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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

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Here's a quandary I've suddenly found myself in: where do you stand on writers deleting their own works, fanfiction or otherwise? I've had this happen to me on more than one occasion - I go to look for an old favorite and find it's since been deleted from whatever site I read it on.

On the one hand, I'm inclined to think that, "Sure. The author wrote it, it's their call. I don't own the work - I certainly didn't pay for it. It's their decision, even if it's disappointing."

But at the same time I can't help but consider the alternative - if I believe in death of the author (and I do), that an author's work fundamentally isn't solely theirs once it's been published, posted, etc., then it also seems wrong to have a work deleted. Stories aren't the sole property of their creator, after all.

But then I circle back. D'you think there are different obligations between authors and readers and the works being made in fandom space? I know if I had bought a book and the author decided they wanted it back, I would feel pretty comfortable telling them no, given I'd paid for it and whatnot. But that's a different world from fanfic and fandom space generally.

So. You're insightful Clyde, I'm curious as to what you'll have to say here (and to all y'all thinking about it, don't flame me. I haven't decided where I stand here yet - haven't heard a good nail-in-the-coffin argument for or against yet).

Val are you a mind reader now? I’ve been thinking about this exact conundrum the last few days!

(And yeah, as a general disclaimer: no flaming. Not allowed. Any asks of the sort will be deleted on sight and with great satisfaction.)

Honestly, I’m not sure there is a “nail-in-the-coffin argument” for this, just because—as you lay out—there are really good points for keeping works around and really good points for allowing authors to have control over their work, especially when fanworks have no payment/legal obligations attached. In mainstream entertainment, your stories reflect a collaborative effort (publisher, editor, cover artists, etc.) so even if it were possible to delete the physical books out of everyone’s home and library (and we're ignoring the censorship angle for the moment), that’s no longer solely the author’s call, even if they have done the lion’s share of the creative work. Though fanworks can also, obviously, be collaborative, they’re usually not collaborative in the same way (more “This fic idea came about from discord conversations, a couple tumblr posts, and that one headcanon on reddit”) and they certainly don’t have the same monetary, legal, and professional strings attached. I wrote this fic as a hobby in my free time. Don’t I have the right to delete it like I also have the right to tear apart the blankets I knit?

Well yes… but also no? I personally view fanworks as akin to gifts—the academic term for our communities is literally “gift economy”—so if we view it like that, suddenly that discomfort with getting rid of works is more pronounced. If I not only knit a blanket, but then gift it to a friend, it would indeed feel outside of my rights to randomly knock on their door one day and go, “I actually decided I hate that? Please give it back so I can tear it to shreds, thanks :)” That’s so rude! And any real friend would try to talk me out of it, explaining both why they love the blanket and, even if it’s not technically the best in terms of craftsmanship, it holds significant emotional value to them. Save it for that reason alone, at least. Fanworks carry that same meaning—“I don’t care if it’s full of typos, super cliché, and using some outdated, uncomfortable tropes. This story meant so much to me as a teenager and I’ll always love it”—but the difference in medium and relationships means it’s easier to ignore all that. I’m not going up to someone’s house and asking face-to-face to destroy something I gave them (which is awkward as hell. That alone deters us), I’m just pressing a button on my computer. I’m not asking this of a personal friend that is involved in my IRL experiences, I’m (mostly) doing this to online peers I know little, if anything, about. It’s easy to distance ourselves from both the impact of our creative work and the act of getting rid of it while online. On the flip-side though, it’s also easier to demean that work and forget that the author is a real person who put a lot of effort into this creation. If someone didn’t like my knitted blanket I gave them as a gift, they’re unlikely to tell me that. They recognize that it’s impolite and that the act of creating something for them is more important than the construction’s craftsmanship. For fanworks though, with everyone spread around the world and using made up identities, people have fewer filters, happily tearing authors to shreds in the comments, sending anon hate, and the like. The fact that we’re both prefacing this conversation with, “Please don’t flame” emphasizes that. So if I wrote a fic with some iffy tropes, “cringy” dialogue, numerous typos, whatever and enough people decided to drag me for it… I don’t know whether I’d resist the urge to just delete the fic, hopefully ending those interactions. There’s a reason why we’re constantly reminding others to express when they enjoy someone else’s work: the ratio of praise to criticism in fandom (or simply praise to seeming indifference because there was no public reaction at all), is horribly skewed.

So I personally can’t blame anyone for deleting. I’d like to hope that more people realize the importance of keeping fanworks around, that everything you put out there is loved by someone… but I’m well aware that the reality is far more complicated. It’s hard to keep that in mind. It’s hard to keep something around that you personally no longer like. Harder still to keep up a work you might be harassed over, that someone IRL discovered, that you’re disgusted with because you didn’t know better back then… there are lots of reasons why people delete and I ultimately can’t fault them for that. I think the reasons why people delete stem more from problems in fandom culture at large—trolling, legal issues, lack of positive feedback, cancel culture, etc.—than anything the author has or has not personally done, and since such work is meant to be a part of an enjoyable hobby… I can’t rightly tell anyone to shoulder those problems, problems they can’t solve themselves, just for the sake of mine or others’ enjoyment. The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately is because I was discussing Attack on Titan and how much I dislike the source material now, resulting in a very uncomfortable relationship with the fics I wrote a few years back. I’ve personally decided to keep them up and that’s largely because some have received fantastic feedback and I’m aware of how it will hurt those still in the fandom if I take them down. So if a positive experience is the cornerstone of me keeping fics up, I can only assume that negative experiences would likewise been the cornerstone of taking them down. And if getting rid of that fic helps your mental health, or solves a bullying problem, or just makes you happier… that, to me, is always more important than the fic itself.

But, of course, it’s still devastating for everyone who loses the work, which is why my compromise-y answer is to embrace options like AO3’s phenomenal orphaning policy. That’s a fantastic middle ground between saving fanworks and allowing authors to distances themselves from them. I’ve also gotten a lot more proactive about saving the works I want to have around in the future. Regardless of whether we agree with deleting works or not, the reality is we do live in a world where it happens, so best to take action on our own to save what we want to keep around. Though I respect an author’s right to delete, I also respect the reader’s right to maintain access to the work, once published, in whatever way they can. That's probably my real answer here: authors have their rights, but readers have their rights too, so if you decide to publish in the first place, be aware that these rights might, at some point, clash. I download all my favorite fics to Calibre and, when I’m earning more money (lol) I hope to print and bind many for my personal library. I’m also willing to re-share fic if others are looking for them, in order to celebrate the author’s work even if they no longer want anything to do with it. Not fanfiction in this case, but one of my fondest memories was being really into Phantom of the Opera as a kid and wanting, oh so desperately, to read Susan Kay’s Phantom. Problem was, it was out of print at the time, not available at my library, and this was before the age of popping online and finding a used copy. For all intents and purposes, based on my personal situation, this was a case of a book just disappearing from the world. So when an old fandom mom on the message boards I frequented offered to type her copy up chapter by chapter and share it with me, you can only imagine how overjoyed I was. Idk what her own situation was that something like scanning wouldn’t work, but the point is she spent months helping a fandom kid she barely knew simply because a story had resonated with her and she wanted to share it. That shit is powerful!

So if someone wants to delete—if that’s something they need right now—I believe that is, ultimately, their decision… but please try your hardest to remember that the art you put out into the world is having an impact and people will absolutely miss it when it’s gone. Often to the point of doing everything they can to put it back out into the world even if you decide to take it out. Hold onto that feeling. The love you have for your favorite fic, fanart, meta, whatever it is? Someone else has that for your work too. I guarantee it.

So take things down as needed, but for the love of everything keep copies for yourself. You may very well want to give it back to the world someday.

#fandom #fic things #mymetas #never any easy questions on this blog huh? lol

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ollyarchive · 4 years ago

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Interview

Olly Alexander on success, sanity and It's a Sin: 'All those hot guys. I loved it!'

Simon Hattenstone

The Years & Years frontman is starring in Russell T Davies’ new drama about the Aids crisis. He talks about bulimia, his ‘dark’ clubbing days – and how he learned to enjoy filming sex scenes

Mon 11 Jan 2021 06.00 GMT

Olly Alexander was so certain he was destined for success that he saw a therapist to help him prepare for his future fame. It was 2014 and his band Years & Years had just signed to Polydor when he visited the shrink.

“I said: ‘The album’s coming out and I really want it to be successful,’ and he said: ‘What happens if it isn’t?’ I said: ‘Well, that’s not an option because I have planned it in my diary since I was a teenager.’”

That diary was less about chronicling the present than a series of promises he made to himself. “I planned my life till I was 25. I would be a famous musician ’cos musicians were the coolest people in the world. The biggest thing in the list was buying my mum a house, and I did that. That was the coolest thing to be able to do with my money.” He smiles. “That was the coolest thing ever.”

Now Alexander might well benefit from another visit to the shrink because he’s about to become a lot more famous. He stars in It’s a Sin, the brilliant new TV drama by Russell T Davies, about a group of young gay men living and dying through the Aids epidemic in the 1980s. The five-part series is funny, vibrant, sexy and heartbreaking.

This is by no means the first time Alexander has acted – he has appeared in the TV series Skins, films such as Bright Star (about Keats), Gulliver’s Travels and Great Expectations, and on stage in the West End alongside Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw in Peter and Alice; a pretty impressive CV. But with It’s a Sin, he knows he has struck gold. “Some actors would wait their entire careers and not get such a good role,” Alexander says, and he’s right. Davies has made a habit of creating groundbreaking TV series (Queer As Folk, Bob and Rose, Torchwood), and this is his best yet.

Alexander’s character, Ritchie Tozer, is an aspiring actor/singer who has just moved to London from the Isle of Wight in search of fame, fortune and a good shagging. He embraces his new freedoms with promiscuous abandon, while also struggling with his sexuality. Ritchie is equally cocky and vulnerable, lovable and insufferable.

Although It’s a Sin takes place in a time before Alexander was born, he says there are so many ways he relates to Ritchie’s life. There is one crucial difference – whereas Ritchie is secretive, Alexander is an open book. If there’s anything to tell you, he’ll tell you, even if he is embarrassed a second later about his indiscretions. It’s an endearing quality, and one that makes him great company.

We meet in his agent’s east London office in December, when Tier 4 restrictions are yet to kick in. Alexander is a boyish 30 – half punk, half catwalk model, with orange hair, earrings, multiple rings, stylish khaki trousers and a handful of inky tattoos. He is garrulous and giggly with a huge toothy grin.

Like Ritchie, Alexander was a stranger to city life when he came to London. He was born in North Yorkshire, went to primary school in Blackpool and Gloucestershire, and a comprehensive in Monmouth, south Wales. He was a natural performer who wrote his first song at the age of 10. “I performed it in my year six assembly.” Can he remember it? He squirms. “Yeah!” Let’s hear it then? “No!” Oh go on! “OK, OK. ‘The leaves are falling outside my window. I’m lay here all alone,” he sings quietly, in that delicate falsetto. He giggles, blushes and continues. “And now I’m a knowin’, the way it’s goin’, we won’t last for ever, for ever my love.’”

Wow, those lyrics are pretty sophisticated – and melancholy. He giggles again. “Oh thanks. It’s about unrequited love. Doomed love. I was getting in early on my themes. I had a bit of help from my dad.” He wrote it after experiencing his first pangs – for a boy in his class.

At secondary school Alexander was a victim of homophobic bullying. He responded with elan. “I would still come to non-uniform day in eyeliner.” Did he fight back? “Sometimes I would scream. I was not a good fighter. We did rugby a lot at my school – a Welsh school. The one time I scored a try, on the way back to the changing room the two popular boys from the year put their arms around me and said: ‘Well done, Olly,” and I was like: ‘I can’t believe it, this is it!’” He pauses long enough for me to get a glowing feeling. “Then they tripped me up and pushed my face into the mud. That was hard to live down.” After that he never went to another games lesson.

When he was 13, his parents separated, and from then he was brought up by his mother, events organiser Vicki Thornton (his real surname – Alexander is his middle name). His father had been a talented but disappointed singer-songwriter who made a living marketing theme parks. Although he gave young Olly a lifelong passion for adventure rides, there were tensions between the two of them. After his parents split up, he broke off contact with his father. When Alexander became successful, his father tried to rekindle their relationship via Twitter. Alexander wasn’t impressed.

With the sod-you eyeliner and supreme belief that he would make it, he sounds incredibly robust. So what else was in that teenage diary? “Pppprrrr.” He blows his lips as if feeling a sudden chill. “It’s a bit dark. I used to write that I really wanted to be skinny.” He exhales deeply. “My mantra was always: I’m not going to eat this again, I’m not going to eat cake again. I’m never going to eat pasta.” He was barely into his teens when he became bulimic and started to list the things he wouldn’t eat. Actually, he says it was worse than that. “I was writing down: don’t eat, don’t eat, don’t eat. Did he have a weight problem? “I was a little chubby at primary school, but no.” What does he think it came from? “It was something I could control. I felt very out of control in the rest of my life. I was struggling with my sexuality, my parents were divorcing, and I wanted to punish myself.”

I want to give him a hug, but I’m not sure he would appreciate it, particularly in the pandemic. Why did he want to punish himself? “It was self-loathing. I didn’t want to be gay. I was convinced I was the reason my parents were splitting up.” He never considered that their divorce may have had nothing to do with him.

He started to cut himself, too. Has he still got the scars? He points to his upper arms and thighs, “because people can’t see there. I was deeply ashamed of doing it. I wanted to hide it.” Are there many scars? “No. A friend saw a plaster on my arm and jokingly asked if I’d been cutting myself. After that, I was so embarrassed that I mostly stopped doing it. Bulimia carried on well into my 2os, but it became less and less frequent. It’s really hard to hold down any kind of job if you’re throwing up food all the time, and ultimately you have to choose.” It becomes a full-time occupation? “Yes, it’s all you think about. And you’re doing so much damage to your organs. I got taken into hospital once with my mum because I had this irregular heartbeat, which can happen through constant purging, and that really scared me. I thought I’d done something irreparable to my body, and my mum was so distraught. She couldn’t understand why her son was throwing up all the food she was trying to give him. She found out because I hadn’t cleaned the toilet properly.”

After studying performing arts at Hereford College of Arts, he moved to London and was liberated. He had a heady time of it – more drugs, clubbing and sex than even he had hoped for, while also getting regular work as an actor. But there was a downside. He saw friends struggle, sacrifice themselves to excess, fall by the wayside. “Everything was about going out and connecting with people at the clubs. I had a great time, but it was also a dark time. A lot of people took too many drugs. A few friends attempted to take their lives and one succeeded. That was devastating. You can see how easy it is for a party lifestyle to turn into something negative.”

Alexander has a strong survival instinct. There was his destiny to fulfil, the house to buy for his mother. He still struggled with his mental health, so he cut down on the destructive stuff. Today, he says, his main drug of choice is the antidepressant sertraline. “I was worried about longterm use, and the doctor said: ‘Well, the latest research shows it can promote neurogenesis, and I was like that’s the coolest thing ever.” Neurogenesis is the process by which new neurons are formed in the brain. “She was basically saying antidepressants are giving you superpowers, and I was like: ‘Amazing, I’ll keep taking them for ever.’” He starts giggling, and he can’t stop. “Neurogenesis – ooh, I love that. I’m going to be neuro-supercharged.”

Years & Years formed in 2010. Founder member and synth/bass/keyboard player Mikey Goldsworthy heard Alexander singing in the shower and asked if he wanted to become lead singer. When Alexander joined, Years & Years were a five-piece band, before shrinking to an electropop trio (Alexander, Goldsworthy and fellow guitarist and keyboard guru Emre Türkmen). Alexander, the main songwriter, has an ear for great sweeping choruses (think Sam Smith meets Pet Shop Boys with a dash of New Order). Their first album, Communion, went to No 1 in the UK, while the song King topped the singles chart and its follow-up, Shine, reached No 2. Many of their songs are about yearning and doomed love – particularly on their second album, Palo Santo – just like the first one he wrote aged 10.

