#i mostly remember things becoming an issue around late 2015-2016 surely that's not almost 10 years ago...

[gu6chan]

"I'm too young to remember what fandom must have been like before shipping discourse-" there's no way you're old enough to form coherent sentences right now

[kmtam]

I just listened to this podcast, The Good Fight, which this week is about Sweden’s upcoming elections. I realize this topic isn’t super exciting for most people who read my dumb blog — although I suspect it’ll make global headlines, so you may become interested anyway — but if you’ve got a little time and you’re interested in the rise of right-wing populism, it’s worth a listen.

Here are some of my thoughts.

My book is significantly about social democratic politics. I did the bulk of my fieldwork in Sweden in 2005-2006, and I went back regularly in the years that followed, when the center-right Conservative party (Moderaterna) was in power. The Sweden Democrats, the right-wing populist party with roots in neo-Nazi organizations, were somewhat of an uncomfortable joke back then. They’re a party full of racists, led by a young, telegenic asshole named Jimmie  Åkesson, and while they were making some waves at the local level, there was very little discussion that they’d ever make it big in national politics. Some worry, sure, but not much active fear. They’re literally only mentioned once in my book, in a footnote.

Now, on Sunday, the Sweden Democrats are poised to win big in the Swedish election, though of course we don’t know yet what will happen. And the question everyone outside Sweden seems to be asking is, why? What has happened that has shifted this historically tolerant, left-leaning country to embrace the barely-disguised virulence of nationalist white supremacists? And the answers folks come up with are all relatively predictable: immigration, the 2015 refugee crisis, rising crime rates, worry that the welfare state can’t afford these new “freeloaders,” etc. There’s more there, of course, and I’ll get to it, but I think that, while these familiar surface reasons matter, they’re also mostly wrong. Here’s why.

Sweden has taken in asylum seekers and other immigrants since the 1960s. That initial wave came mostly from Eastern Europe, and significantly from Poland, which was engaged in anti-Semitic pogroms at the time. This wave was followed by other waves, all the way up through the 2015 refugee crisis. Yet never before in those 50+ years has national politics turned to right-wing, anti-immigrant demagoguery to redress the issue. Of course one might say, well, those initial waves were made up of other white Europeans (Poland, Finland, the former Yugoslavia), and the refugees now are mostly non-white, so this is about racism — and that’s partly right. But other waves since the 1990s have included large populations from Somalia, Iraq, Turkey, and elsewhere — many non-white people, many Muslims, just like in 2015. This isn’t to say that these waves of immigration haven’t caused all sort of political strife in Sweden, but that the response has never involved turning to explicitly anti-immigrant electoral politics as a solution to the perceived problem. In other words, while racism is a part of the current situation, it’s not THE cause, nor is racism particularly new in Sweden. The new thing here is this turn to racism specifically in electoral politics, and that’s what needs to be explained.

I should say that along with all of those other immigration waves, the same rhetoric was used: the welfare state can’t afford them; they need to assimilate; they’re both very lazy and steal our jobs (not entirely dissimilar from what we hear in the US). This rhetoric is just as wrong now as it’s always been. Sweden, like the rest of Europe, has a population problem, and if Swedes want to keep their generous and robust welfare state going, they need the population to increase at a much higher rate than natural births can accommodate, and the only way to do that is through immigration. Without immigrants, the welfare state will eventually shrink and collapse in on itself, which means rather than being a drain on the system, immigrants are, in the long term, the system’s saviors.

So Sweden has undergone decades of immigration, including immigration from the Middle East and Africa, and white Swedes have used all sort of racist language and actions during each of those waves, but the anti-immigrant populists have never gained any power in parliament until very recently. If immigration isn’t new, and racism isn’t new, what makes now different?

I think there are two main answers to this question, both of which are mostly boring, but very real (and the podcast I started off with lands in a similar spot). The first is the steady degradation of the Social Democratic party. In the final decades of the 20th century, we saw the same basic pattern all over Europe and the Anglophone world: formerly left-leaning parties, including the Social Democrats, dazzled by the promises of financialization and globalization, turned to increasingly neoliberal governing strategies otherwise favored by center-right parties. The reasons they did this are complicated, but one result, electorally speaking, is that party brands ended up very muddied in a mishmash of left and right policy ideas with no coherent through-line (we saw this with the Democrats in the US, too). This move did lead to some initial electoral success in some cases, but in the long run it left these parties without any real, clear message or platform. This in turn ended up shunting voters more leftward and rightward, seeking parties that were much more earnest about the clarity of their politics (in the US, since we only have two parties, this process has worked out a bit differently). In Sweden, the Social Democrats themselves, the party that built the world’s strongest welfare state, spent the turn-of-the-century years remodeling it, generally with tasteless decor and poor craftsmanship, to the point where it was virtually unrecognizable from its former glorious form. Why vote for them, when there are plenty of parties on the right willing to do the same shitty renovations, and a few on the left who will argue for making the welfare state even stronger?

