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[thefirsttree]

A personal update + my next game

OK, time to do this. I’ve been meaning to do a big DAVID WEHLE™ update for a while now and explain why I haven’t released a new game yet, but you know how life gets in the way. Especially when life is a quarantine hellscape, you have three beautiful, amazing, exhausting kids to raise, a spouse’s job you support, a viral YouTube channel that turns your brain to mush, a thousand emails waiting in your inbox since your game is free on the Epic Games Store (with an impressive number of redemptions too! … meaning lots of emails and customer support issues), etc., etc. What also contributes to my lack of updates is because… I just don’t really like posting online. Fascinating correlation, I know!

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a venting/ranting blog post (well, maybe a bit), because my life is seriously AMAZING and INSANELY BLESSED and LUCKY. I can’t believe how many dreams keep coming true, so much so that I feel I don’t deserve it and I really pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes… but I did want to at least be honest, because I owe that to myself.

Wow, where do I even begin? Well, how about we start with the reason I’m even a full-time indie game dev now: The First Tree. This small hobby project I worked on at night morphed into this gargantuan beast (or fox) that took over my life the past 5 years. Which is great! I’m living the dream! And yet, I really didn’t expect it to do as well as it did. At its core, my game is a slow-paced, sad walking simulator (ahem, I prefer the term “exploration game,” but you know what I mean) that somehow seemed to launch at the right time to the right audience. It resonated deeply with some of you, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I still get emails almost daily how my game changed their lives in some formative way. I’m beyond honored.

However, with that spotlight came criticism and demands from the ever-present, insatiable internet. I would randomly be surfing the gamedev subreddit trying to decompress, and I would see a comment by some rando saying how much I didn’t deserve my success, and how it was all one huge lucky fluke. And I believed them!

And to add to it, some devs considered me an indie marketing “guru”, which I was uncomfortable with. I worked hard to market my game every week, and after my GDC talk, people assumed marketing was my passion; the reason I got up every morning. Just to clarify… NO, I don’t like marketing, and I hate being the center of attention. I don’t like asking people for money and wishlists. But I did what was necessary because I was passionate about telling stories, and I wanted to give my story a fighting chance to be seen on the crowded pages of Steam.

So now, you’re probably wondering “well then David, why did you make fancy YouTube videos showing off your success? Not very modest if you ask me.” This honestly could be a long blog post all on its own, because my experience of putting myself in the spotlight and becoming a “content creator” is… complicated. It was an unusual step for me, especially since I never even showed my face online (as a game developer) until my GDC talk.

First off, I always wanted to teach and start a YouTube channel. I love video editing, especially since I’ve been doing it longer than making games! It’s a huge passion of mine. And teaching people who didn’t know they could make and finish games was a huge motivator (and it’s been so rewarding already). But the second reason is, I was scared. I was self-employed, and I was riding the success of a “huge lucky fluke” that would probably not happen again. I wanted to make sure I could provide for my amazing family, and give them food and health insurance and security in these tumultuous times. I was turning my lifelong passions and hobbies into a business, and it wasn’t as simple of a mental transition as I thought.

So, I went all in on YouTube and the accompanying online course called Game Dev Unlocked. I spent years editing the scripts and videos, and polishing them to a shine. At first, no one watched my videos, no one was buying… and in the blink of an eye, the YouTube algorithm picked up my main autobiographical video (“How Making Indie Games Changed My Life”), and I started getting 5,000 subscribers a day. Right now, I’m at 150,000 subs, which is still hard for me to believe. I always had a dream of earning 100k subs on YouTube, so I was pretty happy with the whole thing. Sales were OK, but mostly people didn’t want to buy the course. Then the emails came in…

Something you should know about me: I am a textbook “people pleaser,” and if someone asks for my help, I take it very seriously. If someone is mad at me, even if I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s all I can think about, and it ruins my day. So, taking an onslaught of people begging for help and multiplying that by an impossible amount of people for my brain to truly comprehend thanks to the internet… and let’s just say it wasn’t a healthy mix.

I received thousands of emails from people who were begging me for some kind of reassurance that everything would be OK. That their dreams would come true too. And I wanted to help every single one of them. I went from a nobody working on a game for fun to becoming a spokesperson for the indie game dream. I couldn’t even get a shake from the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru without someone recognizing me and asking for game dev advice. And it didn’t stop there… I would get emails from suicidal kids asking for help, teenagers from Afghanistan asking me to get them out of their country, and on one occasion I received an email from a hopeful game developer in a war-torn country who had just experienced a bomb blowing up their neighboring village. His friends were dead, and he was hoping he could finish a game before he died too, and he needed my help. How do you say no to something like that? Didn’t I owe it to everyone because I was lucky with my hit game and I needed to “pay it forward”? (Something people constantly reminded me of)

And then to top it off, after you’ve given everything you’ve got to other people in need… you get hate mail in your inbox. You spend the whole day serving your children and strangers on the internet, then when the kids are finally asleep, you hit the bed to relax and take a look at your phone to decompress, and you randomly come across an angry gamer in your Twitter mentions telling you your game they got for free sucks, and that you took away a potentially great game from them and that your apology isn’t good enough.

Long story short, I went to a mental therapist for the first time in my life. I was broken trying to care for two toddlers and a new baby in a pandemic (which is very, very hard), taking care of my course students who gave me their hard-earned money and demanded results, and the countless people begging for help on the internet. I was this introverted, internet-lurker trying to take on the weight of the world. I was so tired and hurt that no one cared about me and my needs… only what I could do for them.

Quitting my day job and making this hobby my full-time job has stirred up… mixed emotions. This statement may disturb some of you, but I was definitely 100% happier when I had a full-time job and I was working on my game at night. I missed working with the amazing team at The VOID, working on Star Wars… back when the success of my game was this abstract thing I could only daydream about. Mostly, I was making my game for me with no outside expectations to pay the bills or satisfy the ever-demanding internet, and that brought me a lot of joy.

It’s not all doom and gloom though! I’m actually very happy now and in the best shape I’ve been since the pandemic started. I’ve had to confront my weaknesses and personality quirks, but I’m a better person for it (and I’m sure these issues would’ve come out eventually). I hired an awesome community manager for Game Dev Unlocked who is helping SO MUCH with the emails, I can’t even tell you the mental burden it alleviates. I even leased a co-working office to help separate work from my home, and that’s been a huge help too. I’ve decided to work with my old friends from The VOID on a cool, new VR experience. It will take me away from my projects a bit, but I’m ecstatic to work with a great team again (and not manage anything, whew).

These are all things I would’ve never guessed I needed, because I thought I knew myself pretty well… turns out I didn’t.

The reality is: running a business is HARD. Running it solo is even harder. You have to remember, I was burnt out on The First Tree well into the Steam release in 2017, but I kept working on it for 4 more years due to my fears of failing again and not earning enough money for my family.

So, I was wrestling with the age-old concept of commercialism and art. There was this dichotomy of doing whatever I wanted and being true to my vision (what most people assume the indie dev dream is like), and doing only what customers wanted to buy. This is something that has killed me with YouTube… in one specific instance, I was super excited to make the exact video I wanted to make. I loved every part of its creation, and I thought it had a message that would inspire everyone. I lovingly edited it over several weeks, posted it, and excitedly waited for the stats… and it was by far my worst performing video.

This is not a new problem. Even the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo was a commission forced upon him by the very violent Pope Julius II. My wife and I regularly talk about the fine balance between artistic integrity and commercialism, a problem she is very familiar with as an artist who constantly needs to balance what she wants to make with what the customer wants to hang up in their home.

For The First Tree, I was lucky. It was pretty much what I wanted to make (I had to compromise a lot of things of course), and it turned out millions of people wanted it too. Recently, I thought the safe business decision would be to do it all over again, so I started work on a spiritual successor to The First Tree (an idea that I may revisit one day since I do love the story idea). But that isn’t happening anytime soon. Trust me when I say I am now currently burnt out on animal exploration games.

So that realization left me with a question: what do I do next?

I’ve decided I need to make a game that I want to make, for me. It will be a bit different and I’m almost certain most fans of The First Tree will not love it… but it’s an idea that gets me super excited. It’s an idea that could help me fall in love with game development again.

A few more details: this game will be story-driven, first-person, and will use the Unreal Engine. That means development is gonna be slow going, because I have to learn a whole new tool. The “smart business” decision would be to make something quickly in Unity which I’m already familiar with… but I want to do this for me, and UE5 looks like a lot of fun. I’m also shooting for an early-ish release date so I avoid burn out and I keep the game short: I want to release it in Fall 2022, but knowing game development, it will probably take longer.

With the help of my therapist, I’ve also concluded that I’ve been too accessible on the internet and that my self-worth isn’t determined by the amount of people I try to help online. Of course, I love helping people and seeing them succeed, but I need to step back and focus on my family and myself. I will delete my social media apps on my phone (I will still post big updates occasionally) and stop responding to most emails, tweets, DMs, etc. It’s not that I’m ungrateful… in fact, if I don’t say thank you or at least acknowledge the incredibly nice people who share a sweet message about my game or want to tell me how I inspire them (still hard for me to believe, lol), I feel a ton of guilt… but I need to let that go. Please know I’m extremely grateful to all the fans who follow my work, so even if I don’t thank you directly, I truly mean it: thank you.

I will still post and stream occasionally on YouTube when I want to (and I still do live Q&A’s for my GDU students). The online course sales will help support my family as I work on a potentially risky game idea (and my new job will help alleviate the risk too). I’m gonna try one more marketing experiment and sell a mini-course soon (and add an Unreal section), and after that I’m done working on it. A gigantic thank you to the people who bought my course and are part of the amazing community, it has helped me and my family tremendously, and it’s inspiring seeing the games you make!

I’m a bit worried about the whole thing since this new game idea could flop, which could definitely affect my family. But a sappy, high-school yearbook quote is coming to mind…  I think it applies here: “A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.”

Thanks for reading,

David

[serenagaywaterford]

Thank you so much for answering.. I wish I could give you a hug. The truth is this woman loves me and cares about me, but would never be in love with me, you know? I know you are going to think I am damaged after telling you this, but she was my prof. in high-school and helped me through tough times. She is a good person. My parents hate her cos we used to meet in secret and talk about their divorce. They say she gossiped about it, but she denies that. I have No idea who is telling the truth.

And you know, I tried so hard to get over her these years and I failed. And I am probably wrong, but in my mind, the fact that I still love her like that shows that She is the one, the love of my life. And I am religious too, and that does not help with the guilt at all. I am grateful for your message. Thank you for taking the time to write to me, I feel like you get me and you make this less lonely and painful, so thank you. You are the best and your loved ones are super lucky to have you. xx

—

Oh, bb. I wish I could hug you and sit you down next to me and help you through this cos I hate to say this but all of this raises so many red flags. There is so much to be wary of here, just for your own well-being and happiness. 

She cares and loves you as an adult loves a child, and hopefully that is all. She has no romantic interest and she never will. I am no psychologist but I think what’s happened here is something akin to transference. It happens a lot in therapy, where the client develops misplaced romantic attachment to the therapist because they’ve been open and vulnerable and the therapist is a confidant and cares. It also is common in schools, to the point that teachers are directly taught about it and attachment with children [x]. I don’t think you’re damaged at all, as it is a fairly common occurrence, but I do think you were missing something in your other relationships and you latched onto this woman because she cared, and was kind, and you felt safe. That is not a bad thing to feel cared for and you’re not wrong for seeking it. We all need that.

