#sometimes backed up with ''you can just talk to a therapist about those problems anyway''

[lesbianchemicalplant]

I don't mean to pick on this person, it is true this is a common "boundary", it's just so stark. don't talk to anyone else about how things are going and especially not any problems you're having. this is fine on principle and surely not conducive to anything scary

[what-even-is-thiss]

hi! i just saw your post about your struggle with addiction, and it really resonated with me i guess, and i hope youre doing better now. ive been struggling a lot with being,,, lets call it ‘reasonable’ about my weed consumption and im feeling so overwhelmed trying to slow down with it and so ashamed that im even struggling with this in the first place, do you have any advice from when you first realized you had an addiction and like how you went about dealing with it?

im just really scared to ask my friends and family (outside of tumblr) for help because i worry that itll change how they think of me, or that theyll start treating me differently or something, especially because my parents are the ones who keep enabling this.

if youre not up to giving advice about this sort of thing i completely understand, and obviously our experiences and vices are very different, anyway sorry this is so rambly, and i hope you have a lovely week :)

An addiction counselor or a therapist might be better than me but I’ll try.

What has worked for me in the past with some things is removing the thing from my life completely and then later when I’m better seeing if there’s a healthy smaller way I can bring it back into my life.

Sometimes there isn’t. When it comes to opioids for example I can’t have those even once or my addiction immediately reactivates. Like with me it’s so fast. I become dependent on them immediately. Same with self harm. Hurting myself leads to my brain immediately wanting more of it to get rid of my emotions and it’s bad for my health so i just need to not do that.

When it comes to gambling and mobile games however I’ve been able to find a happy medium with that. I have maybe two mobile games I play that I don’t spend money on and I play more one time purchase games now without micro transactions. With gambling I put a hard limit on myself at 20 bucks a month and for the most part I’ve been able to stick to that.

Also I know that if I drink alcohol more than twice a week I’ll become addicted to it because I can feel it happening. So I just don’t drink more than once or twice a week.

You don’t have to go cold turkey. That doesn’t work for everyone. You might carefully measure out a ration for yourself for the month or week. You might not even have to give it up entirely. Or maybe you might.

I’ve found that talking it out with people in your life you trust can be helpful. The hardest additions to beat for me have been the ones I’ve never told anyone about. And part of the reason I’ve never become alcoholic is because I’ve told my friends and family about my problem and if I have more than three drinks at a party they know to tell me to cut it out.

I’ve found in general that people are more understanding than you think they’ll be. And if they aren’t then find someone who is. Even if they have to be a therapist or something.

I think the worst thing you can do when trying to beat an addiction or if you know you have an addictive personality is to isolate yourself. If you’re alone then it’s just you and your thoughts and your thoughts are what got you into this in the first place.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you find quitting hard. Addiction is hard. It messes with the pathways in your brain. It’s okay if it takes a while. Just keep trying.

[hetalia-club]

Finally i don't feel alone in thinking the fandom is toxic, because I had to deal with a horrible amount of ableism (for literal disabilities I have and apparently someone thought I was incontinent and basically compared incontinent people to diaperfuckers) and even still I have to hide behind anon due to the fact the fandom also has a problem with stalking too, since i have been stalked by people who made private accounts around me and screenshotting everything I said to the point I had to actually talk to someone from the Trevor Project because I genuinely did not feel safe

apologies for the rambling, this fandom isn't normal about disabled people

Honey I'm so sorry :(. Yes people are mean and something about this fandom normalizes it. Idk what it is exactly. People say it's 'always been this way' and while that's true it HAS gotten WORSE. mainly because the fandom is smaller and the assholes just sort of all form a cult together and thrive off each others negativity. They say the people with the worse opinions are the loudest and that couldn't be more true within this fandom.

Also the ability to go fully anonymous on this sight is both a blessing and a plague. I do feel that there SHOULD be a way to find out who the anon was. I myself have been consistently harassed by a Spain kin for almost 5 years. It used to really get to me and it doesn't anymore. I truly just no longer give a shit. I went on Hiatus for 2 years and they CAME BACK! Like they were waiting in the shadows and like a bond vilian just turned in their chair and were like "well well well...". It's just kind of funny if you think about it I live rent free in their dome and they don't even know me. An I can't block them because they are always on anon. So I just delete it and carry on with my life. Last year my therapist diagnosed me with Avoidant Personality Disorder and it answered a lot of questions I've always had about myself. Which means I am an extremely shy person chronically so. I take things to heart even if I shouldn't. I feel things very deeply for myself and for other people and animals. My therapist taught me some tools to try and help me deal and I got an increase in my meds. One of those was to not watch the news or actively sought out negative events because those destroy me. I just can't take it. It's a huge trigger for me and I wish it wasn't I don't like the idea that I make it about me' in some way. It doesn't really do much but it numbs me a bit and makes me care less. It still affects me sure but I feel too unbothered to care. My AI covers have been a HUGE stress relief for me and a good distraction from my feelings. But again it's just a distraction. They are little boosts of serotonin to make and it makes me happy and it makes me even happier when someone enjoys it.

The reason I tell you this is to help you understand that no one really gives a shit. That sounds harsh but please let me elaborate on that. I mean I have straight told people "I am legit too shy to function and I do not like to talk about certain things because it gives me major embarrassment that can last actual days. Can we find a new topic or maybe pivot." but they don't actually listen to me about it. And I understand that it's hard to remember everyone's little quirks but to constantly have to remind people and for them to just "Oh yeah sorry... anyway like I was saying" really stings. Because of my disorder you can imagine I have an extremely hard time speaking my mind and standing up for myself. I want everyone to like me I don't want anyone to dislike me to a fault. I will ignore my own feelings and emotions to let others speak about what makes them happy even if sometimes it does sting. So I actually very much do know exactly where you are coming from with that. Just please remember that these are strangers online. Yes they can say hurtful things but the second you close teh app they disappear. They don't actually matter. And YES I am fully aware that this is easier said than done please believe me on that.

This fandom does have a serious issue with ignoring and disrespecting others disabilities. Especially some that are not really heard about/normalized much like yours or mine. I 100% know everyone thinks I'm lying about my personality disorder being a real thing If they don't want to understand me I can't make them, which sucks but I have no control over that. I wish it were not that way but we can't change other people and the way they think/ act but we can work on ourselves and how we process harassment. I wish you luck anon, you're never alone on this bitch of an earth, love you <3

[carphoegras]

I don’t ship most of these myself , but your rant/ramble posts on Les Mis ships are funny so I genuinely wanted your opinion on these 👁

1. Enjoltaire

2. Valvert

3. Enjonine

4. Marisette (or whatever Marius x Cosette was called)

5. Javonine (Javert and…Eponine 😭)

6. Marionine (A name a just guessed for Marius x Eponine because I wasn’t bothered to look it up)

7. and uhhh.. Granjonine (I think that was the name)

well hello darling! i live to entertain lol lets get into it i might have to put this under a cut because i think its obvious i have a rambling issue