So I think the degradation of the Social Democratic party in Sweden — which has been in power for most of the last 90 years or so — and the effects that’s had on how other parties align and adapt, has set very specific conditions that impact how Swedes think about party politics today. But I think the much, much bigger issue in the current election, as it was in ours in 2016, is social media. Like, for real — this is a common and banal observation, to be sure, but I think we are all severely underestimating how much this matters. Had Facebook and YouTube been around (or as powerful) when waves of asylum seekers arrived in Sweden from Iraq and East Africa, I think we would have seen then what we’re seeing now. Like I said, racism isn’t new: people and their bigotry haven’t changed much; but the ability to spread that bigotry, to manipulate it, and to introduce and amplify lies and deceptions and exaggerations that then directly affect how people vote, that is something new, and mostly facilitated by social media.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the recent rise in right-wing populism tracks neatly with the growth of Facebook and other social media, both in Sweden and globally. Remember, I said earlier that the Sweden Democrats (the anti-immigrant party) were around, but were not taken very seriously, when I lived in Sweden in 2005-2006. Back then, most of us were still on MySpace. Facebook didn’t open to the general public until September 2006. YouTube’s first video was uploaded in 2005, and the company wasn’t bought by Google until late 2006. Twitter didn’t launch until July 2006. At that point the Sweden Democrats had no representation in parliament. But four years later, in 2010, they got over 5% of the vote, and in 2014 they got almost 10%. They’re expected to get around 20% on Sunday, which, if you’re paying attention, is basically a doubling of support in each election. I highly doubt this rate of growth would be possible absent the specific capacities of contemporary social media.

This is terrifying to me. I’ve been a Facebook skeptic from the start and I never joined, but that was mostly for other, mostly abstract reasons, like “I don’t want a corporation directly mediating my friendships!” I still feel that way, but looking back on it, I don’t think I had any idea how devastating the actual practical effects of this technology could be. And at this point I don’t really care about discerning whether social media spreads racism that already exists, and is thus merely a vector, or if it creates racism that didn’t exist before (my money is on “it’s both!”). That’s mostly (though not entirely) an academic distinction. What matters is that racism and hatred are clearly on the rise, and on the rise in formal institutions that have the power and authority to do some very bad things in the world at a scale I’ve never seen in my lifetime. And social media is playing a starring role in this drama. And none of us have any idea what to do about it.

[sven-kroosl]

My Top 10 Games of 2016

Man I'm glad 2016 is over but the games were good...

Some years play rough and 2016 was one of those years and I am very happy for it to be over. On the other hand in terms of video games, and only video games, this was a really great year. From a really solid resurgence in the quality of triple A shooters, to the Juggernaut that was Overwatch, and some really solid indie releases, there were actually too many good games for one person to play. Also there was a massive update to DotA 2 this year which is always welcome. So here we go, my top ten games of 2016.

 Honorable Mention - The Final Station

 Of all the games I played this year I had the most intense reaction to The Final Station. Upon completion of this game I set aside my controller, turned off my monitor, not the PC, just the monitor, then I went for a walk around the block. I was moved to this act not by any great aspect of the game’s production or by some jaw dropping set piece but instead by the oppressive weight and bleakness of The Final Station’s world. A dangerous world where even the simplest task can expose you to being torn apart by brutal attackers. A world where infrastructure is crumbling and the people normally trusted with protecting everyone have secretly betrayed the trust of the people. After the way 2016 played out, the bleak outlook of The Final Station resonates even more.

 10 - Pokemon Go

 I am not a Pokemon fan. I fully recognize the good and great qualities of the Pokemon universe, but the games and cartoons have just never done much for me. The runaway success of Pokemon Go demanded that I give the game a shot despite my usual lack of enthusiasm. What I found was a really solid AR experience filled with tons of excuses to get me up and about in the real world and a great new icebreaker to start conversations with people I would otherwise have nothing in common. Oh yeah, and some weak ass Pokemon.

