#low empathy does not mean you're a bad person

[ndcultureis]

Low-empathy autistic culture is feeling bad because you're the reason autistic people are stereotyped as having low empathy even though a lot aren't, and you feel like you'll never be a good person no matter what you do because you don't relate to other people's feelings.

.

[dreambunnynotes]

bunny's 60-day glow up challenge ❤︎

hi my loves! my birthday is right around the corner and i want to end the year strong, so i thought it would be a cute and encouraging idea to host a challenge for all of us glow-up girlies! the steps for the challenge are very simple and customizable, and they give plenty of space for low-energy days. this challenge is all about trying your best to remain consistent in your goals, not to strive for an impossible "perfection" but instead to build trust in yourself that you can show up for your beautiful self and achieve the glow up that you deserve!

steps for the challenge:

pick three habits or things you want to dedicate time to every day

write a sentence or two on why you want to focus on these habits so that you have motivation and inspiration to complete them on hard days; this could include a basic "why" or you could write out specific goals you'd like to achieve through these habits

write out three different energy level variations of the habits so you can achieve your habits even on low-energy days

optional step: write an intro post sharing your habits and goals with everyone! you can use the tag #bunny60days to connect with others doing the challenge and hype each other up with accountability and love - you can also tag me and i can cheer you on hehe! 🥰 otherwise you can simply keep track on your own using a journal or planner or whatever works best for you!

optional step: write daily (or weekly) check-in posts sharing what you accomplished on the different days of the challenge, what you'd like to improve on the next day, or just a general update on how you're feeling. remember that this is a feel-good challenge, not a shame-filled one, so be kind to yourself and use this reflection as a way to show compassion and empathy to yourself 💕 again, you can use the tag #bunny60days to track your progress and see how others are doing!

the only very important rule for this challenge:

if you fall off and don't complete every habit you've written down in a day, do not start the challenge over, just pick up from where you left off! remember, this challenge is about building self-trust and resiliency - this means that you won't let one bad day or break in a streak stop you from continuing your habits. being "strong and hardworking" doesn't mean doing everything perfectly from day one, it means picking yourself up when you fall off course and trying again even though you may feel imperfect.

why only three habits?

when we do challenges, it's so easy to want to accomplish everything all at once, from working out to sleep schedules to everything in between. however, when you eventually burn yourself out or don't complete everything on your super long list of habits, shame is bound to follow, and shame does not make healthy soil for a beautiful plant to grow. starting off with three habits with different energy levels is a good way to ease into habit building while still feeling challenging enough to be interesting.

i don't know where to begin! can you give me an example of some habits or goals?

absolutely! if you'd like an example, you can check out my own personal goals for the challenge here. i'll be participating too, so you know that you have at least one person joining you in your glow up! 🥰 there is also a blank template below for you to use for your own glow up adventure.

blank template for you:

my chosen habits:

-

-

-

my goals and why's:

habit one:

habit two:

habit three:

my habit energy tiers:

habit one:

low energy:

medium energy:

high energy:

habit two:

low energy:

medium energy:

high energy:

habit three:

low energy:

medium energy:

high energy:

let's do this! bunny xoxo

[theiasthesis]

Shifting can be escapism, and that's OK.

Im going to give you a valuable lesson, so stick to the post, dont skip because every word is important. Don't let that small attention span get to you baby, remember that knowledge is power.

My name is Willow! I'm a non-dualist reality shifter, shifting coach and subliminal creator who's a freak for the multiverse and knowledge. Everything I say on here is based on my own personal experiences and research.

This post can help you with:

Escapism, guilt for shifting, realising you're worthy of shifting.

The self determination theory (SDT) is a psychological theory of motivation. It focuses on the degree to which specific human behaviour is for the self ; self motivated and self determined

Basically, what exactly is it that a human being can do, that isn't manipulated by outside influence, but rather their own human nature?

According to the theory these are 3 self motivated human behaviours:

Autonomy

Having the freedom to decide your actions without outside influence.

Example: Being able to go out with your friends, without your parents restricting you.

Competence

The ability to do something effectively and be useful.

Example: You're a very useful employee at your company, this means you are competent for your job.

Relatedness

Being connected or related to someone, or something.

Example: Having a connection with family or friends

OK, so how does any of this apply to shifting and escapism?

When you lack one of any of these 3 behaviours or feelings, this is a disruption your human nature. Naturally by birth, you are within your birth right to recieve all of this.

Each of these behaviours, have extreme importance in your cognitive behaviour

- Cognitive behaviors are thoughts, ideas, and representations of yourself to others.

If you don't have the will or ability to control your actions independently, you are most likely going to feel stuck, and like everything is out of your control. Doing things that make you happy and activities you find meaningful, will become an issue due to your lack of autonomy.

If you don't feel competent in areas of your life, or people aren't competent when it comes to you, this can create low self esteem and a bad self concept, you may think of yourself as "worthless" "useless" or "incompetent"

You may feel less motivated to taking on new challenges and activities, as you feel like you're just going to fail, and mess everything up anyways.

Connection is what makes us human, love and empathy towards overs and receiving it, is what makes human life so special. Relatedness, is what you need to experience caring relationships, to be part of a community, and overall to feel love. Humans need love, that is a fact.

When these basic needs aren't met, a human being can lack the motivation to commit to any one of these factors, which take up a huge part in life.

Lacking these can make you feel, stressed, anxious, self loath and nihilistic.

When you don't have these 3 factors, this causes a lack of motivation to commit to them, which means you don't have them.

So you turn to something else, escapism.

"Escapism is the tendency to distract oneself from real-life problems. It can also be conceived as shutting meanings out of one's mind and freeing oneself from self-awareness for a while . Escapism has been identified as one of the key drivers behind online behaviors, in both adaptive and maladaptive ways"

- PubMed Central®

Link to study

Think of escapism like touching a hot stove. Imagine you place your hand upon a stove. At first its cold, and you're fine.

Then the temperature starts to slowly rise, its currently warm, its still fine you can deal with it. Now, it's getting hotter, and hotter, and hotter...

And you remove your hand.

Not on purpose, but by instinct.

By reflex, your hand immediately moved away from the stove once it got too hot.

Your nervous system felt the pain, which sent a signal to the brain, that something with your hand is wrong.

Biology isn't my strong suit I fear.

Another example.

You're in immediate danger, there's a tsunami coming your way, it's too big for you to face, if you stay where you are, you're going to get crushed by the water, and die on impact. So what do you do?

You run.

Naturally you escape from the dangerous situation, because who in their right mind would test their luck and try to survive a tsunami?

Are you getting it?

When human beings are faced with a situation that is uncomfortable, causes mental, or physical harm, or even death, their first response is to escape.

It is human nature to run, to escape, to not face the dangerous situation. Sometimes it can be a bad move, like ditching a daye you were nervous for, other times it could be skipping school because you constantly run into a group of serious bullies.

Repeat after me.

If you are in a situation where you do not feel loved, worthy, or free, you are allowed to escape.