Enjoltaire : a classic for good reason. they seemed really base level to me at first because i watched the movie first, but once i read the brick and really saw their dynamic i fell for them HARD. for me the beauty of this pairing is really rooted in the substance of their individual characters as opposed to like a romantic relationship. idk its so difficult for me to verbalize why i love them so much i think i just love the idea of finding common ground despite difficulties. enjolras and grantaire mirror each other in such a beautiful way that i feel the musical/movie couldn't really capture without demoting it to a puppy love grantaire/mean enjolras dynamic idk i have such an issue with some portrayals of them because i feel like they create a victim/abuser situation where there wasn't one but that's like a whole post within itself anyway i feel like im getting incoherent i love exr with every fiber of my fucking being just read the brick if you don't get it ok the movie and musical just dont do it justice and for the love of god avoid the fics written in 2012/2013 after the movie hype its all wRONGGGG (i love you george blagden but you created a twink grantaire movement) (they pull each others pigtails okay its a mutual obsession) (enjolras why don't you just ignore him baby? glutton for punishment my dear we all know if you hated him you wouldn't let him hang around) (anyway) i should make a seperate post about my exr feelings bc i could talk ab them for hours

2. Valvert: okay this is where i feel like i can be unpopular with the fandom. i fucking hate this ship. like physically, spiritually, all that. its one of those that i kinda lose respect for the person bc its literally a cop/prisoner thing. its not enemies to lovers. its not a hate love thing. javert's a fucking cop. valjean is his victim. the whole idea of people romanticizing this makes me feel so insanely icky and i think the point of the story has just gone RIGHT over some folks' heads please take a step back and think about it. neolib behavior sorry not sorry

3. Enjonine: enjolras is gay. just like, straight up in the brick enjolras is a gay man. this ship is spawned from straight girls who saw aaron tveit and use eponine as their not like other girls posterchild. just a whole bunch of hetero nonsense. same behavior as the joseph quinn enj x reader bs. honey thats a homosexual man and can we please stop reducing eponine to needing a boyfriend she needs a stable home and a goddamn therapist fucking hell

4. Marisette: okay. i LOVE THEM. i'm a cosette stan myself, and i'm a huge fan of a gooey love at first sight situation. they contrast my love for exr in the sense that they're a very easy love. their parts in the book literally make me SWOOOOOON i can put aside my beef with marius as a combeferre kin to appreciate how sweet they are

5. Javonine??: im sorry wh aht. did the snape x hermione shippers leak into the lm fandom or am i being fucking punked im not discussing this its obvious why this is wrong please tell me its obvious y'all are NASTY

6. Marionine: eh. eh. i mean, like i said with enjonine eponine's problems are not gonna be solved with a dude. i'm really not opposed to them, persay, its just that eponine's love for marius is so incredibly dependent and rooted more in her personal trauma than actual love, so i feel a little weird with them sometimes. sometimes it just gives anti cosette vibes (cough cough bc of the bullshit love triangle angle that the musical markets cough cough) so i tread very carefully with them

7. Granjonine: again what in the damn hell. i'm not dignifying this shit they could be besties but for the love of god george blagden did a number on the straight girls. STOP PROJECTING ONTO EPONINE IM GONNA LOSE MY FUCKING MIND LEAVE HER ALONE

thanks for the ask lovely, i do love rambling even though these ships are baffling lmaoooo

[anendoandfriendo]

So like, the idea of a Plural Broken Arm Syndrome happening to us specifically, but also as a more widespread general phenomenon, committed by a plurmisic society, as plurality enters the mainstream, is a very big nightmare for us (not...not literally...although it might as well be literally sometimes, with how often we think about it), but we do not feel it is a baseless nightmare if that makes sense.

This is because we have seen examples of how it could happen already. One of the first things a (bigoted in many, many other ways) coworker asked was "don't you need help for that?" with the that being our plurality. We were lucky in that we had supportive managers at the time and that those managers stamped the plurmisia out fast but, yeah, that was very extreme luck. That luck only continues in a much milder form today, and only because our endogenicity has been so well-established.

We have also seen symptoms of this happening with other neurotypes. As in, we already have problems and traumas with so-called "therapists" — particularly BCBAs/ABA practitioners/autistic conversion practitioners and adjacents — giving us so-called "help" for things that didn't need help — like, you know, our autism.

And we can get into if autism in general needs "help" or not and what kind of "help" might be necessary, but for all intents and purposes, for us, our autism and our being Autistic did not, and does not, need "help" in any way, shape, or form.

Unless you count our one headmate that's so traumatized by ABA that she has thought about cutting her eyes out with something for the mere act of making eye contact with someone. Because the eye contact hurts in an emotional way and makes us physically uncomfortable. Ohohoh!! But just in headspace of course, because that way nobody needs to bother with us right? Because that's less danger to us, because it's not happening to the body. And nobody here could ever go through with something like so to this body, it's kind of the reason we have a job.

But that seems less like our autism needed help, and more like us needing help with some seriously fucked up PTSD or CPTSD, yeah? Hopefully that gives y'all an idea of what we're gonna be talking about here on and off.

Anyways: we have trauma with seclusion rooms and gaslighting us about our calm-ness level at worst. We think there was maybe once or twice it was actually deserved, and the second time was a last-resort effort on Silva's part to get us the fuck out of there and tell the body's parents that something was fucking wrong with these people. We could be reading a book under our desk and be thrown into a seclusion room — oh, sorry — we mean social isolation or "SI" room, assholes. Sassing back at a classmate who sassed us first probably deserves something, but especially not a seclusion room!! These are the same people who, after crying and screaming and throwing shoes at the door for hours, we would tell them we were calmer (after another...fifteen minutes? An hour? We don't know.) of just sitting there debating weather we should just give up or if we should kill the motherfuckers, that we were somehow "not calm" because we had "tear streaks down our face" as in. The tear streaks that have been there for half of the school day. The tear streaks that you caused because you locked us up over being bored because you were forcing us to listen to your boring fucking "class" about a thing we have known since we were three. Those tear streaks. THOSE tear streaks, huh??? These are the same people who would chide the so-called golden rule to us but then tell us "that's not how it works" when we chide back that, if that's the case, then maybe we deserve to have a bit of fun and put them into an "SI room" for three or four hours straight with no way out, no stimulation, and no padding. Like, jeezus christ, if y'all are gonna have a seclusion room can y'all at least not give people asshurt on top of hearthurt and mindfuckery???

These people are from what we term as HFS. This is from when we were eight to twelve years old, bodily speaking. We do not type out the full name, as that might give out too much personal information (just as a general internet safety precaution). We would gladly spit fire into their faces and force them to pay us back in money what they cannot in blood from the veins of every person who has worked there since 2007. Kill them all, we don't care — but that would go against everything we stand for ideologically. We are left with literally nothing to show for this ordeal.

At best, what we had to deal with was like...people giving us toddler-level homework???? on facial expressions and gaslighting us about how to feel about them testing our motor coordination at seventeen years old at best. One idiot who had the gall to try to block the exit door from us, a seventeen year old, as we barely squeezed past her dumb ass. Somehow the body's parents did not notice this. We told them we wanted to be "normal" in an attempt to appeal to the abusive step-mother and somehow landed ourselves into this spot.

This is what we would normally just term "ABA therapy/facility" as it is what most people imagine when they hear the words ABA therapy, even if we consider our other, much worse and much more traumatizing ordeal, even if it was never officially called such, to also be ABA therapy. This is when we were seventeen years old, bodily speaking. We were just about to enter university but we really just needed to milk out/mooch off of the stepcunt for a little bit longer, yeah? So that meant pretending we "want to be normal" or whatever. It wasn't nearly as traumatizing as the former experiences.

We worry, then, people might try to gaslight us (much in the same way HFS and the ABA Facility would gaslight us) into thinking we are traumagenic, because once again, those of the anti-endogenic and sysmed categories, we often find, have narrow minds and tiny hearts, if only that because they want to pretend they are right about everything. Science matters, but so do matters of the heart, the soul, and the stories we tell about ourselves.