 9 - Reigns

 Reigns is a truly fantastically simple game. Of the two mobile games on this list Reigns is the one that fit into my life the best. In that way Reigns was the anti Pokemon Go; Pokemon Go was the mobile game that changed my routine and Reigns was the game that fit into my routine. When you’re waiting in line for the movies or whatever you can’t go running after that stupid Zapdos. But you know what you can do? You can live the lives of half a dozen Medieval Kings, you can meet the devil in the form of you dog, you can fight skeletons in a dungeon, and even more cool stuff. Also it’s a mobile game that you just pay for up front and it never bothers you for money again, which is always nice.  

 8 - Darkest Dungeon

 Fun fact: for most of my 2015 Extra Life Marathon I was having internet service issues and about the only game I could reliably stream was the early access version of Darkest Dungeon, so I have more than a little experience with the game. The way that every part of The Darkest Dungeon works together to to create a gothic horror landscape is just fantastic. The way the cartoony artstyle contrasts with the animation and sound design is just dissonant enough to be unsettling. The way that the psychological maladies effect the gameplay and can just straight up end a dungeon run or in some cases even end a game is a risky gamble that really adds a sense of tension that works incredibly well with the tone of the game. Ultimately Darkest Dungeon is a really great, creepy, game. Be ready to grind a bit though because you'll definately need to.

 7 - The Banner Saga 2

 In a year when the second entry in the XCOM franchise was a disappointment there was a shining star in the turn based strategy genre and that star was The Banner Saga 2. Where XCOM 2 made the mistake of assuming players had maintained their skills from the first game The Banner Saga 2 eased players back into the combat system with a few easier battles before dialing up the difficulty. It also doesn’t hurt the game that it has some of the best hand drawn style art and animation of any game ever. Bottom line: The banner Saga was the best turn based strategy game released this year and I really like that type of game.

 6 - Overwatch

 I really enjoyed my time with Overwatch this year. Zarya is top tier A-plus defensive tank, and is also just the best. The way that Blizzard has built not just a great multiplayer game but also the UI framework around that game which celebrates every player’s contribution is a great accomplishment. I think that the characters in Overwatch are all really fun as is the game itself. It’s just a shame that there’s really no good single player experience in the game and that the story exists entirely outside the game, and that the community for that game is becoming toxic in spite of some masterful design efforts to combat that. Also shameful is Blizzard's decision to add the worst free to play practice, blind loot boxes with repeats, to a full price retail game. Overwatch is a really great game that is slowly getting worse over time and that’s kind of sad.

 5 - Dark Souls 3

 Dark Souls 3 is my first Souls game so I was unprepared for the absolute savagery with which this game assails players, even in the tutorial. Once I played for a while, though, patterns began to reveal themselves and a game that seemed ferocious at first became simply challenging but fair. The appeal of Souls  games was lost on me for a long time. I couldn’t understand why people were so excited to play blatantly unfair games. Now that I’ve played one I understand that these games aren’t really unfair or even onerously difficult. Souls games simply operate at a different tempo from other games and learning that tempo is the really difficult part of mastering them.

 4 - Stellaris

 Just. One. More. Turn.

Getting you to say that after 8 hours is  the ultimate goal of all games like Stellaris.  What Stellaris offers you that others like it don’t is freedom. Freedom to design your own civ, freedom to find your own way to win the game, freedom to be weird. Games like Stellaris, most notably the Civ series, tend to force players into a few basic strategies. Sure you can try a pacifist playthrough in a Civ game but good luck actually winning or even surviving very long that way. Stellaris has a way of making all playstyles viable by making them all just flawed enough that really drew me in to an extent greater than any other game I played this year. That said I tend to be fairly biased in favor of this type of game in general so it’s not a huge surprise that it affected me this way.

 3 - Doom

 Doom is a game about momentum which is important because that is the way it is different from practically every other game this year. The new hotness in games lately has been agility; letting players flit about the environment hither and thither. Doom ignores this trend, almost with disdain, forcing players to keep their feet mostly planted on the ground but letting them move at unheard of, in recent years, speed across it. What this means is that Doom isn’t a game about not getting blasted so much as it is a game about blasting things. The whole point of the game is to treat enemy encounters the way the Kool-Aid Man treats walls. This isn’t just a return to form to the series because this year’s DOOM added a new piece to the old formula; storytelling. In DOOMs of yore story was an afterthought for the most part. This DOOM, though, actually has a story with a plot and everything and actually interesting supporting cast members. This game even managed to give the “Doom guy” a little bit of a personality and for that alone it will go down as maybe one of the best shooter campaigns ever. In a year where the most popular game is often about five opposing team members finding ways to keep you from killing the sixth Doom is a breath of fresh air, letting you really cut loose against a horde of angry demons released by the worst kind of short sighted corporate greed.