You are allowed to escape.

Empathise on that baby, nobody is going to tell you off for it.

However, you must be weary of using shifting as escapism.

Shifting is a wonderful phenomenon, it is not something that determines whether you live or not. It doesn't determine your worth either, nor is it something that causes you psychological stress.

If you find yourself having suicidal or self harming thoughts, with shifting as a way to mend these thoughts, I beg of you to take a step back and evaluate these thoughts of yours.

Shifting is a journey, I preach that it's something that can be done on the first go, but that isn't the case for everybody.

It can be as short or as long as you make it, failure in shifting when using it as an escape from serious issues, is a one way road to psychological distress.

With that, I ask that you first deal with your mental health, before anything else.

Find something that makes you feel good and grounded, something you enjoy.

Please remember, that not everything is something you must be good at, if it came from you it's already perfect.

Meditation, painting, dancing, listening to music, writing, exercise. Anything and everything that makes you feel good, nothing is too silly, nobody is going to think you're weird or bad at doing something you love to do.

I found that talking out loud, writing in my journal, mediation and watching anime helped me a lot when I had "life impacting plans" connected to shifting.

LESSON SUMMARY

1. It is natural for human beings to run away when they are faced in a dangerous or uncomfortable situation

2. Shifting being used to run away from a bad situation, isn't negative. It only becomes negative once you prioritise it over your own health

3. Your mental and physical health always comes first before shifting

4. You deserve to be loved, to feel worthy, to not be let down, and to be free, whether that's through shifting or not!

[bonefall]

do you have any tips for writing a low empathy character who isn't evil? Or how to make an interesting apathetic character who's a thoughtless sort of evil? These are two different chatacters btw-

I tried looking up examples and stuff but uh. It's been a bit fruitless.

Honestly it's not too hard! Having low empathy just means we're bad at automatically "connecting" to the feelings of other people. You can come to understand it's not even a character flaw once you uncouple the idea that Empathy = Kindness. And apathy, well, that one's a bit more complicated imo.

Low Empathy

In English, it's just unfortunately super common to conflate Empathy and Compassion. To have compassion is to be aware of the suffering of another person, and ergo, want to help stop it. To be empathetic is to identify with and understand the feelings of another person. These are different things.

For an example in action; imagine a medic with a patient whose shoulder is dislocated, and xey'll need to pop that arm back in place in order for the patient to feel better.

A medic feeling EMPATHY for that patient is having an emotional response to what xey're seeing. Xey might have a tingly "ghost pain" thinking about the injury, and xey might feel guilty xey're going to put them in more agony, but also joy because this patient is going to feel much better in just a moment.

A medic feeling COMPASSION for that patient is thinking about how the shoulder must be causing a lot of pain, and knows xey have the skill to fix it. Xey know from xeir own experience that pain sucks and so it is a bad thing that needs to go away. It will hurt a little more for a moment, but then there will be immediate relief.

This is imo, why a lot of low empathy people are "bad at" comforting people without going to Autism College where they give you the scripts of Shit Neurotypicals Say. We're not trying to be selfish when we end up making "comfort sessions" about ourselves-- that's what we think empathy is, because we don't have a lot of it to really know what you want.

Like, doesn't it make sense to you? "I don't know what you're feeling. Here's a similar situation I've been though. I must know what you're feeling-- does that make you feel better? That you aren't alone? I think that's what empathy is, am I right?"

A LOT of low empathy people go into medical fields, the funeral industry, and disaster relief. We often really do want to help people so seek these fields out, or when we get there, just end up not getting burnt out like our high-empathy peers!

Apathy

As for the apathetic character, honestly, I'd suggest thinking about your story's themes. Villains are very special to me and I always try to handle them with care. What are you trying to say is bad to not care about in your work? How does their apathy play into the story you're trying to tell?

A Captain Planet villain is completely selfish, and exists only to benefit itself by exploiting nature in some way. Then the Planeteers show up and punch it in the face. Boiled down to its barest, most simple essentials; "We have conflicting goals and so I will stop you."

Personally I find total apathy to be something not especially compelling in villains, for that reason. Like, if you really don't care about anything, why bother with the trouble of going against the protag? Motivation is meant to be MOTIVATING.

(also ngl I'm on the Shadow As A Hero sort of bandwagon where I find it much funnier for the simple apathetic cool edgy guy to be the funniest person on your tennis team)

Dungeon Meshi has TWO characters who struggle with apathy, and are both antagonists at some points in the story, but never villains. Shuro and Mithrun. The theme of Dungeon Meshi is the beauty and complexity of life, the value of living, and how our connections to others changes the people we are. Food is a metaphor for bonding, self-care, and understanding.

For Shuro, he begins the story as someone who's both been encouraged to bottle up his emotions for the sake of other people, as well as to not actually consider the emotions of those lower-born than him. He's from a very different place than the other members of his party, and this causes friction as class, culture, and sophisticated, refined, weapons-grade autism clashes.

When the woman he loves is eaten by a dragon, he doesn't stop to tell her brother and """childhood friend""" what he's planning, as if they both wouldn't run in and get hurt. He owns demi-humans. He doesn't consider his own needs or the needs of his rescue team of loyal vassals. As a result, he's too weak to continue, losing a fistfight with one of the main characters, Laios.

After this, he connects with him for the very first time, and reaches out to him by giving him an important magic item. There's even a MASSIVE moment where he outright tells Laios that his ability to be so open (read: not have to mask his autism) is something he envies, breaking through that veil of apathy he wears.

The story Dungeon Meshi is telling here is that it is important to value the needs of yourself and of others. Shuro's apathy towards his own needs in a bid to prove his love weakened him. In acting like he was above his old teammates, he never spoke to them like people to smooth out his issues. He's never even noticed how much his vassals love and care for him.

(and the incredible irony is not lost on me, that Shuro's name is because Laios mispronounced it and was never corrected... while Shuro never noticed that Izutsumi had the unwanted name "Asebi" forced onto her when she was "taken in" and made his slave.)

See how that comes back to the theme? Shuro doesn't exist to just "be some asshole" or act like a villain. He has a full character arc that contributes to the narrative.

For Mithrun? I won't even spoil it. Go read Dungeon Meshi. Watch elf depression. We love a king with strabismus.

Anyway,

If you ever need good personal resources on any stigmatized mental condition, I've found it's usually productive to go into the #Actually (Thing) tag here on Tumblr. You can find people posting about basically anything. I found a lot of really good resources on NPD that way.

[clusterlgbt]

Honestly, I don't think there's anything wrong whatsoever with not feeling "negative" emotions such as grief, guilt, etc. What matters is how you DEAL with the situation, not how you FEEL about it.

For people with ASPD, SZPD, autism, certain psychotic disorders, NPD -- pretty much any disorder that may cause low empathy or flat affect -- it's just a fact of life we don't always (or ever) feel those emotions. (And of course there's way more disorders and symptoms than the ones I just listed, and of course some people who DO have those disorders CAN feel said emotions!)