However, that developed into misplaced romantic love on your part (I’m unclear if it’s also sexual, and it’s not my place to ask. I don’t even know your age so let’s just leave that whole area alone). Children falling in love/infatuation with teachers is nothing new. It doesn’t mean you’re broken, but just something is misfiring somewhere and it hasn’t been addressed. 

I really need you to recognise you were a child when the infatuation began. You may seem and feel like you’re an adult, even at 17, but you’re not. Especially not compared to a teacher – who is not only in a position of authority over you, but also has huge power imbalances in other ways. Student-teacher boundaries are always a debate (like this one), but I think most people generally know where they fall:

“Being too familiar with one’s students can (and often does) lead to the blurring of lines in terms of teacher-student boundaries. According to Joe Jamieson, Professional Affairs Co-ordinator at the Ontario College of Teachers, a teacher is always at risk of developing dual relationships with his/her students. Dual relationships cause confusion in terms of a teacher’s role, not only for the student but for the teacher as well, as it fosters such phenomena as transference and counter-transference. 

Transference: when a teacher allows for an inappropriate relationship to develop with a student because the student perceives the teacher as something other than a teacher.

Jamieson illustrates this occurrence with a succinct and effective example:If a teacher is aware that a student from a one-parent family is struggling to connect with a mother figure, it would be inappropriate for the teacher to begin to take on that role in the student’s life, even though the student may be transferring that role to the teacher.

Counter-transference: If the teacher responds to the transference of the student (for example begins to parent the pupil in question) allowing for inappropriate behaviours and role associations to develop, counter-transference is then in play as the teacher has subscribed to the transference of the student and participates in the transferred role.

If left unchecked, it could develop into the teacher making lunches for the student, scheduling and attending medical appointments or lead to intimate conversations and/or intimate encounters.”

Not to mention the fact she is straight, much older, and married. Even if you’re 25 now, whatever pathways were built back then have just been reinforced over and over until now you think she’s the love of your life.

She’s not. She can’t be. Please, please understand she can’t be.

What is worrisome is that she continues this relationship with you, even years later. Does she know about your feelings? If so, I would really question why an adult woman feels compelled to continue fostering such harmful delusions in somebody she claims to care about. That isn’t love or care. There is something wrong with her if she knows about your feelings and yet continues on as if there is no problem. This is a problem. As an adult, she should be the one encouraging you to find people you own age to bond with, she should be slowly disconnecting herself from you for your sake. If she isn’t, there is something super sketchy with her and it’s definitely not healthy for you.

Now…

Things like “we used to meet in secret” are really disturbing to read. There is literally no reason a teacher meeting with a student, even for personal emotional support should be a secret. I have confided in teachers as well, and never has it felt like “a secret”. I mean, that is essentially precisely what guidance counsellors are for in schools. It is perfectly legal and okay for an adult to offer guidance and support to a student who is struggling, even with home issues. But concepts such as “meeting in secret” mean that some line is being crossed that shouldn’t be. The very reason boundaries exist in student/teacher relationships is precisely to avoid the sort of thing you are currently experiencing. As adults, it is a teacher’s responsibility to maintain a certain distance from students and not allow children to become too attached, especially in such a destructive and unhealthy way as this woman has allowed.

She is a bad teacher. I know you probably don’t want to hear anything negative about her, and anything I say will be met with skepticism and denial. I know. I’ve been there. We never want to hear those things about the people we think we love, and that we believe love us. But, hun, it has happened a million times before and it’ll happen another million times. You’re not broken or stupid or anything bad for feeling this but you do need to disconnect from this woman for your own sake. Even if you are in love with her. Even if she loves you. You must sever those ties, immediately. 

If it is meant to be, a few years down the road maybe something will put you two in each other’s orbits again–AS FRIENDS. But right now you’re incredibly vulnerable and she is a borderline predator.

I will say I am entirely biased because I think it is absolutely impossible for a teacher and student to have a healthy, equal relationship. Ever. Even an ex-student and ex-teacher. It’s romanticised a lot in fiction but it is really damaging and really toxic in reality. There are NO circumstances ever where an adult in a position of authority and respect should be fostering romantic delusions or ignoring the obvious transference in a child–for whatever strange reason they may have. (I can’t comment on why this straight, married woman has taken such an interest in you but I have a few ideas. Some are fairly innocuous for the most part, some are sinister, and the fact is there is literally no way to tell which it is. All I know for certain is that it is not healthy, for either of you.)

Whether or not she did gossip about your parent’s divorce is pretty irrelevant, to be honest. Chances are she did, because adults talk amongst each other, especially married couples. But you will really never know how gossip spreads cos anybody can do it. I would guess your parents are pissed off about that, but there’s more to it. I think that is merely the reason they gave you cos it’s easiest, and they thought it would work to convince you she’s bad. I don’t know your parents but if they even have an inkling about what’s going on between you two, I think they’re scared for you. (But I’d suspect their own issues are preventing them from talking to you about it directly, honestly, calmly, and without judgement against you.)

“the fact that I still love her like that shows that She is the one, the love of my life.“

BB, I mean this in the kindest way possible: you are wrong about this. I think deep down you know this too, and that’s why you have doubts and you’re miserable about it. She is NOT the one. She will not be the love of your life. (IMO, there is no such thing as the ONE. There may only be one but there may be many, all just as important and wonderful, in different ways.) Love requires two people invested in it to be truly real, it’s reciprocal. Because true love is a back-and-forth, it’s sharing of trust and passion and affection and commitment. From the sounds of this, you’re missing 2, probably 3–if not all of these. 

The One for you will love you back, in more than just a “teacher” or even friend sort of way. I know it’s been very difficult all these years because not only did this begin when you were incredibly emotionally vulnerable and immature, but the constant reinforcement over the years has made your brain believe things that just aren’t true. You’ve conditioned yourself to believe this. This was transference, that turned into a schoolgirl crush (we all get them!), that was then unhealthily (intentionally or not) encouraged by an adult.And I don’t know how much of an active role she’s played in this too. It worries me if she does know your feelings and yet continues. It worries me even moreso that this involved “secret meetings” because that is very, very wrong for a teacher to do. In any other context, this would be considered grooming. In fact, I’m not convinced it’s not grooming, of some sort. Even if she’s never done anything sexual and has no sexual interest, this ticks off a lot of the boxes for grooming children. Again, though, without knowing all the details, it’s hard to tell for sure.

In the simplest case, it’s transference of some sort. Worst case, this woman is a predator. Either way, it’s toxic and harmful to you as a person, especially someone who is lonely and unhappy and already living in a way that forces you to hide your true self. You deserve to be happy and this is not the path to it.

I’m just going to paste this here:

“As teachers, our students put us in a position of trust, and sometimes misdirected transference can occur. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try to paint ourselves as ordinary humans, our students may project qualities on us that may or may not be true. Some students may even place us on a pedestal. While this can happen with regular, local teachers, it is even more likely to happen with well-known ones.

There are good reasons that professionals such as doctors, psychiatrists and professors practice within ethical restraints regarding relationships with clients. The relationship between a person in a position of authority and the person over whom they have authority is not an even one. The power differential between teacher and student gives teachers greater influence and persuasive power over students, and can cause students to trust a teacher’s motives and actions implicitly whether or not such trust is deserved.

When a famous, charismatic teacher singles out a student, that student is likely to feel special and perhaps further advanced along the path than her peers. It feels good to be singled out, so in order to maintain this elevated position, a student may feel that she must follow whatever instructions or practices the teacher prescribes. In addition, inherent in practice is the idea that in order to find freedom, one must surrender to the practice and to the teachings—and sometimes, to the teacher. The student may feel—or be made to feel—that setting boundaries will hinder her growth. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the teacher to set healthy boundaries.

On the teacher’s side, admiration and praise feel good. We all want to know that we are inspiring and uplifting our students’ lives in some way. When a community of admiring students reaches worldwide proportions, it becomes easy for the teacher to inflate his/her sense of importance. Fame does not have to distort our understanding of ourselves. There are many world-renowned teachers who have remained humble in the face of fame. But when it does, an inflated sense of importance can make it easier to rationalize unskillful, even harmful, behavior.” [x]

A bit more here.

Yes, this is about yoga but it’s applicable to elsewhere. It is not your fault at all that you’ve been swept up in all this. You were a child, in an emotional and vulnerable time of your life, and whilst she may have thought she was helping at first, she should have known better. She never should have let it get this far. It’s 100% on her, not you. You may not be a child anymore, and it’s been years since this all went down but it’s been reinforced over and over, until it seems like your world has tunnelled down to only her who knows you. The world is so much bigger than her and you deserve to see all of it.

I really don’t like telling people they are victims, so I won’t. I’ll just say that you need to look out for yourself first and that means disconnecting from her to find yourself. Letting go of someone you love can be the hardest thing ever. And it will be awful for a while. But sometimes it’s necessary.

I hope you feel open talking to others, even online, besides her about your feelings. I really feel you need to move away from her and find others who share your experiences, especially of being lesbian in a conservative family/town. You are not alone. There are 100s of women to talk to who aren’t your straight, old, married teacher. So many of us have struggled with similar issues and we are all here for you to speak with.

Please don’t feel that this married teacher is the only person who will ever understand you and the only person you’ll ever feel that deep connection towards. There will be others, I promise you. That new person may just pop out of nowhere, like mine did, when you don’t even expect it at all.

As a note: There is nothing wrong with seeking advice and comfort from older women, by the way. I often have and do. There is nothing wrong with friendships with them either. I also don’t think kids cannot have adult mentors or friends. There’s not a problem with friendships with straight, older, married women. As long as the boundaries are clear. You do need friends and lovers that are your own age, even if they seem hard to find.

I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to take away your only love, or anything. I just don’t think this is ever going to end up anywhere good for you. And in the long run, it’s just going to hurt you far more than whatever comforts you are finding in it right now. It concerns me that you’ve almost built your whole life/idea of romance around this singular woman that will never love you back the way you need and deserve, and who may, possibly, be a predator of some sort. You need friends and support, but not from her. She can be an acquaintance perhaps but you need to connect with people your own age and who aren’t married and are gay/lesbian/bi, especially in conservative communities.

I am always here to vent at, and there are so many other girls and women on this site who are compassionate and patient and kind, who probably have even better insights than I do. I’m sure some of them have experienced similar situations as you have. Just remember, you’re not alone, you’re not unlovable, you deserve better than what you’ve allowed yourself, you can be happy, and you’re not bad or wrong. You’re just struggling right now but eventually you won’t have to anymore and it’ll be the best thing ever when you get there. I know you will. xx

[tarotjourney2021]

6:16 PM Last day of work before going on leave

I think this is the tower moment.. the moment they told me about.. that I am gonna have a big change which will scare me.. i think this is is.. but contarary to what I thought before, the change won't happen to me, the job won't call me back while I do nothing, this job might try to insult me again as a second blow.. and this tower of the 360 review.. which i can hear Areen's mean thoughts of how can I kick her harder.. this backstabbing bitch! She will get her karma.. and the karma will be through my work.. i will start publishing all the links and things I have been featured in.. so everyone knows how good I am.. and this my work will be the karma.. the karma won't come from an outside source.. the karma.. is me..! it's me bitch!