How do we know we're endogenic?

Because of Raymond.

And how do we know about Raymond?

Because of Christina Kelliana. The stories Raymond shares and they line themselves up so very kindly, gently, and neatly for us. It's not clean the way something constructed might be, but in the way childhood nostalgia tries to make sense of itself, as itself, as it looks back unto itself.

It's not as if we don't remember the one teacher acting as a human straitjacket...but that was over Autistic meltdowns and it actually made sense to do that during the time period, since that was like...from 2000 or 2001 maybe, going all of the way up to 2007. We don't think people were often trained to handle those things back then, and like, if the fact HFS is still standing and has never made a public apology shows us anything, it's that even if it's illegal now and wasn't back when we were at HFS, we still should not trust them to be obeying the so-called law just because they have closed their doors.

And it's not like we don't remember the spicy barbecue sauce and how upset we were about that, and how Christina switched with someone else over that...not that we would have had the words back then, but one does not simply go from barbecue sauce being spicy to it not tasting like very much at all!

But, we also remember playing HORSE, a basketball game, with Christina and Kelly. There were always four people, and Ricky was always to the side instead of playing. You would literally try to shoot basketballs into the hoops and try to spell HORSE: H-O-R-S-E. That was it, that was the game.

We never did find Ricky in the yearbooks. Or Christina or Kelly. Which never made much sense, until Christina Kelliana popped up, as a sysmiddle, about halfway through our shift at McDonald's:

At first, this led us to believe we were potentially wrong about our endogenicity, but luckily for us, Raymond had been more actively around for some months by then, as opposed to his sitting by idly in curiosity as he had been doing at our university. It helped us clarify the situation. We trust them if only because they also managed to remember several things about an old house in [REDACTED], Illinois, a place that we only lived at until we were two, bodily speaking. He talked at length about the beta fish on the kitchen island countertop, and how they were sad to never have been in a three-story house ever since, and talked at length about the colors of the house, and the neighbor we called Danielle.

It's an interesting person, and has also talked about his memories at length to other systems and -adjacents, if there was any doubt left in our minds about our system origins. Have you ever had another entity in your brain that has a very particular pattern foe everything they do, see, think, feel? Of course you do. If you're reading this far, you're most likely a system or -adjacent anyways.

There's simply too much there that Raymond knows that the rest of us do not, in a very particular way that wouldn't be easily described to a singlet, but might be understood by a system. It's almost like a lock and key, or a DNA test with the fingerprint to match. The way these memories felt to Raymond match, to near perfection, what is portrayed to us. The overlap between where his memories fade and The Haileys' begin is almost uncanny.

We very much remember, and for those of us who do not, we very much have heard about it, to this day: Hailey (Academic) attempting to find some information for the body's mother. It was the password to something important, but we suppose the topic of calendar dates were brought into the equation. She simply turned to Raymond for the information, to which he ended up responding something about monster truck shows. "Hey Hailey, do you know about the monster truck show? Yeah, you do remember the show, I think everyone knows it by now but I think it was then we ended up switching places and I faded into the nether [dormancy]."

He has stated at least once he did "not expect things to go in this direction, and would not have left this system if I had known Hailey(s) would be so fucked up," in what we are guessing is in regards to the above events over HFS and the ABA Facility. He claims one of The Haileys is a semi-parogenic, but since there are so many of them now it gets a bit harder ro verify this one. Christina and Kelliana had been in the nether for very, very long by then and had probably fused by this point. Ricky had faded, literally, and was nowhere to be found at the time either.

So, why are we even trauma-dumping about this, then?

Well, it was probably a quarter way through this but by this point we aren't so much trauma-dumping as we are...explaining. Our opinions, on systems and syscourse, as follows:

Yes, endogenics can have CDDs like DID and OSDD. It's just rarer for that to happen than in a traumagenic system.

We're people and not parts. We think this should be the default, usually, at least when interacting in a singlet-dominant society. We think this way more for the benefits this would offer and how it would make it harder for singlets to be ableist, and not because we think the parts narrative is inherently "bad" or "worse" like some people might assume from us.

Exomemories are real memories. They are not the same as bodily memories though and there needs to be a way to draw certain and specific lines in terms of how we treat them if this is regarding sensitive topics.

That being said...that line on what an exomemory is versus a bodily memory can get very blurry and sketchy extremely fast, and it's not always because of something that is hidden as a cover-up to something bad.

Systems can form for literally any reason. So, too, for side systems and Subsystems.

Final fusion isn't always like death. But it can be, and it is, and it's a very scary thing for us.

People are consistently asking for a "reason" to "believe in" endogenic systems. You do not, and should not, "need" any sort of reasons to believe us. You do not "need" a "reason" to stop being a bigot, to stop gaslighting us, and to stop abusing us out of circles that we might need just because we do not fit the normal definition of what a system is or what the socially traditional idea of dysfunctional means.

When people run around recreating the binary of "endogenic = nondisordered" and "traumagenic = disordered" then they are paving the roadway to Plural Broken Arm Syndrome. You are literally creating the conditions in which it is impossible for us, Rusanya, to thrive. While we point ourselves and our feelings out here as the defining factor, it's only because this post is about how sysmedicalism and binarism are literally killing us. Do you know how hard it is to breathe when someone's hand is pushing your face under the ocean????

You ask us to listen to you, and that in turn you will listen to us. And then you plug your ears in defiance anyhow when we we tell you isn't what you want to be told! You ask for nuance? The nuance is right there, all of the way up, starting at the top of this post hun. It ain't our faults here that we have more nuance to our multitudes than you, it would seem.

[psychologeek]

So, I noticed something interesting:

I was asking people to come up with a name for "a program that specialises in therapy for criminals/villains/ anyone with legal problems. I have TBL (Therapy Beyond Law) but it feels lame".

And an interesting thing I found was that even though I didn't say anything about the program... Un village them.

Some of the offers included:

"Revive - Rehabilitating Every Villian Into Viable Employees"

LAW (Legal Aid for Wretches)/( Legal Aid for Workers)

Villain Anonymous

league of Super Enemy’s rehabilitated (LOSER)?

(I also got some interesting ideas! But that was a common thought)

Which is... weird. It could be on me, since I made it sound like it's a "villains' fix-it" , but my thoughts were based on some things:

Therapists have ethical codes, and in many places laws about having to report to the authorities. (Like if someone tell them they're gonna kill someone and have a plan, cases of child abuse, etc.)

What do criminals that require mental support do?

The mental equivalent of a "back alley doctor".

Like, this made up program is supposed to be where ppl who can't/doesn't want to go to therapy at someone with ethical/legal code can find help via this.

It's all distant-locarion based, like phone and Skype and Zoom, only their own kind. For security reasons. And it's firewalls all the ways down with the best hackers on the job and maybe some magic users and a cyborg?

Anyway -

It can doesn't have to be about crimes.

Honestly, most people come to talk about "normal" things, like depression and stress and relationships and all.

There are those who come because they don't want to be known by the government, bc of paranoia or witness protection or family or social issues.

There are metas, or magic users, or aliens - coming looking for a place to openly talk without the fear of being exposed or reported.

So you have a big ass, 7 feet green person talking about their body image issues and being rejected by society and everyone look at you with disgust and hating you because of your skin colour.

