wouldn’t really change his perspective of you

he’d be even more interested in you, constantly asking about what you think of this and that

but then he’d also be worried

worried that you might get hurt because of the fact that you conform to anything that is standard in the society

‘babe, you do know that you don’t have to go by the book right?’

‘i know but i want to do it’

by the second that left your mouth, shownu would just support you and secretly try to protect you from the bad stuff

i actually dont know what type of bad stuff but yeah, bad stuff

as days passed, he noticed that it got worse

he’d actually try to talk to you, one on one

by the second that you tried to disagree and defend yourself once he finished telling you what he wanted to say

he’d hear you out but then would point out what’s wrong

but then he wouldn’t force you to change since he will always love you for who you are

and after the talk, the two of you might just go out and eat some patbingsu

Wonho;

this boy would notice it right away

being someone who always go by the standards and book, wonho wouldn’t be that happy tho

since he knows at some point, you’ll just get hurt

and he doesn’t want to see the person he loves hurting

so, instead of attacking you directly with his questions, he’ll casually talk about the rules or standards that is present in our society

and he would actually tell you that sometimes it would be nice to break the rules

only to receive a negative response from you

that’s when his questions enter

he, just like shownu, would explain what would happen if you’d be always by the book or complying to all the standards that society wants us to be

and how he’d feel if something happens to you

knowing how cruel the world is, he’d actually ask if you could just lessen the ‘conforming to every rules and standards’

but then once he sees that you’re getting uncomfortable with the topic, he’ll change the topic and try to brighten up the mood

before that, he’d apologize to you first since he doesn’t want to see you upset because of him

once that he sees you that you’re fine, he’ll be happy and maybe try to talk to you about it maybe some other time

however, when you came home with tears in your eyes, he’d immediately ask you what happened

and you’ll tell him about this dude you almost harassed you because you corrected him and told him that he was going against the rules

and that, my children, will be the start of wonho scolding you but not that scolding that could hurt you but that type of scolding that would make you realize

but then he wouldn’t really force you to change right away

Kihyun;

this boy would find it cute when he sees you abiding the rules and regulations to every single thing

seeing you cutely tell him that he’s going against the rule or standard, fits of giggles coming from him would fill the room, like literally

then this goes by for how many days and he’d still think that you’re cute

but then, he notices that you’re always going for what the society wants,

using this set of branded clothes or going on a diet because the society only finds those who have bodies like idols beautiful and when you’re fat, they’ll call you ugly and whatnots

he’d be unhappy about it

like really unhappy

he’d actually confront you out of the blue, asking you why you’re suddenly doing this and that

but when you told him that the society or the book says that blah blah blah blah blah

he’d actually shuush you up.

a savage yet honest Kihyun would legit appear

he wouldn’t really think of his words to be honest, may it offend or hurt you

but it’s only the way for him to show how much it affects him to see that you’re going through all this trouble

but then once he sees you on the verge of tears, he’d be angry at himself

he’d immediately apologize for what he just said, if he’d offended or hurt you

and he would also explain his side, how he doesn’t want to see you do this just to follow what the society wants

and yes, just like shownu and wonho, he wouldn’t force you to change yourself just because he doesn’t like that side of yours

Minhyuk;

this minnie wouldn’t be able to notice it right away to be honest

when he sees you doing things by the book, he’d just shrug it off and continue with what he’s doing

when the members tells him about you being a conforming person, he’d just look at them and tell them that he does not know what they’re talking about

and when they explain it to him, he’d be ‘. o . )’ to every single word that he understands

when minhyuk and you hang out for no particular reason, the thought of you being a conforming person would literally be on repeat on his mind

and once that you notice his change of actions and expressions, you’d ask him what’s wrong, to which he’d just reply ‘nothing, babe’

and you’d just shrug it off lel

when both of you are out, he’d start observing you.... thinking that he’s not obvious

and he’d be freaking obvious, which will make you give him a look and ask him what’s up

and he’d literally spill everything and you’ll just be ‘lol’

okay, so once he’d seen everything that answered his questions, he’d still be ‘. o .)?’

but then once he finally sees the big picture, he wouldn’t really care to be honest

since it’s who you really are and he loves you for it

seeing how you can handle all those negative stuff being thrown at you for being always by the book, he respects you for it

but once he sees that someone is going over that line, he’d be mad asf

he’d actually defend you tho

and instead of you being held back, it’ll be him that you’ll be holding back since he mind cause some trouble lelelel

Hyungwon;

it won’t bother this boiii

you going by the book? fine by him, it’s even attractive since a woman like you knows what is wrong and what is right

and you can also give justice to those who are being ganged up by ignorant people

but then, you going by the standards of the society? not okay

he’d be bothered about it to be honest

like you’re beautiful and unique in your own ways, why follow all of the things that are only accepted by the society?

what’s wrong about being a unique individual that doesn’t give a fck about what other people think?

he’d literally be confused why you’re doing the ‘accepted’ or ‘must be followed’ standards in the society

but then when he sees you changing yourself because it does not abide to what the society wants damn, i’d better hide myself if i were you

he’d be legit straightforward with you

asking you why’re you’re changing yourself and he’d be pissed off, i tell you

he doesn’t want you to change yourself for someone who you’re really not, someone who’s the standard of acceptance in the society

no, he’s not gonna take all that bs coz he knows that you’re some who’s pure and who’s freaking amazing

but then he’s totally fine with you going by the book

but then he’d be annoyed sometimes... especially when the two of you are playing.... boardgames

you’d be like jooheon, saying ‘time time time *with matching hand gesture* and he’d reach that point wherein he’d literally stop playing and cuddle with you instead since he loves you...

and he’d still love you for who you are despite being a conforming person. if you still want to continue with what you really want, he’d support you but then he’d tell you to limit your actions tho since he doesn’t want to see you hurt

Jooheon;

this bundle of cuteness wouldn’t really mind if you’re complying to all of the rules and regulations

but then he’d mind if you’d follow the standards of society

since he himself does not want to see you lose self-esteem or self-confidence or even change yourself

he wants you to love yourself, may it be your flaws or strengths, he just wants you to learn how to love yourself without letting he ‘accepted’ stuff in the society affect you

but then he’d be whiney to be honest

since whenever the two of you are playing, you’ll always follow the rules

and when he suggests a new syle of the game, you’d actually hear him out

and once the two of you finally set the rules for the game, you’d be at peace at firs

and once this cutie decides to break the rules,

you’d be attacking him, telling him that he can’t do that since its not in the rules and what not

he’d be bitter, annoyed and yeah, he’d probably whine

but then when it comes to the real world, when someone tries to correct you or him or even the boys,

you were always there to defend yourself or him or the boys

and sometimes, things kinda get out of hand and this would literally stress him out

so he’d talk to you about it and all

but then he wouldn’t really change his perspectives of you tho

he’d still love you for who you really are and would even want to make you his wife idk what im saying lol

I.M;

do i need to even explain myself? this boy would be literally onto you

knowing that you know almost all of the rules, he’d be asking you random questions like what should you do in blah blah blah

but then, this boy finds it attractive

and he’d even call you sexy since your brain knows a lot of information and stuff

but then when he sees you conforming to every single thing there is in the society, he’d be confused at first

then he’d be slightly ticked off when he sees what this conforming this has done to you and whatnots

but then he wouldn’t force you to stop or change

he’d just maybe, vent out what he thinks about your actions and let you understand his side

and he’d also hear you out and understand your side and idk maybe make a deal with you

like if you succeed in lessening your actions that might cause trouble or burden, then he’d do anything that you want and vice-versa

however, things may not go as planned so there might be times that you might almost get into a fight when you’re out

and this would literally worry him to be honest

then once again, he’d have a heart to heart talk with you

but this time, he’d be firm about what he’s going to say. just imagine a serious changkyun, okay a serious changkyun, okay are you imagining it? good

he respects the idea of you abiding to the rules and regulations and even to the standards of the society BUUUUUT

A BIG BUTT-- a big but, conforming to every single thing that is accepted can cause you trouble or even hurt you ANNND he doesn’t want to see you hurt

but then, he wouldn’t force you to change. and once this talk is done, his love for you won’t change. he’d still love and support you

56 notes · View notes

jessthequeenofstories · 8 years ago

Text

😶

I’m still awake at 6am

My friend is in my bed

I’m lying with my head at the foot and my feet on a chair

Casual

I’m used to being weird

🙃

She keeps half-waking up and poking me with her feet

And I keep scaring her when I move away

But she’s still half asleep so makes a scared noise but forgets about it two seconds later

This is actually hilarious

I’m actually trying not to fucking laugh right now

So I’m just staying up on Tumblr to pass the time

Cause I’m insomniactic anyway

Is that even a word

Will I ever use grammar

I used apostrophes so yeah maybe

That last sentence should have had at least three commas in it

Fuck grammar

Up da arse

And apparently fuck spelling as well

Oh I already established that with the made-up word

Ow she just kicked me

😂

Wanna get up and eat some cake but she’ll think I’m a ghost or something and probably attack me with a cucumber or something

Don’t ask why I have a cucumber in my room

You should be more worried why I want cake while my friend is sleeping next to me

You dirty bastards

So this will be a fun post for her to read when she wakes up

Or fun pussy as my autocorrect just wrote

Ow stop kicking me

Your toe nails are sharp af

I have no nails so

So what

Where was I going with that argument

Not this doesn’t make sense without grammar

Why aren’t I using grammar again

Maybe it’s a rebellion against society

Maybe I’ll start a revolution against the English and their fucked up language with it’s fucked up rules

I’m Welsh after all

So no more grammar

Instead the word baa will be used instead of a full-stop baa

And the name Tom Jones will be used instead of question marks if that’s alright with you Tom Jones

And popty ping will be used popty ping to keep up with the pattern going on here popty ping instead of commas baa

Make sense Tom Jones

Good baa

I’m probably gonna wake her up soon if I don’t stop laughing baa

She told me she’d probably be awake by seven baa

It’s almost half six now baa

I’m waiting baa

Is this grammar getting annoying Tom Jones

It’s dyslexic af popty ping as most of you already know popty ping so it is getting quite annoying for me as well baa

It’s hard to remember where everything goes baa

A bit like having sex really baa

Baa really should not be in the same sentence as sex really

Now that sentence doesn’t make sense if you’re still reading it as a full stop

Period really should not be in the same sentence as sex really

Well that’s a bit true also

Ewww

Unless you’re lesbian vampires then I guess live and let live

If that’s you’re thing I ain’t knocking it

I am legit on the edge of my bed

Fucking toe nails of death edging closer

I feel like I’m in an Indiana Jones film

Or James Bond

Edging closer to the edge of a cliff while spikes urge me backwards

A bit like Elsa and those guards in her ice castle

Well one was being pushed while the other was being impaled

Oh look I’ve been impaled

Oh bother

If you’re wondering why apostrophes never got a Welsh update it’s because I’m not that dyslexic

I know how to use grammar

I’m just being ironic

But I’d look like an idiot to not use apostrophes

So yeah

Point proven

Ironic peace sign

☮

No not that peace sign

✌

Yes that peace sign

Wow I need cake

🍰

More cake

🎂

Wait, real cake tho

I can’t eat pixles

I’m not PAC Man

Mostly cause I’m not a man

What is a PAC anyway?