I think Minnow Pond said something to that effect.. he said that you will see someone get their karma.. but the karma could be through me getting my success! And that's exactly what I'm gonna do Chris.. I am done with this fool journey.. I need to step into the magician.. I need to level up.. to get my 'glow up'

very very very cheesy.

anyways,

The same applies to the tower.. i am the one who will take control of the tower and be the one not only jumping out of it willingly, but creating it. I will manifest what I want, and would work very hard and strategically towards it.. I will update the website.. most of it is done anyways.. just the last stop of details and making decisions and doing a bulk of work done... okay.. i have a lot to do.. but at least I know that i started and did a shit load of work before.. and it got me here.. how many times did I design and redesign the website.. even though everyone tells me it looks great.. but do i let that be and work on the technical parts of it.. like the shop or the blog or to let people share my stuff on social media..I mean! there is a lot to be done.. but that's okay.. let's push ourselves to the next phase.. because this is the price to be paid to manifest this.. I want the kind of employer that is not only impressed that I have a website, but can appreciate that I have a terrific website.. levelling up requires that, I need to ask for better things. and just because I like to research the hell out of things, I decided to watch every video ever made on youtube on manifestation, scripting.. add it to a long list.. bingewatch it as I organize my youtube videos.. so I can give them to the two editors.. and this way the youtube channel can keep going..

I will still try to keep my deadline of publishing a youtube video today.. cause I need to be consistent and to be consistent I need to stick to the plan.. the plan is good.. land the plan..or take off.. do something.. stop hovering.. stop doing things half-assed and congratulating yourself for getting out of bed, cause you have mental health issues.

We have a therapist now, so she will be helping with that, and also I am still willing to put in the work.. i am the king of pentacles.. despite the turblant water.. i am still focused on my pentacles.. still willing to sit here.. after breaking down in tears after the 360 review.. after all the work I have been doing.. and letting these as%###$@ make me work regularly long hours.. sometimes until 10 at night or midnight.. only to make me redo it all again.. because they changed their mind! Making me go on a saturday, across town in the ttc to take pictures with my personal camera and come back home at 5.. shaking with exhaustion.. and i only had sunday to work before i start the work day again.. and I wonder why I am always sick.. i work myself to the bone.

Even now.. even now .. when not even an hour ago.. i told myself to relax and sleep on the hammock to calm myself down and remind myself that the positive comments from the CEO, my manager, even my new manager can't stop saying great things about me. But you know how it is.. it is the corporate world, 360 reviews is the perfect time for anyone who has been hating on you, and to be honest with your taurus anger when someone disrespects you, especially when it involves racism, it boils my blood. And everyone wants to treat me like I am an idiot, when they hear my accent, or being black, an immigrant, single in my 30s... a lot of back-handed comments are exchanged.. racist 'jokes'.. even a suggestion of a black face from that bitch.. when the manager asked for suggestions for Halloween costumes as a team for the office virtual mandatory party. And both our TWO managers were in the meeting.. and none of them said anything! Shouldn't you 'manage' this?

I need to show them in action, very quietly without a lot of chatter that they don't get to do that.. they don't get to allow this kind of behaviour.. coming from the CEO herself and her daughter..

But I need to win all the way through, I need to keep my cool, they automatically win, if I lose it and start openly misbehaven.. the best insults are the ones that are given with class.

So what's the plan.

I will do the whole ritual thing, candles and all.

and then get to work.

Hopefully by the time I am done watching youtube, the files will be sent to my editors.. and youtube the youtube channel will start picking up soon. I think I already said that.

Then!

I will buy the sparkling water thing.. I feel the problem with staying focused is that I need hydration and somehow I can't stand tab water these days.. and I can't have enough of sparkling.. so let's make the investment.. you are officially on leave for the next two weeks, you will be able to post all those things to facebook market and sell them, and put the money back into the little investments we need to do now..

Like the investment in my time and energy I am gonna have to make to meet my illustration deadline and my youtube deadline

Let's start with youtube deadline.. I need to build the trust in myself.. by keeping this promise.. I will publish a video on youtube every week on Thursday 11 AM. I know I already missed the time deadline.. but it is still thursday.. so let's do the easiest thing to do and post it.. doesn't matter we only have 25 subscribers.. 26!! sorry!!!!  so no one is watching.. you need to jerk the giant algoritm awake and the only way to awaken this dragon is by meeting this deadline.. over and over and over again.. and I want you to have those posters of red crosses all around to see the progress that I am making in everything and keep things balanced.. and after this time off i want it to be clear in your mind.. what we are postponing, what we are focusing on.. my art.. my clay.. building this as a business... slowly but surely.

ok, after the youtube video.. i will give myself the deadline of 45 minutes.. so we are done.. i might even make it 30 minutes.. because i want to test my theory.. that people now want youtube videos to be as short as possible maybe a minute or two.. because youtube videos now compared to what's out there on social media feel like 2-hour long movies.. we have adapted to everything being tik-tok fast and crazy, so we can't sit through anything this long.. i personally can't! So I have to assume I am not alone, and I would like to attract those people on youtube, the people that I can almost feel their pulse.. they are tuned to me, can get what I like.. feel like they know me and I know them, feel like it is a warm hug between dear friends they found each others but never knew one another. I want that. But to get there.. I need to throw a lot of things out there and assess, adjust and move forward.. I need to be more like the chariot, Cancer, my moon sign. i need to flow like water.. move a way a little bit from my Taurus ways.. my Virgo rising better pay attention to all these little details and I should give her back the hermit mode... where I can retreat into my introverted shell and stay here for a little bit, until i start to figure things out.. I am actually almost flattered to know that the magician is also a card for virgo.. and it is fitting that I am stepping into this magician.. literally.. googling magic stuff.. and petition examples.. and also physically by actively going after the laid down plan.. the plan i kept changing and working out in my head..I feel for years, but never taking a real step towards it, but now it's time. It's been long enough.. the plan is ready.. let's go.. not apologetically... not kinda.. all in! ALL #!@#@$ IN!!

That's what I promised that I would do when I had this 'awakening or whatever', that to pay back the universe lady for seeing me for what I am and what I can be, that I won't give up on myself.. and I will stand up for that voice in my head that's trying to kill me and this feeling of longing to die. I even had the urge to die today.. to give up. and wish I was gone, out of laziness more than anything.. self pity and look-at-me bo-ho.. i know i sound mean.. and I am probably an asshole on some level(s). I should be compassionate.. i'm sorry towards myself first.. I know that i am healing from a trauma. I am better, but still all over the place.. i am so stressed and so alone.. i have been a lone for too long.. i realize now since I moved to Canada 4 years ago, I got lazy on the friends front, settled into a small group of women, whom are nice, but are not my people.. they can part of my people.. but not the centre.. they should be on the side tables... I need to find the right people for me.. to give me warmth.. my life has been cold and lonely for too long.. being here alone.. starting my life over.. still in a way living a double life between the old traditions and between who i really I am and what I want..and what I have been raised on that I am not good enough to have it. Even though I know in my gut that I can have it. I used to have the dead belief in myself that I will have everything.. but something broke back in Sudan. The weight of the tradition or the culture.. the shari'a law.. and its unforgiving rules.. people and how cruel they can sometimes get with their racist misogynist lifestyles that they impose on me, with all their force... then the heart break.. I never thought anything could throw me off like that, but it did. I guess I was already beaten enough when his blow came.

He too is another person I need to be on that mountain.. on top of it.. so he doesn't miss me. he can't miss me. and I don't think it will take me as long as I think to get on the top of the mountain. The hermit is already on the top of the mountain.. but I need to trust that I need to get myself mentally there.. so this physical world follows.

But to get there... i need to focus on myself.. forget about all of those people who shook your ego. You have to shake them off.. and put your head down to pray.. even though we don't pray .. but we need to lay down the details on that little prayer ritual I made up. A small part of me thinks it is ridiculous, because it is. But the other part loves it.. it gives me strength and I can almost swear.. actually i can swear.. that it was working.. the difficult days ahead smoothed out... and the dragon weren't as scary as I thought. I got a few little chips of gold every here and there.. and now I want to go for the real deal.

I need to be Indiana Jones one more time though, I know I am tired of it.. like literally tired.. my eyes are red.. and my body is aching.. couldn't because of all the crying with myself after work. I mean today is my last day of work before time off.. and I thought judging my surprising positivity this year, I thought I will be with a glass of wine celebrating by now... but I think knowing that rest is coming soon, my body is collapsing.

And true to my nature I am pushing her a little bit more. But we will rest I promise.. your cut off time is 10 PM! Then you can do whatever the hell I want. Maybe if it's not raining lay down in the hammock I need it.. I am tired.. it was so nice for a few minutes.. then I was again restless to start working again.

am I losing my mind?

[ramblingsandruminations]