If you hurt someone and don't regret it, that by itself does not make you a bad person. In fact, if you hurt someone, and want to amend the situation and not hurt that person again IN SPITE OF not feeling guilt? That's amazing. That's amazing and, in my opinion, very selfless.

If you don't feel grief after a loved one dies it doesn't mean you're an awful person who never valued them. As long as you stand by the people who DO feel grief, and offer them comfort or space or whatever, then it's fine that you don't feel it, because you're still being compassionate to those who do.

Honestly even if you feel annoyed or irritated or what have you at the people who are hurting, even that isn't anything shameful, because again it's about what you do, not about how you feel.

Maybe I'm just making defenses for my own ASPD self, but it really doesn't seem like a problem to me. Feelings are private, after all, actions and reactions are what's public, so it matters how you treat others, not how you feel about said others.

Statements like this might make empaths uncomfortable but I stand by it. No one is a bad person just for the way that they "feel", not to mention that a lack of remorse/guilt/sadness/etc is itself a symptom of many disorders and a common trauma response.

[tetrabytez]

I keep seeing posts that are once again using empathy and compassion interchangeably. Please stop. Not having empathy does not automatically make you a bad person. Someone without empathy can still have compassion and be kind.

If you have no compassion, that's when you're not kind. If you have no empathy or low empathy, it simply means that you cannot relate to others in the same way you could if you did.

So so so tired of seeing stuff like this, especially as an Autistic person with low empathy. Quit villainizing me for something I can't control, and instead acknowledge me for what I can.

Over and over we tell you to stop mixing those words up, and yet it continues and continues.

[not-politcal-just-hypocritical]

Small little political rant, feel free to read or not. Basically I'm just going off about how stupid it is that trump is now president.

How stupid do you have to be to vote for a felon?

What possible reason do you have to not vote for Kamla?

Nevermind a felon with over 30 charges, when America was faced with the question of a woman or a felon, they chose a felon.

And for what? Grocery prices?

Like the ones Kamala also pledged to lower? Yet they voted for a guy who wishes to take away rights?

Rights that a hundred years later, women are still fighting for?

He wants to take away half the population's rights? And the majority of the people agreed with him?

No wonder infinity war was a fucking success.

Now, i was aware America wasn't the best education wise, but to be this low of a standard?

To not understand the basic principles of a good person? And while i agree that neither of these people are necessarily good people, that does not mean there isn't an obvious better one.

So many Americans points are then saying "Oh you're not American this doesn't affect you-" the women in Afghanistan who are forced to cover their faces and not speak in public don't affect me either.

That doesn't limit their struggles to being in Afghanistan, it showcases their struggles in life, and America has such a big influence on the world that it will eventually impact the rest of counties, why don't people understand that it's not a nation related problem but rather a people problem, a problem for lack of independence which is what America is known for, is it not?

How could they preach what they deny?

It's disgusting the lack of care, respect and empathy people are showing towards this entire situation as if it's not affecting people of all races and ages.

And also the whole not voting thing DOESN'T HELP.

People think that by not voting they're doing the best thing but they're not, they're giving in their silence is as much of a white flag as a vote for trump, they're surrendering to the choices and belief systems of others, the whole reason people get a vote is so that they get their opinions out, so that they get a chance to be heard, to do nothing with it is as bad as voting for trump.

You don't want to let a felon in your house?

Don't let him run your country.

For the love of all people, i beg you to think of all the women in your life.

Of your children, your daughters, your sisters, your mothers, your best friend, your coworker, your doctors.

Think of them and think of how you stole their rights, how you've doomed your children.

[ilikekidsshows]

Do you think that Adrien has low empathy?

---

I don't even need to know what this is referencing to guess it's Adrien salters being weird again. I always get very suspicious of “X has low empathy” statements, because it almost always feels like a misleading statement meant to make a character look bad because of common misconceptions about low empathy people. It's leaning on this idea of “purity of intent”, where people think that, unless you can literally feel another person's emotional pain, any attempt to help others is going to fail or be “manipulative” if it succeeds. In reality, your level of empathy has nothing to do with your level of compassion, aka your willingness to help others. The person who sits with you while you're upset about losing a job opportunity is committing an act of compassion even when they can't really relate to the emotion you're having, while the person who cries at home about how sad they are that you’re having a hard time isn't.

Word-for-word, saying Adrien has low empathy is saying that he simply lacks an aptitude (a natural inclination towards an ability), but what this implies is that Adrien is fundamentally a bad person for lacking this specific aptitude. It's ableist as fuck because many people manage to be kind, caring people despite not having the ability to empathize or having a hard time with it. It's extra disgusting to say this shit about Adrien especially because he's a trauma victim and trauma victims already respond to others’ emotions differently from nontraumatized people, so trying to grade trauma victims on their level of empathy is ableist.

What is far less ableist to discuss is how good I think a character is at empathy skills. "Empathy" as a general concept is made up of both the aptitude towards empathy and empathy skills. Empathy skills are different from level of empathy because they can be learnt, while your level of empathy is related to how your brain and emotions work. Having high empathy makes learning empathy skills easier and having low empathy makes them harder, yes, but your skills affect your ability to act far more than your aptitude. Empathy skills are basically the ability to relate to others through imagining yourself in their situation, which allows you to understand their state of mind, like what they want or need.

Now, do I think Adrien is good at this skill? Comparatively to whom? In the cast of Miraculous, there are few characters as in tune with other people’s emotions as Adrien. Adrien is the only character in the cast who seems to actually understand what Lila is after, for example, outside of Gabriel, who has supernatural help from Nooroo. He’s the one member in the cast with the highest count of times he’s gotten Marinette out of a mental breakdown after possibly Tikki. Adrien has incredibly good empathy skills. I have actually made this assessment earlier on the blog how Adrien is capable of both putting himself in someone else's shoes and making logical assumptions on how someone is feeling based on the clues he has, and using this information to help others. I don’t know if that means he has high empathy or not, but it sure does mean he’s kind and compassionate, which is what really matters.

[cringelordofchaos]

Common ADHD traits/experiences I've heard of !!