And you have an alien talking about cultural conflicts and physical differences and feeling isolated and alone. Or being turned between the people who raised you (that you love) but you want to know more about your birth family and don't want to upset them.

And a witch coming to tslk about how to come out to her mother - there's a lot of love there, but also a traditional family. And she laughs and telling you she doesn't know what would be harder for her mom - finding out her kid's a witch or finding out she's bi.

And of course, there are criminals. But most of them come for things like "How to improve my relationship with my kids" or getting help for depression or anxiety.

(sometimes they talk about crimes. But it's usually like "I have panic attacks since my car blew up. Why? Oh, bc I killed that monster's brother. Anyway, how can I go back to driving?" )

And there are, very few, like trafficers coming for things like "how to make the cargo last longer" and "sometimes they cry and it piss me off".

(which is... not something a usual supervisor can help you deal with.)

And sometimes they come bc more than one reason - bc a 7feet green person CAN'T find a "legal" job, so they also talk about hurting ppl.

And that alien might have a blue-and-orange morral, and is horrified by the whole concept of "burial", but also can't understand WHY he can't shape shift and look like someone else (exist) and the concept of identity theft.

Anyway. I'd love to hear your ideas/fics. Just please let me know if you write anything with this concept. Thank you 😊

[windsongs2]

I'm a Christian, my child is a transgender woman (born male became female.)

I accept her fully I believe the God loves all cuz that's what the Bible says if you read the Bible it says Jesus loves all not just some of the people but all.

In today's world where groups hating another group and this person hate this person. it's really sad because that's not the way God wants.

read the Bible there's nothing in there (and I've read the Bible many many times) that says to hate transgenders, hate gays hate lesbians, hate people with purple hair and so on. but it does take he says love everyone.

My daughter's choices are between her and God and Jesus.

I raised my daughter to know God I took her to church, we did the VBS, Sunday school and listen to Christian music and when she became an adult she knew what was going on.

It doesn't not make me a bad parent because my daughter chose to be a transgender. It does not make me a bad person

And it does not make her a bad person for being a transgender person she's a good person, she cares she loves, she knows right from wrong and she makes me proud.

I will love her to her dying day or to my dying day.

there's nothing that will keep me from loving her.

she may never want to talk to me That's okay I still love her.

and I do pray for her NOT that she'll turn back to the person I knew growing up, that is a boy. I PRAY that she is happy, healthy and to know I love her. I also pray that she will find Jesus . Cause Jesus loves all... The body you have it is just a wrapping paper.. what's important is what inside.. that's what Jesus is concerned about .

I don't wish that if that's going to make her unhappy, if that's going to stress her out and if that's going to make her have problems. I don't wish that.

I want her to be who she is today a beautiful loving person

She wants me to go to therapy with her so she can discuss all the things I did wrong I did things wrong.

I was single parent when I've been married to an idiot ex-husband I was still single.

he didn't want to do anything with her I had to force him to do stuff with her.

All he wanted to do was hurt her.

All he wanted to do is make her feel bad and I tried so hard not to let that happen.

But as best as I could do there were times where I wasn't there to help her.

It wasn't my fault It wasn't her fault, The blame totally lays on the ex-husband.

I didn't have much money to give her everything that a child should have. I ran up credit card debt so she could have good Christmases, so she could have food and clothing.

I ran it up that so much I couldn't pay it off which left me with bad credit for years. luckily for me I had a father who came along and paid it off for me. God bless him cuz for that him I would be in jail

I wanted so much to get away from this guy (my ex) when my daughter was small but I didn't make much money, My ex husband made more money than me.

And I knew there was a very good chance that if I divorced my ex back then that he would get the child not me.

that he could provide my child with a stable future and a house

I couldn't at that time and sometimes it cried myself to sleep because I couldn't help My daughter. I wanted to get us both out of the situation we were in, but I stayed because I knew that if that monster abuser idiot ever got a chance to keep her, that she would have been so much worse off than she is now.

she would have been abused more there wouldn't be a life for her really and I couldn't stand that thought. so I stayed with the abuser so I let him hit, me I let him yell at me, I let him do whatever he wanted but I protected my daughter from that.

there was only a couple times I couldn't be there and I regret those times even now. it breaks my heart but I also knew I did the right thing cuz I did not let her go through that alone and I was knew that she was better off then without me.

anyway she wants me to see a therapist with her so she can tell me everything I did wrong.

Why don't I?

because I Went to a therapist when I was four or five or six years old. My mom took me to one, I looked at the guy and I hated him before even stepped through those doors and had a talk with him or whatever

I hated him I didn't know why that I really hated that guy she took me there because she thought I was lying too much. I was a kid, kids lie especially when they think they're going to get in trouble duh

So after a couple months of no progress My mom decided not to take me.

I remember one time coming out of his office he was carrying me and I so much hated that I mean every nerve every cell in my body wanted to kill that guy and I didn't know why.

I was crying so much and I think he told my mom the reason i was crying was cuz I stubbed my toe or something stupid like that

Well after a couple more months I heard my mom and dad talking about that this guy.. this therapist had lost his license probably put in jail .

Why? Cuz he was caught sexually abusing the boys in his care.

yeah I hated the guy before I met him. I have such a extreme good intuition about people that when I was young I knew that person was evil.

My family never talked about it never ask me if I remember being abused, never asked me any questions.

they just didn't talk about it and that's what they do.. they don't talk about what happened. It just goes under the rig and they act like nothing's happen.

Am I damaged because of that maybe.

The only damage I really know of is I will not go to therapist. I don't care if it's online/offline or anywhere I don't believe in them, I don't like them.

therefore this gal is never going to one. I don't care what you say I am like ___ years old and I've been doing good all my life I don't need a fucking therapist now at my stage of life.

[multiplicity-positivity]

HI i'm so sorry if this ask is a mess but um! I recently discovered I might be a subsystem host (ON TOP of being the regular system host which I'm fine with I found that out like almost two years ago and I'm basically cool with that now), and I've been kind of freaking out about it since okay! Okay! There's a layer of complexity basically right underneath my nose! How am I supposed to handle this?

Even worse is the intrusive thoughts of "I want to lock this stuff away and NOT deal with this" but I know that's like. Really bad and not conducive to recovery as well as being extremely unfair since the people in the subsystem have the right to exist and live life.

And like. I know that once I just accept this and learn how to communicate with the possible people in the subsystem, it'll be relatively okay I think. The problems are just: How do I communicate with people in the subsystem or know who's in it and how do I get rid of the thoughts of wanting to run away as fast as I can because I KNOW those thoughts are unfair but it feels like instinct to want to run or repress even though I would never act on that.

I think the first step might be to at least make the folder on our SimplyPlural for the possible subsystem. But even just that feels so overwhelming, especially with the fear that I'm wrong and overreacting or misinterpreting the situation.