When Suicidal Ideation is the norm

All the help in the world becomes a muddy puddle of shitty affirmations, thorned gaslighting, and useless guilt. If one more person tells me "have you tried yoga/deepbreaths/vitamin B..." Ugh. Who am i kidding? This is tumblr, where you can always find somone who says exactly what you are thinking ( #omgmetho #datme #meirl ). Weve all heard the "stop giving advice and atart taking it " speech, we're all likely to have read some post about the "evils" and " abuses" of therapy and inpatient treatment, and I'll bet a paper hat, some vending machine doodad, or some shitty-yet-adorably-hipsterly prize that within 100 reblogs someone links to some news article about "Queer Youth Completes Suicide And We Think You Will Pay Us to Feel Bad About It, Don't Forget To Like, Share, and Subscribe to Trevor Project, Your Reblog Will Save A Life (And Keep Us Relevant For Our Advertisers)." Tomorrow(well, next daylight hours) my 26-year-old depressed college freshman self is going to walk into my schools coubseling office and tell them i never recieved the location for the therapist they reffered me to (true story--Honestly not avoiding treatmwnt, even if it is useless) and request a second referral. Ill sit through some lecture about self-advocacy veiled in "concerned questions" and once again be misgendered, deadnamed, and criticized for giving a fuck (note: commenters looking to describe me with the word "cuck," i see you there, good for you, let me know how that white kkknight holier than thou red pill rage fest dopamine addiction is filling the gaping void of existential dread within you). After that, there is always a small chance they'll see just how depressed i am, and faster than you can say "looney is a word based in misogynistic beliefs of womens mental health and menstrual cycles being unhealthily and unscientifically connected to the moon," ill be fielding questions which boil down to "do you want to kill yourself" and "do you have a plan." By this time in my life, i've gotten pretty used to BSing my way around psychology. All it really takes is knowing that all they can take you on is your word, and nothing else. "Do you want to kill yourself?" they ask, and i reply "*short pause, heavy, short exhale denoting weight and truth* Well, yeah. But quite frankly, suicidal ideation is a part of my everyday life- nothing i do isn't plagued with some form of "i should wrap this mouse cord aroubd my neck and die" or " i wonder if that branch is strong enough to support my weight" or "man, my head hurts, but i bet a bottle or two of ibuprofen could make it stop." For me, its not a question of wanting to die, its a matter of what do i have to live for, and ive been through enough inpatient DBT and group therapy to help me cope, using breathing techniques and self-care tips to push me through the worst of it." This is usually if not always all they need to hear. Sure, im depressed, but anything they could tell me is something i know and am already doing-i sound to them more like a patient leaving inpatient than one entering it. Our hospitals are overfilled, understaffed, prqctucally unfunded; if im "stable" im staying out of their ledger book. Occasionally, they still worry, having one of those "consciences" their peers claim to have lost when a schizophrenic patient tried to bite their ear off, and ask a follow up "but are you sure? You seem distressed, and if you need some help, we are here for you," to which all i have to do is look at them through sad, but strong eyes and say "Thank you, but i have a great support network of friends and of course, my boyfriend. He's fantastic, and one of the most important things to have happened to me. He keeps me on this side of the dirt." A small tired chuckle, and their focus diverts towards affirmations of how good it is to have support, their therapy brains running on autopilot. Then all it needs is some "active" listening, uh-huhs, and compliant assurance that ill keep working on myself to assuage them of any guilt or corncern. Maybe, though, ill tell them the truth, and let them take me in. Three hots and a cot, after all. I'll fight through my dysphoria as they ogle every nook and cranny of my malformed body trying to see if im hiding a weapon or some drugs; I'll continue to insist on a private room and remind them calmly yet firmly that no, i will *not* room with a male, and their lack of knowledge on how to treat a transgender non-binary patient is well behind on proper treatment according to WPATH, the APA, and our state govt. When i get a room, theyll say that i should take as much time as i need to get acclimated, and not worry about what the rwat of group is qorking on, and then contradict themselves within 5 minutes and say i need to go to group, theyre waiting on me. In my fresh new scrubs, ill walk in and within seconds, ill identify how th staff monitors who came in when (usually different colored scrubs based on different halves of the week, and of course, anyone likely to leave within 48 hours wearing "normal" clothes), and see the therapist or doctor talking about emotional management techniques. When i sit down, eeyes will be on me, some with looks of angey jusgemwnt, some with awe and wonder: what could THEY be in for? The group leader will ask me my name, ill state it and my pronouns (to several uncomfortable shifts in the room), and theyll let me know what they were talking about. Ill make a good effort to participate, play along, etc. Someone in the group will be desperate to control the conversation, talking more and more as if this entire experience is just for them- another person will be too dissociated to say anyrhing, despite the doctors attebpts to get them to open up. Already, the cliques will become apparent; humans are aocial creatures, after all. When we leave for the next scheduled activity (either rec or lunch, depending on the time) the docs will be watching me- im on suicide watch, and they expe t me to jump out a window or try and slit my wrists with a paperclip or something. Im not a danger in this regard; ive been threatened with solitary and ECT if i dont comply before- i am their prisoner and i must comply. Within an hour or two of being there, ill be able to notice how well funded they are (or more likely, arent.) The quality of their reading materials; the availability of puzzles abd how well taken care of they appear. Recreation will be the most bare of kindergarden activities; coloring books, maybe a tv with basic cable. A daycare for adults, abd not the cool buzzfeed articles. Someone, probably an addict, will be trying to fanangle their attendee into giving them special treatement- a snack, or an extra smoke break. I'll be sitting in a corner, smirking- the staff arent even an eigth as dumb as this person thinks, and they've seen this type before. They might get something, but itll cost them sour looks from staff and less accommodating treatment with the doctors. After the second hour, we'll have another activity (second group, rec, or maybe "outside time" if its a particularly fancy facility; while the sun will certainly be shining, our feelings of freedom will be dampened by the high fances and walls keeping us from getting away). This is usually wheb the realization sets in that im stuck here for 72 hours plus, and ill be counting them down to stave off boredom. 15-30 minutes in to this third hour, ill be called in to meet tye psychiatrist, fisrt meeting with an attendee to fill out the generic details, then 30-45 minutes of diagnosis before im told ill be put on ab antidepressant, an anxiolytic, and tramodol, a sedative marketed as "something to help me sleep" and "another antidepressant" which makes me laugh every time. Tramodol is the auppressant, the "slow down" drug which helps keep everyobe on a nice, calm level thats safer for the orderlies. Were i violent, id concur; instead, i begin to wonder how long it will take before i no longer feel persistently asleep once i leave. A couple weeks, likely. Hopefully, the food will be good, but not likely 5 star- one place ive stayed had been cooking for us in the break room, sometimes PB&J, sometimes microwaved quesadillas. Maybe theyll have more drink options than coffee, water, and sugar-free koolaid- maybe not. Likely not. Some of us will complain; most of us will know it is a fruitless endeavor. After another group or two, it will be dinner, then wrap up group. We will discuss what progress we think we made today, and be sent to bed after meds are distributed in little paper ketchup cups. Most places wont do the "cuckoos nest" tongue check, but some will, particularly the ones with kleptos and pill ODers. Lights oyt will be around 10 pm, the beds will be plasticky and the blankets thin, and sleep will only cone rhanks to our sedatives. Day two, we'll be woken early, around 6-7, by an orderly checking our blood pressure and body temp. Well all gather in the hallway, rubbing sleep out of our eyes and head to the eating area for breakfast- which loooking back will likely be the best meal of the day, not the least be ause we have access to augar and caffiene. By now, i will likely have made a friend, probably with an older woman or two, and we will enjoy surreptitiously smirking at each other when the teoublemaker patwnt tries to get an omlette or something silly. Someone will start telling fanciful stories dreamed up in the night; talk will eventually turn to who is leaving today. The orderlies will be trying to not look too interested in what we reveal to each other instead of them. They will not succeed in this. Ths first morning they will use as a test of how i deal with frustration. An older nurse will act exasperated, as though taking care of me is a curse she was tasked with. She will try to cut theough any response i give her, and rudely discount anything i try to say, as if accuaing me of lying. Knowing it is coming doesnt help it hurt less. If it overwhelms me, ill be labeled as dramatic- if not, as detached. Sluggish from the new medications, i will be treated as though i ahould not be here, and will be led aroubd more quickly than i am rady to be. I will notice that part of it is that i am beginning to realize how broken down i feel i am. Reaching out will result in canned answers and "the doctor is busy's". After all, this iant about me, and theyve seen my type before. At lunch, i will be upset by the bland meal, abd ask if they have any hot sauce, or maybethey will be out of a preferred tea, or the food will not be enough to feed me. The newcomer who arrived at morning group will share a look with the quiet patient. I will try not to notice the parallels. A therapist will ask to talk to me today. It may be a nice session, but will essebtially boil down to "let me give you ideas for solving your problems, so that your depression seems more managed." By the end of the day, they will already begin my release plan. Theyve fixed me, they are sure. I will also get my clothes back. The aurvey will be slightly different today; instead of asking on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being best abd 10 being worst how was my day, it will be the opposite: scale of 1-10 with 1 being worst and 10 being best. This way, they can track how much is me being honest, and how much is me remembering numbers to fake it. (Once, a nurse messed up so often that it was a sentence by sentence change). Later, if there is any improvement, it will be used by the hospital as signs that treatment is helping; if it gets worse, that i had a rough day and shouldnt think much of it. Bedtime will come, and i will relish it- being sedated takes a lot out of a person. When morning comes, the eggs will feel soggy and cereal with be a much better choice. A bagel will be carried into morning group and more DBT will be discussed. I will mostly be checked out; they are pulling most of their material from a 12 step program, and the leader is a student of psychology learning how to help people, but ive heard it all before, and that sense of guilt just pushes me towards suicide harder. At this point, ill feel just how desperate they are to get me out; nurses eill hint at things being the "wrong" answer with " you dont REALLY mean that, do you sweetie?" and " well, you cant keep thinking THAT way, or we'll have to keep you here longer." Boredom and longing for home will encourage me to pretend to be better, and not tell them how last night before falling asleep i stared at the vedfrane wondering if i could take it apart and form a springwire noose, or tear the blankets to make a rope. When they ask if im feeling better, it will actually mean "are you done with your timeout from reality? Have you learned how to fit in properly yet?" The meds wont really begin having a noticable effect for months- they know im lying. What they hope for is a glimmer of hope and a mountain of guilt for wanting to hurt others by hurting myself. Ill fake those, too. Still, ill be misgendered. Still, theyll blame hormones and buzzfeed rather than neurology and chemistry. After all, im well-adjusted, not at all like the Caitlyn Jenners and Wachowskis they read about on their facebooks. Its just a phase, and im just confused. I didnt try to hurt myself- nothing is *really* wrong with me. What can i do? Try and strangle myaelf, or others? That just means im lashing out, and ill get a new med regime and another 3 days, this time strapped down. Being strapped to a bed and left alone is mind-numbingly boring. If i tell them i still want to kill myaelf, theyll just nod their head and tell me it will go away soon; if i say i have a plan, rheyll keep me playing chess and reading AA papers until i apologize. Their job is not to fix me, their job is to stabilize me and make sure i dont break myself more. The fixing is my responsibility. Day four is release day. They will claim i have made improvements and have me fill out an action plan for when i feel depressed again. It will include people i can call, and ways i can push through bad feelings. It is my exit exam.when i pass, ill be set up with a therapist outside the hospital later in the week, and told how to connect with various resources. They will think i didnt know there were trans support groups. I will think that if it was just a support group i needed, i wouldnt dream of death. Neither of us will admit these things. And so, ill come back to school. Late on homework, i will have to prostrate myaelf with dictors note beggibg for forgiveness. I will get it, more due to policy than empathy, and at the end of the day, i will lay in bed, stare up at the ceiling, and contemplate which of my top three anchor spots would be the best ending to my story. Other than medical bills, nothing will have changed. Life drones on. I think i understand why death seems,so much better. In death, i can pretend there is a solution. In death, i can imagine a cure. In death, i can envision a caretaker and easier existence. It doesnt matter that death is the end of it all- i can pretend it willl be more, and my imagination can create many comforts in that void. But even death is a lie, and nothing will ever stop hurting.

[gordonwilliamsweb]

‘No Intubation’: Seniors Fearful Of COVID-19 Are Changing Their Living Wills

Navigating Aging

Navigating Aging focuses on medical issues and advice associated with aging and end-of-life care, helping America’s 45 million seniors and their families navigate the health care system.

To contact Judith Graham with a question or comment, click here.

Join the Navigating Aging Facebook Group.

See All Columns

DENVER ― Last month, Minna Buck revised a document specifying her wishes should she become critically ill.

“No intubation,” she wrote in large letters on the form, making sure to include the date and her initials.

Buck, 91, had been following the news about COVID-19. She knew her chances of surviving a serious bout of the illness were slim. And she wanted to make sure she wouldn’t be put on a ventilator under any circumstances.

“I don’t want to put everybody through the anguish,” said Buck, who lives in a continuing care retirement community in Denver.

For older adults contemplating what might happen to them during this pandemic, ventilators are a fraught symbol, representing a terrifying lack of personal control as well as the fearsome power of technology.

We Want To Hear From You

Are you a senior who is affected by COVID-19? Tell us what you’re seeing, and help us report on important, untold stories. Contact us at covidtips@kff.org.

Email Us

Used for people with respiratory failure, a signature consequence of severe COVID-19, these machines pump oxygen into a patient’s body while he or she lies in bed, typically sedated, with a breathing tube snaked down the windpipe (known as “intubation”).

For some seniors, this is their greatest fear: being hooked to a machine, helpless, with the end of life looming. For others, there is hope that the machine might pull them back from the brink, giving them another shot at life.