(I was gonna make a post about why I might be neurodivergent but I figured it'd be going a bit too personal. Also this is just easier)

(ADHD is much more nuanced and complex than I may make it appear in this post. A lot of ADHD people don't have a lot of these traits or have traits not mentioned here. For example there are three types of ADHD (inattentive, hyperactive and combined) and most inattentive adhders are not going to be hyperactive lol)

Warning: badly worded (I'm stupid that's my excuse). also I'll go on personal rants as to how some of these may apply to me (whilst I can reasonate with each point listed here I won't go on a rat on all of these)

Physical hyperactivity (inability to sit/stand still (I used to think this meant that people with ADHD were incapable of. Sitting down (while constantly fidgeting or not) for one whole class)(I was an idiot)(I still am)). (Just overall constant , movement (I might have it idk I'm ALWAYS

Excessive talking

Stimming, fidgeting, general and overall repetitive movements (such as flapping hands, pacing, clasping hands together, etc)

Low attention span regarding things that don't garner much interest to you

More likely to be autistic, have anxiety or depression (or generally have other diagnostic conditions)

Ability to Hyperfocus on specific things, at times out of their control

More likely to have a lower Performance in school that most people

Proneness to addiction

Rejection sensitive dysphoria/RSD (really sensitive and afraid to rejection or criticism or disapproval or stuff like that. I'm questioning if I have it and I'm pretty sure I do bc i would have a whole breakdown bc i accidentally had a bad unintentional thought about this cool person I didn't want to hate me)(it's complicated)

Emotional disregulation (easily irritable, excited, stressed, stronger emotions, more likely to lash out, etc)(people with this are usually described to be much more emotional)

restless leg syndrome (except it's permanent lol)

Lower memory spans regarding most things

Forgetting to fulfill basic needs (such as eating, drinking, showering, etc)

Women/AFAB people are more likely to be diagnosed with inattentive ADHD (this of course does not rucking mean afab people can't b hyperactive my god)

Mental hyperactivity (racing/constant/overlapping/repetitive thoughts or stuff like that)

Impulsivity (doing stuff without thinking them fully though or not knowing why)

Sensory issues (sensitivity to sensory output such as noise, brightness, etc)

Easily bored/underwhelmed/understimulated - more likely to want to seek constant dopamine (due to l

Easily overwhelmed (whether itd be due to aforementioned sensory issues, emotional disregulation, rsd or stuff like that)

More likely to be perceived as "childish" (from what I've heard obviously this and many other things listed here don't apply to everyone)

Executive dysfunction (can't do shit at all)(ok it's more complicated than that just Google it up or something)

Having Hyperfixations (things you're DEEPLY invested in for a period of time, it can be a few days, weeks, months, sometimes more than a year, depends rly)(I'm still questioning if I'm neurodivergent but like I'm pretty sure I was in a DEEP hyperfixation mode when it came to sonic for like. A YEAR. like I literally it was literally the only thing on my brain the only thing in my life. and I would get realllytyy excited about learning obscure information about it or infodumping and I would flap my hands bc of how excited and passionate I was Abt it)(man I miss the times when I was so passionate about stuff I liked it was so fun :(( )

Higher/lower levels of empathy (I've seen this moreso been brought up with discussions regarding autism but I've also seen it brought up with ADHD itself too)

Lower levels of dopamine

Impatience

More likely to be a maladaptive daydreamer

Its cause is usually heavily genetic (meaning if your family or a family member has ADHD, you are more likely to have ADHD yourself)

More likely to have insomniac/have general problems with sleep (I'm questioning ADHD. I'm writing this like... Five hours before I'm supposed to wake up for school. Great.)

There is also a higher relevance between ADHD and PTSD

If I missed something important let me know!! Also if you don't know some of he

This post is not meant to be used as a substitute for self nor professional diagnosis, though if you feel like you might have ADHD because of this post I recommend further research and conversations with trusted advisors such as parental figures or therapists/doctors (not me not listening to my own advice)(<- that was me regarding my latter advice)(I'm too scared to tell my parents about it man)(idk why)

Things to note:

ADHD is not just about little elementary school hyperactive white boys !!

There's a lot of things I mightve missed

Not everyone with ADHD has all these traits (obviously)

Some of these traits may be common due to the commonness of ADHD + autism overlap (idk though)

Apparently it's one of the most diagnosed forms of neurodivergence in kids (about 7-10% of kids in the USA are diagnosed with ADHD)(APPARENTLY idk)

There's more but I'm tired right now byeeee

[andthetapeworms]

Thoughts about Rolfe DeWolfe tonight

We often praise how real and authentic the dialogue between the characters feels yet i don't often see people talk about.. how real the characters themselves feel. Like making them "bad" people or giving them "bad" people traits, not because they're mean or evil or you're supposed to dislike them, just because these are just normal people who.. happen to just have those traits. And that's that.

As somebody with narcissistic personality disorder I've always felt like Rolfe was a near perfect depiction of narcissism- both with how his traits are written and how his character is handled overall. He has an inflated sense of self worth and a distorted self image, he thinks he's more important than he actually is, he thinks he's more adored (assuming he got a lot of fan letters), he seems to have low amounts of empathy (how he speaks to fatz and earl), thinks he's above everyone else (saying that he doesn't need earl anymore because he's become untouchable in his own eyes). If you've watched Tuv's "investigating abandoned animatronics" video, even the showtape in that video shows Billy Bob suggesting that Rolfe has an inflated sense of importance and what he's good at, and Rolfe gets extremely offended and genuinely upset.

Obviously this won't be accurate to everyone with NPD's traits, but personally they're very accurate to mine. If i had to pick a character to describe my experience with npd I'd pick Rolfe. He's like a mirror of me, I feel- he's the embodiment of all the traits i struggle with. Infact being kin with him has helped me cope with my npd- watching the show tapes is an excellent way to sort of reality check myself because they show that his narcissism annoys and inconveniences others and causes resentment, yet it does so in a respectful and gentle way.

It's not in a "hey look at this guy he's a fucking asshole and nobody likes him" way, it's a "this guy has problems that he should work on because it's bothering his loved ones.". That is, to me, in my opinion affected by my experience with this disorder, the best way to possibly depict both NPD and it's consequences.

While being a great depiction of the consequences he's also just, a cute and fun depiction of narcissism traits in general. He has a loveable personality and he's fun to watch. I adore all of the characters in the band, they all have a very unique and charming appeal to their personalities- and Rolfe's is just how fun he is to watch. His dialogue, especially with Earl, is very cute and fun.

He's narcissistic and not apologetic, it's just treated as another trait he has. It's not "he's a narcissist and his entire character is shaped around being a narcissist and therefore being a bad person" it's "he has narcissistic traits and issues but is not a bad person." He's not depicted as abusive or evil, just slightly annoying, yet he's still loved. Earl pokes fun at and insults him a lot but he got nervous when Rolfe started talking about leaving him, asking to make sure Rolfe was just joking and very happily going "Alright!" when Rolfe confirms he was. They have a playful relationship and you can tell they enjoy eachother even with Rolfe's narcissism, which combats the straight up lie that is "narcissists can't form meaningful relationships".