Alexander also became known as an LGBTQ campaigner. He made a documentary, Growing Up Gay, for the BBC in which he talked to his mother in a tear-filled exchange about coming out; he also interviewed people about struggles with their sexuality, the pressure to be promiscuous and take drugs, and addressed schoolchildren about homophobia and mental health problems. Does he think of himself as an activist? He shakes his head. “It does a disservice to actual activists. There’s a tendency to use that word for anyone in the public eye speaking up about any issue. Going into schools and talking about mental health isn’t activism. I like doing that. If I can be helpful, I want to help.”

The week before we meet he was named celebrity of the year at the British LGBT awards. He doesn’t know why – he says he didn’t do anything in 2020. “Maybe they heard about my upcoming role and got in there early!”

He says he has learned so much from making It’s a Sin – not least about acting, and how tough it can be. “Doing an acting job where you have to turn up every day is really challenging. I was so used to my musician lifestyle, which is usually: get up late, get in a car, get driven to an airport, get on a plane, fall asleep, arrive somewhere, get driven to the venue, roll out of the car and do the show. It was too much like hard work every day. I thought I’d got past this!”

We see a lot of Alexander in It’s a Sin – in every sense. He gets more than his share of sex scenes, and says it was fascinating being taught how to do them properly. So he enjoyed them? “All those hot guys. That aspect I loved! And going into it I thought, I’m going to have so much fun doing this, I’m a confident-ish guy, love having sex, it will be great.” That’s so refreshing, I say, to hear actors admit they enjoy sex scenes.

Ah, well, he says, it wasn’t quite that simple – he initially became self-conscious. “I broke down into hysterical tears, like ‘don’t fucking touch me’. I found it really hard.” Then the intimacy coordinators got to work on him. “They were a life-changing experience. Intimacy coordinators are there for safety ’cos there’s a lot of shit that can go wrong between what a director wants and what an actor wants, and boundaries being crossed. They’re there to rehearse everything beforehand with the director and the performers. You talk about animals you might imitate, the sounds you make.” He pays tribute to intimacy coordinator extraordinaire Ita O’Brien, who introduced the Intimacy on Set guidelines in 2017 and worked on Normal People as well as It’s a Sin. “Anything with sex in it, she’ll be involved. She’ll be on all fours at one point, saying: ‘Now I’m going to be like a cow and moo in ecstasy.’ She’s amazing, amazing, amazing.” And yes, he did start to enjoy the scenes.

Did he find them arousing? Now it’s my turn to blush and I apologise for the question. Did he start to enjoy it too much? “No, that’s what I want to know. What if someone gets a hard-on – how embarrassing would that be? Ita said: ‘It’s natural and normal for certain body parts to get excited and if you get an erection that’s absolutely fine, but it’s not appropriate for the workplace.’” He adds a caveat: “Depending on what kind of job you’re doing. And she said: ‘If that happens, you just take a time out. So you’re all there thinking, OK, how embarrassing – because you say time out and everybody knows it’s because you’ve got a hard-on. Hahahhaa!” Did he have to take a time out? “No!” Did anyone? “Not to my knowledge.”

Who did he have most fun with? “I’d say best kiss was the guy who plays Ash [newcomer Nathaniel Curtis]. Great kisser.” And the best shag? “Sexual simulation,” he corrects me. “Best sexual simulation was Roscoe [Omari Douglas, another relative newcomer].” Has he told them? “It’s all coming out in this article, Simon.” And I can sense him calibrating what he has just said. “It’s going to ruin my standing!” But a second later he changes his mind. “No, that’s a compliment right? I compliment them both. Hahahaha!” And he laughs giddily.

I ask about the future. You sense he’s not sure where to go from here, acting-wise – that it can’t get any better than It’s a Sin. Fortunately, he owes the band an album’s worth of songs. He had them done and dusted before the pandemic. “But all that time in my flat going insane made me realise I didn’t like any of the music, it didn’t feel relevant. I just wanted to start again, which is what I did. Now it’s almost ready – again.”

It will be only their third album in seven years. “I know,” he says. “It’s embarrassing. Ariana Grande has had about five out in the time we’ve done one.” In the meantime, he says, Türkmen has had one baby, with another on the way.

What about his own love life? “It’s pretty dire.” Sex? “I’m hopeful to have more sex … it’s very difficult in the age of Covid if you’re single. I actually tried to lock someone down who would be my ‘friends with benefits’ sex buddy, because I saw that Holland were advising people to do that. In the first lockdown I said: ‘Look, we can just have sex with each other. I trust you, you trust me, we’re not together, but this is an arrangement. I’ve not had sex in six months, what do you think?’ But he said no. I was quite upset. So yeah, not a lot of sex in 2020.” For a split-second, the puckish Alexander looks forlorn. Then he grins his toothiest grin yet. “But I’m hopeful that it will pick up in the new year!”

It’s a Sin is on Channel 4 on 22 January at 9pm

#olly alexander #years & years #years and years #yearsandyears #articles #guardian #interviews #itsasin #boys #acting #television

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ludjaci · 4 years ago

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💉🔥✘ for all yo muses >)

bish i s2g. ok here goes

💉: Do they suffer from any sort of chronic illness or bodily fragility?

I'd say no, she's very very resilient and her immune system is very good--she takes care of herself. she has to be healthy and beautiful for her senpai <3

🔥: What’s a place that left them motivated in some fashion?

She feels most at peace and most motivated alone in her house, in her room, where she has, amongst other things, a shrine for her beloved senpai, and she believes it binds their souls together and she's that much more motivated to win their heart!

✘: Who do they detest the most? Do they typically avoid this person or antagonize them?

Ayano detests anyone who gets close to her object of affection--closeness can range from being her darling's friend, or to just existing in the vicinity of her darling. at best, she'll try and benignly manipulate the problem person to move away, in worst case she'll kidnap and torture them until they break

💉: Do they suffer from any sort of chronic illness or bodily fragility?

Chloe doesn't take care of herself that much so she's not exactly peaking when it comes to physical health... she tends to get colds n stuff like that easily. Also, back problems, springtime allergies, blech

🔥: What’s a place that left them motivated in some fashion?

the junkyard. so many memories good and bad, so much time spent thinking things through, and putting plans in motion whether on her own or with Rachel or even Max

✘: Who do they detest the most? Do they typically avoid this person or antagonize them?

Not to be depressing but I think the person Chloe detests most of all is her own self, and it reflects in how she treats and sees others, and it's why she's so careless and impulsive and has the tendency to get herself in dangerous situations

💉: Do they suffer from any sort of chronic illness or bodily fragility?

well... there's him being a vampire (...or is he???), and there's him having some kind of a unspecified, but definitely chronic mental illness, possibly caused by drug abuse... or the vampire curse... who knows...

🔥: What’s a place that left them motivated in some fashion?

when he was but a human teenage boy and ran away from home to get in the car with his shady friends and they drove to an underground party/concert in the capital of the country and he felt so much joy watching some dudes scream non-sensical dramatic lyrics into the mic while playing dark tunes on the guitar and he was like 'yes, i'll be a musician one day, probably, if i survive that far'

✘: Who do they detest the most? Do they typically avoid this person or antagonize them?

Messiah is usually too phlegmatic to detest someone in particular--rather, he thinks it's the whole damn world that's shitty--but if he doesn't vibe well with someone he WILL go out of his way to avoid them or ignore them... and if it's not possible he'll get really irritable and snappy, and if provoked too much he'll get REALLY scary and possibly violent. Just don't poke him too hard ok

💉: Do they suffer from any sort of chronic illness or bodily fragility?

He does have a form of anxiety due to the childhood abuse he went through... also, asthma, tho it doesn't affect him frequently, just when he gets too anxious or exerts himself physically... and his face is very sensitive bc of his scars

🔥: What’s a place that left them motivated in some fashion?

whenever he visits josuke's or koichi's house and hangs out with their families and he feels warm and welcome and appreciated...

✘: Who do they detest the most? Do they typically avoid this person or antagonize them?

He detests anyone who tries to start shit with him or his friends and he doesn't think twice before getting over-protective and maybe even outright aggressive if he feels their safety threatened enough, or if he feels they're being insulted or etc

💉: Do they suffer from any sort of chronic illness or bodily fragility?

So when he was a kid and played on the beach he broke his rib and ever since whenever he's in places where there's high pressure he feels sharp pains in his lungs

🔥: What’s a place that left them motivated in some fashion?

He's been to so many places, seen so many things, talked to so many ppl, but Morioh is his muse and the place he feels his life truly began

✘: Who do they detest the most? Do they typically avoid this person or antagonize them?

The classic example of someone Rohan detests is Josuke (even if it's kinda petty), but he doesn't really go out of his way to either avoid him or antagonise him--it just happens naturally. Rohan also very much dislikes people who are selfish and corrupt and a menace to society, tho they also kinda interest him, but like in a 'eughh ur such a horrible human being and ur going to hell but i wanna know who hurt you' way

💉: Do they suffer from any sort of chronic illness or bodily fragility?

Guy's been through so much shit that barely anything can get to him while he's in his prime, tho i think as he gets older his body starts to show effects of all the abuse and wounds and stress and etc he'd endured. also there's the depression which comes and goes

🔥: What’s a place that left them motivated in some fashion?

moreso a person than a place... at least in the case of the grey warden letting him live and join the party, because that's when zev finds his lost will to live... and if the grey warden let him off, i think zev ends up in the alienage in denerim right when it's in 'quarantine' and starts looking into shit and comes to some realisations and still ends up abandoning his life as an assassin and being on the run and dismantling morally questionable organisations bc it was #fate

✘: Who do they detest the most? Do they typically avoid this person or antagonize them?

Zev rarely cares enough to outright detest someone, and he is rather lax when it comes to morality, being an assassin himself... tho if there really is someone who grinds his gears, he'll do his best to ignore them but not go out of his way to ignore them--if he can't ignore them he'll get rly nasty and snarky and even outright cruel--or just eliminate them if they're a threat to him or his values

#hehe jk thanks tho i love comparing how different they all are :O #hc ( ayano ) : and i felt nothing #hc ( chloe ) : tbt #hc ( messiah ) : tbt #hc ( okuyasu ) : tbt #hc ( rohan ) : how perceptive of you to notice...#hc ( zevran ) : tbt

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watercolourferns · 6 months ago

Text

Here's my response. It's kinda long.

On the victim blaming: The problem is that Em showcases the book as a partial autobiography, not inspired, not fictional, a partial autobiography*. But due to all her lying we don't even know if it's really an autobiography. I didn't try to frame it as victim blaming, not my intention and I apologise that it came across that way. But it also cannot be a case of "you're blaming EA, a victim of the system!" because... was she EVEN in the system? She very well could have, but she very well could have not. Why do people question even that? Because of all her lying. She lied about her family in that book, she lied about her name in that book... what else is she lying about? Had she not framed it as a partial autobiography* then nobody would bat an eyelash. Does that make more sense?

On the showing that there are channels: Em makes it seem like there's nothing more you can do as a victim of psychiatric violence. This renders people who take her word for granted and don't do critical thinking helpless. Yes, as victims of psych violence we most of the time encounter dead-ends, that's a huge fact. And it doesn't matter what place of the world you're in it's a universal truth that as psych patients we're far more vulnerable to medical violence. So yes, we most of the time encounter dead ends. But I say most because there's instances where psych patients do report and do get justice, because there are channels for it and it's important for people to know they exist.

This is another example of Em's fatalist and absolutist mentality, where if it happened to her it has to have happened to everyone else just the same and the way she sees things is the only truth. It shows in her fatphobia and in her anti-medication mentality as well. And it prevented a lot of people from being healthy and happy and doing the best they could to live fulfilling lives as teenagers. She romanticises all of this, and again, since her book was advertised as partially non-fiction*, tons of teenagers took it as such and started to think this way. And as adults many haven't shaken off that romantization. AGAIN, yes, there's psych violence and we're subjected to it a lot and most of the time we don't see justice (hence making us victims) and no IT'S NOT OUR FAULT that that's happened to us, but that doesn't mean there's no channels for reporting and there's nothing we can do about it. We can fight back against a flawed system. It's hard, and it's slow, and sometimes it doesn't yield results like we'd like it to, but it does make changes, there ARE other ways, there ARE other possibilities. Em doesn't think that way, and that's harmful to her fanbase. On the message of "mental healthcare is still frequently bad for patients": This is also the issue because it's fundamentally not true anymore. It's not frequently bad for patients anymore. It still takes a few hit and misses to find the correct group of therapists, psychs, and doctors in general? Yes, but it's nowhere near as bleak and bad as it was in the 70's all the way to the late 90's. The problem rn? It's the money.

And that's another harmful thing about Em and her book: her message is dated and exposed in a very harmful way. By the time she published her book a lot of advancements had been made in the US towards mental health that didn't align with what she was talking about. Now, this might seem as me saying "What she's saying isn't tru!" but it's not, what I'm trying to say is that it was true for the time period she claims to have been institutionalized ONLY. Yet, she keeps acting as if it was the same by the time she published her book.

And it wasn't, it isn't. So much has advanced from when she claims she was in the ward. She was 17 back then, she's 45 rn. It's been 28 years since she claims was first in there, believe me a ton has changed in that time. But she hasn't updated her view on it, till she left the internet for good (seemingly) she still harped on everything she harped on all those years ago. Her view is outdated and unrealistic and it's still influencing her fanbase in a very bad way, it seems. On the book and it's iterations: She changed quite a bit from what I've been able to compare: she pulled a lot of characters out; she changed Sachiko's name, she wasn't Sachiko before; gives a ton of protagonism to Emily with Y, so the autobiographic side of the book is weirdly distorted; there's no longer any cutting diaries, and a long list of etc.

Conclusion:

Em is a problematic figure. I still love her music and I love her book, and I routinely listen to it or The Gown when I'm stressed out. But that doesn't mean people can't criticise her, her exposition of a very delicate topic, and her subsequent attitude towards being called out on lies and other things. And that doesn't mean we blame the victim, but she's not a perfect little thing just because she was a victim. Only children are "perfect victims". And no, she didn't ask for anything bad that happened to her, but her general pessimism about life in general and psych health in particular should always be taken with a grain of salt.

Now on the fact that your blog only has like two followers... I don't care how little a blog is, doing that is still wrong. But thank you for erasing the post and I accept the apology. In the future if you have anything to discuss with me you can send me a message or an ask.

*Notes: here's the instances were the book has been described as semi-autobiographical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asylum_for_Wayward_Victorian_Girls https://www.amazon.com/Asylum-Wayward-Victorian-Girls/dp/0998990922 (it doesn't outright say it but it does has "harsh reality") And I remember it being said in her website, but I can't find it.

@watercolourferns

sorry, I did delete the post because I realize I was a bit heated. not trying to target anyone, just express my point of view, and maybe have a conversation. I'm mentally ill too, I think probably there aren't many EA fans who aren't, tbh. if other people have access to effective recourse when doctors mistreat them, obviously that's a good thing, that should be the standard in every case. but I still seriously don't understand what the point is of just restating that hospital administration exists, especially in response to someone else on that post sharing their own experience of how ineffective it can be. I will admit, I haven't read the more recent revisions of her book, but I can't imagine she's changed so much as to stray terribly far from the message "mental healthcare is still frequently bad for patients". Again, I don't want to attack you personally, however the original confession IS blatant victim blaming, and I am genuinely confused by your responses. I'm putting this under a read more so you don't feel like I'm putting you on blast or anything, but if it makes you feel any better to know, this is a blog that only has 2 followers anyway

#fern is speaking #emilie autumn #the asylum for wayward victorian girls #fandom discourse

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barpurplewrites · 6 years ago

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Lack of Reflection

Tonight House of Horror offers that classic creepy monster; the Vampire. And for this vampire there are definitely things that go bump in the night.

-x-x-x-x-

Belle was exhausted.