“I’m a very vital person: I’m very active and busy,” said Cecile Cohan, 85, who has no diagnosed medical conditions and lives independently in a house in Denver. If she became critically ill with COVID-19 but had the chance of recovering and being active again, she said, “yes, I would try a ventilator.”

What’s known about people’s chances?

Although several reports have come out of China, Italy and, most recently, the area around New York City, “the data is really scanty,” said Dr. Carolyn Calfee, a professor of anesthesia at the University of California-San Francisco.

Initial reports suggested that the survival rate for patients on respirators ranged from 14% (Wuhan, China) to 34% (early data from the United Kingdom). A report from the New York City area appeared more discouraging, with survival listed at only 11.9%.

But the New York data incorporated only patients who died or were discharged from hospitals — a minority of a larger sample. Most ventilator patients were still in the hospital, receiving treatment, making it impossible for researchers to draw reliable conclusions.

Calfee worries that data from these early studies may not apply to U.S. patients treated in hospitals with considerable resources.

“The information we have is largely from settings with tremendous resource gaps and from hospitals that are overwhelmed, where patients may not be treated with optimal ventilator support,” she said. “I would be very worried if people used that data to make decisions about whether they wanted mechanical ventilation.”

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Still, a sobering reality emerges from studies published to date: Older adults, especially those with underlying medical conditions such as heart, kidney or lung disease, are least likely to survive critical illness caused by the coronavirus or treatment with a ventilator.

“Their prognosis is not great,” said Dr. Douglas White, a professor of critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. He cautioned, however, that frail older adults shouldn’t be lumped together with healthy, robust older adults, whose prospects may be somewhat better.

Like other clinicians, White has observed that older COVID patients are spending considerably longer on ventilators ― two weeks or more — than is the case with other critical illnesses. If they survive, they’re likely to be extremely weak, deconditioned, suffering from delirium and in need of months of ongoing care and physical rehabilitation.

“It’s a very long, uphill battle to recovery,” and many older patients may never regain full functioning, said Dr. Negin Hajizadeh, an associate professor of critical care medicine at the School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell on New York’s Long Island. “My concern is, who’s going to take care of these patients after a prolonged ventilator course ― and where?”

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Joyce Edwards, 61, who is unmarried and lives on her own, has been wondering the same thing.

In late April, Edwards revised her advance directive to specify that “for COVID-19, I do not want to be placed on a ventilator.” Previously, she had indicated that she was willing to try a ventilator for a few days but wanted it withdrawn if the treatment was needed for a longer period.

“I have to think about what the quality of my life is going to be,” Edwards said. “Could I live independently and take care of myself — the things I value the most? There’s no spouse to take care of me or adult children. Who would step into the breach and look after me while I’m in recovery?”

People who’ve said “give a ventilator a try, but discontinue it if improvement isn’t occurring” need to realize that they almost surely won’t have time to interact with loved ones if treatment is withdrawn, said Dr. Christopher Cox, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University.

“You may not be able to live for more than a few minutes,” he noted.

But the choice isn’t as black-and-white as go on a ventilator or die.

“We can give you high-flow oxygen and antibiotics,” Cox said. “You can use BiPAP or CPAP machines [which also deliver oxygen] and see how those work. And if things go poorly, we’re excellent at keeping you comfortable and trying to make it possible for you to interact with family and friends instead of being knocked out in a coma.”

Heather McCrone of Bellevue, Washington, realized she’d had an “all-or-nothing” view of ventilation when her 70-year-old husband developed sepsis — a systemic infection ― last year after problems related to foot surgery.

Over nine hours, McCrone sat in the intensive care unit as her husband was stabilized on a ventilator by nurses and respiratory therapists. “They were absolutely fantastic,” McCrone said. After a four-day stay in the hospital, her husband returned home.

“Before that experience, my feeling about ventilators was ‘You’re a goner and there’s no coming back,’” McCrone said. “Now, I know that’s not necessarily the case.”

She and her husband both have advance directives stating that they want “lifesaving measures taken unless we’re in a vegetative state with no possibility of recovery.” McCrone said they still need to discuss their wishes with their daughters, including their preference for getting treatment with a ventilator.

These discussions are more important than ever ― and perhaps easier than in the past, experts said.

“People are thinking about what could happen to them and they want to talk about it,” said Dr. Rebecca Sudore, a professor of medicine at the UCSF. “It’s opened up a lot of conversations.”

Rather than focusing on whether to be treated with a ventilator, she advises older adults to discuss what’s most important to them — independence? time with family? walking? living as long as possible? ― and what they consider a good quality of life. This will provide essential context for decisions about ventilation.

“Some people may say my life is always worth living no matter what type of serious illness or disability I have,” she said. “On the other end of the spectrum, some people may feel there are health situations or experiences that would be so hard that life would not be worth living.”

Sudore helped create Prepare for Your Care, a website and a set of tools to guide people through these kinds of conversations. Recently it was updated to include a section on COVID-19, as have sites sponsored by Compassion & Choices and The Conversation Project. And the Colorado Program for Patient Centered Decisions has published a decision aid for COVID patients considering life support, also available in Spanish.

Some older adults have another worry: What if there aren’t enough ventilators for all the COVID patients who need them?

In that situation, “I would like to say ‘no’ because other people need that intervention more than I do and would benefit, in all probability, more than I would,” said Larry Churchill, 74, an emeritus professor of medical ethics at Vanderbilt.

“In a non-scarcity situation, I’m not sure what I’d do. I’m in pretty good health, but people my age don’t survive as well from any major problem,” Churchill said. “Most of us don’t want a long, lingering death in a custodial facility where the chances of recovery are small and the quality of life may be one we’re not willing to tolerate.”

‘No Intubation’: Seniors Fearful Of COVID-19 Are Changing Their Living Wills published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[stephenmccull]

‘No Intubation’: Seniors Fearful Of COVID-19 Are Changing Their Living Wills

Navigating Aging

Navigating Aging focuses on medical issues and advice associated with aging and end-of-life care, helping America’s 45 million seniors and their families navigate the health care system.

To contact Judith Graham with a question or comment, click here.

Join the Navigating Aging Facebook Group.

See All Columns

DENVER ― Last month, Minna Buck revised a document specifying her wishes should she become critically ill.

“No intubation,” she wrote in large letters on the form, making sure to include the date and her initials.

Buck, 91, had been following the news about COVID-19. She knew her chances of surviving a serious bout of the illness were slim. And she wanted to make sure she wouldn’t be put on a ventilator under any circumstances.

“I don’t want to put everybody through the anguish,” said Buck, who lives in a continuing care retirement community in Denver.

For older adults contemplating what might happen to them during this pandemic, ventilators are a fraught symbol, representing a terrifying lack of personal control as well as the fearsome power of technology.

We Want To Hear From You

Are you a senior who is affected by COVID-19? Tell us what you’re seeing, and help us report on important, untold stories. Contact us at covidtips@kff.org.

Email Us

Used for people with respiratory failure, a signature consequence of severe COVID-19, these machines pump oxygen into a patient’s body while he or she lies in bed, typically sedated, with a breathing tube snaked down the windpipe (known as “intubation”).

For some seniors, this is their greatest fear: being hooked to a machine, helpless, with the end of life looming. For others, there is hope that the machine might pull them back from the brink, giving them another shot at life.

“I’m a very vital person: I’m very active and busy,” said Cecile Cohan, 85, who has no diagnosed medical conditions and lives independently in a house in Denver. If she became critically ill with COVID-19 but had the chance of recovering and being active again, she said, “yes, I would try a ventilator.”

What’s known about people’s chances?

Although several reports have come out of China, Italy and, most recently, the area around New York City, “the data is really scanty,” said Dr. Carolyn Calfee, a professor of anesthesia at the University of California-San Francisco.

Initial reports suggested that the survival rate for patients on respirators ranged from 14% (Wuhan, China) to 34% (early data from the United Kingdom). A report from the New York City area appeared more discouraging, with survival listed at only 11.9%.

But the New York data incorporated only patients who died or were discharged from hospitals — a minority of a larger sample. Most ventilator patients were still in the hospital, receiving treatment, making it impossible for researchers to draw reliable conclusions.

Calfee worries that data from these early studies may not apply to U.S. patients treated in hospitals with considerable resources.

“The information we have is largely from settings with tremendous resource gaps and from hospitals that are overwhelmed, where patients may not be treated with optimal ventilator support,” she said. “I would be very worried if people used that data to make decisions about whether they wanted mechanical ventilation.”

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Still, a sobering reality emerges from studies published to date: Older adults, especially those with underlying medical conditions such as heart, kidney or lung disease, are least likely to survive critical illness caused by the coronavirus or treatment with a ventilator.

“Their prognosis is not great,” said Dr. Douglas White, a professor of critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. He cautioned, however, that frail older adults shouldn’t be lumped together with healthy, robust older adults, whose prospects may be somewhat better.

Like other clinicians, White has observed that older COVID patients are spending considerably longer on ventilators ― two weeks or more — than is the case with other critical illnesses. If they survive, they’re likely to be extremely weak, deconditioned, suffering from delirium and in need of months of ongoing care and physical rehabilitation.

“It’s a very long, uphill battle to recovery,” and many older patients may never regain full functioning, said Dr. Negin Hajizadeh, an associate professor of critical care medicine at the School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell on New York’s Long Island. “My concern is, who’s going to take care of these patients after a prolonged ventilator course ― and where?”

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Joyce Edwards, 61, who is unmarried and lives on her own, has been wondering the same thing.

In late April, Edwards revised her advance directive to specify that “for COVID-19, I do not want to be placed on a ventilator.” Previously, she had indicated that she was willing to try a ventilator for a few days but wanted it withdrawn if the treatment was needed for a longer period.

“I have to think about what the quality of my life is going to be,” Edwards said. “Could I live independently and take care of myself — the things I value the most? There’s no spouse to take care of me or adult children. Who would step into the breach and look after me while I’m in recovery?”

People who’ve said “give a ventilator a try, but discontinue it if improvement isn’t occurring” need to realize that they almost surely won’t have time to interact with loved ones if treatment is withdrawn, said Dr. Christopher Cox, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University.

“You may not be able to live for more than a few minutes,” he noted.

But the choice isn’t as black-and-white as go on a ventilator or die.

“We can give you high-flow oxygen and antibiotics,” Cox said. “You can use BiPAP or CPAP machines [which also deliver oxygen] and see how those work. And if things go poorly, we’re excellent at keeping you comfortable and trying to make it possible for you to interact with family and friends instead of being knocked out in a coma.”

Heather McCrone of Bellevue, Washington, realized she’d had an “all-or-nothing” view of ventilation when her 70-year-old husband developed sepsis — a systemic infection ― last year after problems related to foot surgery.

Over nine hours, McCrone sat in the intensive care unit as her husband was stabilized on a ventilator by nurses and respiratory therapists. “They were absolutely fantastic,” McCrone said. After a four-day stay in the hospital, her husband returned home.

“Before that experience, my feeling about ventilators was ‘You’re a goner and there’s no coming back,’” McCrone said. “Now, I know that’s not necessarily the case.”

She and her husband both have advance directives stating that they want “lifesaving measures taken unless we’re in a vegetative state with no possibility of recovery.” McCrone said they still need to discuss their wishes with their daughters, including their preference for getting treatment with a ventilator.

These discussions are more important than ever ― and perhaps easier than in the past, experts said.