 2 - Hyper Light Drifter

 I’ve said this a lot this year and I’m going to keep on saying it, because apparently it needs to be said. Everyone, play, Hyper Light Drifter. As a medium video games are often criticized, occasionally correctly, for being too over the top. With that being the case Hyper Light Drifter is possibly the exception that proves the rule. Which is to say sublimely simple and quiet but also incredibly fun and engaging. It doesn’t hurt that the game has the what is probably the best pixel art and sprite work in a game since Fez, an amazing synth heavy soundtrack and great sound design overall. The real beautiful aspect of Hyper Light Drifter, though, is the gameplay, specifically the combat. Few things this year have been more satisfying than mastering the combat in Hyper Light Drifter. The combat is just different enough from other similar games to be challenging while being familiar enough to not be off putting. But more than anything about the game it is the quiet  tone of Hyper Light Drifter that impressed me. So what are you waiting for. Go play this game!

 1 - Titanfall 2

 Titanfall 2 is a truly magnificent accomplishment in game design and execution. Every bit of the game is impeccably well done, it looks and sounds amazing, plays like a dream and most importantly is a joy to play. While a lot of games have the kinds of traversal mechanics that Titanfall 2 has, nothing feels like Titanfall 2.  That is what makes this the best game of the year, the way it feels. More than any other aspect of the medium, feel is what defines and differentiates games. In a year where great games were built to make you want to gamble on a loot box or increase accuracy of your favorite GPS app, the relative purity of Titanfall 2 makes it stand out. Instead of trapping players in a restrictive character class Titanfall 2 lets people customize almost every aspect of their multiplayer loadout. The game is even more distinctive on account of its campaign, remember those, which is a masterclass in how to pace mechanics. Titanfall 2 is constantly introducing and discarding new, interesting gameplay mechanics and consequently never gets dull or repetitive. When the mechanical brilliance of the campaign is put together with Titanfall 2’s solid “A boy and his robot” story and one of the year’s standout new characters, BT 7274, and you get, arguably, the best campaign of the year.

As parts of video game industry more and more often leave out parts of their games so they can sell them to us later or add sleazy free to play hooks to games they also expect us to pay for up front, it becomes important to celebrate games for simply being complete experiences on release. Unlike some games on this list Titanfall 2 is at that and more, the best game of the year.  

[pinkbiscuits-perks-and-curses]

this is a year by year telling of my life, it is by no means complete and only lists what i want out there yet is probably not suited for everyone, check the tags and please don't over react

(i have a terrible sense of time and almost everything is an approximation of the time it happened, this post is also very long)

2001: October 4th: the day of my birth, born as the second child to two people that didn't want any kids, (but hey, they had been together for 13 years, never used any contraception and only had 2 kids 9 years apart, pretty good odds if you ask me) i was born 3 weeks to early, had a misshapen ear, sported a full head of black hair and had bright blue eyes

2001 -2004: normal baby stuff, my dad got a vasectomy (don't want a third unexpected child), my black hair fell out and blonde hair grew in it's place, eyes became less bright (life never set well with me, so no surprise there)

2004-2007: kinder garden was pretty normal, i wasn't allowed to ride a bike because i was shit at it, so my mom had to drive, i was bullied a bit, made friends, the normal things

2007-2008: changed schools to start basic school, made new friends, learned how to read and how to write, never in a good way however since my handwriting is shit,

this is also the time where the concept of death started to make sense to me, now normally that wouldn't have been a problem, but my parents where very much spiritualists, not to mention never really teaching me anything i wasn't required to know, being of the mind set that letting a child learn it themselves allows them to express themselves how they want, (this probably came from the fact both my parents were sheltered as children not having much freedom), however i was a child that needed support, i wasn't given that by my parents so my grandfather tried to see if he could help, but it was to no avail, at the moment my grandfather realised i had already developed abandonment issues

now, the way i saw death was as a form of separation, they weren't gone, they where simply on a different realm of existence, (spiritualism 101), this made me think of death as a form of abandonment, this fucked with what i perceived as life, making it so i believed the meaning of it was to let go, this pretty much made me feel alone at all times to a point i had night terrors of my family abandoning me, but remember abandonment was pretty much equal to death for me at that point, i had night terrors on a weekly basis for a rough 5 years, still having them occasionally now