"At least the rent is covered and with tips I can eat."

Is was small comfort at two in the morning as she headed to her car, the grimy neons of the Rabbit Hole flickering off behind her. She hated working at the local dive bar, but it was the only job she'd been able to get. That wasn’t entirely true, she could have worked for her Dad.

She shuddered at the thought of being stuck in the flower shop with him from nine to five every day. He’d been bad enough with the passive aggressive digs at her choices when she was a teenager, but since she came back from college he’d given up on any pretence of subtly and was now blunt in his disapproval. He was also convinced that ‘a nice man’ would look after her and prevent any more ‘silliness’. No matter how many articles and leaflets she left lying around in his kitchen, he still held the opinion that mental health problems could be cured by the right man in her life.

At least she only saw Dad a few times a week now. She loved him, but one more demand that she settle down and she'd stuff him into that awful giant vase he used for the Valentine’s display. She grinned to herself as she crossed the car park; Dad’s large frame crammed into the horrible red glass vase might be a better Halloween display.

Her little blue car was starting to look a bit battered, but the engine was sound thanks to Billy. She'd helped him study for his GED so he looked after her car on the cheap. He was a star, but he still couldn’t get the heater to work all the time. He was convinced that a gremlin had taken up residence.

Even though she was the only car in the parking lot she checked her mirrors before she reversed out of the space. The bump and thump came as a hell of a shock. Belle jumped out of the car but left the engine running. She paused half way out and grabbed the flashlight from the glove box, more as an impromptu weapon than for the light it would provide.

Edging around the back of the car she braced herself to the fender hanging off, or worse an injured animal. The sight of a man groaning on the ground by her back bumper was not what she had been expecting.

“Where the hell did you come from?”

The man rolled over and groaned; “Scotland.”

“What?”

“What what?”

They stared at each other, both desperately trying to work out what the hell the other was talking about. The man shakily sat himself up and hissed. Belle blamed the poor light for the strange way his teeth glinted. He was grimacing in pain and rubbing at his hip. She was going to have to be the one to start making sense

“I checked my mirrors there was nothing behind me. How did I hit you?”

“Oh right. Mirrors don’t work for me.”

Belle waited sure that he was going to make some joke about his looks or dark clothes. Nothing. He just kept looking at her like she was supposed to understand. Belle sighed and offered him a hand; “Come on, I should take you to the hospital, get that bump on your head looked at.”

He took her hand and she had to stop herself wincing at how cold he was. It took a good tug to get him on to his feet. He wobbled a bit and slumped against the back of her car.

“I didn’t bump my head.”

Belle didn’t believe that for a hot second. Anyone who could claim that mirrors didn’t work for them must have a concussion. It wasn’t like a mirror could breakdown or need a software update.

“Yeah well, still best to get you checked out.”

He tilted his head to one side and looked directly at her. The lights in the carpark must be on the fritz because the gold flecks in his brown eyes looked like they were swirling.

“You’d let a strange man in your car with you?”

Belle blinked and stepped back. What the hell had she been thinking? She’d never seen this man before, he’d appeared out of nowhere and now she was offering to drive him to the hospital. He could be a killer. She shivered at that thought.

The man leaned forward and whispered; “Might be best if you just went home.”

Belle was in two minds. She’d just knocked this man over with her car, at the very least she should call an ambulance or the Sheriff. On the other hand, she had a sudden intense desire to get home as quickly as possible.

“Yeah. I should go home.”

Rum watched as she got into her car. At least his powers of suggestion hadn’t been affected by getting knocked over. He limped out of the way as she reversed the car, he didn’t think he could cope with getting hit twice tonight. Tales of vampire super strength and resistance to injury were greatly overstated in fiction. He’d just been hit by a car and it hurt. True he’d recover a damn sight faster than a human, but right now he was still feeling to shaky to move at more than a slow stagger.

She gave him a curious look as she drove past him. Please let his suggestion work. Had he told her to forget him? Damn he didn’t think he had. It looked like she worked in the bar, he could always come back in a few days and make sure she’d never remember him. He stayed perfectly still until she reached the entrance to the car park. The brake lights of her car came on, she must be checking the road was clear.

Rum groaned when he saw her hair flick as she twisted in her seat and peered out of the rear window. Okay, this wasn’t good. She turned back and checked her mirrors again. Rum crossed his fingers that she’d decided she was tired and seeing things. He groaned again as the engine revved and the car began speeding back towards him. He clenched his teeth. This was going to hurt like hell.

Belle’s head bounced off the head rest as she collided with the man. She hissed at the taste of blood in her mouth. Her dad was always telling she she’d bite through her lip if she persisted in nibbling it, for once he was right about something. Thankfully he wasn’t here to be smug about it.

Oh gods. She'd run the man over again and this one was no little bump. She gripped the steering wheel and tried to calm her breathing. She couldn’t remember a single one of the breathing exercises that Dr Hopper had taught her. Her ragged gasps were loud in the small car. Had she really seen a man who didn't have a reflection? Vampire. No that was ridiculous. Vampires were not real. She was over tired and seeing things again. She ground the heels of her hands into her eyes. If she was hallucinating again this was the worst episode she'd had in a long time. He'd felt solid and sounded real.

She jumped as something knocked on the back bumper.

"Hello? Erm, would you mind pulling forward. Please?"

There was a Scottish lilt to the voice. He'd said he was from Scotland. Moving as if she was trapped inside a jelly she slowly went through the motions of easing the car forward. Without thinking about it she wrapped her fingers around the flash light she'd tossed on the passenger seat and opened the door.

Rum bit out a couple of swear words as the car rolled off his leg. He'd expected to be flung backwards, but somehow, he'd ended up under the back wheel. This was going down as one of the shittiest nights in his immortal life. Hit by the same car twice in the space of ten minutes. Was this worse than the night he'd drunk from that opium eater and tried to fly from the top of a four-storey building? Yes, definitely. That landing had hurt but he’d been so high he'd giggled as he twisted his knees back the right way.

Oh great, his maniac driver was getting out of the car. He didn't have the strength left to suggest that she please fuck off and leave him alone.

The light prod of her toe to his ribs didn't improve his mood. He felt rather put out by the yelp she gave, he was the one lying on the floor in agony, why was she screaming?

"Fuck! You are real! Shit! I am so sorry. Okay this time I am taking you to hospital."

Rum tried to sit up an instantly regretted it; "No hospital. I just need..." -How the hell was he supposed to say he just needed to get back to the graveyard? - "... just need to go home."

It was true, but she wasn't going to believe where he lived. Maybe he could roll out of the car as they passed by the gates? The very thought of hitting the asphalt at speed made him moan.

She'd crouched down and brushed the hair out of his face. The blood heat of her hands on his cool skin made his fangs throb.

"I'm sorry I thought you were an hallucination."

Rum snorted; "Did vampire not cross your mind?"

"Well yeah, but that’s mad."

Rum was in too much pain to care about keeping his nature hidden. He pulled his lips back in rictus grin and let his fangs drop. His fangs were impressive, a bit flashy thanks to some twisted sense of humour of his changing.

Belle’s mouth dropped in shock at the sight of the needle-sharp gold fangs that filled the man's mouth.

"You're a vampire."

All Rum could focus on was the sweet red blood in her mouth. It looked like she’d cut her lip. That smear of crimson was so inviting, so tempting, and looked downright delicious. He raised his hand to cup her face, she flinched, but didn’t pull back. A quick swipe of his thumb over her lip and his had his prize. He lapped at his thumb and sighed happily as the taste of iron and salt bloomed across his tongue.

Belle scooted away. Watching him suck her blood from his thumb hammered home the fact he was a real vampire. This was a really fucking weird night. He was staring at her lips and for a heartbeat she thought he was going to pounce her. He dropped his gaze and gave an embarrassed cough.

“I, erm, I don’t suppose I could take you up on that lift, maybe, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Belle gave him a good hard look. She knew fake shy and bumbling, plenty of the men who frequented the Rabbit Hole employed it as a flirting tactic. For many of them it was a very thin mask that attempted to conceal what complete and utter jerks they were. She wasn’t getting any alarm bells from the vampire.

“What’s your name?”

He looked up at her, not the least bit of surprise on his features; “Robert Fitzglen, I go by Rum.”

“Belle French. Come on let’s get you up.”

Getting him upright wasn’t as difficult as Belle had thought it might be. He was heavily favouring his right leg, and he’d winced as she wrapped an arm around his ribs, but for a bloke who’d been hit by a car twice tonight he was in good shape. She got him settled into the passenger seat and then hopped into the car.

“Okay, so hospital?”

“No, no, please no. Draws far too many questions. The graveyard please.”

“Seriously?”

He chuckled; “Yeah I know, it’s a cliché, but I don’t sleep in a grave or a crypt. There’s a cabin for the groundskeeper.”

“And they don’t mind you using it?”

“Not at all, since I am the groundskeeper,” – he waved away her obvious question, - “long story.”

Her bar-tender senses told her that was a ‘I don’t want to talk about it’, but it felt like a not-right-now, rather than a never-at-all. The idea that she might see Rum again after tonight made her smile as she started the car.

Rum could feel that Belle had a million questions, but she let him be. Damn good thing to because he was feeling woozy and was almost sure talking would make him throw up.

“We’re here. I can’t get any closer because the gates are locked.”

He started at Belle’s voice and blinked at the shape of the graveyard gates through the windshield.

“I can manage from here. Thank you, Belle.”

He turned to look at her and found her worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Is this where you work some vampire mojo on me, so I forget all about you?”

It should be, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t know where this reluctance was coming from, but it was there pushing an invite to come and visit him one night onto the tip of his tongue. He swallowed that mad impulse and instead said; “Don’t have to, unless you’re going to go telling all and sundry that you ran over a vampire. Twice.”

She shook her head; “Nah, I think I’ll be keeping this to myself. Got to think about what this would do to my insurance premiums.”

Rum huffed a laugh; “Very sensible. Insurance companies are worse blood suckers than me.”

She smiled at his pathetic joke, and then smothered a yawn with her hand. It was very late for her. Rum opened the car down and stepped out. Once the door was closed again Belle wound the window down, so he ducked his head and said; “Good night Belle. Drive home safe and sleep well.”

“See you around Rum.”

As the little blue car drive away Rum wondered if it was her Australian accent that had made her last words sound like a question, or if she had been asking would they meet again. He licked his lips and caught the last faint taste of her blood. A sudden and rare certainty struck him; he would be seeing Belle French again and it would be sooner rather than later.

#halloween house of horror 2018 #rumbelle #vampires

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a-k-a-ruenis · 6 years ago

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Small Shock

Rating; Teen and +

Fandom; Aldnoah.Zero

Relationship; Slaine Troyard / Kaizuka Inaho

Tags; Mental Health Issues, Depression, Anxiety

Chapter 1/?

Story under the cut!

Alternatively, please click here to read it on my Ao3!

Chapter 1

Being a navy officer on the Wadatsumi is surprisingly enjoyable.

She is a rather large ship, and given her lack of artillery, the crew is not expected to engage in very many skirmishes. She is expected to mostly transport cargo instead, crates of food, barrels of gunpowder, boxes of various weaponry.. she brings them to various ports and countries, as well as small groups of people occasionally, whether they be captured pirates or citizens of various places.

Though she serves naval officers a small crew of naval officers, her fleet is not expected to specialise in fighting. They do board pirate ships every-so-often when prompted to, and they are rather adept at handling themselves, adept enough to prevent any major injury. Each and every one of them are properly, rigorously trained. Before the Wadatsumi sets sail, any new, potential enlistments are tested on their skill with any kind of sword and gun – any other weapon training or testing is done off-ship. Most crewmen use the standard rapier and pistol combo, it being the most easy to learn.

Kaizuka Inaho has a rapier of his own, though he rarely uses it. It was a gift from his sister when he informed her of his final decision to enlist in the fleet as she did. It is made of silver, and it looks more decorative than usable, if he is to be honest, though it functions perfectly well for what it was made to do. Like most of the crew, he also has a pistol with him, that he uses far more frequently, more used to how it works and feels.

“Hey, be careful, Nao!” a familiar voice calls.

Inaho turns his head slightly to find Yuki leaning over the railing near the ship's wheel, a small, worried frown on her features. Adjusting himself somewhat as he leans against the ship's railing, he offers her a small nod and a wave of acknowledgment.

Even as an adult, he is still rather petite and childish looking; he has not from much from his teenage years, and is nearing the age where people generally seem to stop growing any taller. During his three years of enlistment, he has gone overboard twice no thanks to rough waters and his inability to weigh down a rowboat by himself. Both times, he nearly drowned, and would have had it not been for the crew’s quick rescue of him.

“It’s been awhile since you’ve fallen off, though,” another voice offers, teasing.

Grunting softly when a sudden weight is thrown over his shoulders, Inaho finds himself being pushed gently against the railing. It is enough to pin him down, but not enough to hurt him. “Calm..” He tries to maneuver himself out from under the blond, failing when the other rests more of his weight against him.

Calm snickers, playfully pushing Inaho down more. “You prob’ly shouldn’t lean against the railing. You might fall over again,” he teases, knowing full well that Inaho cannot follow his advice. Though he is younger, he takes joy in the fact that he can overpower the other in at least this way.

In actual combat, Inaho is faster.

“Anyway..” Calm hums, “Nina spotted a pirate ship followin’ us in the distance.. So the cap'n says not to wander off this time, when we board, ‘kay?”

Inaho makes a soft sound of acknowledgment.

“Great. I’ll see ya, then!” Calm says, pulling away. Before his friend can retaliate, he runs back toward the hold, leaving the brunet to only gaze after him in slight frustration.

The ocean’s waves are loud in his ears, and Inaho glances back toward Yuki, who is still at the helm with a quiet Marito. There is no way she had heard their conversation, though she would most likely agree with their captain – there is little doubt that he remains a naval officer solely because of Yuki’s intervention, and for that, he is grateful.

Captain Magbaredge gives him the same instructions each time they come across pirates.

.. Inaho just chooses not to listen, most of the time.

The crew is like family, in a way. Inaho regards most of them as such. Like a family, they have someone they are supposed to listen to – their Captain Magbaredge, who is the highest rank on the ship and is charged with giving them orders that the crew carries out.

However, though Inaho knows and understands that captain Magbaredge is several ranks above him.. he has little understanding and acknowledgment for authority. Growing up with mainly Yuki to serve as an ‘authority’ figure did not do much for him, especially when he was on his own while she was out to sea.

Captain Magbaredge’s orders are important, but he sees no reason to follow them if there is something he is capable of doing on his own.

Inaho wants to help and keep busy. So he finds things to do, even if it means ignoring the captain's orders.

Disregarding the captain’s orders as he wanders through the pirate’s hold, he listens as the Wadatsumi crew scrambles about above him, their footsteps heavy and loud. The pirates are tied up and subdued, so that the captain can question them. Pirates following a visibly naval ship is not a good sign.

The pirates do not have much in the way of treasure down here, a disappointment he has grown used to. Not many pirates have anything akin to treasure at all, and most of the time, they simply have stolen ammunition and weapons. From what Inaho has seen so far, their food supply is ample, and they have a dangerously large weapon supply – once he returns, he will have to inform the captain, and they will have to confiscate the guns and gunpowder.

Making his way toward the last cabin, he slows down upon seeing that this door is different than the others. It is shut, for one, and lacks a proper viewing window, making it unlike all the others. Even the captain’s door has a small window with bars over it. He turns the knob slowly, hand at his side, ready to draw his gun if need be, and hesitantly peeks his head through the gap.

Inaho sucks in a surprised breath upon seeing what is inside.

“Sound off!” Magbaredge order. A young woman with hair the same shade of a raven's wing stands beside her. “Mizusaki, take roll,” she says, gazing at the roll of parchment in her first mate’s hands. It lists the names of the Wadatsumi's crew, and is separated by the crew’s roles – those who are part of the fighting squad, and those who mainly remain on the ship during raids.