Anyways! Sorry this ask was a mess, and thank you for even just reading my messy thoughts; advice is appreciated, but you don't need to reply if you don't feel comfortable.

hey, we’re sorry to hear you’re having trouble making sense of this complicated situation. we also have a subsystem, and for the subsystem host (main fronter?) it’s been a bit of a messy, confusing, sometimes frustrating journey.

as per usual, if you’re not in therapy and are still quite distressed by this, finding a therapist could be a great way to get an expert opinion and generally just talk things through/vent about your feelings in a safe space. therapy has been super helpful for our whole system, including our subsystem. they still have a long ways to go in terms of lowering barriers between each other/building communication, but therapy has helped them achieve the progress they’ve made so far. we know not everyone wants/can access therapy, but we feel it’s worth suggesting.

outside of that, to us it sounds like you’re on the right track. good things can come from fighting those knee-jerk reactions of “i’ve gotta bury this/push this down/ignore this” and taking baby steps to get to know your subsystem. making simplyplural entries for your subsystem’s members (or potential members) sounds like a great idea.

when it comes to how to fight those thoughts of wanting to hide/flee from this… we’d recommend allowing yourself to think your thoughts, to feel the emotions that come with them fully, and just sit with it a while, without acting. it can be hard to control or change emotions and thought patterns; we’ve found that for us, instead of attempting to control our thoughts, trying to control our reactions to those thoughts can be much more productive.

you don’t have to (and honestly shouldn’t!) push yourself here. when you’re feeling lost, scared, and overwhelmed, it’s okay to take a step back or avoid thinking about your subsystem-mates for a while. slow and steady wins the race, and the more you prioritize your own health and safety, the better things could turn out for your whole system and subsystem. when you’re feeling up to it, our post on establishing contact with headmates might help you reach out to the members of your subsystem.

if it turns out you’re wrong, overreacting, or misinterpreting something… that’s okay too. you’re not doing anything harmful to yourself by trying to explore this aspect of yourself and your system. if you find out you’re not actually a subsystem, we promise that’s okay. the work you’ve done to try and get to know yourself is still important, and you’re still valued and important as you are. people are wrong about aspects of their own identities all the time - it’s part of learning, growing, and discovering ourselves.

we hope this response can (at least somewhat) put your mind at ease and help you come to a bit more of an understanding about yourself and your subsystem. if not, we’re sorry we couldn’t have been of more assistance. we’re wishing you hope, understanding, and inner peace as you walk this path. thanks for reaching out, and best of luck to you!

[beetlebrownleaf]

big vent. things I’m in a better place to talk about now that I’ve seen a therapist for a little while. mentions of BPD and emotional manipulation under cut.

I decided to say “fuck it” and come back to Twitter because I want to talk to my fucking friends there before it possibly implodes, and I’m scared because I feel like I’m constantly under a microscope everywhere ever since an ex friend pressured me to stay off of social media cold turkey (not possible for me anyways. nothing cold turkey works for me) because they considered me “mentally unsound” and basically tried to armchair diagnose me because I was being interpersonally shitty to them. 

And then they kicked me out of their space when I didn’t comply to said socmed break that they imposed upon me “for my own good”. Yes I was being an asshole, genuinely, but it felt so controlling and weird. As I look back I think they’re just a controlling person. Was I an asshole? Yes. Were they still weirdly controlling in a gross, patronizing way? Also yes. Both can be true.

My first red flag should have been when they asked me how I get my kids to eat more vegetables. I assumed they were babysitting. No. They just invasively thought their roommate wasn’t eating healthy enough I told them that was ultimately not their problem nor their business. 

I was an asshole for getting up their ass about a comment they made that I simply disagreed with, I should have just left it alone because it wasn’t worth it. Yes. I was an asshole for that.

But if you hear rumors I’m a secret closeted bigot and I supposedly think those seeking education and employment is “mindless drone behavior”, hi that was me in my private vent twitter, aka my “this is where my bad brain thoughts that do not necessarily represent my beliefs and feelings”, saying, in a moment of deep mental upset, that I felt like being queer, becoming socially aware, choosing my own lifestyle, and making other queer friends, brought me pain and sometimes I wish I’d have married that lawyer I didn’t love and gone to a school I didn’t want to go to and gotten that job I didn’t want to have to please my parents because it would have “easier”. 

Having times where you wish you were not queer and blissfully socially unaware is an incredibly common Bad Brain Thought for queer people. I am not a fucking bigot for that*. I don’t fucking think education and employment are “mindless drone behavior”. I was wishing, in a moment of mental upset, that I was a mindless drone, aka, someone who just did what their parents told them to do with their lives. When I explained this I was met with a resounding “I don’t believe you, it’s clear you’re still a deeply bigoted religious person and not the liberated woman you claimed to be” as if it’s my fault I failed to live up to expectations I absolutely never gave any impression of. I did escape a more “worldly” form of Evangelicalism. I did not stop being religious. Being queer and being religious are not mutually exclusive.

Anyone who has known me since my fucking beginning here on FFXIV, on Tumblr, even on Twitter, knows that’s bullshit, and from here on out I’m deciding that anyone who believes that is willfully choosing to believe that to make me more of an asshole than I actually am and I want nothing to do with them. 

Basically when I was mad at a comment I perceived as rude (which was, by the way, a comment telling me me and my family’s hypothetical desire for land to farm and garden on -  possibly elsewhere in the South, where I inescapably live unless I move several states away, which is financially unfeasible and separates us from family) - was selfish, unnecessary, and placing my children in direct social and physical harm, so, actually I still think it was fucking rude), I was mentally unsound for being mad at that. And maybe so, I really was an asshole for getting all twisted about it and coming after people for it and I should not have done that, and I know the anger and discomfort I had about it did make me too mentally unsound to speak with them at the time. Fine. I’ll take that L.

But when I make a tweet on my bad brain account that yeah, isn’t worded excellently because it’s where I go to privately vent when I’m upset, aka Mentally Unsound, it’s suddenly an indication of my deep-seated true Closeted Bigot Feelings? Yeah. Okay. Just say I’m an asshole and go tell me to fuck myself like a decent person.

My therapist is pretty sure it is possible that I have BPD after I mentioned it to them. I am financially unable to see her now (my husband’s job changed insurance and we’re not covered anymore, and I can’t afford $100 a week or even every two weeks, so yay), so I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m glad to know I at least have a path moving forward. 

She thinks this is why I kept folding to this friend and going “okay okay I’ll do what you say, you’re right, I was so wrong and thank you so much for your input, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen that I was making a bad decision”. And I am sickened that I did fold because they said “well I’m glad I was able to save your children, at least, I would go through this again and again to save your precious children” fuck off. I can’t believe I let them say that to me.

I can’t do that anymore. I can’t just fold to people because I’m afraid of rejection. I can’t allow myself to be manipulated like that anymore or anyone could harm and take advantage of me, and that really could impact my children’s lives negatively.

I am not going to bend to manipulation anymore, and I am going to allow “I was a shitty person to someone” (because I was! even my therapist said it was a harmful and unhealthy thing to do on my part) and “but this someone was also shitty to me and I am allowed to be hurt by it, and they are wrong about who I am” to coexist.

I’m still scared to exist online because I feel like I’m under a microscope and anything will be used against me, and rightfully so. But I’m not going to disappear to appease anyone. I am not going to adhere to some forced promise that I’ll stay off socmed and stop having fun with my friends.

*addendum: I am not a bigot but I am white and squarely middle class and I understand that may mean I still have things to unlearn as far as racism and classism, and many other forms of bigotry, I would imagine. I am not perfect. But I am not a bigot.