That just genuinely means so much to me, you know? Having a disorder caused by trauma and your own abuse that's constantly labeled as evil and abusive and then finding a character who's like you but not at all how people describe you is. It's nice. It feels nice. I'm sharing this post because i hope maybe anyone whos also a narcissist might also like to enjoy the silly wolf? Or maybe just a rolfe fan would like to hear my analysis and take-away on him :)

[opinated-user]

let me clear about something here: i don't care about avatar. i watched the show years after the hype died down because there was so much hype and i could see why everyone loved it, but i personally could not connect with the show the same way so many other were. all of this to say that this take is wrong. bloodbending isn't taboo because otherwise it's too good of a weapon to use and you could defeat anyone with it. bloodbending is taboo and arguably worse than any of those other examples that LO listed because it takes the agency away from a person. the agency over their own body. a person who does that to another human has to contend with the fact that they're violating someone's body. violating someone's body is not a thing you want to encourage in any kind of society. that's the reason why it's taboo. LO, i know this is a foreign concept for you, so let me say this on the most plainest terms possible: most people don't want to violate other people's body. for a majority of people, in fact, that feels wrong on a fundamental level. for Katara, who is a naturally empathetic person, doing that would feel violating for her too. the bad guys use that power precisely to show their lack of empathy and viewing other people as mere tools to be used. that's the reason why you shouldn't have a hero using it unless it's extremely necessary or you shown them to be at a very low point (like when Katara went for revenge). when you do any of those other things, you're either restraining someone or wanting to cause harm. in the show itself, for many of them, they are not portrayed as good things either unless they're used as a last resource against a strong foe. nobody in the world of avatar is encouraging breaking people's skulls with rocks or burn the faces of their children if they misbehave. those actions are also taboo already. i actually do not understand how do you think that bloodbending is "less bad" because look, you can cause more harm doing these other things. it's not about the harm, it's about literally using someone's body for your own means without restrictions. the thing that a villain would like to do. figures that you would not like it to be considered that way, considering how many times you have violated the consent of other people without blinking.

[sagesilentfire]

Autistic Toffee, thoughts?

I mean I did make this image:

But yeah, he's super fucking autistic. Like me. Canonically: (warning: references to self-harm and also oversharing my weird experiences as a chronic autism-haver)

Gets social skills enough to be manipulative about it and understand what people will do, does not get them enough to not creep out people who already are looking for an excuse to dislike him.

Like every behavior the creators gave him to make him creepy and evil just read as autistic person trying to mask to me.

Cold and emotionless? Bro has a flat affect and it just clashes with the overemotional rest of the show.

Low empathy? Autistic, and he does have his own kind of empathy, he just, like a lot of autistic people, expresses it weirdly. And seriously, the idea that a) Normative, neurotypical empathy is the only sign of good moral character and b) that Toffee lacks any version of empathy in general because he doesn't seem to care when unjust rulers or bootlicking toadies get their due, is really ableist and can go die now.

Monotone voice? Flat affect, and probably over-correcting on controlling his tone of voice too. Remember he's in Socialization Mode every time we see him, or Dealing With Mewmans Mode, which is even more tense. I bet he can and will emote via voice when alone or with people he trusts. Heck, he does it in Meteora's Lesson, when he's with the other septarians.

Ulterior motives? When you're autistic, you know that everyone has ulterior motives you can't hope to understand, including other autistic people. It's fine.

I actually headcanon he's repressed a lot of his sensory issues. I have a few that are really annoying, but I don't have another option if I want to appear in polite society and have to force myself to live with them even though they make me want to vomit, so I can see him actively choosing to repress emotional reactions to things. 

He gets overwhelmed more often than you'd expect. People just don't notice, because his reaction is always to freeze up and go silent – a shutdown, the "flight and/or freeze" part of the autistic experience. This is from my own personal experience: when overwhelmed I'm either yelling and angry (around people I know and trust enough to get mad at without them hurting me) or hiding and silently self-harming (around people I don't know or trust). (When I get overwhelmed in a place I feel comfortable but don't know anyone there, I tend to get weird in public looking for someone to feel less bad with. We don't talk about those times.)

I think he was close to a shutdown during Mewnipendence Day when he saw that stupid play Star put on.

Definitely doing a shutdown after he couldn't rescue Star. Probably exiting the scene as fast as possible to go pull out some scales (fun, risk-free self-harm! warning: only septarians can do this. you will bleed if you don't have a healing factor. be safe and maybe don't self--harm it's bad for you), grit his teeth, and go find a way to rescue Star. And also send an army to take over Butterfly Castle while the wand was out. Star would be alive to learn to live with not being a princess. 

Doesn't *always* know what to say. Can convince people to do things easily, but has no idea how to help other people with their emotions. His autistic ass could never be a therapist.

And then there's SAMATFOE Toffee, who has some extra Problems:

Sílthéy and Toffee work together to ensure that Toffee is as immune as possible to emotional leverage. Do anything to them, especially when they're in Business Mode, and Toffee will just sigh, shake their head, and refuse to take the bait. They may have PTSD and Autism, but have you considered: they also have severe emotional repression!

However, when they do crack, it's really bad, and potentially really dangerous. They still freeze and flee, but due to... circumstances, they could be as much of a magical superweapon as the wand, but in a completely uncontrollable way. Unlike the Butterflys, they do not make a habit of flirting with destroying the world, so instead they shove down their feelings and get their ass to therapy. 

And then when their therapist advocates for expressing their emotions healthily, they go get a new therapist, probably a cognitive behavioral therapist or something (I'm JOKING, CBT works for people who are not me! It's a perfectly fine method of brain-helping, it's just my default punching bag. I'm more of an Internal Family Systems guy myself). 

Rasticore is a big help. He helps them express medium amounts of emotion healthily and without having a complete (magi-nuclear) meltdown. They help him with his own meltdowns, because everyone is autistic in my world except for Mina. Rasticore finds their calm grounding. 

[neon-moon-beam]

Not Again: Ableism Post-Teal Mask Edition

Hey, how about NOT being ableist towards Carmine and Kieran?

We've already dealt with N and Submas experiencing this since Gen 5's initial run, we've dealt with Volo and then Nemona, and definitely more but those are the big ones.

Lately there seems to be this tendency of people to want to diagnose every character and you don't actually need to give every single character an armchair diagnosis right out the gate. While representation is important and some characters have enough in their characterization to suggest an illness or disability, or even seem outright coded, not every character is, or needs to be. If a character strongly resonates with your experience with an illness or disability, that's one thing; many autistic people feel seen and validated by Submas, for example. But if you're grasping at straws or stretching a character's actions or situations to make them "fit" a diagnosis, it often comes across more as pathologizing characters rather than humanizing them. It's important to not only think about why you want to portray a character this way, but whether or not it fits with their characterization and if you're using it to show an accurate portrayal, or if you're just using it to excuse/dismiss their hurtful actions, or even demonize the character.

Spoilers for the Teal Mask DLC ahead. CW for ableism.