It sounds very racist

Well whatever it is I’m not it

Unless it means dyslexic then yes

I am a PAC

Or Welsh

Then I am a PAC

Or awake at half six in the fucking morning

Then yes

I am

Indeed

A PAC

Man

Minus the man

Omg she curled her legs up

I’m away from the feet

I feel so freed

It feels like the liberation of France

I have so much space

I might even have enough room to turn over to the other side

😮

My god this is a joyous day

This shall go down in the history books

The day I was freed from the torture of toe nails

😄

And nope she just stretched her legs out again

Now I’m gonna have to cancel that party

Sorry no cake for you

Sorry Chuckles maybe you can come for Halloween instead

Just gonna stick a pin in all these balloons

Watch them all pop

Like my personal space bubble

Pop

It is done

There is nothing less

Oh sweet heavenly slumber why hath art forsaken me

Dramatic faint

Oh wait if I’m fainted than does that mean I’m not asleep

Maybe

But how am I typing

Can people sleep-text

I mean people drunk-text all the time and they manage that quite successfully

My mum used to say I sleep-sing

Is that true

Do I really sleep-sing

Of course fucking not I don’t fucking sleep

Or use grammar

Or do anything normally

I have legit spent half an hour of my life writing this post non-stop

And for what reason

Was it to tire me out

Was it to cure my boredom

Was it to make my friend laugh when she wakes up

No it wasn’t

I did this all for cake

Sweet sweet cake

And I would do anything for cake

I’d run right into hell and back

I would do anything for cake

Ect ect

I forgot the rest of the song

Meatloaf mf

I’m so fucking bored

Maybe I should write my own song

Or maybe I should sleep

Song it is then

So what should the song be about

Defo not a love song

Unless it’s about my love for cake

Then it that case it should be about a love triangle between me cake and pie

Why pie

Because she’s my cherry pie

And fuck all that rest of the song idkfml

I love how my autocorrect didn’t even bother to suggest a word for that

😂

So maybe the song should be about

Hold you horses she just actually for real tucked her legs up

Halaluhja

Praise the gods above

Or below

Or in the middle

Where you chillin at Gabriel

But omg I’m so fucking happy

I’m alive

I’m insomniactic but alive

I just wanna get up and great the world with a happy smile

Hello sunshine

Goodbye sunshine cause let’s be real this is Britain

Hello rain-clouds

Hello puddles

Hello awkward snail that tries to hug the pavement when I try and move you out from the middle of the pavement

Hello shops that are closed on a Sunday because fuck the milk I need for my morning cup of tea

Did I say morning

Sorry I meant 5 in the afternoon when I finally get the energy to role or of bed

It’s winter of course the sun has fucked of by 5pm

Sorry lad a babe in Australia wants me to kiss her whole body

😚

Does anyone what call freckles sun-kisses

Don’t worry I don’t call them that

My mum calls them that though

She used to tells us that so we wouldn’t feel bad about having them

Mum’s covered in them

Either she’s trying to spread possitivity about freckles or she’s having an affair with the sun

I mean it’s pretty hot

Who wouldn’t bang that

And probably most of the population of the earth

Don’t worry mum you’ve got it all to yourself

But when you’re complaining about how you’re heart burns in desire

Just realise it is actually burning

Yup it actually burns

Burn

Oh my god I’m so bored

I just realised this whole post is like an hour in the life of the brain of Jesse Hester

Wtf

What a title

Screw whatever title I gave this post

That is the official title now

It’s only been there-quarters-of-an-hour

Fuck

You’re only three-quarters the way through this post

Ha ha

Bored yet

Cause I sure am

I want cake

I want tea

I want dick

-s like Mr Fedora Guy to fuck off

Ow stop kicking me baa

I’ve decided to start implementing the Welsh grammar again baa

It was creative and fun baa

What popty ping don’t you like it Tom Jones

What’s not to like about it Tom Jones

I thought you loved reading everything in Welsh baa

I’ll try writing in real Welsh then

Helo

I love how the Autocorrect changed it to help

Literally what I’m thinking right now

Helo

Dwi'n Jesse ydw i

Stop trying to capitalise i

It’s a word not the English word

Why do we capitalise I by itself but not the letter A by itself

And why did my Autocorrect decide to keep that I upcapitalised

Questions

I have ten minutes to talk

Fuck I’m slowing down

Never

Capitalise the word never

Because I haven’t actually fully capitalised any words yet

What the fuck is this post

I don’t even fucking know anymore

This was supposed to be just a fun little thing to keep me occupied

But now

Now this is a legend

A legacy

I have seven minutes to keep this up

Even if I feel sleep I can’t give this up

I can’t give up the randomness

I can’t give up the bad grammar

And I will not

For the love of God

Give up the

God

Damn

Cake

Capitalise the word Cake for drama

I love how my autocorrect make cake a person

Cake

Like it’s a name or something

Well Cake is my cakefriend now

We’re official

Don’t worry The Wife™ we’re still legally married

Holy fuck five minutes guys

I honestly don’t know how to end this post

I feel like it should just go out on a bang

But I don’t want to spoil the structure by suddenly adding a gif is something

What can I say

What can I do

Omg so many choices

But non is good enough

God I feel like I’m choosing universities all over again

What am I talking about I only ever wanted to go to this uni

Fuck the others

Three minutes

Holy fuck

Holy mother of fucking

Mothers fuck

Sad but true truth

I don’t want to think about that

I legit shipped my mum with the sun about twenty minutes ago

Two minutes

Shit shit shit

What do to

What do fucking do

Oh don’t you dare kick me

No way

Ugh

What is my life

One minute

Omg

Omgggggggggg

Add as many adjectives beginning with G to that acronym

Jess I love you bae

😘

Love you forever!!! ❤

SEVEN MOTHER FUCKING O'CLOCK

#🙃#shenaniganswithjess #wtf is this #omg #dead

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brentrogers · 4 years ago

Text

Podcast: Religion’s Role in Mental Illness Treatment

Does religion help or harm people with severe mental illness? In today’s Not Crazy podcast, Gabe and Lisa welcome Rachel Star Wither, host of the Inside Schizophrenia podcast, to discuss religion’s role (or lack thereof) in treating those struggling with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Rachel relates her personal experiences of mixing religion with her illness and shares how she currently manages to believe in God while keeping her faith “separate” from her symptoms.

Tune in for a deep discussion on religion and severe mental illness, including Rachel’s 3-day exorcism experience at age 17.

(Transcript Available Below)

Subscribe to Our Show!

And Please Remember to Rate & Review Us!

Guest Information for ‘Rachel Star Wither- Religion Mental Illness’ Podcast Episode

Rachel Star Withers is the host of the Inside Schizophrenia podcast, and a mental health advocate who lives with schizophrenia. She creates comedic and mental health videos and has appeared in numerous TV shows.

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

Computer Generated Transcript for “Rachel Star Wither- Religion Mental Illness” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am here with my co-host, Lisa. Lisa, welcome to the show.

Lisa: Thanks, Gabe. So today’s quote is a delusion held by one person is a mental illness, held by a few is a cult, and held by many is a religion. And that is actually a super common saying. So we’re not going to really have an attribution.

Gabe: Do you mean there isn’t one or you just don’t want to give the person’s name?

Lisa: I could not find where it comes from originally. Comedians have said this, posters say this. It doesn’t seem to be something I can pinpoint down to one specific person.

Gabe: Well, we are very thorough in our research department, which consists of only Lisa.

Lisa: And Google, Lisa and Google.

Gabe: It’s Lisa using Google, so you still get all the credit. So we’re going to be discussing religion in this episode and no doubt alienate 90% of our audience. This is a great choice for a new podcast. Like remember all of those records that we hit last week? Well, those are gone now.

Lisa: Well, but you never know. The 10% that we keep, those are going to be the best ones. So those of you who are not already alienated, you’re my favorite.

Gabe: There are some people who just they don’t want to hear the topic of religion. You either agree with them and you’re good, because if you disagree with them, you’re bad. Now, our show is designed to bring in all sorts of points of views, all sorts of topics. So we’re not trying to alienate or offend anybody. So so please put on your big boy pants and take a listen. I promise it will be worth the journey. Now, Lisa and I, we are not very religious people, which is why we have a guest coming up in a few minutes who defines as a person who is religious. And because we did want to be fair. We didn’t want an hour of Gabe and Lisa talking about how religion wasn’t important to us. But everywhere we go, spirituality, religion, it comes up as one of the pillars of recovery. And this strikes people like Gabe and Lisa as odd. But it comes up so often it must not be.

Lisa: Well, it shouldn’t strike us as odd, though, because religion is quite common in our society. It permeates almost everything around us. So it’s really not surprising that it’s in the recovery community, that is involved in mental illness and mental health. It comes up for everything.

Gabe: The concept of a higher power is probably the most well-known place where religion is in like addiction recovery.

Lisa: Twelve steps.

Gabe: Right. That’s the 12 step group, AA is the most popular. But there’s also like Emotions Anonymous and then there’s support groups, classes. So this higher power is everywhere. And I’m surprised I personally have never in my entire life attended or led a support group that in one of the rules or in one of the pillars or in one of the agreements or in one of the steps did not involve religion. So clearly it is on everybody’s minds. And I want to talk about what to do, of course, if you don’t identify that way. If it’s one of the twelve steps, does this mean that you can’t make it to the end? It does kind of get messy. Because now let’s say that you do acknowledge a higher power. I’ve heard many a story of people arguing over what that higher power looks like. Well, we both believe in a higher power, but your higher power is wrong.