2008-2013: the rest of basic school, pretty normal all things considered, hair became brown, however patchy, meaning i had brown hair in certain places and blond in most others, so my family decided to dye my hair an even shade of brown until it became brown completely when i was around 10, my eyes became more greyish,

at school everything was fine, a bit isolated because of my personality and the fact i was rather tall, but i always had some friends

i should mention that my parents took me to the bar ever since i was like 3, but this is when i became aware that it wasn't such a normal thing, my parents where acrobatic dancers performing once a week as practise, this was at the back of a bar so it was kinda inevitable, it just became a habit to bring me and my sister along, even if it wasn't for a performance, my sister eventually started practising herself, i was an introvert, so this constant public interaction kind of clashed with me, but it was not a bad thing, just grew up that way and ended up being rather socially out going even though i still prefer being alone

was nearly choked to death by someone because "i was being a brat", don't remember when exactly but should've been around age 8 or 9

my adoptive grandpa died, even though he lived with me at home, i never really had much of a connection with him, however i did see my father and uncle carry his corpse down the stairs, so that was another experience

started swimming as hobby, around age 9 i started being forwarded into competitive swimming, however this made me incredibly stressed, basically i had no free time, i had swimming practise Wednesday evening and on Saturday, i would visit my maternal grandparents on Sunday, and Friday evening i would be in a bar with my parents, so i stopped swimming around age 13

i started drinking alcohol on a weekly basis since around age 8, my grandparents would give me a glass of wine when we came to visit, my parents would give me alcohol as well, i distinctly remember having a bottle of a type of pasoa in the fridge that i would mix with my fruit juice and drink while watching tv,

2013-2015: started high school, very new, very stressful, but alright, puberty was in full swing, started coming to school using a bike to disastrous results (scars for days) was still swimming at this point so i had no free time, was allowed to stay at home more often and no longer had a fixed bed time, but since i had a ton of homework and had to wake up early every day it changed very little about my life

started becoming more self reliant, started doing less for school, and just lazed around more but never in a way that was obvious. realised i was bisexual.

my sister's boyfriend started living with us

a peaceful time not much happened that is noteworthy, the calm before the storm as you will find out.

2015-2016: my house burned down, no one was injured, yet when this happened i was on a school trip, so that was the first thing i was faced with the moment i came back, i lucky thing in disguise, because this meant that i still had some of my clothes.

luckily for me and my family we owned a second house, a shoe store my family runs, so me, my sister, her boyfriend, my parents, and my grandparents lived in this house that was just large enough, my uncle and aunt moved to another house owned by my aunts parents.

this made me depressed as shit, i no longer did anything for school, started sleeping every moment i could, became suicidal, and started separating myself from my family

so i started drinking, a lot, it was always in the house and as long as i was smart about it and took only a little from each bottle, then my parents wouldn't notice, this became worse over time, mostly because the alcohol actually helped me get my thoughts together, but soon enough i was not content with just drinking every now and then, and so i started sneaking out of the house to get drunk, and this lasted for 2 maybe 3 months and then what little money i had was gone

at this moment i would still sneak out, i would try and get people i knew to buy me a drink, many did, and this got me in contact with people i shouldn't have had contact with, i started doing odd jobs at first, cleaning, going to the store, doing laundry, even cooking, however it soon became quite clear that i needed money

people were all to keen on having me do work, and then it happened, a friend of mine introduced me to two people, they needed someone that knew a lot of people, and i knew almost everyone at that point, so i became a drug dealer, well, more of a delivery boy, i would get stuff from point A to point B discreetly, i mean who suspects a 15 year old boy on a bike to be carrying an entire backpack full of drugs.

a lot of shit happened in this time, but to sum it up, i got to know my 2 "employers" and actually became friend with them, this would get me better jobs, and eventually i would not even have to do any as they just paid for my share when we where out an about anyway, basically they adopted me,