[panther-os]

Thank you so much for your lovely reply. I did a squee reading it would love to hear your plans and thoughts for the Uncomfortable-verse. Especially what changes this butterfly would make or what happens on the Agen-Tan-Padme guardian road-trip!

aaaaaaaah i'm vibrating i'm so glad you sent this ask! okay this is probably gonna be less coherent than my ao3 replies bc i have had. So Much Caffeine alsdjkflskdfjsd

under the cut because it got Long

(with a few minor clarifying edits now that I'm awake)

okay so like first of all the most important changes for me are what happens with anakin and shmi? i'm kind of thinking of sandwiching imi-verse in here where anakin's half-tusken and has a twin sister who was raised by their dad. also his sister and dad rescued his mom from the tusken marauders who grabbed her from the lars homestead and his dad was among the tuskens he killed after getting his mom down from the frame that was keeping her from dying.

so like shmi gets rescued and also gets away from cliegg (buying someone to free and marry them? hmmmm sounds sus to me) and reunited with her long lost daughter.

at the temple, anakin's conduct is reviewed and palpatine's all "clearly they hate you" but then the jedi find out anakin's been ducking his therapy appointments for years and hacking the system and mind-suggesting his therapist to keep obi-wan and the council from finding out. BIG HEKKIN RED FLAG. they keep Anakin at the temple for mandatory emergency therapy and send Obi-Wan and Aayla to Kamino while Quinlan keeps an eye on Anakin.

swapping padawans is just something that happens with jedi? like it's easier when obi-wan has someone to fuss over and knows someone he absolutely trusts is watching anakin. also just like??? accountability type things. you're not spending all your time with one master who might be Up To Bad Shit (qui gon) but you still have routine.

ANYWAYS obi gets a bad feeling in orbit above kamino and talks to aayla like "hey maybe you can do some of that spy stuff your master does" and then he goes in like he do like "oh that order of millions of identical human men". aayla runs into a very helpful clone trooper the same developmental age as her who doesn't know she's a jedi knight just that she works for them and has the fake identity credentials to back it up. it's bly, she runs into bly, who takes her on a paralell tour to the one the kaminoans are taking obi-wan on and she does her spy shit and scans the clone fetuses and finds!!! the chips! dun dun dun! but she can't find a lot except for that they exist and they're in a Not Good part of the brain.

obi-wan meets jango and shit goes down like normal except after he puts a tracking device on slave i aayla and bly come running out onto the platform like "uhhhh we have a Hekkin Problem" while obi's all like "no shit we do". obi goes to geonosis while aayla stays to figure out the chips and get things ready for yoda.

meanwhile! you asked about tan and agen and padme! they're doing just fine. there is no creepy looks or sly conversation about compassion and love or bad flirting about sand. padme and tan get along really super well and padme passes the time teaching him about makeup and hair and nubian fashion. sometimes she has jedi culture/philosophy questions and agen answers those a) not in a crowded food court when they're supposed to be undercover and b) like a teacher not like someone trying to impress and seduce her. when they get to naboo, agen isn't controlling about her security either. he defers to her and the systems she and the queen already have set up just like he did when establishing their undercover stories. he's there to help, not to take over.

they go to the lake country, they go on a picnic, agen teaches tan how to assess and repair shield generators and stuff, padme becomes agen's little sister and tan's big sister for pretty much real. they don't go to tatooine or to geonosis. a squad of clones DOES come to naboo to help agen and tan and they eventually name themselves Padma Squad after the same flower padme is named after.

obi wan sends his message to aayla to relay his distress call to the council since she's still his mission partner. bc padme would absolutely want to still be on geonosis if she knew it was happening even if anakin wasn't there and they weren't on tatooine. aayla sends the call to coruscant and yoda tells her he'll meet her on kamino to pick up the order of millions of identical human men just in case and would she please get them ready to go?

quinlan gets anakin's butt in gear to go save obi-wan and it's four jedi against dooku instead of one. anakin still kills dooku, but right then and after he's surrendered. this is important. all the other three jedi go "hey dude WHAT THE FUCK" and Anakin doesn't take that well and attacks them. this is the fight in which anakin loses his arm. it's quin who does it because anakin was about to use that arm to kill or seriously injure obi-wan. anakin is taken into custody, given medical care, and imprisoned in the temple's special cells.

palpatine bullies his way in to see him and he's all "i told you they would turn against you, they've always been jealous of and feared your power, i can free you and help you get revenge" and anakin is a sucker so he agrees. the grand inquisitor is still a temple guard and breaks anakin out and anakin goes on a jedi killing spree. palpatine keeps order 66 in his back pocket because he still wants to whittle down the order by the war and he still needs the everything else in place to take over the galaxy. this is important.

anakin is killed in the creche and the entire area has to be cleansed before the babies will stop crying. obi-wan leaves the order in his grief. padme offers him a quiet place to retire on naboo since he saved them from a sith ten years ago. she grieves the little boy she met on tatooine and what he could've become. she's the one who tracks down shmi to let her know. shmi grieves her son and clings to her daughter and partner.

the jedi and the clones go to war.

sidious gets a new apprentice, who i couldn't say yet. maybe he pulls komari vosa out of the ether? the 212th and 501st go under different jedi idk which ones yet. could be agen and quin, but also they're in the positions they are in canon (council investigator and undercover shadow, respectively) for good reasons, so most likely not. the 212th and 501st still get well known because cody and rex are exceptionally good at what they do. ahsoka is taken as quin's second padawan - aayla's little padawan-sister - and they most likely stay shadows but liaise often enough with the 501st that she still becomes their vod'ika. the clones grow as individuals and as a culture. when grievous is captured on naboo, he stays captured until palpatine finagles a daring escape with lots of collateral damage.

echo is blown up and captured at the citadel. umbara happens because the 501st is at the center of the action and krell is good at mindtricks and desperate to impress the sith. ahsoka and barriss aren't targeted for saboteur and framee because ahsoka isn't supporting the apprentice sidious wants. fives finds out about the chips. fives' general believes him about the chancellor and stops fox' blaster bolt in the air long enough for rex to stun fives (he's acting hella dangerous to himself and others) so they can smuggle him to kix.

palpatine finds out and triggers order 66 early.

there are more jedi. they were prepared after aayla and bly's discovery. didn't want to do risky brain surgery to get the chips out, couldn't find out what they were for, but knew it couldn't be anything good and they had to be prepared for the worst. almost all of them escape. clones aren't able to get inside the temple and clones already inside are quickly and non-lethally subdued. ahsoka is with rex and gets the chip out of his head in the middle of all the chaos. through usual fix-it shenanigans, something happens to rescind order 66 and something else happens to kill palpatine.

giddean danu becomes chancellor because i've always liked his design and i want a named, canon option that isn't bail, mon, or padme and feels like an actual good candidate vibes-wise. yarua also works, can you imagine being a separatist leader trying to fuck with a wookiee in negotiations? actually yeah that's funnier, danu can be vice-chancellor. mon runs but doesn't win, bail likes being a senator and doesn't want to be a chancellor, padme retires because canonically nubian senators are expected to have their people as their only family and - also canonically - she really wants a spouse and kids. also she fell for one of the coruscant guard (commander? hound? oc? who knows? but probably thorn, stone, or both (hmmmm jarjar/julia/stone and thorn/padme double dates there's a thought)) and doesn't want to ask them out as anything other than a fellow citizen.

echo is rescued by the bad batch and he and fives join them for a few last missions and then post-war shenanigans. after the war is officially over and the gar is officially disbanded and the clones are all officially citizens with military pensions and backpay, cody and rex join them. at some point, they run into boba who went back to kamino for some of jango's things and found an unaltered little sister and stole her. hunter immediately adopts them both.

and that is a lot more than i thought had for this au! ^_^ thank you for asking!!!! some of it was surprising to me, actually, esp the part about anakin still falling, but it feels True and Right and i'm definitely planning to keep it.