Lisa: Well, especially in the U.S., the 12 step model really dominates all things mental health, mental illness, recovery, addiction. I’ve even been to groups or to therapy programs that are not about addiction. I personally never struggled with addiction. And they still say we use a 12 step model. That was designed for addiction recovery, so how is that going to help me with my depression?

Gabe: All right, Lisa, I think that we’ve established that religion in America is prominent. Before we get to our very cool guest, a little background from us. I graduated from a Catholic high school. I was raised Catholic. My father is Protestant. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover. And while I don’t consider myself to be a religious person, my entire family is and works on me weekly to find the church again. So I really feel like I have a good understanding of religion in America. Lisa, I know you’re also non-religious, but what is your background? Do you have any?

Lisa: I was raised with religion. My family went to church every Sunday. I stopped attending when I was in college, but I have read the Bible and taken a lot of theology classes. And I don’t consider myself to be a Christian, but I do have a lot of background and knowledge about the religion.

Gabe: Now, Rachel Star Withers is the host of the podcast Inside Schizophrenia. She’s a person living with schizophrenia. Rachel is a religious person, so we’re probably going to disagree. Rachel, are you cool with that?

Rachel: I absolutely am.

Gabe: I love it when I invite people on the show and in the little email, I’m like, look, we’ve selected you because we don’t agree with much of what you’ve done or said. And that’s why we want to make sure that your viewpoint is acknowledged. A lot of people think it’s a trap. Do you think it’s a trap, Rachel?

Rachel: Yeah, I assumed that’s why I was on the show.

Lisa: That is not boding well for your relationship with Rachel, Gabe.

Gabe: Do you think that we are part of the gotcha podcast media?

Lisa: Is that a thing?

Gabe: No,

Lisa: I do. If that is a thing, I want to be part of that. Make that a thing.

Gabe: Rachel, we have established that Gabe and Lisa are not so religious. Can you talk about your religious background and your general feelings and just your personal belief system?

Rachel: Well, I grew up in the south, in the Bible Belt, so that’s like a church on every corner. Very, very conservative type Christianity. And if you’re not even, like, familiar with the South and everything, you have different denominations and some denominations are looked down upon. A lot of the people around here wouldn’t even consider Catholicism Christianity. They wouldn’t consider Pentecostal Christianity. It is like, no, your either like Baptist, Southern Baptist. I mean, you can get a little crazy and be nondenominational, but that just means Baptist. Like legit, that’s what that means.

Gabe: Are you a Christian? Are you Baptist? What is Rachel Star Withers’ religious affiliation?

Rachel: I pretty much always say that I’m Christian and that I believe what Jesus said were the two main commandments. And in the Bible, one of the disciples comes up to Jesus and was like, Yo, Jesus. Of the ten. What are the main two? You know, like, if I just gotta stick to two of them, what are the main two of these ten? If we’re going to really simplify this, Jesus. And Jesus said love God, love people. That it all could be summed up. And I believe that is the overall message is love something or care about something bigger than yourself and then care about people. Another great way of saying this is don’t be a dick.

Lisa: I am not familiar with the Bible verse where Jesus said, well, the most important thing is to not be a dick.

Rachel: Yes, it’s in there.

Lisa: I will Google that and find the verse.

Rachel: It’s reworded.

Lisa: You’re paraphrasing?

Rachel: I like to use King James, old school. So it’s like thou shalt not be a dick-eth.

Gabe: Rachel, one of the things that is kind of striking me is on one hand, you’re being very cavalier, you know, but on the other hand, I know that you are very religious and you are also a solid studier of theology. One of the reasons that we picked you is because we feel that you’re very reasonable. You’re not too far one way or the other. We also picked you because you’re cool as hell. But

Rachel: Right.

Lisa: And available.

Gabe: And available

Rachel: Right. Yeah, I mean.

Gabe: That’s very helpful.

Lisa: You currently define as Christian, but you’re not picking a specific denomination. Are you currently a churchgoer?

Rachel: Growing up, my family actually started the church we went to and it was like my great grandmother started the church.

Lisa: Oh, wow.

Rachel: Yeah. And which is a big deal, like my grandmother, she taught in the church. Very, very religious background. And it was Southern Baptist, which is pretty much known to be like the strictest. I was on the puppet team and like we had to be careful with the puppets, that they didn’t move too much because that would look like they were dancing, and dancing was forbidden. Even puppet dancing.

Lisa: Whoa!

Rachel: Like literally, we couldn’t have the puppets sway too much because dancing is not allowed.

Gabe: Rachel, I don’t mean to try to nail you down, but just in the interest of the conversation, in the debate and to know where everybody stands, if you were pressed to check a box, to define yourself as required by the Not Crazy Podcast debating rules.

Lisa: Or the U.S. Census.

Gabe: What would you pick?

Rachel: Christianity, Christian.

Gabe: And do you go to church on Sundays?

Rachel: I do not.

Gabe: Can you still be very religious and not go to church on Sunday? In your opinion?

Rachel: Absolutely. I am in South Carolina. A lot of the churches around here, especially in the current political environment, have become incredibly political. Which I do not agree with. So I don’t currently go to any church. I study a lot. I still read my Bible very regularly. I actually take a lot of online biblical classes because I love the history and all that kind of stuff.

Gabe: I think it’s interesting that you brought up that church is playing a role where you don’t feel that they belong, and the example that you used was politics. Segue over to mental illness, do you feel that religion has a role in recovery from mental illness? And if so, what is it?

Rachel: I do think it plays a role. I don’t think that it should play a role in the beginning, and I don’t think it should play a large overall role.

Gabe: Now, explain what you mean, “in the beginning.” Like, should religion diagnose you?

Rachel: What I always tell people is that’s great that you believe in whatever religion, pick one, I don’t care. But if someone is having psychosis, you don’t need to be taking them to church every week. Because it’s just going to fuel that psychotic-ness of not understanding reality, versus fantasy. And that was a lot of the problems what happened with me, I was starting to have schizophrenia, and instead of getting real help, I had a lot of church people being like, well, no, that’s Satan. Well, no, oh, that hallucination that’s Satan manifesting. And so they weren’t helping me at all. They were telling me, don’t get medication and let’s pray over it. And everything you’re seeing is real. And so I was very untreated for many years because, yeah, they made life much more harder for me to get real help.

Lisa: What age were you when this was going on?

Rachel: My late teens, early 20s, was when things really got bad. But I grew up and when I was little, I was told the same thing. It just, I kind of thought everyone had demons and stuff. If you go to church every Sunday. Well, if you go to church three times a week, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and all you hear about is angels and demons. And then if you’re hallucinating like me, that’s like, well, yeah, obviously I’m seeing the angels and demons we all keep talking about.

Gabe: See, now for my money, that is why I believe that religion can be extraordinarily dangerous, because, after all, you’re right that there’s a lot of imagery of Satan doing things. And I’ve talked to many, many people that say that they did not go to a doctor and they did not get help because they thought that they were just being punished for their sins, that this was Satan’s involvement and what they needed was more church. This is why I think that religion and spirituality should have zero part in recovery from mental illness. And I want to be clear here. I’m talking about severe and persistent mental illness. I understand that the role of spirituality in mental health issues, you know, anxiety and the grief process, etc. I’m talking bipolar disorder, major depression, hearing things in your head. What do you say about that?

Rachel: And I agree with what you’re saying. The other side of that coin, which I think is far more dangerous, isn’t so much that you’re being punished by Satan, it’s that you’re being called on by God. People who are being punished, I feel bad. I’m not going to lash out. And we have so many issues, and if you look around our current political climate and things, it’s more so the thought of, oh, we’re chosen. I have to do this. And that’s where it gets dangerous. And that’s kind of like what was happening with me, was it was more so like, OK, God’s choosing you to see a realm that you shouldn’t see. You’ve been given special powers and you have now a requirement. It’s not so much I feel bad. It’s I’m supposed to go and do this thing. And that’s where I think the dangerous part is, especially when we’re talking about like schizophrenia.

Lisa: You were expressing to people around you, I’m seeing these things, I’m having these visions, I’m hearing these voices. And they’re responding to you, Oh, well, that’s God or that’s a demon talking to you. Either way. And that made sense to you, because after all, you’ve grown up with hearing about this all the time, every week. Why wouldn’t you believe that was sensible and normal? At what point did you start to think, huh? I don’t know, there’s something off about this? Or did you ever?

Rachel: I’m going to say I don’t really think I ever, I never 100% believed, like other people telling me that God was constantly trying to test me. That’s just a lot of testing. I hallucinate like 90% of the time. It’s like we’ve got, you know, Jesus, chill, man. So I feel that goes to where some religious people, if you don’t understand mental health, and you have someone with a very severe mental health problem coming to you and you’re a counselor, you’re a leader or whatever. It gets really dangerous because you can’t give good advice. You’re giving very dangerous advice. And I was 17 at the time and I got a lot of very dangerous advice. Like, Yeah. Oh, well, that’s Satan. You’re full of Satan. You have to like now not eat for the next week because you have to get the Satan out of you. And apparently Satan loves food. He’s a fatty. So that, that’ll work.

Lisa: Wow, that is so horrifying.

Gabe: And you followed this advice, and if I understand correctly, you followed this advice straight to an exorcist.

Rachel: They told me I had demons in me. And they said, we’re going to do an exorcism. Well, I didn’t seek it out. I was at a Christian school at the time, a college. So I was living there. And, yeah, they were like, no, no, we got this.

Lisa: And how did your family respond to that?

Rachel: They, I don’t think they knew anything about it. Or if they did it, they didn’t realize what level we were at.

Gabe: You’re kind of burying the lead here, you went through an exorcism.

Rachel: Yes, I did. I did.

Gabe: Just. You’re just talking about it like I went through an exorcism,

Rachel: I did. Yeah.

Gabe: Like it was just like, you know, I tried that new restaurant and I didn’t like it, so I moved on. No, there’s a lot of trauma that’s involved in all of this. What was that like? Because you believed that, you have to believe in order to go through an exorcism. Just to be clear, you now have to believe that you are possessed by Satan and that’s why you need this. What was this like both as a human and of course, how did it impact your symptoms of schizophrenia? Because you believe this?

Rachel: Unfortunately, it was not like the movies. My head didn’t spin around, I didn’t like spew out a black blood or anything, so it would not make a very good movie, is what I have to say. It lasted three days with three different women.

Lisa: Wow.