2016-2018: okay, so here it gets a little muddled, mostly because i wasn't in a state to remember things, i want to mention that i still went to school almost daily, mostly showing up drunk or high, but i never actually skipped school in a meaningful way, even though i was late nearly every day

i went to the hospital because i had drank myself into a coma, no surprise there it was bound to happen, but it became a bit more problematic i was diagnosed with a rare type of blood disorder, requiring me to take medication, medication that if taken with alcohol have some serious side effects, not taking the meds would put my organs under pressure risking internal bleeding, so i had a choice stop drinking or not take the meds risking my life in the process

so i stopped drinking as much as i was capable of, now by this time i had already started smoking, both tobacco and weed, and doing drugs like lsd and schrooms, (never did hard drugs, i saw pretty early on what happens when you do so i stayed clear of them), so even though i (mostly) stopped drinking, i was still having the same life

and so it came, a big chance, a big job, we would smuggle a large amount of cocaine over the German border, this was not the first time we did such a job, but this was the first time it was Germany, a country who's border is a bit less open, yet we thought nothing of it, it wasn't the first time and no way we could get caught that easily

but big surprise we got caught, and i was fucked, there was no escape from this, i was arrested before sure, but i was a minor so i was let go, but this was no underage drinking, or plain vandalism, so i did the only thing i could even think of getting out of this

a lot of the jobs we did, and especially i did, where ordered from the port mafia, i never did anything mayor, but i knew that they always needed more people, so i asked them for help, and fucking got it, they would get me out of the shit, and i would be in debt, it did help that i wasn't short on money during this time doing all of this, but it wasn't enough

so i worked for them, for 2 years, i did whatever they told me to pay off my debt, i don't like going into detail what i did, but basically i would clean up, do odd jobs, and transport stuff, again no one really suspects a 15 year old on a bike with a backpack, clean up was the worst, you either had to scrub blood from walls, floors and clothes, or you had to get rid of things, burn them, bury them, just get rid of em, seen my fair share of shit working for those fuckers, but no complaining while you're the one that owes them money

anyway, during this time my sister got married, my old house was rebuilt and my family moved back, later my sister had her first child

2019: i got arrested for the last time on drug possession and was let go after disclosing the names of several people i had worked with in the past, all of which were bastard i would deck in the face if i were to ever see them gain

after that cut as many connections with that part of the law as i could, and tried to get my life in order, this was a lot of trouble, and i will not talk about it, because it costed me things which might not have been worth it

finished high school, i don't know how either

decided to spend more time with certain friends

2020-2021: started college in 2020, and dropped out in 2021

sister had her second child

started this blog as a form of therapy

started redecorating the garden, buying a trampoline and a swimming pool

started a relationship with one very much in the closet himbo

changed medication and (mostly) stopped smoking,

things that either don't fit a specific time or are more anecdotal:

my family went on vacation almost every year from 2001 to 20012, i've been to many countries, all of them were nice but nothing really happened just family time

the relationship between me and my parents has gotten better since i was a child, and even though they didn't teach me a lot of things i might have liked them to, i know now that this wasn't done because they didn't care but because they wanted me to have the freedom they never had

my family has owned many pets throughout the years such as: horses, dogs, cats, chickens, pheasants, parakeets, peacocks, and cranes

my family's internal relationships have been weird throughout the years, my aunt and uncle weren't officially married until 2019, all 4 of my grandparents are alive, yet for a time a i had a 5th one, this is do to my father, uncle, and aunt being adopted because of the inheritance of the man my grandmother was having an affair with, this is the reason i have 2 last names, yet my grandmother and grandfather are still together now, this affair was very much open as well

my blood disorder is very complicated, it makes it so my blood is either to viscous or too liquid, when too viscous my heart needs to pump harder, this can sometime cause my blood pressure to be high enough to rupture small veins, and when too liquid it can force my heart to beat unnaturally fast yet still incapable of putting my blood under enough pressure, causing a lack of oxygen, my medication can only dampen this and not stop this completely, my given lifespan if nothing changes should be 45-50

i went to therapy between 2015 and 2019, yes, while i was working for the mob and being an alcoholic i went to therapy, i've had 3 different psychologists and they have helped me process a lot of things

both my original house and the shoe store are believed to be haunted, my family are spiritualists so this is not out of the norm

in 2017 i had a 3 month relationship with a British woman who cheated on me with a friend of mine, she was not aware that she was my girlfriend at the time and was the first one to tell me

all of the criminal information in this post is known by the police of my country

you can ask questions if you want

[babysquirrelkat-blog]