There's a huge difference between say, Submas who are so heavily autistic-coded you'd have a harder time arguing they aren't, and someone like Kieran who shows rejection sensitivity that may or may not be a symptom of something else, or Carmine, who appears explosive and a cruel bully, but it turns out her anger comes from places of worry as well as being angry about innocent people and Pokemon being wronged. Her decision to not tell Kieran they met Ogerpon was because she knew how much Ogerpon meant to him and how bad he would feel knowing he missed her. People have been quick to decide she has low or no empathy, when the game literally shows her having a lot of it! We also don't know Carmine and Kieran's whole stories yet. We're going to see them at Blueberry Academy next (and Kieran does tell the player that Carmine does everything for him there, which is a reason he wants to get stronger). We don't know why they're going to school there, if they have friends there or a community or if they’re outcast and bullied, or where their parents are. Their attitudes, actions, or even potential symptoms may be situational. Carmine certainly appears to be acting out to the threat of her hometown being overrun by tourists (and considering how tourism tends to impact places and its locals IRL, can you blame her?) Kieran has the conflicting situation of his sister looking out for him at school for reasons we haven’t seen yet, while also verbally cutting him down. He also identified with Ogerpon even before the player arrived at Kitakami, and maybe even projected onto her for a reason. There’s a potential for a lot to be going on here without either of them needing an instant armchair diagnosis before their story arcs are complete.

A character desperate for friends doesn't necessary indicate a personality disorder, especially when their backstory is that they were left out, bullied, or even considered an outsider to a degree in the town they grew up in. Someone like Nemona or Kieran wanting to have friends after experiencing a lot of rejection and isolation doesn't instantly mean they have a personality disorder, and even if the story ended up indicating that they did, that does not give anyone the excuse to write them as "scary" or "yandere". Personality disorders are complex in potential causes and how they manifest, and using them as shorthand to write a character being a "yandere" or abusive is ableist.

And once again, it is time to bring up the subject of “feral” or “unhinged”. Whether or not Carmine has anger issues that can be given a diagnosis or Kieran has a personality disorder or anything else that can be diagnosed doesn’t matter here. Making characters “scary and unhinged” for experiencing basic human emotions is…dehumanizing. When you decide Carmine should snap and go around hurting people, you actually sound just like the people in Kitakami who are ostracizing her and whispering behind her back, making her feel like she has no place in her own community. And the same with Kieran. The last scene of the storyline in Kitakami has him vowing to defeat the player. It comes off as a bit creepy, but it doesn’t mean he’s supposed to have been a creep all along or is turning into one; from a developer/storytelling perspective, it’s literally just creating suspense for the Indigo Disk story. While Kieran is shown to be rejection sensitive, jealous, self-isolating, and at times inconsiderate (Carmine had to remind him that Ogerpon’s feelings on who she should travel with mattered too), he’s also a kid. We don’t have an exact age, but my impression was he might be a bit younger than the player. Carmine does mention him having “teen angst” but it could be a joke as she herself is a teen claiming to be over it, and it could be one of those “older kid jokes about younger kid as though older kid is an elderly person” type of jokes. But if he is a teen, he’s a younger one, and he still has a lot to learn about managing his emotions and expressing himself constructively. Nobody is always mature about that at 13 (heck, there are adults who lack emotional maturity altogether). He shouldn’t be expected to react maturely every time to things that upset him, and he shouldn’t be pathologized or considered “unhinged” every time he doesn’t. Depicting him as “unhinged” also detracts from his positive traits that we see in conjunction with, or even in spite of his negative ones. He’s jealous of the player character’s strength and skill, but he doesn’t actually resent them, despite becoming obsessed with the idea of defeating them. Ogerpon was bonding more with the player, but he still decided to help with the situation with the masks and the Lousy Three. He’s jealous that Ogerpon wanted to go with the player, but he’s still happy for both of them. It’s much more likely that we’ll see him mature as a person and recognize his own strengths independent of Carmine and the player at the end of the Indigo Disk then see him become a “madman consumed by jealousy and pursuit of power”, because Pokemon doesn’t really tell stories like that, and certainly not with non-villain characters! And if Carmine and Kieran end up fitting a diagnosis for an illness or disability, continuing to depict them as “unhinged” based on those traits is very ableist. I and others have said it in regards to Submas so many times, but it’s true for other characters too.

And this is by no means an exhaustive list of examples of the ways people are being ableist after the Teal Mask DLC has released.

With all that said, a headcanon diagnosis doesn’t excuse a character’s actions that have hurt others, and neither does a character who’s acting out is situational. Carmine still lashes out at Kieran and hurts him, even when her intentions are to protect him. Kieran still ended up causing the revival of the Lousy Three and put the player and Ogrepon in an uncomfortable situation, and will likely put the player in an uncomfortable situation at Blueberry Academy. In the end, they’re characters being portrayed with virtues and flaws, and that humanizes them much more than slapping on a diagnosis and absolving them of every hurtful action, and certainly much more than slapping a diagnosis on them and in turn using it to demonize them. And if you’re really interested in writing characters with mental illnesses and/or disabilities, and especially if it’s not based on your own experiences, you need to do some actual research, not just watch a few short videos listing symptoms by a non-professional on the video app du jour. If you’re not sure where to look, Wikipedia articles cite their sources at the bottom of the article; you can read the page you’re interested in, but please check out the cited sources too!

Sadly, this is at least the third time in just under three years that people have immediately started depicting characters introduced, or reintroduced in Pokemon, in ways that have ended up becoming ableist. It’s disappointing and disheartening to see, and to be honest, it gets tiring for those of us talking about the issue to keep talking about it. Many of the people making the ableist depictions aren’t personally affected by the issues they misrepresent, and they can just post their art or fic, and continue on their way. But for those of us who have the illnesses and/or disabilities being misrepresented, even misrepresented as entertainment, we can’t just log off and go on our way. The reality is a series, characters, or even fandom that could be our break from everyday life, and should be our refuge, instead has a fandom that  just plays out our everyday difficulties for laughs, brings up our trauma as an excuse to write a character as “haha unhinged! ooh feral!”, treats characters the way so many of us were treated by bullies, by parents and teachers who didn’t understand, and ends up alienating us from a space that should be ours, a space some of us helped build, only to have to leave as others made it unfriendly to us. It gets so tiring to have to avoid content that should be enjoyable but isn’t, to have friends ask, “Is this really how others see me?” when yet another autistic-coded character is portrayed as unhinged and creepy, or to have them tell you how yet another fic or art dehumanized them via their favorite characters, to watch people describe a character the way your peers once described you as they made fun of or ostracized you for your neurodivergence. It’s tiring to have other fans of the same series make a space alienating, inaccessible, or even antagonistic towards you, instead of fostering community.

Come on people, please do better.

Thank you for reading my post and your consideration. And if you think other people would benefit from reading this, please give it a reblog. Likes don't do anything as tumblr has no real algorithm.

[yardsards]

having empathy does not automatically make someone better than those with low empathy. those with low empathy do not need to work *extra* hard to be as "good" as those with average or high amounts of empathy.

like, empathy is not always a good thing. empathy can lead people to silence others who are talking about their personal traumatic experiences, or force those who are visibly suffering to be hidden away because "i don't want to hear about or see your pain, you're making me feel bad". or attempt to exert unethical control over others and restrict their freedoms because "i cannot bear to see you make choices that might hurt you."

does this mean empathy is inherently bad and that low empathy people are better? no, that's not the case either. a lack of empathy can cause us to turn a blind eye to people in need, for example.

in reality, all people, regardless of our natural empathy levels, must learn to practice kindness and respect towards others, even when doing so runs contrary to our gut feelings. we must *all* put in that effort and work to be better.

