#by its very nature it fucking sucks

[murderenjoyer]

It's really frustrating when people get on my ass for forgetting things. As if I'm actively choosing to eject the information out of my brain. As if, after a conversation, I sit back and nefariously smile and rub my fly hands together and say "heheh, and now I'm going to wipe everything they told me from my mind. Because I don't care about them or their story. Because I don't value them as a friend or a person. Heheh."

I don't forget things because I want to! I don't only forget what you specifically tell me! I forget everything dude my brain is like a sieve and information runs through it like water.

I don't remember the majority of my childhood. Some of it is better off forgotten sure but do you think I'm happy I have essentially no memories of my dad? That I can't remember anything at all about my uncles? My cousins? My aunt? My grandma? They're dead now, I'll never speak to them again, all I had of them were memories. And I dont even have those. What about childhood best friends? Teachers that I enjoyed? Experiences that were important? They're all gone. Lost to the void.

It's happened to me over and over where I'll be somewhere and someone will approach me like "woah Tama hey!! I haven't seen you in so long how have you been?" And I'll have to smile and act excited and reply "heyyy! How are you! long time no see haha!"

And I have no idea who they are. I'll manage to parse via conversation that we apparently used to be close friends. We apparently went to school together and hung out every day. We apparently used to be online pals and we dm'd back and forth all the time. They're literally a part of my family and we used to hang out, we used to chat, we used to live in the same god damn house. And I have no memory of them. Not even a vague shadow of a memory.

It's less of an issue currently because I don't work or handle really anything outside of childcare and house upkeep but it can be downright debilitating.

When I was being questioned about my SA case when I was a teen, I literally could not answer so many of their inquiries. Does he have any distinguishing marks like moles or scars? I don't know. When did the abuse start? I don't know. What are the things he'd say to you? I don't know! I don't know I don't know I literally cannot remember no matter how hard I concentrate! I think back and there's just nothing but blackness, nothing but a void. People assumed that meant I was making it up. People assumed that meant I was lying. Doctors scoffed at me. Police rolled their eyes and talked down to me like I was stupid.

When I'm applying for jobs I can't answer the "list your previous jobs" question. What was my first job? How old was I when I started working? Where was I employed the longest? What was my most recent job? Why did I leave? I don't know!!! I'll think "it was definitely Walmart for sure, stayed for one year, quit six months ago. I started in summer." I'll double-check with my husband. I'll find out I haven't worked there in over five years. That my employment lasted four months. I started in winter.

When I'm trying to sign up for disability benefits, I can't answer the questions. What medications have I taken? I don't know. How many times have I been hospitalized and where? I can't remember. How long have I been moving through the mental health field in general? Who fucking knows man. Who knows. And I'll need to remember to call them on X day at X time to continue with the application process. Might as well just turn me down right here right now because I am surely not going to remember to do it.

"Set a reminder in your calendar set an alarm." Bold of you to assume I'm going to remember to do that and not instantly wipe my mind clean the moment I hang up the call.

When I was in legal trouble the last couple times, I couldn't answer the judges questions. I couldn't describe the timeline. Because I didn't know. I didn't remember.

I don't know my kid's birthdays. My own children, aged 12 and 5. I've had 12 years, 5 years, to memorize this information. When prompted for their DOB I nudge my husband because he knows.

I miss therapy appointments over and over and over. I do have a reminder in my calendar I do have an alarm on my phone! Therapy is every Monday at 1pm like clockwork! But when Monday rolls around and the clock strikes 1, it's the furthest thing from my mind. I don't think to check my calendar just in case because I don't remember that there's a reason to do such a thing in the first place.

I'll think of something and navigate to the google bar and click it and the keypad comes up and I don't know what I was going to search. I don't know why I opened the search tab at all. What was it? What was it? Was it important? I'll go back to my open apps and scroll around hoping to jog my memory. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn't. Guess I'll never know.

Massive chunks of my experiences and relationships and important shit are just gone. They're gone, deleted out of my mind in an instant, so suddenly and thoroughly that I don't even know I forgot something in the first place. It may as well have never happened at all.

It is a mental problem it is a disability it is not a choice. I keep telling people that when they're mad I forgot some piece of trivia about them, when they're annoyed I flaked on the 3rd scheduled hangout in a row, when they're frustrated I dropped the ball on something that is extremely important. I tell them "I don't know why, I don't know what's wrong with my brain, but my memory is broken. I don't choose what information I do and don't retain. I'm trying I'm really trying but I'm not in control of the situation" and still they talk down to me like I'm an idiot and berate me like I'm being intentionally dismissive and snarl and snap that I fucked something up that I forgot something really really important that they said to me.

Its frustrating living like this. I'm basically floating in a haze with blinders on. I can't see the past. All those happy memories I made with friends and family vanish. All I have left is bits and pieces, little slivers of memories, vague ideas that something happened before.