“People are thinking about what could happen to them and they want to talk about it,” said Dr. Rebecca Sudore, a professor of medicine at the UCSF. “It’s opened up a lot of conversations.”

Rather than focusing on whether to be treated with a ventilator, she advises older adults to discuss what’s most important to them — independence? time with family? walking? living as long as possible? ― and what they consider a good quality of life. This will provide essential context for decisions about ventilation.

“Some people may say my life is always worth living no matter what type of serious illness or disability I have,” she said. “On the other end of the spectrum, some people may feel there are health situations or experiences that would be so hard that life would not be worth living.”

Sudore helped create Prepare for Your Care, a website and a set of tools to guide people through these kinds of conversations. Recently it was updated to include a section on COVID-19, as have sites sponsored by Compassion & Choices and The Conversation Project. And the Colorado Program for Patient Centered Decisions has published a decision aid for COVID patients considering life support, also available in Spanish.

Some older adults have another worry: What if there aren’t enough ventilators for all the COVID patients who need them?

In that situation, “I would like to say ‘no’ because other people need that intervention more than I do and would benefit, in all probability, more than I would,” said Larry Churchill, 74, an emeritus professor of medical ethics at Vanderbilt.

“In a non-scarcity situation, I’m not sure what I’d do. I’m in pretty good health, but people my age don’t survive as well from any major problem,” Churchill said. “Most of us don’t want a long, lingering death in a custodial facility where the chances of recovery are small and the quality of life may be one we’re not willing to tolerate.”

‘No Intubation’: Seniors Fearful Of COVID-19 Are Changing Their Living Wills published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[dinafbrownil]

‘No Intubation’: Seniors Fearful Of COVID-19 Are Changing Their Living Wills

Navigating Aging

Navigating Aging focuses on medical issues and advice associated with aging and end-of-life care, helping America’s 45 million seniors and their families navigate the health care system.

To contact Judith Graham with a question or comment, click here.

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DENVER ― Last month, Minna Buck revised a document specifying her wishes should she become critically ill.

“No intubation,” she wrote in large letters on the form, making sure to include the date and her initials.

Buck, 91, had been following the news about COVID-19. She knew her chances of surviving a serious bout of the illness were slim. And she wanted to make sure she wouldn’t be put on a ventilator under any circumstances.

“I don’t want to put everybody through the anguish,” said Buck, who lives in a continuing care retirement community in Denver.

For older adults contemplating what might happen to them during this pandemic, ventilators are a fraught symbol, representing a terrifying lack of personal control as well as the fearsome power of technology.

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Are you a senior who is affected by COVID-19? Tell us what you’re seeing, and help us report on important, untold stories. Contact us at covidtips@kff.org.

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Used for people with respiratory failure, a signature consequence of severe COVID-19, these machines pump oxygen into a patient’s body while he or she lies in bed, typically sedated, with a breathing tube snaked down the windpipe (known as “intubation”).

For some seniors, this is their greatest fear: being hooked to a machine, helpless, with the end of life looming. For others, there is hope that the machine might pull them back from the brink, giving them another shot at life.

“I’m a very vital person: I’m very active and busy,” said Cecile Cohan, 85, who has no diagnosed medical conditions and lives independently in a house in Denver. If she became critically ill with COVID-19 but had the chance of recovering and being active again, she said, “yes, I would try a ventilator.”

What’s known about people’s chances?

Although several reports have come out of China, Italy and, most recently, the area around New York City, “the data is really scanty,” said Dr. Carolyn Calfee, a professor of anesthesia at the University of California-San Francisco.

Initial reports suggested that the survival rate for patients on respirators ranged from 14% (Wuhan, China) to 34% (early data from the United Kingdom). A report from the New York City area appeared more discouraging, with survival listed at only 11.9%.

But the New York data incorporated only patients who died or were discharged from hospitals — a minority of a larger sample. Most ventilator patients were still in the hospital, receiving treatment, making it impossible for researchers to draw reliable conclusions.

Calfee worries that data from these early studies may not apply to U.S. patients treated in hospitals with considerable resources.

“The information we have is largely from settings with tremendous resource gaps and from hospitals that are overwhelmed, where patients may not be treated with optimal ventilator support,” she said. “I would be very worried if people used that data to make decisions about whether they wanted mechanical ventilation.”

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Still, a sobering reality emerges from studies published to date: Older adults, especially those with underlying medical conditions such as heart, kidney or lung disease, are least likely to survive critical illness caused by the coronavirus or treatment with a ventilator.

“Their prognosis is not great,” said Dr. Douglas White, a professor of critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. He cautioned, however, that frail older adults shouldn’t be lumped together with healthy, robust older adults, whose prospects may be somewhat better.

Like other clinicians, White has observed that older COVID patients are spending considerably longer on ventilators ― two weeks or more — than is the case with other critical illnesses. If they survive, they’re likely to be extremely weak, deconditioned, suffering from delirium and in need of months of ongoing care and physical rehabilitation.

“It’s a very long, uphill battle to recovery,” and many older patients may never regain full functioning, said Dr. Negin Hajizadeh, an associate professor of critical care medicine at the School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell on New York’s Long Island. “My concern is, who’s going to take care of these patients after a prolonged ventilator course ― and where?”

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Joyce Edwards, 61, who is unmarried and lives on her own, has been wondering the same thing.

In late April, Edwards revised her advance directive to specify that “for COVID-19, I do not want to be placed on a ventilator.” Previously, she had indicated that she was willing to try a ventilator for a few days but wanted it withdrawn if the treatment was needed for a longer period.

“I have to think about what the quality of my life is going to be,” Edwards said. “Could I live independently and take care of myself — the things I value the most? There’s no spouse to take care of me or adult children. Who would step into the breach and look after me while I’m in recovery?”

People who’ve said “give a ventilator a try, but discontinue it if improvement isn’t occurring” need to realize that they almost surely won’t have time to interact with loved ones if treatment is withdrawn, said Dr. Christopher Cox, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University.

“You may not be able to live for more than a few minutes,” he noted.

But the choice isn’t as black-and-white as go on a ventilator or die.

“We can give you high-flow oxygen and antibiotics,” Cox said. “You can use BiPAP or CPAP machines [which also deliver oxygen] and see how those work. And if things go poorly, we’re excellent at keeping you comfortable and trying to make it possible for you to interact with family and friends instead of being knocked out in a coma.”

Heather McCrone of Bellevue, Washington, realized she’d had an “all-or-nothing” view of ventilation when her 70-year-old husband developed sepsis — a systemic infection ― last year after problems related to foot surgery.

Over nine hours, McCrone sat in the intensive care unit as her husband was stabilized on a ventilator by nurses and respiratory therapists. “They were absolutely fantastic,” McCrone said. After a four-day stay in the hospital, her husband returned home.

“Before that experience, my feeling about ventilators was ‘You’re a goner and there’s no coming back,’” McCrone said. “Now, I know that’s not necessarily the case.”

She and her husband both have advance directives stating that they want “lifesaving measures taken unless we’re in a vegetative state with no possibility of recovery.” McCrone said they still need to discuss their wishes with their daughters, including their preference for getting treatment with a ventilator.

These discussions are more important than ever ― and perhaps easier than in the past, experts said.

“People are thinking about what could happen to them and they want to talk about it,” said Dr. Rebecca Sudore, a professor of medicine at the UCSF. “It’s opened up a lot of conversations.”

Rather than focusing on whether to be treated with a ventilator, she advises older adults to discuss what’s most important to them — independence? time with family? walking? living as long as possible? ― and what they consider a good quality of life. This will provide essential context for decisions about ventilation.

“Some people may say my life is always worth living no matter what type of serious illness or disability I have,” she said. “On the other end of the spectrum, some people may feel there are health situations or experiences that would be so hard that life would not be worth living.”

Sudore helped create Prepare for Your Care, a website and a set of tools to guide people through these kinds of conversations. Recently it was updated to include a section on COVID-19, as have sites sponsored by Compassion & Choices and The Conversation Project. And the Colorado Program for Patient Centered Decisions has published a decision aid for COVID patients considering life support, also available in Spanish.

Some older adults have another worry: What if there aren’t enough ventilators for all the COVID patients who need them?

In that situation, “I would like to say ‘no’ because other people need that intervention more than I do and would benefit, in all probability, more than I would,” said Larry Churchill, 74, an emeritus professor of medical ethics at Vanderbilt.

“In a non-scarcity situation, I’m not sure what I’d do. I’m in pretty good health, but people my age don’t survive as well from any major problem,” Churchill said. “Most of us don’t want a long, lingering death in a custodial facility where the chances of recovery are small and the quality of life may be one we’re not willing to tolerate.”

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/no-intubation-seniors-fearful-of-covid-19-are-changing-their-living-wills/

[floraexplorer]

The Community You’ve Never Met

I need to tell you something.

Two weeks ago, while walking through my local East London park on the way to see my therapist, I opened up Instagram Stories and I started to talk.

I told an unknown number of potential viewers a truth: a collection of facts which I’ve been keeping quiet for months now.

My dad is really sick.

He’s not getting better.

My mum died eight years ago, and now the same thing is happening again.

I’m scared, obviously – but more importantly? I’m done with not being honest.

Over the next twenty-four hours, dozens of messages popped into my Instagram inbox. Some were real life friends, some were acquaintances and many were strangers. All of them said the same thing, and all of them were so kind and concerned that it made me want to cry.

We’re so sorry. If you need anything, please just ask. We’re here for you.

The world of the online community

This online world we inhabit is a strange one.

For the last decade I’ve lived out a large part of my life on the internet – and I don’t just mean professionally. Nowadays, many people would define their own personal communities as being both the locally-based friends they see each day or each week, and those who live far away enough to require staying in mainly virtual or digital contact.

As a traveller, many of my closest friends either live halfway around the world or are off traversing different countries to the one I’m currently in. It means many of my friendships are maintained thanks to a combination of Facebook chat, Instagram Stories, pre-organised Skype dates, delayed WhatsApp messages and lengthly emails.

Friends I met in India are scattered all over the place now!

Those of us who cultivate a version of ourselves online see just as much value in our digital communities as our real-life ones.

But when you’re a blogger, or someone using their online self from a business perspective, suddenly the concept of community can shift. 

What is our real goal for building a community?

Behind the scenes of social media, one of the most important things we look at is our numbers. It’s a community made of statistics: unique visitors and newsletter subscribers, Facebook followers and Instagram commenters, all compiled into Google Analytics bar charts which dictate whether or not a company will want to work with us.

For bloggers, ‘community’ has become something we chase after because we know it’s important – but I’m not sure what our ultimate end goal is anymore.

Surely it’s more valuable to simply have a community itself, rather than obsessively counting the members within it?

I’ve always been scared of being alone

Growing up in London, I never really knew my neighbours or hung out with the kids on my street. Our family was always small and I’m an only child, so I knew it was basically up to me to expand my social circles.

When I first started blogging, I was really excited by the prospect of fostering some sort of online community with strangers-turned-readers. I remember noticing the same names in the comments sections of different articles of mine, and I realised that some people were regularly invested in what I had to say.

But I didn’t know (or perhaps, didn’t quite believe) that their interest stretched to actually caring about me.

The other result of becoming a blogger was the discovery of hundreds of other bloggers who I was able to network with: people who shared my passions for travel and writing, and who understood how to navigate this online world more than I currently did.