Rachel: One of which was like nine months pregnant at the time. So when I look back, that’s my thing. It’s like I didn’t pay for this. They volunteered. It was like, what are you getting out of this? You’re very pregnant, lady. But she led it. And it was three days of no eating, no drinking, them laying hands and praying. And me at age 17, having to confess every sin. I was like the best little Christian girl in the world. So it isn’t like I had all this wonderful sex parties and orgies to talk about. It was like I had to confess that I watched the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer once. That’s the intensity of the sins I’m having to confess for three days.

Lisa: So your level sin with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer was so great that it made sense to the people around you. Demons are obviously possessing this girl because clearly that’s so much sin. So?

Rachel: Oh, yeah. Like, what the hell?

Lisa: It doesn’t sound like something that’s real, right?

Rachel: It doesn’t.

Lisa: That people in modern society would actually consider this a reasonable idea, a reasonable thing to do, especially for a child.

Rachel: And something you have to understand, it wasn’t even a commonplace thing. To be in like a normal church and them say, whoa, you need an exorcism. It would be pretty bad. That means you’ve already failed because you let Satan in. The fact that Satan was able to even do that. So the whole thing was very shameful. Everybody freaking knew, because they freaking told every freaking body because you’ve got to watch out for the demon possessed one.

Lisa: Wow. Whoa.

Rachel: I know. And then just real life I never wanted to talk about. I was so embarrassed. I didn’t want my family to know. I didn’t want any friends to know what had happened. I didn’t talk about it for about 10 years. And ironically, I then make this video about it, you know, thinking no one has ever been through what I went through. This is so ridiculous. But, you know, I’m gonna make a video because it is a weird thing. And so many people have reached out to me who’ve went through the exact same thing. The youngest being four years old.

Lisa: Wow

Rachel: The person saying that they’d had them since they were age four.

Lisa: I feel sick.

Gabe: Was this the first treatment that you ever received for schizophrenia?

Rachel: So at the school, apparently, the guy I was seeing was a real doctor because he subscribed in an anti-depressant and I was on it for like a few months and it didn’t work.

Gabe: So you did see a doctor.

Rachel: On campus, the campus doctor, yes.

Gabe: Right. You were prescribed something that didn’t work. And so this was the second treatment for schizophrenia that you received. You are a religious person and now you’re getting all of these e-mails for people that are describing that they’re getting exorcisms and other religious ceremonies as treatment. How did that make you feel? Because for me, just to be blunt, it makes me angry at religion. This is why I do not participate. But you very much still love religion, even though, frankly, what you’re describing is horrendous.

Rachel: Yes. You have to understand, if you are religious or you have that kind of background, the very first person you’re going to go to for help is a religious leader. Whether you’re talking about your Sunday school teacher to a bigger churches actually have counseling centers. They have counselors that are part of your church. It was pretty normal growing up that we would, you know, schedule a meeting with the youth pastor or the assistant pastor of the church if you were having like a problem in your marriage, with your kids, at school. So, like, that’s who you would go to. And that’s why this, you know, unfortunately, is a more common than not thing where they’ll bring up, OK, well, let’s pray over you. Let’s have you do this kind of religious thing and you don’t go see, like, a real doctor or, I don’t say a real counselor because, yes, you can be whatever. But you get the idea. You’re more likely to have religious help than a normal doctor or psychiatrist’s help first.

Gabe: We all seem to agree, from all our different walks of life and belief systems, that this is not the role of religion in recovery and that religion should not be doing this as this is bad. That the whole Christian counselor thing, etc. They’re not trained. They should refer you to real doctors. At this point, there’s just no conflict. We all agree. We all should hug. But we completely disagree. I know that we do. Where do you think the role of religion belongs? Again, Lisa and I have established in the beginning, we think it belongs nowhere. Where does Rachel Star Withers believe that religion is helpful in recovery?

Rachel: I feel that once you’re on that road, when you have a solid grasp of what’s real, what’s not, for me it’s very helpful. I pray every night. I pray multiple times a day. It’s not always nice prayers. Gabe likes to joke that I don’t curse. I curse a lot in my head and a lot of the time I am talking to my concept of God. For me, it helps to kind of be like, okay, what’s happening to me? Why is this happening? And being able to talk to someone who knows where the world’s going, kind of helps me deal with where I’m at right now. I don’t feel like I’m talking to myself. I feel like I am talking to God or cursing at God, trying to understand what’s happening to me.

Gabe: So you feel that that prayer is acceptable as long as you’re still seeking medical treatment?

Rachel: Yes. At what point God starts talking back in a booming voice? Might be a red flag.

Lisa: But how do you possibly differentiate that? Because if you believe that God is listening, why is it so unreasonable to think that he’s talking back?

Rachel: That’s where it gets a little blurry, and that’s why you have to kind of keep religion separated in the very beginning where you don’t know what’s real and what’s not. I’ve had the opposite problem where I feel that God doesn’t talk to me and it feels like he’s like talking to everyone else. When I was growing up and still, people always talk about like feeling God and stuff and I’m like, I’ve never felt that. So I always felt like there was something wrong with me. And I honestly believe 100% that it is my schizophrenia. I don’t really feel happiness. Just I’m never happy. And I think because it’s like chemical things in your brain. And I do think there’s like a chemical thing that some people, when they worship God or whatever, they’ll be like, I can feel God, I feel close to him. And I think it’s a chemical correct balance. So I have the wrong balance. So that’s why I’m not able to experience it.

Lisa: Really?

Rachel: I yeah. I mean, I do believe people feel God and things like that. And I believe I do hear things that sometimes I’m not 100% sure if that’s my hallucinations or not. And I’ve just learned not to react either way.

Lisa: So you feel that you are lacking this feeling of God that other people have because your schizophrenia doesn’t allow you to have it?

Rachel: Correct.

Lisa: Why couldn’t it be the other direction? That you don’t have this because it’s not there?

Rachel: I know from like other people in my life, over and over, they’ll be like, wow, I just feel so close to God. I just feel this emotional warmth. And the way they describe it to me is what I think of like happiness and things that I also I don’t experience. So that’s one thing is I think there are ways to connect. You know, your body reacts to different things. And I do think people, they’re reacting to something. But I think that people with depression, with schizophrenia, with bipolar, who don’t experience the world like normal people. I think that for you to have faith, it’s a lot more intense because you don’t get the happy feelings. You don’t get like the warm fuzzies, but you’re still looking for guidance and hope and you still need to kind of try and figure out the world.

Lisa: This experience that you had when you were 17 is such a betrayal and it’s so awful. You continue to identify as a believer. But how are you able to not just feel so betrayed that you would be done with this?

Rachel: Well, I don’t believe in the people. I don’t believe in the people. I don’t believe in what they did. It’s like that’s a complete disconnect from what I think God is. What they did was not religion. They shouldn’t have done that.

Lisa: Well, but obviously anyone could say that, right?

Rachel: Correct. Yeah.

Lisa: They could say the reverse about you. They’re the real religion. They’re the true Christians, not you. If the same logic can justify both people having completely opposite beliefs, how are you able to maintain faith in that logic?

Rachel: I feel that there’s so much stuff that’s happened in my own life. It just doesn’t seem random. And if you know a lot about me, you know, OK. Rachel has schizophrenia. She got a flesh eating bacteria. Like, there’s so many ridiculously over-the-top things in my life that I really feel, I’m like, f-you God. Like, what the hell? I’m like, I was out helping people and I got a flesh eating bacteria. It’s not like I was drinking and going wild with my sex parties. And you’re gonna get a flesh eating bacteria in your face. So and it’s like I go through things that I’m like I just feel that that’s totally God. So, religion is not like a warm, fuzzy thing for me. Trying to understand, my hallucinations have never been nice. They’ve always been very disturbing. I don’t want that to be random. I like at least being able to talk and be like, God, I can’t take this tonight. Like, I’ve had nights where I just like I feel like I prayed myself to sleep crying because I couldn’t make the horrible things go away. It helps me to believe that there is something there. That the world isn’t all darkness.

Lisa: That is a common atheist argument. That this is the proof that God doesn’t exist because all this bad stuff happens. But you’re seeing it as it’s actually almost a proof that he does exist. Because?

Rachel: Because then it’s all darkness. That’s the most depressing thing in the world to me, is that it’s just darkness then. I don’t want to live in a world where it’s just horribleness. I have to believe that there is good and people can choose to be good. And there is like something that wants us to be good and be happy and pushing us towards being good. And that’s how for me, I know when religion is good or bad is when people do bad things. When you are hurting others, I don’t care what your religious book says. No, no. Then you are like everything else. You are adding to the darkness. And I don’t, I can’t live in a world with the thought of everything is just bad or has the potential to be bad. There is nothing pushing towards good.

Gabe: So it’s interesting that you see religion as pushing toward good. And the reason that I bring that up is because mental illness pushes toward the negative. Is it possible that all of this is just this nebulous concept? It’s all very random and there’s nothing pushing towards good. There’s nothing pushing toward bad. And everything just sort of happens. It just happens. And there’s nothing. It sounds like you’re saying that you have this desire for there to be order. And some people would argue that this desire to have things be planned and ordered and un-random is a symptom of schizophrenia because schizophrenia and mental illness and psychosis is just so incredibly random. What do you have to say to that? Because it almost sounds like you’re saying no, no, no, no, no. There is a plan for me that includes schizophrenia, but not everybody believes that. Including the way that we treat schizophrenia. It’s kind of a mess, right?

Rachel: And that goes back to kind of what causes mental illnesses and stuff. I’m of belief, because I had it since I was a little kid, that I was born with it. My parents didn’t do anything. My mom wasn’t like drinking when I was a baby, you know. There’s no reason for me to have schizophrenia except that I just do. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think it’s just like, I don’t know, like asthma. It’s not like you’re bad because you have asthma. But I do think it was something I was born with. And while I don’t, wouldn’t say that it’s oh, because I have this God made like a special plan for my life to go and save the exorcists or whatever. So it helps me, though, to, like, feel that, yeah, not everything is bad. That schizophrenia isn’t bad. That just all this bad stuff is going to happen to me and hurt and pain. That there is something else out there that I can push towards.