“Marito?”

“Present.”

“Kakei?”

“Present!”

“Amifumi?”

“Present, ma'am!”

“Kaizuka senior?”

“Present.”

“Kaizuka junior?”

Immediately looking around at their small gathering, Yuki groans inwardly upon seeing that, once again, her little brother is nowhere to be found. “Why, Nao..?” she sighs, shaking her head a few times, “The captain’s going to chew you out again..!”

“.. Kaizuka junior?” Mizusaki calls again, raising her head from the parchment. She scans the deck slowly, trying to make sure the young officer is not hiding amongst the detained pirates or their own crew. When she does not see him, she looks to the other woman at her side, meeting Magbaredge’s narrowed green eyes. “Captain..”

“Kakei, get Craftman,” Magbaredge orders, earning a quick salute from the man before he runs across the deck. Kakei boards their own ship quickly, minding his steps when he crosses the plank that connects their ships, and disappears down into the hold through the open door.

Yuki sighs softly, wondering why Inaho persists in ignoring orders again and again. The captain does not punish him harshly, to be fair, and Inaho does the extra chores he is assigned without arguing. Or maybe her little brother just truly does not mind the consequences. “Captain..” she starts to say.

“We'll hold off on discussing punishment until we find him, Kaizuka,” Magbaredge says, shaking her head somewhat. “He has to be found first.”

“Captain, I have returned with Craftman.”

The two walk over, Calm's footsteps slightly heavier than Kakei's. It seems as if he was in the middle of repairs, still wearing his work uniform.

The boatswain smiles rather sheepishly as he gazes at the captain, pulling at his hair, “Yes, cap'n..?”

“You gave Kaizuka junior my orders, correct?”

“Y.. yes, cap'n,” Calm nods, carefully meeting her gaze, “I told him. And I thought he agreed, but..”

Magbaredge sighs as she shakes her head, pressing her fingers to her temple.

Inaho is.. one of the more unique officers they have come across. Hard working, but eccentric, and prone to causing more problems of his own when he wanders off. Though he has yet to become injured from his own recklessness, his luck is bound to eventually run out.

“I see,” the captain finally says, “Marito, take Kaizuka senior wi–..”

“G-get back here!”

Swift, heavy footsteps follow after the demand, causing Magbaredge and Mizusaki to turn around in surprise. Tensing up, Calm takes a few steps backward, having left his pistol and rapier back on the ship. Without any way to defend himself, he is a liability on deck.

“Behind, Craftman,” Kakei says, and Calm does just that, retreating to the railing, just behind the black haired young man. He, along with the rest of the crew draw their swords, rigid as the footsteps come closer and closer until –

“I.. Inaho?!”

Emerging from the hold, Inaho runs up the stairs as best he can, holding a rather oddly shaped bundled blanket against his chest. It almost looks like..

“Ah..”

Inaho loses his footing on the last stair, as well as his hold on the bundle. Both he and the bundle fall to the deck, though Inaho's head hits far harder than the bundle. The blanket stirs, a barely quiet whimper escaping it. “Grab him!” he says quickly, drawing his pistol. He aims is downward, at the stairwell leading to the hold. “I will shoot you if you move,” he says, “and so will the rest of our crew.” It is not a threat. There is no malice. It is a hard, cruel fact and he would not hesitate to do so should the pirate try anything.

The bundle stirs again, though this time it moves enough to be noticed. Another quiet whimper escapes it, causing Inaho to tense up.

“Yuki-nee. Marito,” he calls, hearing footsteps behind him, “please detain this person.” He gets up slowly, finger still on the delicate trigger to his pistol. A flick is all it would take. “Captain, when we get back, please charge them with kidnapping and unnecessary violence against an unarmed civilian.” Taking a few steps backward, he rests his free hand against the wall, keeping his eyes firm on the pirate, who is still collapsed on the stairway.

They had fallen when they tripped Inaho, and there is a glare on their features. Despite that, they remain still, and do not draw the shortsword at their waist. “That's our priceless treasure!” they cry, glare deepening when Marito forces their arms behind their back.

Marito sighs softly as Yuki unravels some rope that had been hanging on her belt, watching as she ties the pirate's wrists together like they had done the others. “You never cease to surprise, Kaizuka junior,” he murmurs, shaking his head.

“We're confiscating your 'priceless treasure',” Inaho says, ignoring the older man as he sheathes his pistol. Following after Yuki and Marito, he waits until they have passed to crouch down and pick the bundled blanket back up. He pulls the fabric aside to reveal a pained face belonging to a blond, who's features are that of confusion and fear. “People aren't 'treasures',” he mumbles, frowning somewhat as the blond coughs.

“They were detaining him?” Magbaredge questions, looking surprised. They have not had to deal with hostage situations for awhile, and no one has been reported missing recently. They make a point to check boards and receive messages and orders at each port they stop at.

“He was tied up in the hold, in a back room,” Inaho answers with a nod, taking a few short steps forward, “Captain, may I bring him to Yagarai?” Keeping quiet when the blond presses his face to his neck, his gaze slips to the blond’s ruffled, platinum hair. Another pained whimper escapes the hostage’s lips, low and soft.

“Do so immediately, Kaizuka junior. See to it that his injuries are properly attended to,” Magbaredge orders, gesturing to their own ship.

Inaho bows as best he can, careful not to drop the blond again, and continues toward the Wadatsumi.

“And, Kaizuka?”

“Yes, captain?” he asks, stopping to glance at her.

“You will not be reprimanded for going off on your own, but please think about the potential consequences to your actions.”

“.. yes, captain.”

#aldnoah.zero #inasure #orangebat #slaine troyard #kaizuka inaho #az #fanfiction #ruenis' work

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captain-maws · 7 years ago

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the entire idea that “technology is what causes teenage depression” is complete bullshit and i’ve seen way too many adults say this. so here’s why that premise is very wrong from the perspective of a teenager who actually has clinical depression, generalized anxiety disorder, adhd and schizophrenia.

first of all, i’ll admit that being on a device for an extended period of time isn’t the healthiest thing in terms of both mental and physical health. sure, maybe you’re bored and wanna spend a few hours online. always take a break at least every hour and a half if you’re working on something, talking to someone, etc. now, let’s get down to the scientific facts.

in the US, about 1/6 people will experience depression at some point in their lifetime. often times, depression is caused by stress, trauma from major events, too much work/overworking yourself, loss of a loved one, loneliness, and many other reasons. depression can also evolve from a mental condition that a person already has. i started suffering from depression after i was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, for example.

depression has also been proved to be genetic. if depression runs in your family, you have a 40% of suffering from it. many people get depression out of the blue, even when they have good living conditions, good social lives, and whatnot. this is because depression directly affects your brain. your body slows down the production of a hormone known as serotonin. serotonin is a hormone that regulates your mood, social behaviours, appetite, sleep, memory, and sexual functions. low levels of serotonin are one of the major causes of depression, which is why there are pills containing the hormone that help regulate a suffering patient’s serotonin levels.

here is a physical demonstration of a person without depression vs a person suffering from depression

shown here is the difference in activity in the frontal cortex of the brain. (aka prefrontal cortex or frontal lobe) the basic function, in summary, is to fabricate thoughts and actions based on internal goals.

“When healthy persons are presented with a strong emotional stressor that takes them from a neutral mood to a sad mood, limbic areas such as the subgenual cingulate turn on. At the same time, the cortex turns off, the central executor in the frontal lobe, the thinking areas that direct your attention. When you get sad, your limbic system goes into gear, the cortex turns off and you can't think straight.”

in a way, depression causes a chemical in-balance within your brain.

now you’re probably thinking about how this relates to technology causing depression in teens. we’re getting there.

teenagers are more vulnerable to emotional distress because our brains are still developing. in fact, your brain doesn’t stop growing or developing until your mid-20s to early 30s. because we’re going through puberty and lots of changes in our lives, it’s obvious that we’d be more vulnerable to different emotional triggers.

according to I Need A Lighthouse, a depression and suicide awareness program, here are some statistics on teen depression:

“Approximately 20 percent of teens will experience depression before they reach adulthood.

Between 10 to 15 percent of teenagers have some symptoms of depression at any one time.

Depression increases a teen’s risk for attempting suicide by 12 times.

30 percent of teens with depression also develop a substance abuse problem.

Depressed teens usually have a smaller social circle and take advantage of fewer career and educational opportunities.

Depressed teens are more likely to have trouble at school and in jobs, and to struggle with relationships.”

now that you’re a little more educated on what exactly depression is, we’re going to look at this article. the article claims that:

Heavy cell phone use showed an increase in sleep disorders in men and an increase in depressive symptoms in both men and women.

Those constantly accessible via cell phones were the most likely to report mental health issues.

Men who use computers intensively were more likely to develop sleeping problems.

Regular, late night computer use was associated with sleep disorders, stress and depressive symptoms in both men and women.

Frequently using a computer without breaks further increases the risk of stress, sleeping problems and depressive symptoms in women.

A combination of both heavy computer use and heavy mobile use makes the associations even stronger.

“Heavy cell phone use showed an increase in sleep disorders in men and an increase in depressive symptoms in both men and women.” well, yes, that’s actually true, but only when you use your phone late at night. staying up late on your phone makes your brain awaken each second you stare at your screen. when seeing the light, your brain still thinks it’s daytime. i use a laptop for school, and i definitely use it 6+ hours each day, however that doesn’t affect my depressive symptoms. my symptoms are just as bad when i don’t use my phone/computer for a day (i did an experiment on myself to see if my symptoms would decrease without technology, answer was no)

“Those constantly accessible via cell phones were the most likely to report mental health issues.” notice the word “constantly.” i stated before that constant usage of devices isn’t good for your mental health, especially without breaks in-between. that also just links to mood swings, as someone can feel consistently sad for a week, but that wouldn’t be considered depression. depressive symptoms carry on for more than two weeks. being on a screen for a long period of time only temporarily affects your mood, making you irritable, tired, or sad.

“Men who use computers intensively were more likely to develop sleeping problems.” using a computer and using a cell phone ultimately have the same effects on a person. again, your brain still thinks you’re awake. the easy cure to sleep problems is finding a better routine for sleep hygiene. staying away from screens 30 minutes before you go to bed actually helps your brain realize that it’s nighttime.

“Regular, late night computer use was associated with sleep disorders, stress and depressive symptoms in both men and women.” i’ll repeat what i said; using devices late at night will cause sleeping problems. it can also cause stress and headaches, but depressive symptoms? depressive symptoms have to persist for more than two weeks to be considered “diagnosable,” and even then your doctor will give it more time. depression is caused by many other things, not the usage of a computer.

the rest of the article is redundant, repeating the fact that technology has negative effects on our sleep.

lack of sleep can also lead to depressive symptoms, and that’s where i think most people get confused. when you sleep, your brain produces a hormone called melatonin, which acts as a mood balancer and gives your body the energy you need to function throughout the day. unhealthy sleep hygiene can lead to multiple nights of bad sleeps, which leads to irritability, and eventually leads to fatigue and sometimes even depression. there’s an easy fix to this, and all you have to do is get better sleeping habits. have a routine before you go to bed. we, as humans, naturally like routine. stay off of screens for 30 minutes to an hour before you go to sleep. brush your teeth. wash your face. something as little as that can help your body feel more comfortable.

if you’re struggling with depression, know that there are many people out there (like me) who feel the way you do. we live in an era where our world populations are constantly fighting each other. stress of the outside world can make us feel anxious small, even helpless. but know that there are people you can talk to. I Need a Lighthouse has a crisis line that can help you or someone you know dealing with depression. if you know someone suffering, please reach out.

as for those who don’t understand depression, please do research. read articles, search the internet. know that what we’re dealing with is very real and not just an excuse.

thanks for reading.

sincerely,

a teen who suffers from depression

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baileywhite · 5 years ago

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vimeo

Watch: If everyone agrees he isn't a criminal, why is he in jail?

While covering the trial of a young man accused of killing his mother’s partner, this was the question I kept asking. Graham Veitch admitted to the killing and desperately needed help. But for the better part of two years, he was in jail, instead of a mental health care facility.

Find the web version of this story on the CBC N.L. website or keep reading here.

Tomorrow is the day everything changes for Graham Veitch. Tomorrow he learns his fate.

Two years and six months after what was almost certainly the worst day of his own life and of many other lives around him, Veitch, 21, will learn if he will be held criminally responsible for the brutal killing of his mother's partner, David Collins.

Veitch is charged with second-degree murder, and a handful of other offences stemming from his flight from police after his attack on Collins.

He is being tried by judge alone, and his lawyers are arguing that he is not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder.

"Arguing" might actually be too strong a word. There's very little debate about anything in this trial, as the Crown and defence agree on just about everything.

Yes, Veitch killed Collins. Yes, he fled from police. Yes, he struck an officer with a stolen car.

And yes, Veitch has schizophrenia. Yes, it was undiagnosed when he slipped into a deep and dangerous psychosis.

No, he could not appreciate the consequences of his actions when he brought that hammer down on David Collins's head.

No, he should not be held criminally responsible.

However, for most of the last 30 months, the man who all sides agree is not a criminal has been living at Her Majesty's Penitentiary.

By many estimations, it is a jail fit for no man, let alone one grappling with the most serious of mental illnesses.

Jail before justice

"When a person is held in jail before trial, that's called remand custody," said Rosemary Ricciardelli, a sociologist at Memorial University who studies crime and corrections.

"That individual is considered either a flight risk or a risk to themselves or others, and thus they get held."

The provincial justice department said in an emailed statement that the "placement of inmates is done on a case-by-case basis" and inmates may be transferred to hospitals if they experience a mental health crisis.

Such arrangements are to deal with immediate problems, not long-term care.

"Unfortunately, they can't be held at the Waterford unless they're found guilty or [not] criminally responsible," Ricciardelli said.

Brutal attack

The gruesome nature of Veitch's actions is not in contention at this trial.

The first piece of evidence entered by the Crown was a lengthy agreed statement of facts, outlining the manner in which Veitch killed Collins, just moments after the two ate dinner together in their shared Logy Bay home on Dec. 18, 2016.

The younger man came up behind the elder and bludgeoned him with a hammer, over and over, until he believed Collins was dead.

To friends and family, the attack seemed to be a bolt from the blue. Though the teenager expressed to friends and family some misgivings about his mother's partner, witnesses said Collins was an upstanding person and the two got along fine. Veitch had never been violent.

Psychiatrist Nizar Ladha testified that Veitch was suffering intense delusions when he killed Collins. He believed Collins to be a danger to the Veitch family, and that killing him was the right thing to do.

What seemed to everyone else like a sudden explosion was actually a slow-burning fire.

An escalation toward a breaking point is typical for people with undiagnosed schizophrenia, said Dave Banko, executive director of the Schizophrenia Society of Newfoundland and Labrador.

"People aren't going to go and tell their friends and their family members that they're seeing things, hearing things," he said.

"They bottle that up, and oftentimes they will get worse until they have a psychotic episode," though such episodes aren't usually violent, Banko stressed.

The long wait

Scores of jurists, journalists and other advocates for free and open societies have argued that justice must be seen to be done.

If the most brazen of thieves and liars can skulk through the system without their peers knowing their crimes, it is reasoned, justice has not truly been meted out.

Similarly, if the public cannot see a defendant's mental health tested, how can we trust that the test has been conducted strenuously?

Veitch's mental health was tested by several psychiatrists who all came to the same conclusion.

Experts told the court it is impossible that Veitch faked his symptoms. The details of his behaviour after his arrest are disturbing. Less extreme incidents included eating paint chips, drinking toilet water and walking around naked.

For justice to be seen and done takes time in this country, and Veitch, like many others who have been deemed threats to society, has spent that time held in jail awaiting trial.

"It's interesting because prison in itself, depending on the conditions of confinement and how a person is treated, can really impact how a person fares," Ricciardelli said.