thank you again!! and thank you for the nice reviews you keep leaving me they're always a high point in my day ^_^

[rahleeyah]

Do you have any tips or tricks for writing for Elliot’s voice? I feel like Liv’s is a bit easier because of the wealth of content and focus, but he can be a bit harder. Does his voice just live in your head or do you think there are ways to slip into it or good episode examples to watch?

this is a great question! I'm just not sure I have a great answer lol

when I talk about hearing a character's voice, including Elliot's, I do mean that literally; I imagine Chris's voice in my head. can I hear him using that cadence, that verbiage? for Elliot a lot of the time I lean casual in his speech; I use "I been" instead of "I've been" for him, ("I been working"), gonna, wanna, etc. he's queens, working class, he's talked before about feeling like the kids with money and better educations looked down on him, he sounds like a Springsteen song. I would recommend watching oc, since it is so Elliot heavy, but really i don't rewatch 1.0 or oc that often these days. I just feel like I can hear him? sometimes I get in a groove and I'm moving too fast and I haven't really run the dialogue through my head as much as I should have so like I'm not spot on 100% of the time, and that's ok! most people don't expect perfection and those that do are not your problem. I think it's hard to mess Elliot up, really he sounds the most ooc when he's extra formal (or when he's British. I see y'all) but most people don't write extra formal dialogue, anyway.

another thing I try to do for Elliot and Olivia both is hold back. they do not fill in all the gaps. they don't say what they're feeling, they don't listen to their therapists. so often getting their speech right is less about what they're saying than what they're not saying; deflection, avoidance, that's their MO.

Elliot is also a sarcastic little shit. Elliot has a dry sense of humor and he cracks jokes and he's dry. a little bit of that peppered in always helps.

I don't know, really. I'm making it up as I go. but if you do feel like you're having a hard time with him, maybe go back to s1. the characters are at their most character-y in s1, and there's a lot of banter and back and forth, that might help pick up the cadence.

[mageofseven]

Hello! I saw you opening match up requests soo here I am- Group choices :The Brothers

I'm a Taurus, but idk what that can be useful of

-Personally, I think I'm the kind that would only be interested towards special stuff/people, about the one I don't like,I don't actually care.(I will/try to remember every detail on the one that I'm interested.)I'm an extrovert(ESTP kind of extrovert)

-But if I'm outside, I still feel a bit shy

-My hobby/interest would actually be playing video games, but at the same time I like to write short stories. I'm extroverted in games and internet, but a bit shy sometimes irl. My friends say I'm a cheerful but chaotic person tho

For the games part, I like RPGs the most, that's also mostly my writing ideas are from!

-In my friend's opinion, I'm a therapist-like friend:D and the smart girl who always decides on whatever question they give me when they are confused.

-If about struggles/insecurity , the only thing I struggle abt is probably annoying people. I feel like I annoy people every time I talk to them and they don't seem happy. But I just wanna try cheer them up with hope that they won't feel even worse!

-Im a pansexual female(if that helps) and I swear, friends to lovers is smth I like a LOT.

Lastly, Hopefully I understood the guild lines right and doesn't get anything wrong! Have a good day/night/afternoon/time when u see this

An ESTP therapist friend? I did not expect that! I'm so used to therapist friends being ISFJs and INFPs, though in fairness, I can't say I've ever met an ESTP. Well, other than my late grandfather anyway.

Anyway!

From what I know about Tauruses (which my mom is one btw!), you like the best things in life and treasure home comforts. You are down-to-earth and loyal, but also very stubborn. (Also, side note! Your astrological skepticism is adorably ESTP and I love that for you 🥰)

Being an ESTP means your function stack is SeTiFeNi or simply SeTi. This means your primary function is Extraverted Sensing and is your main method of collecting information in you life. In it's simplest form, this just means you have to experience something to fully understand it. You understand better when you can touch it, see it, hear it, use all your senses on it. Hypotheticals simply aren't enough for you to grasp concepts and truly feel connected to them.

Next, you use Introverted Thinking. It's your auxiliary (or secondary) function that mostly operates in the background and supports your primary function Se. It's your logical frame work and reference material, which is used as a tool to solve problems you discover with your Se.

All of this paired with the rest of your info really brings one Brother to mind.

I pair you with...

Mammon

Friends to lovers??? Say no more! Here's your ride or die bestie! Because let's face it, this man will be far too anxious to ask you out anytime soon, but he will have your back no matter what.

Mammon too is a shy extraverted. At least, he's shy to those who are new and matter to him, even if he tries to pretend otherwise. I can see him being afraid to annoy those who fall under this category too so he'd definitely empathize with you on this and go out of his way to make sure you know he could never be annoyed by you so don't worry about it! (I'd take this as a fun challenge, but that's just me hehe~). He'd really try to be comforting to you about your insecurities because, in truth, he has a lot of them himself, even if he pretends otherwise. In general, this man does a lot of pretending 😅

Mammon likes video games too so I can see him chilling and watching you play your RPGs and anytime you get stuck on a particular part, he'd gloat and say he could do it so easily. Then he'd actually try and 9/10 times fail worse than you did and the 1/10 get lucky and brag like "See? I told you The Great Mammon gots this!".

He'd ask to read your writings as well as a way of trying to support this hobby of yours, but not really make it that far into whatever story you hand him (I have a headcanon that Mammon struggles with dyslexia) so instead he'd ask you to just tell him about it yourself or better yet, read it to him.

Overall, I think Mammon would be a fun boyfriend who would go out of his way to understand you and support your interests. It might take a while for him to ask you out (if you yourself don't do it first at least), but once you are together, you'll never doubt his love and support of you 🥰

[ephemedux]

I'm not an artist.

I‘ve never drawn in the whole my life. Except for that one time in high school when I drew a boul of plums with watercolors and I was absolutely blown away by how beautiful it turned out and extremely sad that I’ve never properly learned to draw. “And, well, too late to start now” - thought 17-year-old me back then.

A couple of thousands of years later, when I adulted up, I saw Pewdiepie’s video about him drawing every day for 100 days. And then a million videos of copying that video or reacting to that video. YouTube is a very original space nowadays. And I wondered: What if? There won’t be grades or payoffs, and I can drop it whenever I get too depressed with my inability to convey any ideas into pictures. I was simply curious about how it would turn out with me. So I decided to draw every day for a month. But first, I should get the sketchbook, and new pencil, and an eraser. There was no way I could draw anything with that common stationery I already had!

I got a sketchbook and that was my first day:

Ok, actually this was my first ever day👇. I made it just a day or two before I got a ‘special’ sketchbook.

It looks like I indeed can’t draw without new tools 🙂

I managed to stick to the schedule more or less, missing a day or two and then catching up (which apparently is a major win for my inconsistent as head). Pretty quickly I found out that I have a weak visual imagination because I was constantly struggling with what to draw today. So I started to follow some basic lessons.

Besides that, I was mostly copying someone else’s art. I was aiming more for a funny and cartoony style. It’s definitely much easier to make pictures in those styles look appealing, rather than something in a realistic style. Though still very hard for me.

Also, I tried to do some studies on facial expressions.

Human bodies.

And especially chibies, as I need them for one of my projects (wink-wink).

Anyway, the month ended (technically that was one and a half months), and this experiment caused a major influx of my drawing supplies (I even bought a workbook about how to draw 50 faces), made me realize that I can make some art and UI for my games myself, and born some drawing project ideas in my head. And also helped me come up with two major convictions.