Gabe: It’s interesting to me because we both have a severe and persistent mental illness. We’ve both had psychosis. And as you know, mental illnesses has caused me great pain and suffering, just like you. And I, I’m not playing the suffering Olympics. I’m just pointing that out because we both went through very similar experiences. And what I came through the other side is this has to be random and there can’t be somebody that could have saved me and chose not to because that’s just too much to bear. So therefore, it’s just random and bad luck. And you came through it on the other side that said, well, I can’t just have this be random and bad luck because that’s too much to bear. There must be somebody up there deciding it. And for a lot of people watching us are just like, you know, these are a couple of mentally ill people that their brains don’t work right. I mean, frankly, they don’t work right. That’s why we’re seeking medical treatment. Are we qualified to really discuss this at all? Because after all, we started this show by saying, hey, our brains are broken. And I don’t know that we’re ever going to get to a clear answer because after all, there’s demons under my bed and there’s colors following you around. What do we do with all of that? Because if we didn’t have mental illness, this debate would sound very similar, just with different examples.

Rachel: Right now, we’re probably the most legitimate people to talk about religion is because we start with, hey, our brains are broken.

Gabe: Okay.

Rachel: I feel like we’re like more legit because we have that. We can be like, look, we might not be interpreting everything correctly, but this is what I think.

Gabe: You feel that being open to the idea that you’re wrong is a very powerful thing and we seem to strangely agree on this, which is weird because I don’t think that we interpret the world the same at all. But you seem to be open to the idea that you could be wrong. That’s very unusual in religious circles.

Rachel: Probably, yes.

Gabe: We’ll be right back after these messages.

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Gabe: We’re back discussing the role of religion in mental illness recovery with Inside Schizophrenia Podcast host Rachel Star Withers.

Lisa: So at this point, you feel that your faith has been a help to you in recovery and maintaining your life with mental illness, you know, living well. But I would say that for many people, it’s not a help. It’s a huge detriment. And that would be the reason why I would get rid of it completely. But you think it’s worth it? You think the potential downsides are worth the upsides that you have received.

Rachel: For me, absolutely. It’s one of the only reasons I’m still here. Every night, I’m cursing towards God sometimes because I’m wanting to kill myself and me cursing towards him throughout the entire night is the only way I made it to the morning. And that at least that anger, of that spite sometimes will be what kept me going was that no, I’m not just gonna give up. No. It’s helped me that, like, feel there is something there, even if I’m very angry and saying f-you, I’m going to do this anyway.

Lisa: Again, you see and hear things that are not real. So you don’t have any justification for this other stuff, but we’re good on this one. So how have you been able to balance that? And how have your treatment providers been able to work that in?

Rachel: For me, it’s two completely different things. If I were to start thinking God was talking to me, my knee jerk reaction is no, Rachel, that is absolutely a hallucination. And if I get obsessed with something, that’s when I bring it into, like my counseling. For the most part, and I’m not saying this is the correct or incorrect thing to do, I think, I don’t bring it anything up with religion when it comes to me going to the psychiatrist and talking about medication. I don’t say, well, I don’t need more medication because me and God had this amazing time at the park yesterday.

Lisa: How would you like to see mental illness treatment and religion separated? Or do you think there is a way that they could be combined?

Rachel: I don’t think they should be combined. And I’m not referring to depression because I know obviously there’s going to be people listening to the podcasts like, no, you don’t understand depression. You just even mentioned a little bit ago about being suicidal. For me, those are such small parts of my mental illness. The schizophrenia, the being confused all the time, the hallucinations, that’s what I’m referring to. That I don’t feel like can be treated in a religious way. I don’t feel like I need to go to a church counselor to talk about trying to understand what’s real and what’s not. Because at the end of the day, or at the end of the session, it’s going to be, well, let’s pray before you go. And now you’ve left that door open for me to get confused again. And it’s so hard for me to know what’s real and fake, I don’t want, I don’t know, any more confusion. So I rather yeah. If I’m dealing with becoming manic, if I’m dealing with hallucinations, with reality confusion, that needs to be one hundred percent separate from normal mental health help.

Gabe: Rachel, I too believe that mental health care, mental illness care, and religion need to be separated. But my reason is obviously different from yours. As a religious person, what would you say to your fellow Christians that are going to disagree with you? Because judging by all of the handbooks I’ve read, the rules, the 12 step programs, people believe that mental illness care, mental health care ,and religion should go completely hand in hand. So what do you have to say to your fellow Christians?

Rachel: I think that’s why you have to understand there’s a big difference between just being sad, being upset over something, and a severe mental illness. You cannot pray away schizophrenia, bipolar. You have something that you need to go to the doctor. Similar to cancer. OK? Well, I remember actually being in church and this man getting up in front of, like, you know, a couple hundred people and saying he was gonna stop his cancer medication because he had the faith God would heal him. And I was in the church like, oh, no. Spoiler alert, what happened two years later? Anyway, it’s the same way. And unfortunately, so many people in the Christian community or even recovery community, drugs, alcohol, they feel that you are experiencing depression, you are experiencing alcoholism, whatever, because of a weakness, and you need God because you are weak. That’s one of the 12 steps. Admit you have no control over it and go to a higher power. That does not work for schizophrenia. That does not work for bipolar. You don’t have bipolar because you are weak. You don’t have schizophrenia because you are weak. You didn’t do anything bad. OK. And I think that’s where the big hole is, is that they’re not considering severe mental illness as being real. They’re still saying it is like a weakness. It’s not a real thing, it’s, you know.

Gabe: It’s interesting what you said there, that the misunderstandings and the stigma and the discrimination towards severe and persistent mental illnesses is possibly not because they’re overinflating the role of religion, but because they’re underestimating the seriousness of severe and persistent mental illness. How do we educate religious leaders to get them to understand that? Look, community is important. And it’s very important. Without my family, I would be nowhere. And you’ve spoken the same way. We need our support. You know, I am so thankful for all of you. Even the folks on this podcast right now, you have all supported me in my dark times. But some of that support has been, Gabe, go to a doctor. Gabe, make that therapy appointment. You know, Gabe, you need help right now. Because you’re all educated. In your opinion, again, as a Christian, Rachel, how do we help religious leaders see that this is beyond their scope? Because I don’t see a lot of religious leaders trying to fill the role of an oncologist. But for some reason, you know, therapy, psychology, psychiatry, they’re like, we got this. And I don’t think they’re trying to be mean. I really don’t.

Rachel: This is going to sound like the complete makes no sense. And that’s kind of like what this whole podcast has been. Religion in so many ways, it doesn’t make sense. Because you’ll see like, well, you have to believe in the unseen. You have to believe that God’s there even though you can’t see him. I’m a huge Bible buff. I love old school translations, the lost books of the Bible. There’s so many loopholes. For every verse, there’s another verse that completely goes against it. And that’s one of my favorite things, is like getting to debate biblical people because you just can’t. It’s just ridiculous. You could go any direction with any argument. Incest? The Bible is for it. Let’s get this on. Lot and his daughters. There’s no, like, right or wrong that you can argue with these things. So, I mean, if you look at it, yeah. Your brain already needs to be scrambled to fully get and be able to understand. And I think to follow any religion, you’ve got to be kind of scrambled. And yet when you’re dealing with mental illness, they’re like, well, that’s something you can’t see. So it’s like they don’t believe in it. They’re able to believe, like in a giant floating spaghetti monster. But they’re not going to.

Lisa: All hail his noodly appendage.

Gabe: Yes, I’m a Pastafarian.

Lisa: Ramen.

Rachel: Yes, but they’re not willing to believe in mental illness. They’ll be like, no, that’s not a real thing, though, that’s a weakness. That’s, you know, you got a really good imagination or oh, that’s Satan then, it’s not you. It’s something else. The idea that your brain can hallucinate. No, no, no, no. We all have these biases and blind spots in our lives. The thing I always find most surprising is I’ll talk to people and sometimes the ones who are the most atheists are also then the most weird about other things like superstitions and ghosts and aliens. And I’ll be like, what? You just made fun of me for saying a Bible verse, but you’re over here going on about like these magic crystals.

Lisa: Yeah.

Rachel: What is the difference? I’m slightly offended.

Lisa: That is a thing that bothers me all the time.

Rachel: Yeah.

Lisa: Either you’re skeptical or you’re not.

Rachel: Right. So I’m not being like, oh, it’s just Christianity, like it’s across everything almost with us. And I’m sure each of us have our own, like, little weird things like that.

Gabe: Let let let’s explore that just a little further, because you are correct. You know, this episode is focusing on the role of religion and mental health care and where religion makes things worse and where religion can potentially make things better. But if we take out the word religion and replace it with CBD oil, essential oils, yoga, aromatherapy,

Lisa: Crystals.

Gabe: Could have the identical, yeah, crystals. We could literally have the identical conversation. Do you think that sometimes people believe that religion is a solution, again, because of a base misunderstanding about how serious mental illness is? And potentially, I’m hoping there’s some religious leaders out there that maybe think to themselves, well, I don’t believe that CBD oil or aromatherapy or crystals can cure mental illness, but I sure can. And maybe if they apply it that way, they think to themselves, all right, this is medical in nature. I honestly don’t know what point I’m trying to make, which is a theme with this podcast. But as a Christian, it sounds like you have not used Christianity really to fight schizophrenia. A lot of people I know in recovery keep them separate. But I know a lot of people who are literally in harm’s way right now because, quote, their pastors got this, their faith communities got this. My faith will see me through. And in the meantime, there’s not a doctor anywhere. And I worry about those people because you got an exorcism. But finally, made your way to a doctor. So many people get the exorcism and then move on to a second exorcism or then they’re told that they didn’t pray hard enough and therefore they’ve got to. These are the things that strike me. Rachael, push back hard against that.

Rachel: Look at our entire world. We have like thousands of years of this is such a big issue. And if it’s not the religions we currently have, there’ll be a new one out in 100 years. There’ll be some new weird thing we believe in. That’s how humans are. We’re always going to believe in weird crap. And there always are going to be fanatical people who push it to the next level. For my other Christians, my religious people, back to the cancer scenario. If you have cancer, that’s great. You believe in God, that’s great. You believe he’s gonna heal you? Spoiler alert. He might have made medicine as that resource of how to heal you. So you can believe and pray to God and still take your medication to get better. Same thing with schizophrenia. I can believe in God and still also believe, hey, I need to take my own anti-psychotics, because that’s a whole nother level of God talking to me if I don’t. That probably is something very physically wrong with me that has nothing to do with the spirit realms, the ghosts, the aliens.