Do you know how hard it is to live like that? Do you know how sad it is? Not being able to remember anything from your own kids' lives until you open your HD and browse old pictures and videos? Forgetting entire people you were close with? Never being sure of anything ever?

So much of how a person understands and interprets their life, themselves, their loved ones, is based on memories. And I don't have that. I feel like a shard of a person because all the pieces that went into forming me as I am have been lost to time.

It's not a choice, okay? It's not a fucking choice.

[poppytuft]

the bear s3 spoilers

below the cut! thinking about claire and stuff we saw this season re: carmy/syd/the restaurant/donna, just finished the season so itll be a mess and also im comin in way too hot on this so my bad

sometimes...... sometimes i believe you guys are all watching different tv. im not sure how this season didnt feel like a direct through line from s2?? and im not sure WHY everyone is SO MAD about claire LITERALLY "haunting" this season. girl. come on. we need to have a sit down talk about how the berzatto generational trauma is the real meat of this show (this will make sense, just trust me). thats the MAIN EMOTIONAL POINT. syd's relationship with her dad, marcus and his mom, richie and evie, even tina and louie are all examples of parental relationships that are tender, sweet, supportive, etc. these are INTENTIONAL!! by creating these relationships we see PLAINLY how fucked donna is and how much she fucked up all of these kids. thats why "ice chips" was such a FANTASTIC episode. there was SO MUCH unpacked, so much revealed, so much worked through with sugar and her but at the end of the day she's still learning how to unlearn all of this horrific narcissistic bullshit. SHES STILL UNLEARNING THOUGH. thats where fucking DONNA of all people sits right now——somehow, she's learning how to heal. EVERYONE IS LEARNING. that's also what is so important about that episode.

now lets look at carmy. in "ice chips" we are LITERALLY told about how each berzatto is born: mikey fighting against the idea of being alive at all, nat into a quiet, soothing room, and CARMY is fucking born into EVERYONE SCREAMING and ARGUING and FIGHTING. we are BLATANTLY told that all carmy has ever known is HELL and all he's ever known how to communicate is through exploding. this is so violently against what we also know about his personality from childhood in "fishes" (anxious growing up, arts-oriented, had a hard time making friends). now, he works a violently stressful job, processing the trauma from both his mother (and chef fields [joel mchale], realistically) through the high-stress environment.

NOW. ENTER CLAIRE.

HOW is she not fascinating to you all. we don't see her whole story (because the bear, duh) but we are given just enough pieces here to put together that her story runs parallel to carmy's. how are you not getting this. walk with me.

claire. glasses, nerdy, quiet, sweet, girl next door. family friend! cute, but considered mid for a long time by everyone at school, but suddenly the berzatto men all badger carm, "oh she got a glow up, oh shes looking for you, she wants to see you," etc etc etc. what happened in between?

she finds herself. she finds the stressful thing she LOVES, which is the hospital. her job is objectively more stressful than carmy's (illustrated by that scene earlier in the season but i forgot the episode, where claire talks about the girl who got her shit wrecked by the glass table), and while we don't have an exact understanding of what her home life was like, we understand that her and carmy both have a level of internal anxiety that thrives on the stress of their careers. HOWEVER, claire does it because she loves it. carmy just doesn't know how to stop.

this is what makes claire feel like "peace" to carmy——because her high-stress job is a choice, an active choice she is making because it fulfills her. it's not to prove her dead brother wrong, or to honor his own legacy, or to prove that dickbag boss wrong, or to leave a mark on the world, or to make her own life worthwhile, or to prove that she doesn't need anyone else. she genuinely enjoys helping people even when the days are stressful, or scary. he's obsessed with this. he wants to know how she does this. every day she leaves that stress at home——and he wants to learn how to do that too.

claire is VITAL to this season and to understanding carmy's stress——and how far back he is in his healing process. it should only become more and more apparent, as we see characters like tina (the beef/the bear became vital to her success/development as a chef AND person, both for the people AND her love of food), marcus (not hiding his grief, but using it to help rationalize how much his mother loved him and wanted to be surrounded by people that love him), and richie (finding a purpose through service/expo and understanding he can start over again) push through their own traumas and struggles to become better people. if donna can be not only present at sugar's bedside during labor, but WELCOMED at this point in the show, it makes carmy's inability to heal all the more present. claire is an important part of this puzzle: she helps us see a window into a world where carmy is balanced emotionally, but unbalanced professionally, because he has no idea how to make the two coexist.

however, the idea that he can be balanced emotionally at all is so fucking enticing——with the help of someone who experiences stress in the same way as him (and who is familiar with his familial trauma), he has the opportunity to grow up and move on from his family trauma and wounds perpetuated by the industry he works in.