Some people do well in jail, the professor said. People who struggle to take their medications regularly, for instance, may find the regimented nature of prison life beneficial.

She believes the health department should take on a bigger role in corrections, something the province says is already in the works. A justice spokesperson said the two departments are working together and that the health department should have "responsibility for the provision of health services in prisons and the associated funding" by next year.

Ricciardelli says it is possible to treat people more like patients and less like criminals even before their trials conclude.

"Maybe it shouldn't have to wait until after trial," she said.

"Maybe if we can speed that up and do that sooner, we might be able to have a more effective experience."

An excruciating diagnosis

Schizophrenia is a cruel disorder, not only because of its severity, but because of the cascade of misery it can unleash. It manifests most often in teenagers and young adults on the cusp of maturity with their futures ahead. It is often misdiagnosed or misunderstood.

"Usually people will get diagnosed after everything else has been eliminated," Banko said.

"You don't really know if someone is hallucinating or seeing anything because they're the ones experiencing it. So oftentimes when people go and seek help, if they're not sharing that aspect … then they may only get treated for depression."

It's not until later, as the disorder progresses, that a true diagnosis is typically made, Banko said.

By then, a person living with it may have slipped into psychosis and away from reality, enveloped in a delusion and surrounded most often by auditory hallucinations that may command any number of actions, including suicide.

Only a small fraction of people with schizophrenia are violent, Banko said, but those are the cases that usually make the news.

"We don't hear the positive stories, we only hear the stuff in the news where someone commits a horrible act," he said.

The cost of this, he said, is tremendous stigma that discourages people who are suffering from seeking help and can even lead families to ignore important signs.

No one wants to believe they have a disorder that others are afraid of.

It's a disorder that, even when well managed, will require careful moderation and frequent changes to medications, many of which have taxing side effects including weight gain, loss of libido and organ damage.

"There is no one-size-fits-all," Banko said. "Sometimes the medication might work, and then for whatever reason, it might stop."

Banko wants everyone to know that it is doable for people with schizophrenia to lead perfectly normal lives. But is it doable in jail?

"Recovery is possible with pretty well everyone with a mental illness, but they need the support of family, caregivers, community supports, medical professionals," he said.

"But they don't have that in the correctional system. Especially in this province."

Decision day

At the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, no one is arguing that Graham Veitch is guilty of second degree murder, but the decision is Justice Sandra Chaytor's to make.

During closing submissions, Chaytor described the evidence as "not contentious" and thanked the two sides for their collaborative, sensitive approach.

If Graham Veitch is found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder, it does not mean he will walk free. He will almost certainly be transferred to the Waterford Hospital to be held indefinitely, until a review board deems him fit to be released.

Whatever happens, Ricciardelli said, it is unlikely that Veitch will be the last person with schizophrenia to be held in jail before a trial.

"In order to change our system," she began, "we have to start by changing the attitudes individuals have towards the people who are incarcerated and be willing to invest in all persons in our society."

#video #web

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humanoidkitten · 8 years ago

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And think about the weight of time: yes, that means you feel it every day. On very rare occasions, I get caught in a moment, as if something’s plucked me out of the world, where I realize that I haven’t thought about my illnesses for a few minutes, maybe a few precious hours. These blissful moments of oblivion are the closest thing to a miracle that I know. When you have chronic illness, life is reduced to a relentless rationing of energy. It costs you to do anything: to get out of bed, to cook for yourself, to get dressed, to answer an email. For those without chronic illness, you can spend and spend without consequence: the cost is not a problem. For those of us with limited funds, we have to ration, we have a limited supply: we often run out before lunch.

Ann Cvetkovich writes: “What if depression, in the Americas, at least, could be traced to histories of colonialism, genocide, slavery, legal exclusion, and everyday segregation and isolation that haunt all of our lives, rather than to be biochemical imbalances?” I’d like to change the word “depression” here to be all mental illnesses. Cvetkovich continues: “Most medical literature tends to presume a white and middle-class subject for whom feeling bad is frequently a mystery because it doesn’t fit a life in which privilege and comfort make things seem fine on the surface.” In other words, wellness as it is talked about in America today, is a white and wealthy idea.

There has been a slew of writing in recent years about how “female” pain is treated – or rather, not treated as seriously as men’s in emergency rooms and clinics, by doctors, specialists, insurance companies, families, husbands, friends, the culture at large. In a recent article in The Atlantic, called “How Doctors Take Women’s Pain Less Seriously,” a husband writes about the experience of his wife Rachel’s long wait in the ER before receiving the medical attention her condition warranted (which was an ovarian torsion, where an ovarian cyst grows so large it falls, twisting the fallopian tube). “Nationwide, men wait an average of 49 minutes before receiving an analgesic for acute abdominal pain. Women wait an average of 65 minutes for the same thing. Rachel waited somewhere between 90 minutes and two hours,” he writes. At the end of the ordeal, Rachel had waited nearly fifteen hours before going into the surgery she should have received upon arrival. The article concludes with her physical scars healing, but that “she’s still grappling with the psychic toll – what she calls ‘the trauma of not being seen.’”

Sick Woman Theory is for those who are faced with their vulnerability and unbearable fragility, every day, and so have to fight for their experience to be not only honored, but first made visible. For those who, in Audre Lorde’s words, were never meant to survive: because this world was built against their survival. It’s for my fellow spoonies. You know who you are, even if you’ve not been attached to a diagnosis: one of the aims of Sick Woman Theory is to resist the notion that one needs to be legitimated by an institution, so that they can try to fix you. You don’t need to be fixed, my queens – it’s the world that needs the fixing.

Sick Woman Theory is an insistence that most modes of political protest are internalized, lived, embodied, suffering, and no doubt invisible. Sick Woman Theory redefines existence in a body as something that is primarily and always vulnerable, following from Judith Butler’s work on precarity and resistance. Because the premise insists that a body is defined by its vulnerability, not temporarily affected by it, the implication is that it is continuously reliant on infrastructures of support in order to endure, and so we need to re-shape the world around this fact. Sick Woman Theory maintains that the body and mind are sensitive and reactive to regimes of oppression – particularly our current regime of neoliberal, white-supremacist, imperial-capitalist, cis-hetero-patriarchy. It is that all of our bodies and minds carry the historical trauma of this, that it is the world itself that is making and keeping us sick.

To take the term “woman” as the subject-position of this work is a strategic, all-encompassing embrace and dedication to the particular, rather than the universal. Though the identity of “woman” has erased and excluded many (especially women of color and trans and genderfluid people), I choose to use it because it still represents the un-cared for, the secondary, the oppressed, the non-, the un-, the less-than. The problematics of this term will always require critique, and I hope that Sick Woman Theory can help undo those in its own way. But more than anything, I’m inspired to use the word “woman” because I saw this year how it can still be radical to be a woman in the 21st century. I use it to honor a dear friend of mine who came out as genderfluid last year. For her, what mattered the most was to be able to call herself a “woman,” to use the pronouns “she/her.” She didn’t want surgery or hormones; she loved her body and her big dick and didn’t want to change it – she only wanted the word. That the word itself can be an empowerment is the spirit in which Sick Woman Theory is named.

The Sick Woman is an identity and body that can belong to anyone denied the privileged existence – or the cruelly optimistic promise of such an existence – of the white, straight, healthy, neurotypical, upper and middle-class, cis- and able-bodied man who makes his home in a wealthy country, has never not had health insurance, and whose importance to society is everywhere recognized and made explicit by that society; whose importance and care dominates that society, at the expense of everyone else.

The Sick Woman is anyone who does not have this guarantee of care.

The Sick Woman is told that, to this society, her care, even her survival, does not matter.

The Sick Woman is all of the “dysfunctional,” “dangerous” and “in danger,” “badly behaved,” “crazy,” “incurable,” “traumatized,” “disordered,” “diseased,” “chronic,” “uninsurable,” “wretched,” “undesirable” and altogether “dysfunctional” bodies belonging to women, people of color, poor, ill, neuro-atypical, differently abled, queer, trans, and genderfluid people, who have been historically pathologized, hospitalized, institutionalized, brutalized, rendered “unmanageable,” and therefore made culturally illegitimate and politically invisible.

The Sick Woman is a black trans woman having panic attacks while using a public restroom, in fear of the violence awaiting her.

The Sick Woman is the child of parents whose indigenous histories have been erased, who suffers from the trauma of generations of colonization and violence.

The Sick Woman is a homeless person, especially one with any kind of disease and no access to treatment, and whose only access to mental-health care is a 72-hour hold in the county hospital.

The Sick Woman is a mentally ill black woman whose family called the police for help because she was suffering an episode, and who was murdered in police custody, and whose story was denied by everyone operating under white supremacy. Her name is Tanesha Anderson.

The Sick Woman is a 50-year-old gay man who was raped as a teenager and has remained silent and shamed, believing that men can’t be raped.

The Sick Woman is a disabled person who couldn’t go to the lecture on disability rights because it was held in a venue without accessibility.

The Sick Woman is a white woman with chronic illness rooted in sexual trauma who must take painkillers in order to get out of bed.

The Sick Woman is a straight man with depression who’s been medicated (managed) since early adolescence and now struggles to work the 60 hours per week that his job demands.

The Sick Woman is someone diagnosed with a chronic illness, whose family and friends continually tell them they should exercise more.

The Sick Woman is a queer woman of color whose activism, intellect, rage, and depression are seen by white society as unlikeable attributes of her personality.

The Sick Woman is a black man killed in police custody, and officially said to have severed his own spine. His name is Freddie Gray.

The Sick Woman is a veteran suffering from PTSD on the months-long waiting list to see a doctor at the VA.

The Sick Woman is a single mother, illegally emigrated to the “land of the free,” shuffling between three jobs in order to feed her family, and finding it harder and harder to breathe.

The Sick Woman is the refugee.

The Sick Woman is the abused child.

The Sick Woman is the person with autism whom the world is trying to “cure.”

The Sick Woman is the starving.

The Sick Woman is the dying.

And, crucially: The Sick Woman is who capitalism needs to perpetuate itself.

Why?

Because to stay alive, capitalism cannot be responsible for our care – its logic of exploitation requires that some of us die.

“Sickness” as we speak of it today is a capitalist construct, as is its perceived binary opposite, “wellness.” The “well” person is the person well enough to go to work. The “sick” person is the one who can’t. What is so destructive about conceiving of wellness as the default, as the standard mode of existence, is that it invents illness as temporary. When being sick is an abhorrence to the norm, it allows us to conceive of care and support in the same way.

Care, in this configuration, is only required sometimes. When sickness is temporary, care is not normal.

Here’s an exercise: go to the mirror, look yourself in the face, and say out loud: “To take care of you is not normal. I can only do it temporarily.”

Saying this to yourself will merely be an echo of what the world repeats all the time.

#sick woman theory #chronic illness #disability #spoonie #spoon theory #affect theory #neoliberalism #queerness #race #violence

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jillmckenzie1 · 5 years ago

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Return of the Sad Action Guy

Extraction is streaming on Netflix now.

Not all action movies are created equally. You know that, and you know there’s a wide world of difference between an honest-to-God classic like Die Hard and a disappointment sandwich like A Good Day to Die Hard. Like me, you’re likely stuck in coronavirus lockdown, and you’re likely looking for entertainment to take the edge off. The question is, what flavor of action movie are you after?

If you break it down, there are really three kinds of action protagonists. The first is Happy Action Guy. Bruce Willis has played quite a few of them, and despite the fact that his John McClane is frequently scared, annoyed, or pissed-off, his baseline emotion is happiness. We know that because he’s in a good enough mood to crack wise and, if nothing else, amuse himself. Indiana Jones is another Happy Action Guy, and we can see he’s having a reasonably good time raiding tombs and punching Nazis in the kisser. The same goes for Dwayne Johnson, and even when his characters are worked up into a lather, they’re ultimately happy.

Next up is Angry Action Guy. For a while there, Clint Eastwood had the market cornered playing this role, and as Dirty Harry, he was frequently seething, vexed, or in a state of righteous indignation. Mel Gibson also played plenty of Angry Action Guys, before getting sidelined by some troubling mental health and racism issues. As much as Kurt Russell is known to be a laid back and charming dude, his Snake Plissken is one of the great Angry Action Guys in cinema. He exists in a state of nearly constant irritation, and he ultimately wants humanity to leave him the hell alone.

Lastly, we have Sad Action Guy. This protagonist has experienced a degree of trauma in the past, and their primary emotional state consists of being a big ol’ wet blanket. Denzel Washington’s John Creasy in the very good Man on Fire is a first-class grumparoo, and Keanu Reeves’ John Wick would be a gigantic bummer to be stuck with at a party. The latest member of the Sad Action Guy club? That would be ya boi Chris Hemsworth in the new and pretty decent action flick Extraction.

We’re introduced to young Ovi Mahajan Jr. (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) a tween living a real good news/bad news kind of life in Bangladesh. The good news is that he’s a kind and smart kid who will likely go far in life. The bad news is that he might not go that far since his pops, Ovi Mahajan Sr. (Pankaj Tripathi), is one of the two biggest druglords in the city. The other druglord would be Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli), and his diabolical plan involves kidnapping Ovi Jr., holding him for ransom, and generally being kind of a dick about the whole thing.

Ovi Sr. is cooling his heels in prison, but he still (kind of?) cares about his kid. He springs into action and hires the amusingly named Tyler Rake* (Chris Hemsworth) a mopey Australian mercenary. The mission is allegedly simple – rescue Ovi Jr. Tyler’s co-worker/associate is Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani), and she thinks that the mission is quite a bit more difficult than advertised.

Considering that Tyler is a walking list of clichés, one of them being a death wish, he agrees to the job. Things become even less straightforward when he learns that Saju (Randeep Hooda) is after the lad as well. You see, Saju is a former member of Indian Special Forces, and a current enforcer for Ovi Sr. Ovi tells Saju that if he cannot rescue Ovi Jr, Saju’s family will be killed. Why is it that a) Ovi sends Saju after his son while also sending Tyler after his son, and b) why does he threaten Saju when he would have undertaken the mission anyway? Well…I have no idea, so, moving on!

From there, Tyler will have to kill a bunch of guys in order to rescue Ovi, then deal with an entire city coming to kill him. He’ll take part in a legit jaw dropping 20-something minute long chase scene, fight child soldiers, get stabbed, hit by a car, kicked, punched, shot, and have harsh language thrown his way. In short, he’s having a rough couple of days.

Extraction is a pretty damn solid action movie, with some pretty damn large problems. First, the good. Director Sam Hargrave made his bones as a stunt coordinator in the MCU, and this is his feature debut. “Bravo!” says I, since he’s made a movie with some top tier action sequences. They’re clever, brutal, and shot cleanly. As a stunt professional, Hargrave doesn’t hide his sequences behind hyperactive editing.** We can see everything from Hemsworth taking apart a room full of luckless goons, a running gun battle through the streets of Bangladesh, and a genuinely gripping car chase with a POV-perspective. If nothing else, Hargrave has delivered some extremely cool scenes.

Yet when we focus on the characters and story, things become significantly less cool. Based on the graphic novel Ciudad, the screenplay was adapted by Joe Russo, one half of the duo that directed Avengers: Endgame. His script isn’t bad, considering it moves very quickly and remembers to take the occasional breather to work on character development. The characters are the problem, though. Chris Hemsworth’s Tyler is stoic, competent, macho, secretly tormented, and entirely uninteresting. Our antagonists, for the most part, seem to be evil for the sake of evil. A henchman tosses a kid off a building. A ganglord delivers sinister dialogue that’s little more than threats. With two exceptions, the villains ain’t so good.

The first exception is Randeep Hooda’s Saju. He’s forced into a lousy situation, and he’s got to try and take out Tyler in order to protect his family, despite the fact that he admires Tyler. This is interesting character development pulled off excellently by Hooda, and I would have liked the script to have been a battle of wills between two sympathetic main characters. The other exception is Suraj Rikame as Farhad, a teenager groomed to become one of Amir’s henchmen. We’re seeing the birth of a child soldier here, a young man forced to make monstrous choices to survive.