As my blogging readership grew, my virtual community on this site and social media became more apparent. I’m in no way a big blogger, but I do occasionally get recognised – and it’s always really bizarre.

Once it was a curious expression on a girl’s face in a London yoga class before she whispered my name across the room; another time I heard a joyful shout from a backpacker when hitchhiking along Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

People who read you think they know you.

And thanks to the internet, I guess to a certain degree they do.

Of course, do they know the ‘real’ you or the version you’ve decided to present? Since publishing a recent article about that very topic, I’ve had a lot of fascinating perspectives from different readers which have made me think deeply.

Who we are online is one thing. Perhaps a more pertinent question is why we’re actually online in the first place. 

At our most basic level, we all crave interaction with others. It might be because we’re seeking validation, sharing an opinion, bolstering our insecurities or venting our grievances: but it’s still predominantly about being connected to people.

So sometimes, when real life pushes itself sharply into focus, our immediate reaction is to be brutally honest with our communities.

A problem shared is a problem halved

Everyone has their own methods of coping with life-changing situations. But although many people have told me I’m being brave for talking publicly about all this, I honestly don’t see it like that. It’s an intrinsic need to speak up.

During the two weeks when my mum was dying in late 2008, my house remained virtually empty. This isn’t necessarily either a bad or a good thing: I just didn’t know I was allowed to ask people to be there for me. I was twenty years old. My dad’s way of coping was to keep things private. I went along with his decision.

When my mum died I felt like an outsider in too many situations: I knew my tears would drag a conversation down and make people feel awkward, but I also knew I couldn’t avoid talking about what had happened. It was too all-consuming. And it wasn’t fair to me, or to her memory.

So when I first heard my dad was going into hospital back in March this year? The first thing I did was message my closest friends. My core group. They needed to know, so they could help me carry this weight.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been talking to a therapist since last year, but at this point in my life I’m very conscious of my mental health and my own specific needs.

So.

I’m moving out of my East London flat and back in with my dad. I’ve suddenly taken on a huge and unexpected amount of responsibility. I’m facing a heart-breaking, life-changing event. Now I’m asking for the help I know we both need.

Even so, it’s not something that comes too naturally.

I’ve had to pull myself firmly into adulthood, making phone calls to solicitors and hospitals and palliative care teams. I’ve set up a network of neighbours and my dad’s friends who can help me manage things.

And by doing this – by making myself vulnerable, asking for help, and realising that help is actually appearing – it feels like people actually care. Like my dad and I matter enough that people are willing to go out of their way to make sure we’re as OK as we can be.

And I feel like I’m not quite so alone because of it.

The importance of asking your community for help

I’m growing increasingly aware of the pitfalls of an online world. Attached to our phones and our screens like we are nowadays, I feel strongly that our virtual connections often eclipse our real-life ones, meaning there’s every chance that we forego strengthening the latter in favour of the former.

But because I’m acutely aware of how my dad’s situation is affecting me, every time something happens, I tell someone. It might be a vague tweet or a suggestive Instagram post — it might be a copy-and-pasted text message I quickly send to my core friends, my own little personal army — or it might be an urgent impromptu phone call to hear a real voice of someone I love calming me down.

Hold onto those moments which make you feel something. Even if you’re sitting in a London kitchen with barely any time to think, keep hold of that mental image which illustrates your ability to FEEL. Perhaps you’re holding onto the red walls of a Spanish island, dressed in a gold silk skirt from a Rajasthan market, giving a slightly awkward smile because you don’t know how to pose. . . It doesn’t actually matter, you know. You’re probably not a model being told to stand there. Most of us aren’t selling aspiration for a living. In fact, usually we’re just walking, travelling, breathing, feeling, and looking for a record of that moment in a photograph or a memory. That’s it. . . So feel bright. Feel happy. Feel awkward. Hell, feel distraught and cry and shout out about it from time to time. Just make sure you keep on feeling every speck of it. Feel alive. Live it.

A post shared by Flora The Explorer (@florabaker) on Jul 15, 2017 at 1:33pm PDT

Until very recently, I’ve felt alone and overwhelmed by all of this.

It seemed like I was expected to know how to handle it – and moreover, that I should automatically be strong enough and able enough to handle it, which of course made me feel worse.

But even a few minutes of confession on Instagram has been enough to reassure me that there are people who care. It’s amazing how supportive an online network of virtual strangers can be – but I guess we’re all people behind these screens, and we all understand what it’s like to go through pain and fear.

So what I really need to say is thank you.

If you’re reading this, you’re part of a community I didn’t really realise I had – and I feel so incredibly privileged to see the full importance of that.

This community, this support network,  is waiting in the wings for you. For all of us. It’s just a matter of asking for help.

NB: This article is part of a new series called ‘Behind The Blog’ — where I delve into all the bizarre elements of living out your life online. Keep an eye out for further articles on this topic!

The post The Community You’ve Never Met appeared first on .

via WordPress http://ift.tt/2uFHcNk

[heatherleeson-blog1]

a letter a therapist had me write to my abuser about two years after I left

Dear J*****,

This is a letter to say goodbye. I never want to have anything to do with you ever again. I want to be free of you forever. Living with you was the worst time of my life. You hurt me more than anyone has ever hurt me and in ways I’ve never been hurt before. You’ve wounded me in a deeply unsettling and permanent way. I won’t lie: I know I also caused you harm, I hurt you, knowingly and deliberately, in many ways. I won’t pretend I was blameless in the breakdown of our relationship. But the things you did to me are unforgivable. I’ll move on from this and eventually the pain will subside and I’ll be a stronger and wiser person in spite of, or perhaps because of, the grief you inflicted on me. But I will never forgive you. I’m not interested in hearing your side of the story. I don’t care what your reasons were or what pain there is inside you that may have compelled you to act the way you did, towards myself and others. I’m sure there’s a lot about you I’ll never understand, and I’m not sure you will either. You obviously have a lot of issues to work through, and despite your veneer of confidence and your constant show of bravado and aggression, I believe that at your core you’re an extremely frustrated, anxious and scared little boy. Not that any of this should make a difference. You always told me such things were ‘an explanation, not an excuse,’ and I’m holding you to that. I’m beyond the point of attempting to rationalise or justify your actions. Now it’s time for me to push you aside and move on with my life. This letter is my chance to say the things you never let me say and then turn around and walk away.

I remember the day I met you, at your beach house in B*****. My first real boyfriend and I had broken up about 6 months before, and even though I made a big show about being ‘over it,’ I was still extremely hurt by what had happened. Unlike you, he’d always been a good friend to me, and although we both knew it had to end, I was sad and lonely and feeling unwanted and unloved. My self-esteem was so low. I’d been feeling depressed and even though I didn’t know what it was at the time, my anxiety was at an all time high. I tried to make myself feel more confident by losing weight and meeting new people—tried to invent a ‘new Heather.’ One of those people was your ex S*****. Right from the start, she told me how messed up you were and how badly you had hurt her. By the time I met you, I had really heard nothing but bad things about you for months. When she invited me to a weekend at B***** I was nervous but quietly excited to meet new people and potentially find someone to hook up with—a dumb attempt at boosting my self-esteem. When I met you, you turned on the charm almost immediately: the pet names, the cheesy pick up lines, the obsolete slang you thought made you sound world-weary and well-read. You seemed cocky and sure of yourself to a point my rational side found repulsive. In hindsight I was desperate for attention, any attention. Despite the fact that I didn’t particularly like you as a person, my submissive side was drawn to your aggressive confidence and slimy charm and I desperately wanted to feel loved. Within weeks of hooking up, you asked me to be your ‘bird.’

I can’t pin point when it started to get bad. Maybe it was when I moved in and you started treating me like your maid. Maybe it was when you started taking out your frustrations and huge feelings of inadequacy on me. Maybe it was when you grew angry at the thought that you weren’t ‘getting enough’ sex, so you started taking it from me. I’m not sure. It felt like I woke up one day and realized I was trapped in a terrible nightmare that I couldn’t escape from. I still don’t understand how it happened.

Did you plan it from the start? Have you always treated girlfriends this way? Your disgusting behaviour towards the majority of your friends and family, and your utter contempt for almost everyone you encounter would suggest that this is your standard mode of operation. It certainly seemed that over the course of our two-year relationship, you became increasingly angry at the world. You seemed to feel that everyone was ‘wrong’ all the time, that if only they would listen to you, subscribe to your bizarre line of thinking, the world would be better off. I could see you becoming more tightly wound and withdrawn. I saw you doing poorly at uni. The frustrations with the job you had but didn’t want. The flippant comments about how you didn’t really care about your law degree, to hide the fact that deep down you knew you weren’t achieving the grades you needed to succeed, weren’t up to standard, weren’t doing as well as your class mates, who you wrote off as wankers and conformist idiots. You were obsessed with the idea of non-conformity, as if to hide the fact that you never really fit in. They say, if you meet one asshole in a day, you met an asshole. If you meet ten assholes in a day, you’re the asshole. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are a major fucking asshole. If everyone you meet is in constant disagreement with you, you’re probably wrong. And yet you persisted in acting as though you were the authority on every subject in the book. You were constantly angry. You made a big show about being a hippy, a bohemian, a happy stoner, yet you’re one of the most tightly wound, aggressive and malicious people I know. You took out your bad feelings on me and it made my life a living hell. Maybe you really meant to hurt me. Maybe I was just a convenient target, an innocent bystander who got caught in your cross hairs. I don’t care and it doesn’t matter—what you did to me was, and always will be, inexcusable and unforgivable.

What you did to me was abuse. Emotional, physical and sexual abuse. When you made fun of me and belittled me, that was abuse. When you isolated me from my friends and family, that was abuse. When you told me nobody cared about me, that nobody would care if something bad happened to me, not even you, that was abuse. When you constantly lied to me, manipulated me, confused me, gaslit me, that was abuse. When you undermined my self-esteem, my sense of self, my sense of reality, that was abuse. When you preyed on my obvious eating disorder and told me I should lose weight, that was abuse. When you told me I was crazy, that I was making everything up, that was abuse. When you screamed in my face, that was abuse. When you called me names like ‘stupid bitch’ and 'cunt’ and 'pathetic,’ that was abuse. When you punched the wall next to my face, that was abuse. When you told me it was my duty as a girlfriend to have sex with you, that was abuse. When you bullied me into having sex with you when I didn’t want to, that was abuse. When you threatened to throw me out of the house if I didn’t have sex with you, that was abuse. When you continued having sex with me while I was crying and saying 'no’ and 'stop,’ that was abuse. When you told me you couldn’t enjoy sex if I was crying so much, that was abuse. When you gave me a vaginal infection caused by repeated injury and forced penetration, that was abuse. When you repeatedly threw me out of our house and told me to pack my bags, only to 'allow’ me back in after a few hours, that was abuse. When you made it so that you were the only person I had left, that was abuse. When you made it so that I had no one else to turn to, nowhere else to go, that was abuse. When you lied and told me I was going insane, that I needed professional help for my mental issues, that was abuse. When you forced yourself into my psychologist’s office and demanded to know why she hadn’t 'fixed me’ yet, that was abuse. When you humiliated me in front of my friends and family, that was abuse. When you called my friends and family and told them I was a lying whore, that was abuse. When you told me I was a broken, worthless, pathetic person who could never be saved, that was abuse. When you made it so I didn’t care anymore, that was abuse. When you made it so I wanted to die, that was abuse.