[drbased]

I'm sorry if this is too personal or painful. Please feel free to ignore this question if triggering.

How did you apply your personal philosophies to your suicidal and depression? Like the symbolic states and actions and consequences and all of that?

This is not painful for me at all, and I thank you for being so considerate.

So.

The fundamental thing I came to understand is this: feeling good feels good, and that's enough. It seems too simplistic, but that understanding is built from the idea that as I am me, I am at the center of my life experiences: I am the one who feels all the feelings, thinks all the thoughts, does all the actions. As a result, my primary perogative is to myself. And what is the main 'currency' of my selfhood? Emotions. Emotions are somewhere in between sensory feedback and a choice you make - ultimately, they are feedback that tells you something about what you value. When people say you have to choose to be happy, they are absolutely correct.

Depression says no, that's not right, you can't just choose to be happy, because what about all the miserable stuff in the world? Being miserable just makes sense! It's proportional! You'd have to be a vapid moron to be happy! But you see, what I realised was that emotions are not and cannot ever be 100% proportional to the world's suffering - that's just fundamentally impossible. But even they were, what good is it for me to feel so bad about everything all the time, especially things I'm never going to change? If you see a homeless woman, don't give her £10, and then you go home and cry about how sad it is that homelessness exists, what the fuck does that say about what you actually value in this world? When I realised that what's important about me is what I value and demonstrating that value, my relationship with my emotions shifted. I do not have to be lo! there is such suffering in the world. and so I have suffered too. I shall weep for a thousand years in order to be a person who values a reduction of suffering in the world - in fact, the thing about depression and other symbolic states is that they're an over-dramatisation of emotions, where real people and real events get turned into narrative symbols. The homeless woman's own actual misery is too much to bear, so I instead turn her into a symbol as part of a larger narrative about homelessness being such an evil in this world - she's low-key dehumanised for my benefit, which is the opposite of empathy and respect - for both her, and my relationship with my own values and emotions.

And it also doesn't means I'm any more likely to give her that £10. In fact, it probably means I'm less likely to help her - it's talked about how over-exposure to misery online makes you less likely to do any activism. Similarly, depression and other symbolic states are masters at making you think you're doing something deep and impressive because you're feeling things that other people aren't.

But since I am no longer depressed, I haven't miraculously lost my value system - because it turns out I continue to be my literal self, and that I have been a boring, subjective, embarrassing human being this whole damn time. And what's amazing and awe-inspiring about me is that the care I have for that homeless person has nothing to do with some measurable objectivity - it's entirely my own! It's the difference between christian morality and atheist morality; christians don't know how we can have morality without Rules. Whilst I was never christian, the nature of symbolic states is similarly religious, seeking rules and order to know how to live, instead of allowing your selfhood to project outwards in all its natural messiness and mistake-making. So now, if anything, I am working much more closely with my own value system - when I feel an emotion, even a miserable one, it's an act of self-love and self-respect to accept it for what it is as a valuable part of me, representative of something I care about. And from that foundation of acceptance I can act on it, and if I can't then I address it in some other way and perhaps even shelve it. At every stage there is purpose and choice. That lack of purpose and choice in my life is exactly what the depression was compensating for.

I used to have high highs and low lows - not in a bipolar way, but enough to make me feel like I was on a constant roller-coaster. I now understand that those highs and lows were two sides of the same coin - during the highs, I was able to collect and composite together enough symbols to generate a narrative that my life was on the up and everything was amazing. But during the lows, a part of me wanted to return to that oddly comfortable narrative that things were so ungodly miserable and it would be this way forever. The boring, mundane and embarrassing reality is always somewhere in the middle - or not even really that, because in reality there is no objective categorisation. There is no such thing as an objectively 'sad' things - emotions and morality are human constructions, and I only feel sad about certains things personally value the idea of them not being that way - and that's fine!!! With that in mind, I can now engage fully with my emotions and values without justification, without narrative, which means I cling to them so much less: as I have less to 'prove' to myself, I can go through absolute hell one day but then also enjoy some time with a friend and it's all authentic - not the 'vapid' that I used to assume it would be.

As I said at the start, the core belief system of depression is that you can't just choose to be happy because of all the misery in the world and your own life - but within that assumption there's something that's easy to miss: if I have to say 'I'm not happy because x' that's a thought process/reasoning that is leading me to choose to be unhappy. I realised that oh, I'm already choosing whether or not to be happy, and I've logicked myself into choosing the unhappy option. So if I'm already doing it one way, why can't I choose the other option? And so I asked myself, what would be the logic I use to choose to be happy? And so we circle back to my statement: feeling good feels good, and that's enough.

As a result of all this I've come to understand just how fake depression 'sadness' really is. Depression, and other symbolic states, fill in the gaps for where your true personality and values would be. When I'm sad now - and I have a lot more to be genuinely sad about now than I ever did when depressed - I actually take time out to cry and focus on the actual pain. It's felt very odd, actually, because I've learned to not take myself on these big depressive flights of fancy; instead, I'm allowing myself the cosmically embarrassing thing of feeling hurt by, say, one person's actions in isolation - as opposed to believing that I have to justify said hurt by placing those actions into some wider narrative of lo, I have been hurt so much, this is just a drop in the ocean of how cruel people can be to me, life is pain. I used to have to generate that narrative because I found it embarrassing and shameful to just be myself - I felt that my emotional responses were disproportionate, so I had to justify everything with big emotional drama.

There's something so fundamentally embarrassing to me about being a real, mundane human being - I wanted to be a tv or film character, whose big emotional moments could be comprehensible, empathiseable and with an appropriate soundtrack. My depression was ultimately a performance - if I'm crying immensely, I can imagine I'm being watched and others would see my immense sorrow and I would be cleansed somehow - in essence, I was almost trying to apologise for the embarrassing state of being human with feelings. That's a product of a deep atrophy of my selfhood: a desire for a death that goes further than my desire to not feel pain and instead becomes a desire to not be, to not have ever been. I wanted to take shortcuts, I wanted to live in a montage, I wanted to be surrounded by symbols that would tell me how I'm supposed to exist so I never have to choose, I wanted a robust and concrete logical system to tell me which feelings to have in proportion to 'reality', I wanted to do the right things, I abhored the idea of having subjectivity - I wanted to be objective, I wanted to dissipate my selfhood out through my pores and blend into some fundamental fabric that makes up the universe, to join the collective consciousness as I percieved everyone had, to disappear like that scene in the film Annihilation where one of the characters blends into the grass. I wanted the symbolic death much more than I ever wanted the literal miserable reality of actually trying to kill myself.