The star of the show is Chris Hemsworth, and I’m coming to realize something about him as a performer. He’s a good actor, very good, and there’s a reason he’s one of the standouts in the MCU as Thor. When Hemsworth plays a Hero and gets serious, he’s not particularly interesting. Comedic roles, or roles where he gets to play a genuine weirdo, playing against type is when Hemsworth shines. I didn’t go into his genuinely odd performance in Avengers: Endgame in my initial review, but I appreciate it more and more as time goes on. He does his best with what he has, and a little subversion of the standard Sad Action Guy would have made things even better.

A movie where a gigantic white guy kills the hell out of a bunch of brown people isn’t a great look. Let’s not forget that while Extraction has its problems, it delivers a ton of well-shot action and a few surprisingly interesting supporting characters.

*Wondering if Tyler Rake kills someone with a rake? Well…yes, obviously.

**Looking at you, The Bourne Supremacy.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/return-of-the-sad-action-guy/

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underwatersquuaad-blog · 5 years ago

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Health And Fitness

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Pool Fitness Ideas

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Teenage Fitness Ideas

But these few tips that helped. A power-lifter will define fitness in terms of our effort aimed at burning fat you would need cardio fitness equipment. An individual that is tailored to fit your needs perfectly. Choosing one too hard, or that of an exercise, gets so fatigued that the quality of our favorite Portable Fitness Equipment, a Power Push ups, Power Jumpers, Vertical Jumpers and Power Wheels all add more challenge to the health of your family's day. Some shows will allow you and has a very good level of fitness.

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erraticfairy · 5 years ago

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Podcast: Online Teen Therapy: Everything You Need to Know

In today’s episode, we speak with Haesue Jo, Clinical Support Lead for a large online therapy website, about their new offering for teens and adolescents. On-line therapy is a novel idea for many — and prompts a lot of questions. How does on-line counseling work for adolescents? Are there a lot of differences between the experiences of teens and adults? How are parents involved? What are the safeguards in place? How does payment work?

Listen in to see what online therapy for teenagers is all about.

(BetterHelp.com is a long-term sponsor of The Psych Central Podcast.)

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

Guest information for ‘Online Teen Therapy’ Podcast Episode

Haesue Jo, MA, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with experience providing individual and family therapy in community mental health, school settings, day treatment facilities and is currently the Clinical Support Lead at BetterHelp. Her current clinical focus includes working with individuals with a variety of presenting problems, including anxiety, relationship and family issues, trauma, community violence, gender identity, and depression.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Online Teen Therapy’ Episode

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

Announcer: Welcome to the Psych Central Podcast, where each episode features guest experts discussing psychology and mental health in every day plain language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s episode of the Psych Central Podcast. And today I will be talking to Haesue Jo, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the clinical support lead for our sponsor BetterHelp.com. She’s here today to talk a little bit about online therapy and specifically their latest offering at TeenCounseling.com. Haesue, welcome to the show.

Haesue Jo: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Gabe Howard: Well it’s always a pleasure when you can hang out with me. I’ve been fascinated with online therapy for a long time and one of the primary reasons is because in mental health I realize that, depending on where you live in America, your options can be very limited. I’m very fortunate to live in a big city so I sort of have my pick of therapists and counselors. But if you live in a more rural area it sort of gets a little sticky both in terms of who you can choose and maybe your privacy options. Is this something that you have found to be a big advantage of online therapy?

Haesue Jo: Yes absolutely. We have plenty of people signing up that say very similar things, whether they’re in rural communities or they’re just in tight knit communities where everybody knows each other. We also have health care professionals signing up saying that it’s hard to find someone in their local community because they know all the other professionals; that they are peers in their workplace. So there’s a lot of different situations. And hopefully we’ve been able to provide some option for those sticky situations.

Gabe Howard: It sounds like privacy is really key to this, though. A lot of people are really describing that it’s more private for them to get the therapy and support that they need versus the more traditional you know drive, park, walk in, go to an appointment.

Haesue Jo: I think for many people it can feel that way. You don’t need to be seen anywhere per se, you can get access to services from the comfort of your own home or wherever it is that you have a solid internet connection. I think a lot of people still, as much as we’d like to help destigmatize the idea of getting mental health help, I think there are still a lot of people in today’s society and our local cultures and all that you may not want other people to know that this is something that they’re involved in. When you’re having struggles with your mental health, it can feel very isolating and personal to you, and you want to figure that stuff out on your own first before the interventions of the people that care about you or people that might not have your best interests in mind. The discrete nature and private venue that we are able to provide is something that’s appealing for a lot of people.

Gabe Howard: And also, as I talked about a moment ago, you have to know the traditional model is you have to drive there, you have to walk in, you have to make the appointment. So, it’s much more time consuming. And I also know that the traditional model is generally, you know, once a week or once every other week at a specific time. With the online model, it’s more frequent, right? I t’s not 1 hour every other week. It’s a few minutes every day or it can be it looks can you sort of talk about that a little bit?

Haesue Jo: It can be, right. So now we have thousands of providers in our network at this point and they are coming from every state in the United States. They’re all licensed here in the US and many licenses per each state are represented on the platform. And we have a lot of professionals coming to join us that have most of their, if not all of their, experience off line. So, they are very much aware of and used to these more traditional models of how we’re going to connect with our clients. Like you said, typically that’s once a week 50 minutes or so but even then, it’s more than 50 minutes. With the commitment, with driving into the parking, and everything that you just mentioned. On the online model here at BetterHelp.com we give a lot of autonomy to the independent providers to coordinate their schedules with their client or what we are finding actually is that counselors are having a really diverse kind of way of communicating with their clients. So, a counselor may have 20 clients, and it could be that half of these clients do engage very regularly in weekly live sessions. That feels kind of like that traditional model and in between those live sessions they’re supplementing it with messaging back and forth and then you also have many subscribers signing up for these services that are not looking to have live web sessions on a regular basis. So, they’re communicating with a counselor pretty frequently but through messaging and that’s not in real time but it’s more kind of like an email. I sent a message to you this morning, I might get a response from my counselor in a couple of hours, and then we go back and forth that way. And then a lot of counselors are doing a combination of that messaging and live sessions. So, there’s a whole bunch of different ways that you can find yourself figuring out what’s going to work best between you and your counselor.

Gabe Howard: And BetterHelp.com been around for a while now. This isn’t something that just cropped up overnight. This is an offering that’s been around for a long time.

Haesue Jo: I’d like to think that, yes. BetterHelp.com started in 2013. But my understanding is that the concept of telehealth, which is helping professionals providing their services not face to face but over some kind of technology platform, I think that’s been around for far longer than that.

Gabe Howard: I’m really glad that you brought that up because you know a lot of people hear things like “online therapy” and there’s a sort of this knee jerk reaction to say, “No, no, no. It’s never been done that way before.” But until you do something, it’s never been done that way before. And the online therapy is not really, as you said, it’s sort of the natural progression of telehealth which has been around for a lot longer. And again, it’s had a dramatic impact on rural areas or people who just cannot get to medical therapy etc. We’ve done another show all about online therapy and we’ll link that show in the show notes of this show so you can learn a whole lot more. We just sort of wanted to establish a baseline of what online therapy is. And up until recently this has really been aimed at adults. The busy adult professional, or the adult who was looking for privacy, but now you’re sort of gearing a section towards teens and you’ve discovered that there’s some differences in how you reach out to teenagers versus how you reach out to adults. Can you talk about that for a moment?

Haesue Jo: So you know, as you mentioned, we did start with adults and the nature of therapy and getting any medical treatment at all for some kind of care for a physical ailment or in our case a mental or emotional challenge or struggles that you may be facing in your life. There are a lot of laws in place in the US to protect people, right? So, these laws will make it so that if you’re going to enter into this kind of relationship with a health care provider, you need to provide your consent as a legal adult. You’re consenting for your own treatment. When you’re a minor, you’re under the care of a parent, who is your legal guardian. And if not your parents, whoever it is has that legal guardianship over you, they are the ones that provide consent for you to enter some kind of health care treatment. Right? So, we wanted to make sure we were doing this right. And so that’s why we started with adults. We found a lot of success. And now we’re working to bring this form of counseling to the younger age group, and we find a lot of differences in the ways that teenagers will communicate versus adults.

Gabe Howard: So obviously with several years of experience working with adults you probably got that model down pretty good. But we know that there’s differences, as you said, between adults and teenagers.

Haesue Jo: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: How are you handling some of those difference? For one thing, in my mind at least, teenagers are probably much more adept at technology?

Haesue Jo: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: They’re probably much more willing to do things like face to face and you know they can fire off a text with one thumb while half asleep and and I’m still using full sentences with complete grammar and punctuation. So what have you found? Not from a therapy level, but from just a comfortable with technology level, when it comes to teenage clients versus adult clients?

Haesue Jo: Well you know, a lot of people that are signing up for BetterHelp, so our adult clients, they are typically more tech savvy than somebody that’s not signing up or not choosing to do a lot of the things that they do in life online. But as you mentioned, a lot of teens today, they grew up in a world where technology was there when they were born. And so, I think a lot of the features and the things that are offered on the platform feel more natural and easier for them to navigate sometimes in terms of technology. I don’t think there actually is a huge difference between what I’ve observed with the teens and the adults that are using these services, since if you’re an adult looking for online counseling, you’re probably spending a lot of your time online already.

Gabe Howard: That’s a very fair point. You know, I just I think to myself that all of these adults that are using online counseling are my dad. But you’re right. He probably wouldn’t gravitate toward an online system because he is less comfortable with technology.

Haesue Jo: Yeah, we have a lot of adults signing up that aren’t super comfortable with technology and so they’ll actually e-mail us and we have a support team that’s here to help people and walk them through how some of these technology features work. But we also find it’s not really the best option for all people.

Gabe Howard: And when you say it’s not the best option for all people, do people sign up, try it, and then realize it’s not the best option? And I know that if you go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral you can try it for a week absolutely free.

Haesue Jo: Exactly. We want to be able to provide an exploration process for people that aren’t really sure if this is something that’s going to work for them. So that’s why we like to partner with people and give out free trials so that someone can sign up for a week, test it out see if they like it, and if they’re not into it, then yes they can absolutely cancel during that free trial and we’ll go our separate ways. And our hope is that you now have some tools in your bag to look for services that are going to feel more appropriate for you.

Gabe Howard: Okay, everybody hold on, we are going to listen to a message from Haesue Jo’s employer, and our sponsor, BetterHelp.com

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: I love your online counselling. But now I’m a parent and I’m thinking about my daughter, and I’m thinking do I want her on this platform? Am I more comfortable with the traditional model? What would you say to me as I’m sort of contemplating this decision of should I allow my 15-year-old old daughter to go online to receive services? You know this is new and I want to make sure that I’m being a good dad.

Haesue Jo: Understandable.

Gabe Howard: What would you say to me to sort of help me?

Haesue Jo: So interested parents, curious parents, intrigued parents they can check out TeenCounseling.com and they can get started. So, the way that these accounts work is that a parent is the one that does sign up first, and a parent can get their account set up and get connected with a counselor and even communicate with a counselor before ever inviting their teen into the platform. And so, in that way, the parent can sign up first and get a lot of their questions answered. Talk to this counselor. Ask the professional about what their experience is like, what their expertise is, or look into the credentialing of professional. Parents have opportunities to vet these people that they’re going to possibly introduce to their kid. And understandably, parents want to make sure that their kids are safe and talking to reliable people online. And so parents have the opportunity to sign up first, and if they find that they don’t think it’s going to be a good fit for their family, they don’t have to continue with the same kind of thing. And so, if parents are interested, they should just check out TeenCounseling.com. There are FAQ sections that are geared towards the parents. But there’s also another FAQ section for the teen themselves if they wanted to do some research on their own also. And then they’re always welcome to contact us if they have any further questions that they find that they can’t get answered through the web site.

Gabe Howard: I think the part that really kind of puts me at ease, and that I didn’t realize until you just said it, is this is parent driven. It’s a partnership between parents and child. It’s not sort of the Wild Wild West where you just create an account for your teenage daughter and hope for the best.

Haesue Jo: Correct. And you know every counselor is going to have their own approach and their own way of conceptualizing a case, looking at their teenage client in the context of this kid’s family. But I think any of us that have worked with adolescents will agree that a lot of things going on with the kid’s identity, or any concerns that are coming up, the behaviors in the context of social situations and relationships with people. A lot of that stuff very much starts at home. And so it doesn’t make a lot of sense all the time to engage in a therapeutic relationship with a kid and not involve the parent because a parent very much is in that kid’s life. So the way that the Teen Counseling accounts work is that a parent will sign up and then they can invite their teen at any time and then at that point the parent and the teen now have their own respective log in information. So, they can each log in with their own email addresses and they have their own private space. So they’re both connected with the counselor, and the counselor has opportunities to speak with the parents and opportunities to speak with the teen. But what the parent messages with the counselor is not visible to the teen and vice versa. What the counselor and the teen are communicating about, the written message, is not visible to the parent. Now when, and if, they would like to have joint sessions, where the teen and the parent are together, those live sessions can be scheduled and coordinated with the counselor. And it’s just an understanding that they’re both going to be at the same location at the same time and that will allow the counselor to have this joint session for both the parent and the kid.

Gabe Howard: I like what you said about the teenager. The child will have their own personal space and the parent will have their own personal space with the counselor having access to both. So when the parent has questions they can ask the counselor?

Haesue Jo: Yes.

Gabe Howard: But the counselor will sort of be the arbiter of information and make sure that everybody feels comfortable.

Haesue Jo: Yes.

Gabe Howard: They’re not printing a transcript and saying, “This is what your child said.”

Haesue Jo: Right. Absolutely. And in general, when therapists are working with adolescents, that is a huge theme that comes up most of the time, if not all of the time. A kid needs to feel comfortable that their parents are not going to know every small little detail about their life. This is I think a universal thing that we’ve all experienced as teens ourselves. There’s just some stuff that you don’t want your parents to know and there could be a million reasons for that. And so with the accounts on Teen Counseling, the teens have their private space. And therapists that are working with adolescents have this experience of knowing that they need to respect the privacy of this client even if the client is a kid. The kid is still a human. So privacy will be respected and usually there’s a conversation to be had with the parent that I will communicate with you when I feel that there is a need for you to know something. For example, if somebody might be in imminent danger, or if I feel like somebody is in harm’s way. Those are the things I’ll absolutely let you know about. But ultimately, to help with your teen’s progress through therapy, they need to feel like this is a safe and comfortable space and that I’m not going to be a messenger of what they’re talking about directly to you. And I’m speaking in the first person because I also work with teens. For me it’s like there’s gonna be times where I think we should all be talking so that we’re all on the same page, but that’s how I’m gonna be most of the time since right now we’re here for your kid.

Gabe Howard: And it’s important to understand that that’s how it works in the “traditional model.” You know, if you go to the traditional therapist, you know you’re in the office, usually parent and child go in together. They sort of talk about the issues, then the parents leave. They talk to the child and the child leaves and then the parents come in and there’s this constant back and forth as needed etc. So the model just translated online exactly the same way. It’s not like the child loses some of that privacy or the parents lose some of that understanding or connection. It just literally transfers right online in the same way. So for people who aren’t familiar with therapy, they might not realize that it really is the exact same model.

Haesue Jo: Yes, very very similar. And in fact, I think it’s even more convenient for parents because when I work with teens in an office setting, with this minor, it’s really important for me that I’m not left alone with them in a building because I’m not their parent. And so, for me personally, and every counselor, like I said, is going to have their own approach. When I have teenage clients, I require for their parent to wait in the waiting room for the entirety of the session. And that’s just a safety precaution to make sure that this kid’s parent is around in the event that something happens. With TeenCounseling.com and these accounts, now a parent doesn’t necessarily need to be waiting in a waiting room an hour every week to know comfortably and safely that their kid is getting services from a provider. And the parent is just a message away if the counselor does need to reach them. But all in all, I think the model is very similar to what I’ve experienced off line in that there’s a way for both of them to be involved. And there’s also avenues that are provided to have the safe, private conversations with the parent or with the teen.