Gabe: For me personally, I believe that religion is a very personal thing, and as long as you don’t push your religion on me, I won’t push my lack of religion on you. And that’s sort of how I live my life. It’s easier said than done. I’m not saying that I’ve never got into a Facebook fight because I’m only human. And it sounds like that’s where you are as well. And I think that’s a very mature place to be. But I really, as a mental health advocate, I become terrified when people tell me that they are treating severe and persistent mental illness with religion or some variation thereof. Do you feel the same way? Is this like a part where we agree?

Rachel: I mean, yeah, you’re setting yourself up to fail. And I think now you can also use that with anything. If I decide to treat my very severe schizophrenia with just counseling, I’m probably setting myself up to fail because this isn’t just a hey, I need to go and talk about it. I’m still going to become very, very, very sick if I just sit around talking about having schizophrenia. I have to be on medication. I’m on four different antidepressants alone, and I still go to counseling and pray and all this stuff. Does that mean that I don’t believe in God because I have to take four antidepressants? No, it just means that I have an illness that I need to, if I’m going to keep living, I have to do this thing. I have to take this medication.

Gabe: Makes perfect sense to me.

Lisa: Rachel, thank you so much for being here. Do you have any last thoughts that you’d like to share with us?

Rachel: Just if you’re out there and you’re having a hard time and you’ve went through things like exorcism and stuff like that, know that you’re not alone and get help. Because we all definitely need help to get through some of our past traumas. And check out Inside Schizophrenia if you want to hear more Gabe at least.

Gabe: Ah, it’s Gabe and Rachel and it’s a really, really cool podcast. It’s actually hosted by Rachel, I am just the co-host and you can find Inside Schizophrenia on your favorite podcast player or by going to the website, which. Rachel, what’s the Web site?

Rachel: PsychCentral.com/IS.

Gabe: Rachel, thank you so much. You are the bomb.

Lisa: Yeah. Thank you so much. You were great.

Rachel: Thank you, guys.

Lisa: All right, bye-bye.

Rachel: Bye.

Gabe: I thought it was great that Rachel stopped by and, Lisa, I get to work with her all the time, Na na na na naa naaa.

Lisa: She’s amazing.

Gabe: Lisa, what are your first impressions?

Lisa: I have trouble understanding how after going through something so horrible as the exorcism, she still finds a place for faith in her recovery. How about you, Gabe? What did you think about what Rachel had to say?

Gabe: One of the things that I think of is support is extraordinarily important in mental illness. Like my recovery is owed to my support system. And if your faith community is extraordinarily supportive and accepting, then, yeah, I love it. But there’s this base assumption that every single faith community is accepting of people with mental illness, and that’s not entirely the case. So there’s a side that we never think about. And if you fall into that side, I want to be very clear that your faith community, your religion, can be a detriment. I suppose the easy answer is, if that is your faith community, you can switch. But we all know that not so easy.

Lisa: Well, and it doesn’t have to just be that your faith community doesn’t support your recovery in mental illness, it could be that they don’t support you either. You know you hear all sorts of horror stories of people who are gay and they’re rejected by their church. And that can cause a lot of damage.

Gabe: I can also see, and this is what I want to get out there, there are congregations and religions that just flat out don’t believe in mental illness. So you and your family may well be willing to see a doctor. But, of course, you’re discouraged. I want to give a shout out to all of the faith leaders, all of the communities that notice something is wrong and support and encourage and help. And I know this from advocacy. Do you know how many churches are involved in advocacy? I visit churches on the regular to provide workshops, etc. So I do have this struggle. I’m really very much in the middle because churches support their communities in great ways. But again, if they can support their communities in great ways, it does mean that they could be a hindrance. I just want to say to anybody that is a hindrance, please, please reconsider. Because with treatment, recovery is very, very likely.

Lisa: There’s just so many variables with the specific person, the specific religion, the community, the faith. So there’s just no clear cut answer on whether or not religion is going to be helpful or harmful when it comes to your recovery.

Gabe: The reality is, is your mileage may vary. Not everything is inherently good. Not everything is inherently bad.

Lisa: Exactly, it’s all about the specifics of the situation. There’s not going to be one answer that works for everyone.

Gabe: One of the things that was curious to me is that she mentioned that when she made this video, she got all of these emails from people who were traumatized by it. And I’m not surprised. I see a lot of abuses like this. And my e-mail is filled with people who are using religion and faith to meet recovery all the time. Now with negative consequences.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: I should be clear like that. Maybe that’s the thing. Maybe the people who are having good experiences using religion to manage the symptoms of mental illness just aren’t e-mailing me. I do want to be open to that possibility. But the people who are hurt, they’re just so hurt. And whenever I try to get religion to move forward, like, listen, all you’ve got to do is stay out of it. Like, they stay out of cancer treatment. Just stay out of it. Whenever anybody hears a story of somebody saying, I’m quitting my chemotherapy. I’m not going to an oncologist. I’m just praying over cancer. Generally speaking, people are like, that’s not a good idea. But whenever people hear, I am no longer taking the medication, going to therapy, or getting help for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychosis, I’m just going to pray and fall on my church community. People are like, yeah, yeah. I don’t have anything against religion. I just want them to move over to the same model as cancer. Is that wrong?

Lisa: This is just another outcome or another symptom of the way that people don’t perceive mental illness as being an actual medical problem. It’s a behavior problem. It’s a spiritual problem. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. So when someone says, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna go use religion to pull myself up by my bootstraps. We’re like, oh, yes, that makes sense. But most people don’t think you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps to get rid of cancer. So if you said to them, I’m going to go use religion to do this, well, that doesn’t make sense. You need medicine. So this is just another example of how people do not see mental illness as an actual illness.

Gabe: I think it’s really interesting that when people don’t see mental illnesses as serious or something that needs medical intervention or you can do that, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps thing, and then it mixes with a controversial topic like religion or medication or other beliefs. That, it becomes this quagmire of we’re no longer discussing the best way to treat people with mental illness, but we’re bringing in our dislike of discussing emotions or dislike of taking medications or just the way society feels about having a mental illness. And all of a sudden you’re not really discussing the best way to get care anymore are you? You’re now fighting against the thing that you already either liked or disliked when you walked in the door. Do you think religion just falls into that trap? That we’re not actually discussing mental health, we’re just discussing our personal beliefs on religion and we’re just having the wrong discussion entirely?

Lisa: Not necessarily, you always say that the reason people aren’t seeking out medical care for mental illness is because they don’t see it as being serious. And I’m sure that’s part of it, but I don’t think that’s all of it. It’s not so much that they see it as being trivial or not being serious it’s that they don’t understand the base premise of this is a biologically based problem. So it’s not that they think, oh, this is a small thing. No big deal. No. You could easily think that this is a horrible, terrible thing that needs lots and lots of care and lots and lots of resources devoted to it and still not think that it needs these specific type of resources. You could think that, oh, no, the resources it needs are behavioral based or spiritual.

Gabe: So you’re doing everything you can, but because of your base misunderstanding of what’s wrong.

Lisa: Your base understanding of what’s causing the problem in the first place. So you can put tons of energy and resources into solving the problem, but if you don’t understand what caused it to start with, it doesn’t matter how many resources you throw at it because you’re not doing the right things that will work to solve it.

Gabe: This is a grease fire. I really think that’s a great analogy.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: This is a grease fire. You believe that the fire is real. There’s no debate at the seriousness of the fire that’s in your kitchen.

Lisa: You understand the danger.

Gabe: If you have an understanding of grease fires, you smother, you grab the lid, you put it on the pot, you grab towels, you deprive it of oxygen, it goes out and it’s fine. If you don’t understand it, even though you’re thinking that it’s very serious, you spray it with water. And then, of course, that blows the grease everywhere. The fire gets worse and it’s horrible. Nobody is saying that water is bad. Nobody is saying that the fire isn’t serious. I think that’s the perfect analogy.

Lisa: That is a perfect analogy because it’s not that people don’t think fire is dangerous or that they don’t want it out, it’s just that they don’t understand what it takes to put it out quickly and safely.

Gabe: I sincerely hope that all the people listening to this, no matter what side of the discussion, the debate that you’re on, or most likely somewhere in the middle. And I hope that you’ve listened to the very, very end. I am very flattered with all of our listeners who take the time to write me to tell me that they disagreed with us. But I can tell based on their letters and their e-mails and their comments that they listened all the way to the end. So even though they completely disagreed with us, they still listened and considered our viewpoints. They ultimately considered that we were wrong. I like that. And I want you to know that we have been reading your e-mails. Because our minds have been altered, our minds have been altered during the research of some of these shows. And I think that that is really, really cool. So keep them coming over to, Lisa, what’s our e-mail address?

Lisa: [email protected]. Again, that’s [email protected].

Gabe: All right, everybody, I hope you had fun this week. Listen up, here’s what I need you to do. If you like the podcast, wherever you downloaded it, please subscribe. Use your words and rate us. Share us on social media, email us to your friends. Tell your mom about us. We do crazy well in the mom demographic. And did you know that after the credits there is always an outtake? Basically where Gabe and Lisa either made a mistake, said something funny, or the whole thing just devolved into a giant fight. We hope that you will check it out.

Lisa: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person? Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details.

Podcast: Religion’s Role in Mental Illness Treatment syndicated from

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whorchataaa · 4 years ago

Text

Podcast: Religion’s Role in Mental Illness Treatment

Tune in for a deep discussion on religion and severe mental illness, including Rachel’s 3-day exorcism experience at age 17.

(Transcript Available Below)

Subscribe to Our Show!

And Please Remember to Rate & Review Us!

Guest Information for ‘Rachel Star Wither- Religion Mental Illness’ Podcast Episode

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Computer Generated Transcript for “Rachel Star Wither- Religion Mental Illness” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Gabe: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am here with my co-host, Lisa. Lisa, welcome to the show.

Gabe: Do you mean there isn’t one or you just don’t want to give the person’s name?

Lisa: I could not find where it comes from originally. Comedians have said this, posters say this. It doesn’t seem to be something I can pinpoint down to one specific person.

Gabe: Well, we are very thorough in our research department, which consists of only Lisa.

Lisa: And Google, Lisa and Google.

Lisa: Well, but you never know. The 10% that we keep, those are going to be the best ones. So those of you who are not already alienated, you’re my favorite.

Gabe: The concept of a higher power is probably the most well-known place where religion is in like addiction recovery.

Lisa: Twelve steps.

Rachel: I absolutely am.

Rachel: Yeah, I assumed that’s why I was on the show.