I know this now. I’ve spent the last two years healing myself, reading, researching, receiving therapy, talking, listening, growing. I see now, clear as day, that what you did to me was wrong. Categorically, fundamentally wrong. I see now that I was vulnerable. Lonely. Unsure. Naive. Eager to please. Desperate for love. I was the perfect victim just waiting for you to swoop in and pick me up. To charm me. To blind me. To use me and discard me. Maybe it was inevitable, unavoidable. Maybe it was meant to be, if not then, than at some other time, some other place. If it wasn’t you, perhaps it would have been some other man. If it wasn’t me, perhaps it would have been some other woman. I know now that you’re a narcissist and a bully. You display the classic symptoms of a person so disordered in their thinking, they cannot comprehend the notion that they could ever be wrong, that the entire universe doesn’t revolve around them. All I ever was, was a side character in the drama of your life, playing the role of whatever you needed me to be to maintain your ridiculous fantasy. Back then I was your perfect princess, the only one who truly understood you. And you needed me to be perfect, because you needed me to be a reflection of you. You wanted to look into my eyes and see yourself staring back at you. The perfect man must have the perfect wife. And with a girlfriend this lovely, no one can accuse you of being mad. You told me you were attracted to my wit, my humor, my intelligence and my ‘moxxy’. Pretty and with brains to boot. The shiny trophy to hold up for everyone to see, and say, “see? I told you I wasn’t crazy!”

But that’s not how relationships work. You can’t ask another human being to be the support act in your bullshit fantasy. You can’t shove someone in a box and tell them to shut up and play nice, pulling them out now and then to wipe the dust off and play with them until you get bored, before chucking them carelessly back in the corner. You can’t get mad when it turns out they have their own story to tell, one in which they’re the protagonist, with their own dramas, their own desires, hopes and fears. You can’t act surprised when they’re not a perfect princess. Suddenly, the things you used to love about me drove you to despair. I was a little too opinionated, a bit mouthy in fact, and why was I talking so much anyway when there was dinner to be made? So you wore me down. You wore me down over months and months until I was so red and raw I couldn’t stand it anymore. You wore me down until I caved, until I knew it was easier to relent than face another round in the ring with this infamously argumentative nightmare of a person. Until I was a shadow of the person I once was. When you picked me out all those years ago, when you told me I was the special one, the chosen one, you wanted me to reflect the sparkling self-image you so desperately projected. By the time you were through with me, I had started to look a lot like the person I now know is hiding deep, deep down inside you, where you pray no one will ever find him: broken, scared and miserable. And now that you’d played with me so much that all the veneer had worn off, you threw me away for good. It’s classic narcissism. The pattern of abuse is undeniable. I was shocked, when, in the months and years that followed, I would read books about narcissistic personality disorder and discover the abuse you’d enacted upon me described with frightening accuracy within their pages. When listening to a friend confess that they too had been caught in the throes of an abusive relationship with a narcissist, I heard your words echoed back to me almost verbatim in the statements of another abusive man. It all made sense now. It fit the pattern to a T. After all that effort, you’re not even original.

But I’m not here to pathologise your behaviour or rationalise your excuses. That’s not what this is about. After all, you’re not even going to read this. In the end, it doesn’t really matter why you treated me the way you did. The important thing, for me, after so many months and years of denial and guilt is to finally speak up and say: yes, this happened to me. It wasn’t my fault, I’m not ashamed, this has hurt me and changed me but it hasn’t killed me. My spirit hasn’t been broken. This is an opportunity for me to make a radical statement- to myself, to you, and to the world- that I’m still alive and I’m still here. And I’m not going away.

[i-am-very-very-tired]

NICOLE July 5, 2017 at 7:22 am Please stop using mental illness as an excuse to be an asshole. Mental illness does not force you to be horrible to people. Also remember Kanye was doing this long before his breakdown. Rap is built on beef so frankly I’m not surprised he came for Kanye. He came for his wife and by all gossip accounts Kimye are obsessed with Bey and Jay. 4:44 is pretty great and some of Jay’s best. It’s also more than this stupid beef MARIA F. July 5, 2017 at 7:31 am I totally agree. Maybe Kanye’s environment should have prevented him from performing in such a state, but of course, he is their cash cow. But even if he was not feeling well, Jay Z has the right to be offended by what was said. At the end of the day, i believe this is all about controversy and selling records. Everybody has been focused on that line since the album dropped. RENEE2 July 5, 2017 at 7:39 am Okay, Deriding people’s mental health issues is sh*tty and I don’t condone it. But I don’t understand why people are acting shocked at Jay-Z, as though he were of such staunch moral fiber before. The guy is smart, successful, and can be funny but he is also a mercenary, deeply misogynist, and frankly, more than a bit sleazy. I mean, people have heard his rhymes about women, right? Not to mention his profligate use of the nword. Dude is hardly PC. Kanye is also a douche. Again, how many times has he been offensive. This is another misogynist, and one who has used homophobic slurs in his rhymes although he professes to be queer positive. We’re supposed to forget all that because we now deem him to have mental health issues??? As Nicole stated, we should not give him a pass just because he is not well, dude is an *sshole, plain and simple. NICOLE July 5, 2017 at 7:49 am Exactly. People act like having a mental illness is a magic wand that makes people forgive and forget what you did easily. That’s not how that works. It doesn’t erase why you did or how people felt because of your actions. I tell clients this all the time. You cannot control how people react to you. Being mentally ill may give them a framework for more understanding but again it does not erase the action. And Kanye was an ass before this. So yep. DEM July 5, 2017 at 8:13 am “he is also a mercenary, deeply misogynist, and frankly, more than a bit sleazy. I mean, people have heard his rhymes about women, right?” Jay Zs lyrics on women are actually among the least misogynist of the genre. Two weeks ago we had an Eminem post and not only was there no mention of his violent lyrics against women, it was filled with “he is so cute” comments. And my post on his lyrics some of which threaten a specific woman by name were moderated out. But here we are, the instant the subject is a black dude…. Its “dude is hardly PC”. “Not to mention his profligate use of the nword”…..lmao As if the N-er word was not already on the tips of white tongues. Yes’ its the song about black people in Paris and not white peoples unadulterated hate thats the problem. Those black people who dont wish to reclaim ithe word are entitled to that opinion and should just not use it. I stand firmly and proudly in the reclaim camp. This site reclaims “bitchy”, gay people reclaim the F word and Its not your business that black men and women have reclaimed the N word. RENEE2 July 5, 2017 at 8:32 am @DEM, I can’t tell if you are trolling (I think you probably are) or not but here goes: 1) The point that I was making was that BOTH Jay-Z and Kanye have used problematic language so we shouldn’t be shocked if that Jay is being insensitive in this instance, nor should we necessarily be sympathetic to Ye in this instance because he has a history or being an insensitive clod too. 2) I can’t comment on the Eminem thread as I am also not here for that trick for numerous reasons, including his misogyny, so uh, nice try 3) Though I wasn’t critiquing Jay’s use of the nword, but rather was saying that his use of it demonstrates that he does not subscribe to notions of what is considered to be acceptable, I am also not here for that term. It is ugly, it is violent, and I don’t think that it’s something that Black people need to reclaim. I don’t know how you got that I was not Black from my comments but I am so you can step off with telling how I should feel about. ERINN July 5, 2017 at 8:47 am Dem - I know Em has been called out plenty on this site. He hasn’t gotten a big magical pass by any means. I don’t actually think I saw the recent Em post – and I’ve been on this site for like 5 years or more. Some posts slip through the cracks, or people are busy, or whatever. Personally I think Em is incredibly talented – but also someone who grew up with a really f—ed up life. It doesn’t excuse his behavior as an adult, but I also don’t look at him and think “he had every chance, and a healthy relationship with women, why is he talking this shit”. He was a mess, he’s gotten a lot better about certain things, but the Slim persona is played up so much, and a lot of awful things are said across so many categories. I tend to think of Jay similarly. He got dealt a sh-t hand growing up – he pulled himself up, but unfortunately his lyrics still are incredibly problematic at times. He’s still incredibly talented, and I don’t think his lyrics are an exact display of who he is as a person. I think most artists exaggerate like crazy and try to keep a persona kind of separate from their real life, but it doesn’t mean that it’s ‘okay’ that they say the things they do. I’m not writing him off as a person because of it though. As long as there is growth happening – that’s great. But if they suddenly devolve into a much worse place, then I’m going to have to stop supporting them as artists. KONFUSED July 5, 2017 at 9:28 am @Renee2 whether you are black or not is irrelevant when you say “I don’t think that it’s something that Black people need to reclaim”..you should step off on telling other people how you feel about their use of the N-word it really doesn’t matter if you approve of it or not SANDERS July 5, 2017 at 9:58 am Nicole, from previous posts including this one, it sounds like you are a therapist. I’m surprised you are minimizing JayZ use of words crazy and insane to describe someone with a mental illness. Of course people with a mental illness have to examine their behaviours and coping strategies etc, though in the midst of a breakdown, self awareness takes a back seat. Lets also hold JayZ responsible for his mocking of people with mental health issues and I encourage you to check out the excellent comments from Claire down below. Me= If she's a therapist, I don't want her as mine. She probably works for talkspace? RENEE2 July 5, 2017 at 10:56 am @ KONFUSED Why should I step off telling a poster how I feel about the word when said poster is putting words in my mouth and twisting what I wrote? And again, the reason that I mentioned my racial identity was because the poster stated that I wasn’t in a position to comment on Jay Z’s use of the nword because they assumed I was not Black. Everyone comes here to offer an opinion and get on our respective soapboxes so GTFO with telling me not to share my thoughts on a topic. BRIDGET July 5, 2017 at 11:20 am @Konfused – you’re coming off like you don’t actually have something to say and just want to be mean to someone to make yourself feel better. RENEE2 July 5, 2017 at 11:53 am @KONFUSED Yep, that’s me, the proverbial angry Black woman, lol. Hope it’s not too damp where you’re stationed under the bridge. @ Bridget, Thank you!! IDONTKNOWYOUYOUDONTKNOWME July 5, 2017 at 2:05 pm Well, for example borderline disorder and what is perceived as “a-holeish behavior” kindof come hand in hand RONALDINHIO July 5, 2017 at 5:03 pm Whilst you are all saying mental ill health doesn’t give you a pass I’m gonna have to stop ya Many of the behaviours that West exhibited could be signs of a growing mania and paranoia that could present or exist co morbidly with and anxiety disorder or depressive illness. As reported he may have bi polar disorder which might not have been accurately medicated. All or none of these things may have been his actual disorder and all may have been exacerbated by lack of sleep and over work. His grandiosity, rambling, hyper activity, sensitivity moving into paranoia psychosis or mania all sounds like it could be easily described by a mental health disorder. Ignoring the lack of control someone has during an episode of mental ill health or trying to blame them when they often have little control is poor form. LLAMAS July 5, 2017 at 10:51 pm Sick. I have BPD and have never been described as an a**hole. People with BOD treat themselves the worst. FLORC July 5, 2017 at 7:04 pm And being a jerk can be a sign of mental illness. You cannot know either way unless you are much much closer than a commenter here. Im reserving judgement. Kanye is outrageous a lot of the time and shows erratic behavior, but also has appeared to have experienced some incredibly traumatic events. That doesn’t get healed easily if ever.