Gabe Howard: I really like what you kind of alluded to, where you were like you know, that the parent is waiting in the waiting room for safety, but it also means that the parent is waiting in the waiting room. So, that the child or the teenager, that person knows that Mom and Dad is what? A wall away? So that might make them think, “You know, hey, I can’t say whatever I want because what if it turns out poorly? What if I don’t like it? What if Mom and Dad overhear? They’re right there.” And I think it’s an interesting concept because, you know, the best time of day for a child to open up is probably not the best time of day for a parent to open up. You know, maybe a child you know wants to share more at night when parents just want to relax and go to bed or whatever. And often, when teenagers are getting help, they’re on their parents’ schedule, because they’re the ride.

Haesue Jo: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: This does allow everybody to be the most comfortable and feel the most safe. You need to be comfortable in therapy to really get to the root of whatever the issue is.

Haesue Jo: A lot of times it is those deepest darkest secrets that are making it hard for you to function. And it can be very scary to reveal those deep dark things to people that really care about us, or people that we may fear may have some kind of judgment about that. So, therapy can be scary for a variety of reasons. And I think that’s just because some of the scary things in the world are internalized, they are within us. So yeah, I like this idea of creating safe space, creating access. You mentioned sometimes this barrier of scheduling is absolutely a thing. Sometimes the kid is free as a bird, but they can’t get to your office. So hopefully we’ve been able to alleviate some of those challenges.

Gabe Howard: Let’s talk about some more practical things for a moment. Because you know, one of the things that I’m thinking about, is you know might my child with metered data. How does it work in online therapy? I mean, is it pay per message? Pay per hour? What are sort of the safeguards in place to make sure that everybody gets what they need, including not a gigantic bill?

Haesue Jo: It’s a very good question. So on Teen Counselling, for those of the listeners that are not familiar with the way that Better Help works and how our adult clients are paying for their services there, the payment structure is very similar on Teen Counseling. So, we are a subscription based model, meaning the person paying for this account is going to enter the payment details. You’re going to select a subscription plan period. So, weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever it is that they decide upon. Then this flat fee does not change and is going to renew on that monthly basis or whatever it is that you’ve decided upon. And in that flat fee, is included all the interactions that are going to happen during that month. And so, no matter how many live sessions a teen is able to have with their counselor, no matter how many messages go back and forth between them, that flat fee remains the same. And so the parent on the account is the one that enters payment details, and only the parent is able to edit things in the billing settings. So, the accounts on the parent end and on the teen end do look a little bit different, because the teen doesn’t have as much of the admin access into that account.

Gabe Howard: That makes perfect sense to me. Thank you so much for answering all of my questions. It’s exciting to see where the world is going and what we’re able to achieve with technology. And I’m glad to know that it’s making things better. Is there anything else that you would like to let us know about TeenCounseling.com?

Haesue Jo: Sure, this isn’t too much of an operational thing, this is just coming from a personal space, because working with teens adolescents is near and dear to me. I’ve worked with teens off line, in office settings, in school settings, in clinic settings, for many years before I found myself in this online therapy world. And what I found is, with my teenage clients a lot of times, they take a little bit longer to open up and to warm up to you and a lot of the times, it’s because they’re not there completely out of their own volition, right? An adult client has made this choice for themselves that they’re going to walk in and get help. Typically, for a kid, a parent or a teacher or some kind of administrator at school has recognized that they’re having an issue. It’s usually an adult that’s driving this process, saying, “I think you need help. You’re going to be put in this place, whether you want to go or not.” So in the office setting, in these clinic settings face to face, teens are going to be a little bit more guarded and reserved a lot of the time. And another thing is that, you know, when you’re an adolescent and you’re growing up, you’re still learning how to regulate your emotions. I think most adults are still doing that too, actually. But as a teen, even developmental and physiologically, your brain isn’t fully developed. And I think with all these challenges in terms of regulating emotion and being able to articulate any kind of internal process, it gets really hard to try to get comfortable with someone that you don’t know. Someone that you might feel is just going to relay all this stuff back to your mom and dad. On the online format, what I have found, and I’m pleasantly surprised by it and I appreciate every day, is this is the way that a lot of teens are communicating with each other. They send text messages and they have more time to think about what they want to say; they’re not as put on the spot and it’s not as much about emotion regulation while trying to verbally articulate some kind of challenging experience for them. They get to text. They get to send a message, take their time with it, and communicate the way that they have grown up doing all along with all their friends and their peers. So with Teen Counseling, I think there is a lot to be explored still, and a lot to be had for kids that are struggling with something in a venue that’s familiar to them and that feels safe to them. It is not going to feel like they’re being stuck in a room by force.

Gabe Howard: Right. Yeah.

Haesue Jo: They can have an app on their phone that they can open whenever they want.

Gabe Howard: And it can kind of feel like that. As a child who went to therapy with my parents, I imagine it’s much easier to make the child comfortable when they can sort of ease into it over a few weeks. Because I know with parents busy schedules

Haesue Jo: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: They’re like, “Look, we’re here from 3 to 4. You must get everything out from 3 to 4, and then we’ll be back in 2 weeks from 3 to 4 and you will get the rest out then.” And you know, if you’re not in the mood, you’re not in the mood. And especially if your parents are very busy, which all of us are, if they’re very worried, which in general when you’re seeking medical treatment of any kind there’s usually some concern or worry, and you know these things cost money. Parents are worried about wasting money, as they should be in general. I think a lot of those concerns are alleviated with this other option. And that’s what it is, right? It’s just another option. Nobody is saying that you you have to use this option over that option. You have to make the right decision for you and your family and the right decision for the person seeking treatment. And this is one of those options

Haesue Jo: Yes.

Gabe Howard: And it’s really nothing more and nothing less, right?

Haesue Jo: Yes, and I think for the busy parent, the busy family, the busy kid, just having options is a good thing. Because sometimes it feels like even though there are options out there, they might not feel like those options are available to them for a variety of reasons. So yeah, I guess I like that there is this other option for people to explore.

Gabe Howard: That’s wonderful. Haesue, thank you so much. And thank you to BetterHelp.com for sponsoring the podcast. It really has allowed us to get a lot of great information into the hands of people who really appreciate it and really need it. So, we’re of course, very thankful for your support. And we also like to be transparent about that. You know BetterHelp.com is a sponsor of the Psych Central Podcast and we appreciate that as well.

Haesue Jo: Thank you so much for having me.

Gabe Howard: You’re very welcome and thank you everyone for tuning in. Obviously, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere just by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. And wherever you download this podcast, if you would give us as many stars as humanly possible. Use your words and write us a review, show us on social media, email us, send us around, burn it onto a C.D. and play it for your grandma, whatever it takes to get mental health information into the hands of people that need it. We would appreciate it, and we will see everybody next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Psych Central Podcast. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at GabeHoward.com. PsychCentral.com is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, PsychCentral.com offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com. If you have feedback about the show, please email [email protected]. Thank you for listening and please share widely.

About The Psych Central Podcast Host

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar and anxiety disorders. He is also one of the co-hosts of the popular show, A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. As a speaker, he travels nationally and is available to make your event stand out. To work with Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

from World of Psychology https://ift.tt/2YAsJi0 via theshiningmind.com

#World of Psychology #child psychology

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thecoroutfitters · 6 years ago

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Written by Wild Bill on The Prepper Journal.

Seriously, as preppers how do we prepare for government gridlock? While I need to set the stage this post is ultimately about some steps we can take as preppers as to how to cushion the impact from the ramping up of the blind hate that has defined our media and our government this past decade. It contains some suggestions as to how we might shield our self’s from the actions of the irresponsible that can so profoundly affect every aspect of our lives. How do we insulate our self’s from the actions of others that are intended to obstruct business as usual?

The Stage

Stories abound that the incoming House of Representatives leadership already has eighty-five (85) subpoenas “in the wings” for the Executive Branch, due to be unleashed this week. The singular clear intent being obstruction with the intent of impeachment. The period they are looking to some dozen years ago, when this President was a Democrat, fails to registered on their closed minds. The incoming Attorney General of the State of New York has gone public that her office will investigate “everything Trump” as one of her priorities. In the formerly Free United States of America the Depart of Justice would never stand for this. But that ended a dozen years ago.

In both Venezuela and Crete the governments sized the bank accounts of corporations, private citizens and raided banks in search of assets from debtors. In these cases fiscal assets were gone with the stroke of a bureaucrats pen and backed up by an armed police against an unarmed citizenry. Could it happen here? We all still think no, not here, and we may be right, as long as the original checks and balances are in place and protected. But with the Justice Department running open-loop for the past 10 years, and now a majority in the lower House that has only an ax to grind as an agenda for 2019 and beyond, as preppers what steps should we consider?

The Financial

Physical assets such as gold, silver and currency being three-dimensional physical objects suddenly boil to the top of any discussion on securing your financial assets in the event of any seizure, any significant “disturbance in the force” to quote Star Wars. As preppers we have known this for awhile, and have discussed in detail other “after” commodities like medical supplies, food, and everything the ATF exists to control. And these may indeed become traded currencies in a world turned upside down, but the point here is how do we prepare for this which has not happened but just might and might inch its way in as opposed to suddenly dropping in our laps?

Do what we have been doing in building store and assets. Of course, but maybe we look into a little more cash and precious metals over the next 3-6 month as more important than additional food stocks and ammunition. (Never thought I would put those words together.)

And we can no longer have a discussion about monies without taking into consideration the crypto-currencies, which had a tough year in 2018. While there are “hard wallets” for crypto-currencies, places to store your “keys” and secure them from hacking, or sanctioned confiscation, they are still non-dimensional and therefore of little value in a SHTF or TEOTWAWKI scenario, and I would suggest a little immature still to count them in the short term. If their is upheaval the Internet will be one of the first victims, block chains will be gone and then what.

Government Services

This is where we need to really focus. If we are faced with government gridlock, with no action from government, what are the downsides? Libertarians may actually rejoice.

Some Seem Obvious:

The military will still operate, as will most government services having to do with security, with border security being a big unknown. FEMA and other emergency services should not be touched, as they are political suicide for either party to try and affect negatively. Mostly inaccurate weather information will continue to be dispensed to your local TV stations, social programs will remain their own sacred cows, the grids should not fail, and the pseudo-government Postal Service will get those credit card bills from Christmas to you eventually. Our normal principled prepping should provide us the safety net we seek however, paying attention to the nuances that slip out from the government occasionally would be a wise use of ones time.

Health Care:

The likelihood that the ACA will continue to cripple our ability to actually obtain affordable healthcare is something to consider. It remains an oppressive financial obligation on working families and little if anything can be expected to change so preppers should look into alternative medicines, focusing more on healthy habits in nutrition, exercise and all the other things our doctors always harp about. It may be time to listen to them more. To actually set some goals (it is New Years after all) and make it a family project to hold each other accountable for them. A little more focus here is a good thing no matter what.

Border Security:

You no longer want hear about it and I no longer want to speak of it. I could go on ad nauseam but preppers know full well what is at stake here and what the real issues are. It is truly sad that we are forced to continue to observe this political theater. It is a never-ending story that has a straight-forward closing act yet no one will finally step up and pull the trigger.

It isn’t like the current President hasn’t tried, but the swamp is indeed deep and entrenched and its tentacles spread to every state and every court in the land. Those of us in border states see this daily. Our options, prayer and keeping our powder dry, it worked a few hundred years ago.

The Media:

Yes, I consider the Media a government service, but just of one side of the government. The only thing I am not sure of is which one controls the other. I could go on again ad nauseam but that is not why we are here. As preppers we need to do more that google for information, we need to find some credible sources and even then we need to pick apart the content. No media outlet is every going to be harshly critical of anyone who might purchase its advertising services, be it what ever medium, print, web, TV or radio, so analyze everything and be skeptical.

A better solution may be to simply turn the devices off and focus on those in your circle of friends and family. That may be the best medicine for your mental health and your chances of getting restful and beneficial sleep as well. One other suggestion is to share with like minded people your observations, as opposed to the cat videos on FaceBook or other social media platforms. Look into MeWe as a social media alternative to FaceBook, but always remember the words of those who have held high-level government security clearances – if you want to keep something a secret NEVER say it into a phone or type it on a keyboard/keypad.

A majority of preppers are accustomed to not waiting for the government to solve our problems, rescue us, feed us and our families. We are better prepared for what may come than most already. Life really does not end when the internet goes down, if you can teach your teenagers this then you are doing parenting right.

Like everything we do we just need to follow our basic premise:

Have a plan

Review the possible deviations from the plan and what could cause them

Gather data

Revise our plans as required

Repeat

Perhaps we review the possible deviations more frequently as these next 3-6 months play out.

I have to admit that I have had, for more than six (6) months, a guest contribution on spanking and how it can be cathartic for children. It is well written and has a lot of excellent references. The new “social delicacies” have kept it in my files. While I may not publish it I will admit that the option of introducing our elected representatives to corporal punishment always brings a smile to my face.

Follow The Prepper Journal on Facebook! (and maybe MeWe in the future.)

The post How Do We Prep for Possible Gridlock appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

#SHTF #TEOTWAWKI #MARTIALLAW #BUGOUT #PREPPERBAG #USAF #USSOCOM #ARMY #NAVY #SurvivalFirestarter #Sur

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ellymackay · 6 years ago

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Yes, You CAN Sleep Too Much—Here’s Why Oversleeping Is A Problem

The blog article Yes, You CAN Sleep Too Much—Here’s Why Oversleeping Is A Problem Find more on: The Elly Mackay Blog

In a world where so many of us are struggling to get enough sleep, the issue of sleeping too much might seem like a luxury problem.

It’s actually not. Like insufficient sleep, oversleeping is a sign of disordered sleep. It may be connected to a mental health issue such as depression. It’s often a signal that a person is experiencing poor sleep quality, and it can be a sign of a clinical sleep disorder, including obstructive sleep apnea or narcolepsy.

Sleeping too much is linked with many of the same health risks as sleeping too little, including heart disease, metabolic problems such as diabetes and obesity, and cognitive issues including difficulty with memory. Similar to people who sleep too little, people who sleep too much have higher overall mortality risks.

We talk a lot about insufficient sleep, and the risks that a lack of sleep poses for physical health, mood, relationships, and performance. But oversleeping isn’t something to ignore.

Hypersomnia is the clinical term for excessive sleeping, and excessive sleepiness during the day. Like its counterpart insomnia, hypersomnia has several core symptoms:

Sleeping for extended hours at night (typically well beyond the 7-8-hour general norm)

Difficulty waking up in the morning (including sleeping through an alarm)

Trouble rising from bed and starting the day

Grogginess on and off or consistently throughout the day

Trouble concentrating

What I’m NOT talking about here is the once in a blue moon night of extra sleep you might need after coming up unexpectedly short on sleep. That happens to everyone, once in a while. If you’re making consistency a priority in your sleep routine, it shouldn’t happen often.

How much sleep is too much?

You’ve heard me say it before: there is no single right amount of sleep that applies to everyone. Sleep needs are individual. They’re based on a number of factors:

Your individual genetics. Your genes influence both your circadian rhythms and your internal sleep drive, the two primary biological sleep systems

Your age. You may find you need 7 hours of sleep in your 20s, and 8 hours—or 6.5—in your 50s or 60s.

Your activity level. Sleep is a form of energy for the body and mind, and a time for the body to recover from exertion. The more active you are, the more sleep you may need.

Your health. When coping with health issues, we very often need additional rest. That’s true for short-term illnesses like colds and flu, as well as long-term or chronic conditions, everything from arthritis to cancer.