Introduction Post

It’s been a while since I’ve been back to Tumblr.  Things got pretty good in my life and I didn’t need it as much.  For several years Tumblr was my crutch.  It was my way of fulfilling my human need for socialization and peer bonding.  That might sound sad and pathetic... :/  I’ve been mentally ill since 2008. Although I suspect that my issues go much further back and on into my childhood.  2008, when I was 19, may have just been when my brain just finally blew its breakers so to speak.  I was smoking a lot of pot back then.  Did some coricidins, and went into psychosis.  They originally diagnosed me with drug induced psychosis.  I of course didn’t believe I was sick, and I kept smoking pot, which prolonged my psychosis long enough for them to diagnose me with schizophrenia.  I lost all of my friends and even a lot of my family.  I no longer knew myself let alone anyone else.  I had to get to know my own mother again; learn who she was.  Some of my family I never got to know again, because they demonized me for being ill.

For a while I didn’t leave my house, and if I did, I didn’t leave the car.  A trip to the grocery store meant a half and hour or more waiting in the car because I was too frightened to go inside.  My mom would get annoyed with me.  Flash forward a year or so, I would leave the house, but every where I went was a panic attack waiting to happen.  I would start feeling unsafe, my heart would start pounding, everything and everyone around me started feeling too close, too loud, too bright, and too threatening.  I started feeling that the people around me where going to hurt me, imprison me, or kill me. My mom was constantly pissed at me for running out of restaurants to smoke a cigarette during a meal... and then just never coming back inside.

I slowly got better.  Very slowly.  I didn’t regain a social life or my own personality.  I lost my liberal ideologies because of the catholic delusions I experienced during psychosis.  I had no original or individual ideas. I was sorta an asshat. A nice asshat with as much manners as my anxiety could not interfere with, but an asshat.

I thought life was always going to be completely bland.  I thought I was going to grow old in my childhood bedroom at my mothers house.  I wasn’t going to marry or have children. I had a lot of potential at one time.  I was beautiful, talented, creative, smart and passionate.  The anti-psychotics had taken me from a teeny tiny 96lbs at 4′11″ to 238 lbs.  I had acne all over my face. It’s riddled with scars.  I never had acne before the medications. I stopped having periods.  I had two periods that started on their own and maybe 3-4 that were started with pills from my doctor in the span of 6 years. 5-6 periods in 6 years.  I felt broken.  I felt less like of a woman. I had no confidence left.  I spent all my time on Tumblr and watching my fandom shows. From age 19-25 I had very little contact with any one my age.  I felt like I was old before I ever got a chance to be young.

In 2012 or so I was diagnosed with schizoaffective.  Schizophrenia and bipolar.  There was also PTSD, Primary O OCD, shit tons of anxiety and depression, and some slight movement disorders from the drugs.

In July of 2014 I took myself off all of the drugs.  The CNP who was in charge of my case flipped out.  She called me non-compliant and a liar.  Even sent a nasty letter to my college financial aid.  She didn’t believe mental illness was an excuse for the symptoms of those mental illnesses.  I’ve ran into that a lot over the years.  Even from the people who claim to be the most supportive.  My mother thinks she is the champion of my mental health.  Maybe she is in her own ways.  But there are things she has never quite grasped.  She could never understand why I couldn’t clean the entire house if being unemployed gave me all the time in the world to do so. Being on Tumblr made her think I was childish.  She had even me convinced that because of trauma I was stuck at 16 years old and would always be a child.  She treated me like a lazy bratty teenager instead of recognizing my symptoms.  She had people in my family doing the same.  Calling me to lecture me.  Telling me I should be praying for the health of other people if I wanted to get better.  My aunt told me that she has to force herself out of bed some days to get to work. As to say, you aren’t the only one who has depression.  That I should be able to deal with it better and not complain.  Other people had it worse.  Well after 7 years in bed I finally forced myself out the front door, so to speak, so perhaps her argument almost had a leg to stand on.

After going off meds, I started to regain myself.  I got a lot of shit.  Everything I said happened to me during the day was still perceived with a lot of skepticism.  If I said someone said something to me at the store, no matter what it was, or how believable, I was still asked, “Are you sure that’s what happened.”