on the flip side of this....... his inability to process any of this is starting to impact syd. and frankly, that's some bullshit. his lack of communication, inability to community build/trust ANYONE, and his violent stubbornness is pushing her into the same space that he was in under chef fields, in a much slower, more subtle manner, and for slightly different reasons. her panic attack at the end of the season could read in two directions to me: her stress over the responsibility of changing so many people's lives has boiled over once she remembered that the beef once was truly great (hey five star review on the fridge!), OR, she realizes how much she isn't in it for the food. fuck a Michelin star: she wants to cook with her family. chef terry says at the end of "forever", in the garage with carmy, that she's so grateful she got to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, where she wanted, with the people she wanted to do it with. sydney is so close to having those things at the bear——but carmy's dysfunction is keeping it just out of arms reach. the two of them are now on opposite sides of the approach from last season: syd dying for a star, and carmy dying to cook for the woman he loved. now, carmy is hungy for recognition again, desperate to prove something, and sydney is remembering (thanks to the conversation with other chefs during the ever funeral service) why she loved cooking in the first place. so this leaves us to wonder: should she stick it out? for the people? or make something of herself? is she carmy, or is she terry? i guess we will just have to see.

all this to say: every character is connected. the bear is a show about family, found and blood, and the choices we make for, with, and because of the people we love, for better or for worse. food is only the center of it, because it's the center of all of our lives. you can't hate claire without understanding where she sits in the web of the berzatto family. and really, you can't hate her if you understand what her presence means for carmy, for syd, and the restaurant as a whole.

[edlucavalden]

Southeast asian filipino kabru 🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡 there are so many of you guys omfg

[electoons]

giving my ldb a daughter. embarrassing for all involved. mostly me

[mellotronmkll]

I need to stop having one weird reaction with someone and then letting the anxiety decide in my head that the friendship is doomed because I ruined it like it's my absolute worst trait and I just have to move past it but it's hard

[termagax]

re: "good girl" i think they say it once randomly as a joke and its just one of those things that gets him wayyy more than they expected it would. so now its their secret weapon and they use it very sparingly and every single time he gets super embarrassed about it but it works ill tell you what.

[usercelestial]

✨ venting ✨

[skitskatdacat63]

I forget how comfortable my life is living w just my parents, in terms of being comfortably out, then have to listen to my brother go on a homophobic rant, that I can't tell if its a joke or not, but was really hurtful :)

[phagodyke]

sometimes I wish I was a more interesting + charismatic person just so I could keep conversations going bc I like sharing space with other ppl but they routinely lose all interest and leave once I run out of things to say/start talking abt things that don't concern them :-(

[rxttenfish]

can we please kill the “this character did something problematic!” people already theyre making it very hard for me to talk about actual issues of how narratives are handling characters doing Absolutely Fucked shit or when a character does something fucked but the narrative has some utterly unhinged idea on what’s actually wrong with it or unintentional philosophies that narratives dont mean to have but it ends up enforcing regardless

[reminiscentbelle]

ughhhhhh once again thinking abt how joshua's character is written soooo badly in group cds UGHHHHH free him from the funny haha scenarios

lije literally the only dearv.o guy thats treated normally is like 2u. and reo i guess. a-tan maybe. like i understand its for teehee reasoms and not serious character studies and interactions but UGHHHHHH IT SUCKS FREE MY MEN!!

[symphorine]

.

[ronithesnail]

When i say art is less about the quality of the thing itself and more about the impact on its audience (a very cliche statement yes i know), i mean like an iconic tv show is less about the quality of the actual show and more about how feral it makes the fanbase

[widevibratobitch]

.

[volfoss]

also its very funny bc choosing a misdeeds mission will have mistos going up to you and being like 😒 do you REALLY wanna do this one. like the one im doing rn is about this sibling who was like hey. i dont want my sister to date. kill the guy shes dating. and mistos was like this is mushy relationship stuff and i dont wanna get involved :///// and when i get there, shalvas starts the battle with smth along the lines of i really dont want to do this but here we go. literally what is his deal

[qeyond]

Because I respect y'all to control my little gay life:

do I fulfill my beyond birthday kinship and re-dye my whole hair black like it's 2010 or do I split dye it (again)? (Split dye w/ my natural orange + black)

I've done both and love both but I need to be influenced by my peers

Propaganda for both:

Full black - Emo and B-core

pro: I'd be living my true trans masc queer ass life and hard kinning that murderer guy from that book where he kills ppl cuz he has problems. (Except I won't kill ppl cuz that's mean :( , but truthfully I would be very emo)

con: the orange roots growing in are so awful imo I hate it personally :( I'm not a hat guy.

Split dye - Root grow-in conscious, conservative but still gay option.

Pro: Shows off that I'm queer and alt and it's not as obnoxious when my orange roots grow in cuz of how I wear my hair (emo swishy to the right). Touch up dying not needed frankly.

Con: it's not as emo or b-kinny.