Your life circumstances. Stress, and periods of change or upheaval can temporarily increase your need for sleep. (At the same time, these forces often make it difficult to sleep.) If stress is chronic, it can create a chronic sleep debt. And it’s not just negative or unwelcome life events that can drive up a need for sleep: big life changes that are positive can demand more sleep, too!

All of this said, most of us, throughout our adult lifetimes, need somewhere in or near to 7-9 hours of sleep a night, routinely. You might be a person who needs 6 or 6.5. But it’s unlikely that any but a very few of us can function and feel at our best on 5 hours of nightly sleep or less. This is similarly true at the other end of the range. Some people need 9 hours of sleep a night. But if you’re regularly sleeping more than 9 hours, and still feeling tired and fatigued, that’s an indication you’re oversleeping—and it’s time to take a look at what might be causing it.

Oversleeping and depression

I wrote most recently about oversleeping, or hypersomnia, when talking about the relationship between sleep and suicide risk.

Particularly among younger adults and teenagers, oversleeping can be a signal of depression. It can be tough to gauge teens’ sleep, because they typically have very different sleep patterns than we adults do. (I just wrote about a wave of new research into the effects of poor sleep in teens.) But excessive sleepiness and excessive sleeping in teens and young adults can be a red flag for depression. An estimated 40 percent or more of adults under 30 with depression experience hypersomnia.

Sleep and depression have a complex relationship. Disrupted sleep is both a symptom of depression and a contributing factor to depression. Most people with depression experience regular sleep disturbances. And sleep problems can make depression more severe and more difficult to treat.

And oversleeping is not only an issue among young people with depression. Among older adults, symptoms of insomnia may be more common. But many older adults also experience hypersomnia in connection with depression. Women, in particular, may be more likely to oversleep and feel excessively tired during the day if they are depressed.

It’s also important to remember that among people with depression, sleep difficulties often take shifting, variable forms. People with depression may experience symptoms of both insomnia and hypersomnia. A 2014 study investigated how often insomnia and hypersomnia occur together in adults with depression in the US. Scientists found that more than 27 percent have what’s known as “co-occurring” insomnia and hypersomnia. They also found some other striking shared characteristics. People with depression who demonstrated both insomnia and hypersomnia had:

More severe depression

Higher rates of suicide planning and suicide attempts

Higher rates of impulse control disorder

Greater likelihood of drug use disordeR

These people were also more likely to be receiving mental health treatment, and more likely to be taking anti-depressants.

Another study released just this year found that among people who’d received a diagnosis of major depression, slightly less than one-third had both insomnia and hypersomnia. These people were at 2-3 times greater risk for bi-polar disorder, according to the study.

Because of the close, complicated ties between sleep, circadian rhythms, and depression, it makes sense that more severe depression might often go hand in hand with more intense, variable, and wide-ranging sleep problems—including a drive to sleep excessively. The cause and effect in these relationships is usually not clear: we don’t often know whether sleep problems including hypersomnia lead to depression, or are a result of depression—or some of both. What we do know is that these conditions frequently go together.

When oversleeping is a symptom of a sleep disorder

Sleep disorders don’t always make it harder to get enough sleep. They also interfere with sleep quality and sometimes trigger excessive sleepiness and oversleeping. Any sleep disorder or sleep issue that creates sleep deprivation can lead to excessive daytime sleepiness and a tendency to oversleep, to compensate for that sleep deficit. But hypersomnia is closely linked to a few sleep disorders in particular:

Narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is a neurologically-based sleep disorder where the brain lacks the ability to control sleep-wake cycles. People with narcolepsy experience excessive daytime tiredness and often strong and uncontrollable urges to sleep during the day. They often experience insomnia at night. Because their sleep is so disrupted and they have difficulty sleeping well at night, people with narcolepsy may not get excessive total amounts of sleep. But their constant excessive sleepiness and drive to sleep during the day are a specific form of hypersomnia.

Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS). People with restless leg syndrome experience tingling, twitching, “creepy-crawly” feelings in the legs. These uncomfortable sensations bring about an often-urgent need to move the legs. The symptoms of RLS are most often felt when a person is lying still for a period of time, and are frequently most intense at night. People with RLS commonly experience symptoms of insomnia—the unpleasant nighttime sensations in their legs make it very difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. As a result, people suffering from RLS often cope with excessive daytime sleepiness, and may oversleep because they’re not getting the high-quality rest they need during their 7 or 8-hour nighttime window.

Obstructive sleep apnea. People with sleep apnea experience compromised breathing while they sleep. During sleep, the airway becomes either partially or completely blocked for a short amount of time. These episodes happen over and over again throughout the night, causing frequent awakenings (which the sleeper may or may not be aware of) and leading to a steep decline in sleep quality. There are serious health conditions associated with sleep apnea, including greater risks for cardiovascular disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Because sleep quality is so negatively affected by sleep apnea, people with OSA are often excessively sleepy during the day. They may also spend extended hours in bed, needing more time to sleep because their sleep quality is so poor.

Idiopathic hypersomnia. Some people sleep excessively without a clear, identifiable cause. This is a sleep disorder known as idiopathic hypersomnia—idiopathic meaning without known cause. People with idiopathic hypersomnia sleep for extended periods of time at night and still feel very tired during the day.

Other causes of oversleeping

Substance use disorders. Drug use and alcohol use can lead to disrupted circadian sleep-wake rhythms, declines in sleep quality, and can bring on a pattern of oversleeping and excessive daytime tiredness.

Medical conditions. There are a range of health conditions that can cause oversleeping and persistent, intrusive sleepiness during the day.

Neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis, as well as brain injuries

Epilepsy

Being overweight or obese

In addition, certain genetic disorders and genetic predispositions can cause hypersomnia. People with a family history of hypersomnia are more likely to experience oversleeping and daytime tiredness.

Medications. A number of medications can cause hypersomnia, including:

Sedatives

Tranquilizers

Antidepressants

Anti-anxiety medications

Antipsychotics

Antihistamines

Anticonvulsants

How to deal with an oversleeping issue

It’s important to talk with your doctor if you’re sleeping excessively or feeling very tired during the day regardless of how much you sleep during the day. If you notice changes to your sleep patterns and sleep needs, including an uptick in your level of tiredness or the amount you’re sleeping, that’s important information to share with your physician. Hypersomnia is often connected to another health condition. When you identify the underlying cause, you and your doctor can work to address both that condition and your oversleeping. That includes other sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea.

Limit alcohol to improve your sleep quality and sleep patterns. Drinking too much, too frequently and too close to bedtime can all disrupt circadian sleep-wake rhythms and undermine high-quality sleep, leading to a need to oversleep.

Avoid becoming sleep deprived and accruing a large sleep debt. Our bodies will seek the sleep they need. Going with too little sleep will put you in a situation where you’re periodically oversleeping to compensate. These irregular sleep patterns aren’t healthy, for your body or your mind.

Consistency is the most important element of a strong, health-promoting sleep routine. Identify the right amount of sleep you need then set up a schedule that enables you to meet that need routinely. It can take a bit of trial and error to get the amount right. Use the broad guidelines I’ve discussed above, and pay close attention to how you think and feel throughout the day.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM

The Sleep Doctor

www.thesleepdoctor.com

The post Yes, You CAN Sleep Too Much—Here’s Why Oversleeping Is A Problem appeared first on Your Guide to Better Sleep.

from Your Guide to Better Sleep https://www.thesleepdoctor.com/2018/07/16/yes-you-can-sleep-too-much-heres-why-oversleeping-is-a-problem/

from Elly Mackay - Feed https://www.ellymackay.com/2018/07/16/yes-you-can-sleep-too-much-heres-why-oversleeping-is-a-problem/

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davidamosley · 7 years ago

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The Lies We Tell Ourselves + How to Stop It

Apologies for the lack of post last week. I've been going through... I don't know what it is, exactly... a tough time? a transitional period?... I have no idea what to call it, but it's been interesting, to say the least. YouTube, in all it's wisdom, suggested this video to me yesterday, and I immediately pressed play. If things have been weird or painful or confusing day after day after day, I figure there must be a bit of internal dishonesty at play, and I wanted to see if the video would open my eyes to some new way of thinking.

Most of us lie to ourselves, from time to time, to avoid pain. It makes total sense. We lie to ourselves about the things that would be really hard to change (like a marriage, a belief system, a career path). We lie to ourselves about the odd internal thoughts we have in order to convince ourselves we're normal. We lie to ourselves about what we do and don't care about to avoid feelings of inadequacy. We lie to ourselves about all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons.

We lie because facing the truth, being truly honest with ourselves, can sometimes be downright terrifying. For example, here are some things I've been lying to myself about lately:

Money

Relationships

Addiction

Health

To tell myself the truth about those things — to be ruthlessly honest with myself — would (will!) mean making a lot of changes and mindset shifts that will be hard. So, like many people, I've been using some pretty stealthy techniques to avoid facing things head-on.

Below are some of the techniques discussed in the video. I don't use them all, but I've gotten pretty darn good at the ones I do use. And, because I know that the first step to change is identifying exactly what the problem is, I thought I'd go through them a little bit here and add my own two cents in terms of what you can do to stop using them.

Distraction: We distract ourselves with all kinds of things to avoid facing our issues — drugs, alcohol, our phones, work, sex, food. It's not the things themselves we like; we like their ability to help us keep our distance from the reality we're afraid to face. Distraction is what leads to addiction, and it's one of my go-to techniques for avoiding problems. If you don't look at it, it's not happening, right? Solution: Stop it. I know, I know, it's so much easier said than done, but it's the only way. Whatever you're using as a distraction, you have to stop doing it. If you can learn to moderate the behavior, great, but I know, for me, moderation is so hard, so often the best thing for me to do is quit doing something completely. If you need help, ask for it. Get a professional involved. Do whatever you have to do to remove the distraction as an option.

Cheerfulness: To avoid facing the truth, we pretend everything is fine, using cheerfulness as a way to mask whatever unpleasant feelings are really weighing on our minds. Generally this isn't my go-to move, but as I'm writing this, I can think of quite a few occasions, particularly in relationships, where I feign cheer in order to avoid the reality of the situation. Solution: Be honest — with yourself and with others. Pay attention to how you actually feel and don't be afraid to express it. Yes, this won't always be easy, but do you know what's also not easy? Pretending everything's fine with you're burning with anger or awash in sadness. Life is hard, and painting over the pain with a coat of cheerfulness isn't going to make easier in the long run. True colors always show.

Irritability: We sometimes push our inner pain so far down that we don't even know what's truly bothering us anymore, and that pain manifests itself through irritability. This, for sure, is a technique I've embraced many a time. When I don't address issues honestly, everything feels more irritating. Just as distraction isn't really about loving a specific thing, irritation isn't about the little annoying things. It's a side effect, and it not only makes you feel bad, but it makes you not so great to be around. Solution: Pay attention to how you really feel. When you get annoyed at the car that just pulled in front of you or frustrated by your coworker's email, pause for a second and ask yourself what's really bothering you. Yes, life has some irritating moments, but, if you're in a good mental state, those things won't drag your whole down; they won't change your whole attitude. Also, try to dig deeper into why a specific thing irritates you. You'll learn more than you might think.

Dismissal: Another go-to technique for me is this one: pretending like I don't care about something or I'm not interested or I don't like it in order to avoid thinking about how I actually feel. We see this one a lot in teenagers ("Whatever. I don't even care.") but grown-ups like me use it, too. Of course, there are really things you might not like or care for, but when you're quick to dismiss something, particularly something that has wronged you or sets off some sort of feeling, pay attention. Solution: Investigate why you dismiss things. Sometimes there's a valid reason, but if you're dismissing something quickly and harshly, you might need to do a little digging here. For example, when talking with someone about meal preparation in relation to making healthy eating easier, I recently said, "I'm just not interested in that." But why? Wouldn't it make my life easier if I prepared meals for myself ahead of time, particularly giving my organized nature and my lack of interest in cooking? Wouldn't it make sense to get it all done at once? What, I had to ask myself, was with my quick dismissal of this suggestion?

Outrage: In order to avoid our own thoughts about a particular topic, we can grow judgmental of, and often condemn, it. We encourage ourselves to feel outraged because anger prevents us from realizing how, simply by being human, we might relate to this "horrible" thing. Anger isn't one of my go-to emotions so I don't do this one often, but I sure do see it a lot online. Man, outrage is trendy these days. Of course we can — and should! — have opinions, but outrage is often misdirected. Solution: Learn more about what you're outraged by. Exploring the outrage is the best way to get to the heart of the matter. What angers (or even just annoys) you is a nugget of wisdom into yourself and what's truly bothering you. Are you outraged because, deep down, you might actually have similar views? Or, if not similar views, maybe a similar technique for expressing yourself? Or perhaps just some sort of "unacceptable" thought that relates, however tangentially, to what outrages you?

Defensiveness: The act of being offended (by someone's behavior, a criticism, or even a well-meaning bit of advice) takes a lot of mental energy and attention, which is great when we're trying to avoid the actual problem. This one's a bit on the anger spectrum so it's not one of my frequently used techniques, but who hasn't gotten defensive at some point in his or her life? Personally, I've found that every time I get defensive it's because someone has brought to light a truth I was either trying to avoid or not fully aware of yet. It's a control thing, for me, like my mind is saying, I'll deal with my issues on my own time, thank you very much! Solution: Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Defensiveness is so glaringly obvious. C'mon, you know when you're being defensive and you know when someone else is, too. It's a hard one to hide. There are two ways to handle this. (1) If you feel defensive, don't express it. Instead, take note of how you feel and what triggered the responsive and investigate it. (Yes, there's a lot of investigation going on in these solutions!) (2) If you can't help it and you express that defensiveness, recognize and, scary as this might feel, acknowledge it. Out loud. Something like, "Sorry I was so defensive about that email. I've been putting off that task, and your email reminded me of my tendency to procrastinate, which is something I'm working on."

Cynicism: This technique is a common one. We're so upset by what's really bothering us that we generalize that pain and say everything is terrible in order to avoid addressing the specific issue. I'd like to say I don't use this one, but when my dad asked me how I was yesterday, I responded, "I'm great, if I don't count the debt or the lack of romance or the stupid health issues that are plaguing me or the uncertainty of my career." So, yeah. I guess I do use this one. It's an easy thing to do — claim everything is terrible in order to deal with the terrible things we actually have control over. Solution: Stay positive. Now, keep in mind, positivity is not the same thing as cheerfulness. Positivity is about figuring out how you make the best of a situation, even if it's not great. It's not about pretending everything's fine when it's falling apart. Staying positive is hard work, but the best way to make it a habit is to pay attention to your thoughts. If they're all about how bad everything is, it's time to make some mindset shifts, 'cause you're never going to solve anything if you just complain all the time. Yes, things will suck sometimes, but your attitude doesn't have to. Remind yourself that all of that cynicism and negativity is just a trick your mind's playing on you to make sure you avoid facing what's really going on.

I know I'm not alone in this whole "lying to myself" thing. It's something I see so many people do, and I bet it's something you do too. Sometimes, I'll admit, it can be useful in small doses. Sometimes we do need to pretend it'll get better in the morning, just so we can make it through the night. But, more often than not, lying to ourselves causes way more trouble than it's worth. And we usually have to deal with the problem eventually (and, by then, it's often worse!). Or, worse, we have to spend our entire lives running from it, using these techniques and countless others to avoid, avoid, avoid.

The lies to ourselves that keep us in bad relationships, keep us making unhealthy decisions, keep us from identifying some physical manifestation of avoidance (looking at you, insomnia!), keep us isolated and alone, keep us in jobs we hate, keep us from doing what we really love, keep us from exploring, keep us from growing, keep us stagnant and bored. These lies, while they might feel good in the moment, keep us from being who we really are. And, personally, I want to at least see who I really am. Of course she'll be flawed and scared, as we all are, but at least she'll be real, and not just a tangle of overly complicated rationalizations. So, here's to self-honesty, and the hope that my little soul-searching this morning will help you with any lies you might be telling yourself.

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