In 2015 I met a guy online and we started dating.  We were extremely happy.  He helped me find who I was again.  I started to remember myself.  Which so happens to be a somewhat bitchy siren cunt from a feminist dimension on the other side of a portal that popped out of a earthy hippie chick’s mirror.... Or well something like that.   Sometimes I’m a complete mother hen to my friends, I worry about them.  I do things for them.  I take care of everyone in my small circle.  I stress and I panic and I cook and I drive a mini van.  I get angry when someone threatens who and what I love and that anger comes out of me like a tidal wave.  I even found out that I act quick in an emergency.

In August of 2015 I started having convulsions and an abnormal gait.  A year and a half later I am doing somewhat better.  I have found that the shaking and inability to walk is a manifestation of my anxiety.  It only happens when my anxiety has been triggered, specifically during PTSD episodes.  A loud noise could send me to the floor screaming and shaking.  It made me feel scared at first.  The life I had just regained was ending all over again.  But it has subsided quite a lot.

My boyfriend was put in jail for a DUI on Nov 2 2015.  My mental health deteriorated without him. I felt lost in a void.  He got out Feb 25 2016 and I felt so far from him.  He didn’t seem real.  Where before he was the only thing breaking through my dissociation.  I could touch him then and he was as far away as all the rest of reality.  I still refused to start meds again.  The meds kept me sick.  I needed to be able to deal with this all on my own.  I still do.  The meds are not my answer.

My boyfriend was also having issues of his own.  He was taking half his klonopin pills as soon as he got the bottles.  He lost his job.  He was awful on the pills.  I finally told him it was the pills or me.  He flushed them and it hasnt been a problem since.  Although, I did worry he would resent me for it. 

He and I have had a lot of problems here recently.  We moved into out own apartment in September 2016.  He has been working 2nd shift and staying up all night, sleeping all day.  This has left me alone a lot.  I don’t feel like he listens to a lot that I say.  He’s constantly irritating me with sexist remarks.  He’s constantly turning my arguments into his.  I don’t let him.  I call him on his bullshit every time.  He will interrupt me talking about what’s important to me so he can talk about some random ass shit that had nothing to do with anything.  Which wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t talk for half an hour.  If I interrupt him to finish what I was saying for five seconds he uses that as an excuse to say that I’m the real problem.  I suppose that’s half the time.  The other half we get along really well.  Like really well.  Which is wonderful.

I still want to marry him.  I want to have his baby. I want to beat him with a frying pan and then snuggle with him while we watch Supernatural.  Did I mention we finally started trying to conceive now that I can have periods again.  First month we tried was this last month.  My cycle is 33 days. So I started testing like a crazy person 14dpo... everything has been negative.  I’m now a week late on my period and my tests are so negative they aren’t even getting evap lines anymore( I test all the time even though we weren’t officially trying til this last month).  My lady bits totally choked with 10 seconds left in the game.

So I’ve been pretty depressed these last few weeks.  I’m stressed out.  I’m a taxi driver for my boyfriends brother.  Taking him everywhere, taking the boyfriend to work, driving my sister everyonce and a while.  I’m in a play.  Which only takes up about 9 hours a week.  Yet, I have been so stressed out that I’ve not been able to take care of myself.  I don’t have the energy to cook much, eat healthy, do laundry, bathe.  I’m gaining weight from easy junk food and lack of moving.  I mostly sit on the couch or in the driver’s seat.  I don’t have much time with anyone outside of giving them rides or during the time they are waiting for rides.  I get maybe two hours or less with my boyfriend a day during the week.  On the weekend I’m lucky to get time alone with him between calls for my help to do things for everyone else.  My need to help, it seems, always becomes expected by people.  I offer assistance a few times and their lives become my responsabilty.  I love them all, but I need them to understand that I sometimes need a break and they can’t call me for everything, without making them feel like they can’t call me for anything.

TL;DR So that’s sorta where I’ve been and where I’m at now.  That was actually somewhat brief... O.o  Basically, I’ve felt completely unimportant and without justification for my existence here lately and I’m back to Tumblr as my crutch for a bit.  Somewhere I can feel like I have a mild place to call home; away from a life that seems to just be one giant mental illness prison following me around and stalking me for the better part of a decade. 

(EDIT: Since being off medications, my schizophrenic symptoms have subsided.  All that remains is the bipolar and multiple anxiety based disorders.  Although I do hear voices occasionally, I know that those voices are simply my own feelings that weren’t quite addressed by my conscious mind floating up from my subconscious.  For example I could feel a swelling of happiness in my chest for my boyfriend and hear a voice that says, “I love him.” )

If you got this far congratulations and thank you, here are some XOXOs for your trouble.

<3 Kat