Lisa: That is not boding well for your relationship with Rachel, Gabe.

Gabe: Do you think that we are part of the gotcha podcast media?

Lisa: Is that a thing?

Gabe: No,

Lisa: I do. If that is a thing, I want to be part of that. Make that a thing.

Gabe: Rachel, we have established that Gabe and Lisa are not so religious. Can you talk about your religious background and your general feelings and just your personal belief system?

Gabe: Are you a Christian? Are you Baptist? What is Rachel Star Withers’ religious affiliation?

Lisa: I am not familiar with the Bible verse where Jesus said, well, the most important thing is to not be a dick.

Rachel: Yes, it’s in there.

Lisa: I will Google that and find the verse.

Rachel: It’s reworded.

Lisa: You’re paraphrasing?

Rachel: I like to use King James, old school. So it’s like thou shalt not be a dick-eth.

Rachel: Right.

Lisa: And available.

Gabe: And available

Rachel: Right. Yeah, I mean.

Gabe: That’s very helpful.

Lisa: You currently define as Christian, but you’re not picking a specific denomination. Are you currently a churchgoer?

Rachel: Growing up, my family actually started the church we went to and it was like my great grandmother started the church.

Lisa: Oh, wow.

Lisa: Whoa!

Rachel: Like literally, we couldn’t have the puppets sway too much because dancing is not allowed.

Lisa: Or the U.S. Census.

Gabe: What would you pick?

Rachel: Christianity, Christian.

Gabe: And do you go to church on Sundays?

Rachel: I do not.

Gabe: Can you still be very religious and not go to church on Sunday? In your opinion?

Rachel: I do think it plays a role. I don’t think that it should play a role in the beginning, and I don’t think it should play a large overall role.

Gabe: Now, explain what you mean, “in the beginning.” Like, should religion diagnose you?

Lisa: What age were you when this was going on?

Lisa: Wow, that is so horrifying.

Gabe: And you followed this advice, and if I understand correctly, you followed this advice straight to an exorcist.

Lisa: And how did your family respond to that?

Rachel: They, I don’t think they knew anything about it. Or if they did it, they didn’t realize what level we were at.

Gabe: You’re kind of burying the lead here, you went through an exorcism.

Rachel: Yes, I did. I did.

Gabe: Just. You’re just talking about it like I went through an exorcism,

Rachel: I did. Yeah.

Lisa: Wow.

Lisa: So your level sin with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer was so great that it made sense to the people around you. Demons are obviously possessing this girl because clearly that’s so much sin. So?

Rachel: Oh, yeah. Like, what the hell?

Lisa: It doesn’t sound like something that’s real, right?

Rachel: It doesn’t.

Lisa: That people in modern society would actually consider this a reasonable idea, a reasonable thing to do, especially for a child.

Lisa: Wow. Whoa.

Lisa: Wow

Rachel: The person saying that they’d had them since they were age four.

Lisa: I feel sick.

Gabe: Was this the first treatment that you ever received for schizophrenia?

Rachel: So at the school, apparently, the guy I was seeing was a real doctor because he subscribed in an anti-depressant and I was on it for like a few months and it didn’t work.

Gabe: So you did see a doctor.

Rachel: On campus, the campus doctor, yes.

Gabe: So you feel that that prayer is acceptable as long as you’re still seeking medical treatment?

Rachel: Yes. At what point God starts talking back in a booming voice? Might be a red flag.

Lisa: But how do you possibly differentiate that? Because if you believe that God is listening, why is it so unreasonable to think that he’s talking back?

Lisa: Really?

Lisa: So you feel that you are lacking this feeling of God that other people have because your schizophrenia doesn’t allow you to have it?

Rachel: Correct.

Lisa: Why couldn’t it be the other direction? That you don’t have this because it’s not there?

Lisa: Well, but obviously anyone could say that, right?

Rachel: Correct. Yeah.

Rachel: Right now, we’re probably the most legitimate people to talk about religion is because we start with, hey, our brains are broken.

Gabe: Okay.

Rachel: I feel like we’re like more legit because we have that. We can be like, look, we might not be interpreting everything correctly, but this is what I think.

Rachel: Probably, yes.

Gabe: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe: We’re back discussing the role of religion in mental illness recovery with Inside Schizophrenia Podcast host Rachel Star Withers.

Lisa: How would you like to see mental illness treatment and religion separated? Or do you think there is a way that they could be combined?

Lisa: All hail his noodly appendage.

Gabe: Yes, I’m a Pastafarian.

Lisa: Ramen.

Lisa: Yeah.

Rachel: What is the difference? I’m slightly offended.

Lisa: That is a thing that bothers me all the time.

Rachel: Yeah.

Lisa: Either you’re skeptical or you’re not.

Rachel: Right. So I’m not being like, oh, it’s just Christianity, like it’s across everything almost with us. And I’m sure each of us have our own, like, little weird things like that.

Lisa: Crystals.

Gabe: Makes perfect sense to me.

Lisa: Rachel, thank you so much for being here. Do you have any last thoughts that you’d like to share with us?

Rachel: PsychCentral.com/IS.

Gabe: Rachel, thank you so much. You are the bomb.

Lisa: Yeah. Thank you so much. You were great.

Rachel: Thank you, guys.

Lisa: All right, bye-bye.

Rachel: Bye.

Gabe: I thought it was great that Rachel stopped by and, Lisa, I get to work with her all the time, Na na na na naa naaa.

Lisa: She’s amazing.

Gabe: Lisa, what are your first impressions?

Gabe: The reality is, is your mileage may vary. Not everything is inherently good. Not everything is inherently bad.

Lisa: Exactly, it’s all about the specifics of the situation. There’s not going to be one answer that works for everyone.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: So you’re doing everything you can, but because of your base misunderstanding of what’s wrong.

Gabe: This is a grease fire. I really think that’s a great analogy.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: This is a grease fire. You believe that the fire is real. There’s no debate at the seriousness of the fire that’s in your kitchen.

Lisa: You understand the danger.

Lisa: [email protected]. Again, that’s [email protected].

Lisa: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

from https://ift.tt/2ZIi7iQ Check out https://peterlegyel.wordpress.com/

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ashley-unicorn · 4 years ago

Text

Podcast: Religion’s Role in Mental Illness Treatment

Tune in for a deep discussion on religion and severe mental illness, including Rachel’s 3-day exorcism experience at age 17.

(Transcript Available Below)

Subscribe to Our Show!

And Please Remember to Rate & Review Us!

Guest Information for ‘Rachel Star Wither- Religion Mental Illness’ Podcast Episode

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Computer Generated Transcript for “Rachel Star Wither- Religion Mental Illness” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Gabe: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am here with my co-host, Lisa. Lisa, welcome to the show.

Gabe: Do you mean there isn’t one or you just don’t want to give the person’s name?

Lisa: I could not find where it comes from originally. Comedians have said this, posters say this. It doesn’t seem to be something I can pinpoint down to one specific person.

Gabe: Well, we are very thorough in our research department, which consists of only Lisa.

Lisa: And Google, Lisa and Google.

Lisa: Well, but you never know. The 10% that we keep, those are going to be the best ones. So those of you who are not already alienated, you’re my favorite.

Gabe: The concept of a higher power is probably the most well-known place where religion is in like addiction recovery.

Lisa: Twelve steps.

Rachel: I absolutely am.

Rachel: Yeah, I assumed that’s why I was on the show.

Lisa: That is not boding well for your relationship with Rachel, Gabe.

Gabe: Do you think that we are part of the gotcha podcast media?

Lisa: Is that a thing?

Gabe: No,

Lisa: I do. If that is a thing, I want to be part of that. Make that a thing.

Gabe: Rachel, we have established that Gabe and Lisa are not so religious. Can you talk about your religious background and your general feelings and just your personal belief system?

Gabe: Are you a Christian? Are you Baptist? What is Rachel Star Withers’ religious affiliation?

Lisa: I am not familiar with the Bible verse where Jesus said, well, the most important thing is to not be a dick.

Rachel: Yes, it’s in there.

Lisa: I will Google that and find the verse.

Rachel: It’s reworded.

Lisa: You’re paraphrasing?

Rachel: I like to use King James, old school. So it’s like thou shalt not be a dick-eth.

Rachel: Right.

Lisa: And available.

Gabe: And available

Rachel: Right. Yeah, I mean.

Gabe: That’s very helpful.

Lisa: You currently define as Christian, but you’re not picking a specific denomination. Are you currently a churchgoer?

Rachel: Growing up, my family actually started the church we went to and it was like my great grandmother started the church.

Lisa: Oh, wow.

Lisa: Whoa!

Rachel: Like literally, we couldn’t have the puppets sway too much because dancing is not allowed.

Lisa: Or the U.S. Census.

Gabe: What would you pick?

Rachel: Christianity, Christian.

Gabe: And do you go to church on Sundays?

Rachel: I do not.

Gabe: Can you still be very religious and not go to church on Sunday? In your opinion?

Rachel: I do think it plays a role. I don’t think that it should play a role in the beginning, and I don’t think it should play a large overall role.

Gabe: Now, explain what you mean, “in the beginning.” Like, should religion diagnose you?

Lisa: What age were you when this was going on?

Lisa: Wow, that is so horrifying.

Gabe: And you followed this advice, and if I understand correctly, you followed this advice straight to an exorcist.

Lisa: And how did your family respond to that?

Rachel: They, I don’t think they knew anything about it. Or if they did it, they didn’t realize what level we were at.

Gabe: You’re kind of burying the lead here, you went through an exorcism.

Rachel: Yes, I did. I did.

Gabe: Just. You’re just talking about it like I went through an exorcism,

Rachel: I did. Yeah.

Lisa: Wow.

Lisa: So your level sin with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer was so great that it made sense to the people around you. Demons are obviously possessing this girl because clearly that’s so much sin. So?

Rachel: Oh, yeah. Like, what the hell?

Lisa: It doesn’t sound like something that’s real, right?

Rachel: It doesn’t.

Lisa: That people in modern society would actually consider this a reasonable idea, a reasonable thing to do, especially for a child.

Lisa: Wow. Whoa.

Lisa: Wow

Rachel: The person saying that they’d had them since they were age four.

Lisa: I feel sick.

Gabe: Was this the first treatment that you ever received for schizophrenia?

Rachel: So at the school, apparently, the guy I was seeing was a real doctor because he subscribed in an anti-depressant and I was on it for like a few months and it didn’t work.