My new philosophy says that there is nothing fundamentally embarrassing about being an alive, subjective human being. There is no one watching over me and keeping track of how 'right' I'm behaving, and that's a good thing. My depression was born out of a deep loneliness, especially that of knowing that I always seem to end up some sort of outcast even though I don't feel it inside, so I wanted to be comprehensible more than anything else. The idea of some universal force watching over me and judging me was something I wanted because it meant I never had to feel lonely inside my own head. And also, in flattening everyone else down into one collective consciousness with a language I can't understand allowed me to make sense of my loneliness - it was a simplified me vs them narrative. The narrative is always more palatable than reality, because reality is embarrassing. The idea that people are just messy and that maybe I'm coming across terribly to people and - shock horror - maybe my struggles with people are not that deep - was existentially terrifying because sunk-cost style I'd built my entire perception of myself on this narrative.

I've had to sweep away so much of these layers upon layers of justification. Even if someone tested my DNA and it turned out I'm not human this whole time, so fucking what? I used to be fascinated by people who'd have horrible accidents, or horrible diseases, and still seemed to be happy. I assumed that they must be lying to themselves deep down. But when I realised that the fundamental nature of being alive is to want - that's literally all the self is, a collection of wants - it reframed everything I did. If I can want to be miserable, then I can want to be happy. And how do you change someone's mind? You have to take them seriously, you have to meet them where they're at, you have to respect them. In this whole process I have respected myself more thoroughly than I even knew possible - every emotion is a response to a value I have, and I can always ask myself what that emotion is, and work with that - instead of being afraid that that emotion disproportionate and therefore embarrassing I can embrace it as part of me and worth valuing - because I'm ME and feeling good feels good, and that's enough.

I can recognise these connections at lightning speed now - I actually felt a bit depressed the other day, and I realised it's because I felt too guilty to buy a cup of tea because I'm 'supposed to be saving money'. Well clearly I'm not actually that invested in saving money if a cup of damn tea is enough to tempt me. But that's embarrassing, no? It's embarrassing that my big dramatic narrative goal of 'saving money' is thwarted by something so simple and base and animalistic and momentary as a cup of tea. And saving money is the right thing, it's the thing the all-knowing watcher can say 'you did the Objectively Correct Thing' in response to. Because I'm supposed to be objective, I'm supposed to be logical, I'm not supposed to have a personality, to make mistakes.

So in addressing where the conflict came from I had to address the embarrassing reality that maybe I don't actually care about saving money as much as I'd like to - and that's fucking fine!!! But drbased, you might say, what about the material reality of going broke? Well, then, clearly deep down some part of me must believe that I'm not actually going to suffer that much for buying the damn cup of tea. And in fact, the more I practice this act of respecting myself, the less stressed and miserable I am, meaning the less I need the kind of comforts that I funnel all my money into. I have to trust that in the long run I value myself and I know what I'm doing. And that might be a stupid fucking mistake, it might be I'm on a slippery slope and don't know it - but that's just it, that's just what being human is, there is no narrative and I can't predict the future. There is only being me in the moment, and that's the only way to live. Even if it turns out that that £1.50 could have saved me one day, then that doesn't mean I was wrong for buying the cup of tea. It was a decision I wanted to make and I tried to hide that from myself out of embarrassment. If I had actually been honest with myself, I could have made a more purposeful decision to not buy the tea, and I wouldn't have ended up feeling that depression seep in. And I know that for sure, because that transparency and engagement with myself is exactly why I'm not Depressed(tm) anymore.

I do everything so consciously now - it's a pain, and such pain is one I could easily go lo, oh woe is me about but I always go back to that fundamental princple: why the fuck would I torture myself over things that I can't change? If the point of all this process is that I didn't like being hurt in the past, why am I voluntarily hurting myself now? Sends mixed messages, no?

And finally, with regards to suicide, that whole 'mixed messages' thing is incredibly relevant. I'm not going to explain fully my views on suicide because I don't feel ready yet - but years ago, before I started this journey, I made a decision that I would only kill myself if life became actually untennable. As a result, I have thought about killing myself a lot less.

I truly believe at this point the difference between 'mentally ill' and 'mentally healthy' people has nothing to do with emotional responses, beliefs, unhealthy behaviour etc. etc. and everything to do with how much you're willing to truly embody your value system. There are people right now who are smoking themselves to death despite all evidence saying how bad ir is, but nobody would label them 'mentally ill' because it's plain to see that they just don't give a shit. There's no conflict inside them because their value system is just like 'whatever, if it happens it happens'. And on the flip-side some people can end addictions because something inside them makes the choice, and then they don't look back (I saw this happen to someone in real time). These people aren't vapid - they just embody their value system and embrace their choices. And if you ask them, 'but doesn't x bother you', they'd respond 'of course, but it is what it is'. They don't need to feel and express their emotions 24/7 because they don't need to constantly relive their pain in order for them to accept it as part of themselves. And so, too, am I making the choice to look back on my miserable childhood and go 'I hated it, and that's my fucking prerogative, but I don't want to dwell on that anymore. I want to enjoy my life now'. And likewise, if I want to make the 'unhealthy' choice of committing suicide, that needs to be a choice I actually fucking make. If I'm not working on that choice this second, then what's the damn fucking point in torturing myself over it? Until I make the decision, until my values align and I'm single-minded in my choice (which may never happen), I'm going to chose to live.

[beastenraged]

KH thoughts again, and I've been really favoring the idea of low empathy Demyx.

Generally speaking, low empathy is considered a sign of villainy in Kingdom Hearts, seeing how the Nobodies lack the empathy that comes with a Heart and that's apparently what makes them evil.

BUT that's stupid because low empathy people aren't more prone to evilness in reality. It's just dumb stereotyping.

Tbh, I think Saix is probably a big character for people pointing at and saying, "he lacks empathy" because of everything with Xion. BUT we have the revelation that he pounds down on Xion because he's worried that Axel will abandon him (and Subject X), which is pretty heavy signs of empathy-leaning thoughts.

His plan to atone would also mean nothing without having that inherent empathy related desires in the first place.

Saix is just an asshole, that's all.

So why low empathy Demyx, you may ask?

I just find it an interesting idea that a lot of his laziness and leaving his work to other people may count of him really not having big empathetic feelings to how they might feel about him not doing the work. Like why would he care? They would do the same as him, right?

Also, in how Larxene seems to dislike him A LOT, which might be linked to how much emotional manipulation she likes to use on the heroes of KH. An emotional manipulation that's a bit weaker on a guy that doesn't feel for others in the same way. She might find it annoying that her preferred tactics don't work as well on Demyx as they do on other Nobodies and/or people.

In KH3, Vexen's first attempt to motivate Demyx through the concept of forgiveness completely fails. Why would a guy that doesn't feel like he's done anything that matters to other people want forgiveness? It's more bribery of being valued for his input (for once) that motivates Demyx, a much less 'sympathy focused' desire.

Does being low empathy make you a bad person? No, it doesn't. But it can lead to others thinking you're a bad person because you have different motivations strats than "hey you would feel bad if this thing happened to you too."