Gabe: So you did see a doctor.

Rachel: On campus, the campus doctor, yes.

Gabe: So you feel that that prayer is acceptable as long as you’re still seeking medical treatment?

Rachel: Yes. At what point God starts talking back in a booming voice? Might be a red flag.

Lisa: But how do you possibly differentiate that? Because if you believe that God is listening, why is it so unreasonable to think that he’s talking back?

Lisa: Really?

Lisa: So you feel that you are lacking this feeling of God that other people have because your schizophrenia doesn’t allow you to have it?

Rachel: Correct.

Lisa: Why couldn’t it be the other direction? That you don’t have this because it’s not there?

Lisa: Well, but obviously anyone could say that, right?

Rachel: Correct. Yeah.

Rachel: Right now, we’re probably the most legitimate people to talk about religion is because we start with, hey, our brains are broken.

Gabe: Okay.

Rachel: I feel like we’re like more legit because we have that. We can be like, look, we might not be interpreting everything correctly, but this is what I think.

Rachel: Probably, yes.

Gabe: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe: We’re back discussing the role of religion in mental illness recovery with Inside Schizophrenia Podcast host Rachel Star Withers.

Lisa: How would you like to see mental illness treatment and religion separated? Or do you think there is a way that they could be combined?

Lisa: All hail his noodly appendage.

Gabe: Yes, I’m a Pastafarian.

Lisa: Ramen.

Lisa: Yeah.

Rachel: What is the difference? I’m slightly offended.

Lisa: That is a thing that bothers me all the time.

Rachel: Yeah.

Lisa: Either you’re skeptical or you’re not.

Rachel: Right. So I’m not being like, oh, it’s just Christianity, like it’s across everything almost with us. And I’m sure each of us have our own, like, little weird things like that.

Lisa: Crystals.

Gabe: Makes perfect sense to me.

Lisa: Rachel, thank you so much for being here. Do you have any last thoughts that you’d like to share with us?

Rachel: PsychCentral.com/IS.

Gabe: Rachel, thank you so much. You are the bomb.

Lisa: Yeah. Thank you so much. You were great.

Rachel: Thank you, guys.

Lisa: All right, bye-bye.

Rachel: Bye.

Gabe: I thought it was great that Rachel stopped by and, Lisa, I get to work with her all the time, Na na na na naa naaa.

Lisa: She’s amazing.

Gabe: Lisa, what are your first impressions?

Gabe: The reality is, is your mileage may vary. Not everything is inherently good. Not everything is inherently bad.

Lisa: Exactly, it’s all about the specifics of the situation. There’s not going to be one answer that works for everyone.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: So you’re doing everything you can, but because of your base misunderstanding of what’s wrong.

Gabe: This is a grease fire. I really think that’s a great analogy.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: This is a grease fire. You believe that the fire is real. There’s no debate at the seriousness of the fire that’s in your kitchen.

Lisa: You understand the danger.

Lisa: [email protected]. Again, that’s [email protected].

Lisa: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

from https://ift.tt/2ZIi7iQ Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/

0 notes

erraticfairy · 4 years ago

Text

Podcast: Religion’s Role in Mental Illness Treatment

Tune in for a deep discussion on religion and severe mental illness, including Rachel’s 3-day exorcism experience at age 17.

(Transcript Available Below)

Subscribe to Our Show!

And Please Remember to Rate & Review Us!

Guest Information for ‘Rachel Star Wither- Religion Mental Illness’ Podcast Episode

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Computer Generated Transcript for “Rachel Star Wither- Religion Mental Illness” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Gabe: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am here with my co-host, Lisa. Lisa, welcome to the show.

Gabe: Do you mean there isn’t one or you just don’t want to give the person’s name?

Lisa: I could not find where it comes from originally. Comedians have said this, posters say this. It doesn’t seem to be something I can pinpoint down to one specific person.

Gabe: Well, we are very thorough in our research department, which consists of only Lisa.

Lisa: And Google, Lisa and Google.

Lisa: Well, but you never know. The 10% that we keep, those are going to be the best ones. So those of you who are not already alienated, you’re my favorite.

Gabe: The concept of a higher power is probably the most well-known place where religion is in like addiction recovery.

Lisa: Twelve steps.

Rachel: I absolutely am.

Rachel: Yeah, I assumed that’s why I was on the show.

Lisa: That is not boding well for your relationship with Rachel, Gabe.

Gabe: Do you think that we are part of the gotcha podcast media?

Lisa: Is that a thing?

Gabe: No,

Lisa: I do. If that is a thing, I want to be part of that. Make that a thing.

Gabe: Rachel, we have established that Gabe and Lisa are not so religious. Can you talk about your religious background and your general feelings and just your personal belief system?

Gabe: Are you a Christian? Are you Baptist? What is Rachel Star Withers’ religious affiliation?

Lisa: I am not familiar with the Bible verse where Jesus said, well, the most important thing is to not be a dick.

Rachel: Yes, it’s in there.

Lisa: I will Google that and find the verse.

Rachel: It’s reworded.

Lisa: You’re paraphrasing?

Rachel: I like to use King James, old school. So it’s like thou shalt not be a dick-eth.

Rachel: Right.

Lisa: And available.

Gabe: And available

Rachel: Right. Yeah, I mean.

Gabe: That’s very helpful.

Lisa: You currently define as Christian, but you’re not picking a specific denomination. Are you currently a churchgoer?

Rachel: Growing up, my family actually started the church we went to and it was like my great grandmother started the church.

Lisa: Oh, wow.

Lisa: Whoa!

Rachel: Like literally, we couldn’t have the puppets sway too much because dancing is not allowed.

Lisa: Or the U.S. Census.

Gabe: What would you pick?

Rachel: Christianity, Christian.

Gabe: And do you go to church on Sundays?

Rachel: I do not.

Gabe: Can you still be very religious and not go to church on Sunday? In your opinion?

Rachel: I do think it plays a role. I don’t think that it should play a role in the beginning, and I don’t think it should play a large overall role.

Gabe: Now, explain what you mean, “in the beginning.” Like, should religion diagnose you?

Lisa: What age were you when this was going on?

Lisa: Wow, that is so horrifying.

Gabe: And you followed this advice, and if I understand correctly, you followed this advice straight to an exorcist.

Lisa: And how did your family respond to that?

Rachel: They, I don’t think they knew anything about it. Or if they did it, they didn’t realize what level we were at.

Gabe: You’re kind of burying the lead here, you went through an exorcism.

Rachel: Yes, I did. I did.

Gabe: Just. You’re just talking about it like I went through an exorcism,

Rachel: I did. Yeah.

Lisa: Wow.

Lisa: So your level sin with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer was so great that it made sense to the people around you. Demons are obviously possessing this girl because clearly that’s so much sin. So?

Rachel: Oh, yeah. Like, what the hell?

Lisa: It doesn’t sound like something that’s real, right?

Rachel: It doesn’t.

Lisa: That people in modern society would actually consider this a reasonable idea, a reasonable thing to do, especially for a child.

Lisa: Wow. Whoa.

Lisa: Wow

Rachel: The person saying that they’d had them since they were age four.

Lisa: I feel sick.

Gabe: Was this the first treatment that you ever received for schizophrenia?

Rachel: So at the school, apparently, the guy I was seeing was a real doctor because he subscribed in an anti-depressant and I was on it for like a few months and it didn’t work.

Gabe: So you did see a doctor.

Rachel: On campus, the campus doctor, yes.

Gabe: So you feel that that prayer is acceptable as long as you’re still seeking medical treatment?

Rachel: Yes. At what point God starts talking back in a booming voice? Might be a red flag.

Lisa: But how do you possibly differentiate that? Because if you believe that God is listening, why is it so unreasonable to think that he’s talking back?

Lisa: Really?

Lisa: So you feel that you are lacking this feeling of God that other people have because your schizophrenia doesn’t allow you to have it?

Rachel: Correct.

Lisa: Why couldn’t it be the other direction? That you don’t have this because it’s not there?

Lisa: Well, but obviously anyone could say that, right?

Rachel: Correct. Yeah.

Rachel: Right now, we’re probably the most legitimate people to talk about religion is because we start with, hey, our brains are broken.

Gabe: Okay.

Rachel: I feel like we’re like more legit because we have that. We can be like, look, we might not be interpreting everything correctly, but this is what I think.

Rachel: Probably, yes.

Gabe: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe: We’re back discussing the role of religion in mental illness recovery with Inside Schizophrenia Podcast host Rachel Star Withers.

Lisa: How would you like to see mental illness treatment and religion separated? Or do you think there is a way that they could be combined?

Lisa: All hail his noodly appendage.

Gabe: Yes, I’m a Pastafarian.

Lisa: Ramen.

Lisa: Yeah.

Rachel: What is the difference? I’m slightly offended.

Lisa: That is a thing that bothers me all the time.

Rachel: Yeah.

Lisa: Either you’re skeptical or you’re not.

Rachel: Right. So I’m not being like, oh, it’s just Christianity, like it’s across everything almost with us. And I’m sure each of us have our own, like, little weird things like that.

Lisa: Crystals.

Gabe: Makes perfect sense to me.

Lisa: Rachel, thank you so much for being here. Do you have any last thoughts that you’d like to share with us?

Rachel: PsychCentral.com/IS.

Gabe: Rachel, thank you so much. You are the bomb.

Lisa: Yeah. Thank you so much. You were great.

Rachel: Thank you, guys.

Lisa: All right, bye-bye.

Rachel: Bye.

Gabe: I thought it was great that Rachel stopped by and, Lisa, I get to work with her all the time, Na na na na naa naaa.

Lisa: She’s amazing.

Gabe: Lisa, what are your first impressions?

Gabe: The reality is, is your mileage may vary. Not everything is inherently good. Not everything is inherently bad.

Lisa: Exactly, it’s all about the specifics of the situation. There’s not going to be one answer that works for everyone.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: So you’re doing everything you can, but because of your base misunderstanding of what’s wrong.

Gabe: This is a grease fire. I really think that’s a great analogy.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: This is a grease fire. You believe that the fire is real. There’s no debate at the seriousness of the fire that’s in your kitchen.

Lisa: You understand the danger.

Lisa: [email protected]. Again, that’s [email protected].

Lisa: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

from World of Psychology https://ift.tt/2ZIi7iQ via theshiningmind.com

#World of Psychology #child psychology

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