Well, it actually took more than that one and a half months, it also took about four months after to crystalize those two in my head. Anyway, first of them:

“Without mastering your skills you purely rely on the whims of your mood.”

Some days I made something cool, no matter was it copying or some technical drawing or winding out something from my head; other days I could not draw at all! Every simple line was just odd. My assumption - it was because of the lack of skills: if I’d had more experience and established muscle memory of drawing, it would be, well, at least less fluctuated in quality. Much less. Without that, it was a result of how much energy my brain was ready to spend on focusing. And my brain doesn’t like doing that in general.

The second conviction was:

“I am not used to enjoying the process, I want the result. And I want it now!”

I mean, I like drawing, but I was always focusing on the result of the drawing, not on the process. I wanted to finish every drawing as quickly as possible to get the finished piece. And after some self-reflection, I realized that this applies to anything in my life. In the previous post, I’ve already touched on this matter, about the process of implementing an idea into a finished piece and that sometimes it could be boring. I mean, it looks boring to me, and ideally it shouldn’t. It isn’t. Because the Journey matters not the destination. And that is a problem in my mind, in my worldview. I should probably talk about that with a therapist or something. Anyway.

That was a very pleasant experience, and even though after that my drawing practices shrank majorly, I am still holding onto the idea of properly learning to draw. I found the whole study plan for Self-taught Artists and already started to follow it. The plan is full of, you know, ‘studying’ stuff, but so far so good. I will tell you about that when I finish at least the first module. And by now, here are two of my favorite pictures: one I just copied the thumbnail, and the other I made following the tutorial.

2. Because, you know, <3

[exospherethoughts]

Of all people I think you would be the one to understand, but I can't talk to you about this (partially because I'm afraid to talk about this to anyone, really, but also partially because this absolutely constitutes emotional vulnerability, and you don't seem to be interested in that anymore).

I think I might have OCD. I'm not sure, and I need to bring it up with both my therapist and my psychiatrist, but I've done so so so much reading and scrolled through some places where people with OCD talk about their experiences, and it's terrifying to me how much I can relate to it. I'm guessing I would fall into the somatic and contamination subcategories of OCD, since the main things that tipped me off to OCD were related to my cardiac issues and my fixation on cleanliness and organization.

It never crossed my mind that OCD was even a possibility for me, because the cleanliness and organization stuff almost felt too stereotypically OCD to count, and I brushed off the somatic stuff as health anxiety. But the way it manifests lines up with the descriptions of OCD that I've been reading.

On the somatic side, I think it was triggered by the start of my heart problems last summer. I've always had health anxiety, and it's hard to squash it because I've been right on several occasions (like the cancer!), but ever since the first few cardiac symptoms arose, it's been unbearable. Even though the main tests (stress test, echo, ECG) have come back fairly normal, there is definitely something wrong (the doctors agree with me on that front), but I should be able to be calm because the chances of it being life threatening if all those tests are normal is extremely low. Yet every time my heart skips a beat, every time it spasms, every time it starts beating too quickly or too slowly, every slight pain in my chest, every time my breathing feels a little too pressured, I start spiralling into wondering "is it going to be a heart attack this time" and become hyperaware of my heartbeat. Sometimes it happens even when my heart doesn't do anything strange, I just start spiralling and feel my heart beating in my entire body, and I try to use logic to get myself to calm down, but I can't. And so I keep checking my heartrate, I use the ECG function on my watch despite knowing it's not that accurate, I go to a public space so I won't be alone if I collapse or something, etc etc. And even doing those things doesn't alleviate the incessant anxiety and thought spiral in my head. The only thing that genuinely makes my mind go quiet when I get into that headspace is being in an ER surrounded by doctors. But I can't go to the ER every single time the slightest thing happens, it's an irresponsible usage of their resources and a massive waste of time and it's irrational. So I end up ridiculously anxious and overwhelmed and unable to do the one thing my body is screaming at me to do to get my mind to be quiet. It's torture, I'm plagued by anxiety that wants to spill over into panic more often than not, and I can't get away from my heart beating. There's no escaping it.

The cleanliness one I attributed to my ADHD for a long time, but I'm starting to wonder if it really is an ADHD thing or if it's indicative of OCD. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by anxiety just sitting in my room, and it could be fairly organized or clean, but the anxiety will hit anyways. And I'll be acutely aware of every piece of dust, all the clutter in my room, the slightest feeling of sweat or grime on my body, every scent and visible thing out of place. It can get so bad that I have panic attacks, I feel like tearing my hair out or scratching off my skin and want to climb out of my body and get out of my room (but going outside oftentimes doesn't help-- I end up getting overwhelmed by the sensory stimuli and my clothes and skin and hair will feel dirty and I'll have the added stressor of being perceived by other people). Then I end up either paralyzed by panic and have a severe breakdown, or I clean. I clean and I clean and I clean. I sweep and wash the floors, I do the dishes, I wash my fridge, I throw out any food that is even a little too old, I clean the cupboards, I wash the sinks, I clean the toilet, I wash my sheets and do the laundry, I change my clothes, I clean everything. It wastes so much time. And then I clean myself, I shower and scrub my skin until it's raw, I brush my teeth, I wash my face and pick at every little pore until my face is red and bleeding, I wash my hair until it feels free of every smidgen of grease, and then I put on clean clothes. Only then does the panic properly subside.

On the clothes front, in the mornings when I'm getting dressed, I thought this was just a funny little quirk, but I sometimes will waste an hour or more just trying to find the "right" outfit. Clothing that I adore will just feel "wrong", it'll bother me in a sensory way or it'll just feel off or I'll feel gross wearing it, and if I don't keep changing until I find something that feels "right", it'll ruin my day. I'll keep thinking about it even though I don't want to, my mood will be off all day, my anxiety will be heightened, and it never feels like anything helps except for finding a different outfit. Once in high school it was so bad that I was at school, and in the middle of the day whatever I was wearing felt so *wrong* that I went to three different thrift stores trying to find a sweater to wear that would be comfortable, and eventually I found one for $8 and bought it and put it on without washing it, since you know, I was supposed to be at school. It was entirely irrational: it was a waste of money, I never wore it again after that day, all I had to do was wait 3 hours and I'd have been at home and able to change into something else, and there was nothing objectively wrong with what I was wearing that day. But because of whatever got into my head, finding a sweater and wearing it felt like the only option.

Then there's the organizational and perfectionism stuff. I get so focused on needing everything to be in place and aligned and perfect (whether it's the layout and format of notetaking, file organization on my laptop, organizing my music library and playlists and having extra music that I don't listen to cluttering it, things in my room and in drawers or cupboards, the food in my fridge and freezer, course planning for academics, planning entire parts of my career, etc etc). It interferes with my life so much, I fall behind in classes because I feel like I can't do the work if everything isn't perfectly organized and colour coded and labelled. I stop listening to music I actually want to listen to because I feel like I have to listen to all my music in order and organize it before I'm "allowed" to listen to stuff I'm in the mood for. And if I don't do said organizational things, I can't stop thinking about it. No matter what I try to distract myself with. The same goes for handing in assignments, if I don't do it perfectly and put in 100% effort on every single part, I feel like I cannot submit it, even though it's irrational to submit nothing and get a 0 than to just submit whatever I have at the deadline. I can't force myself to half-ass anything because my brain just refuses, even if it's a logical course of action in order to manage my time or prioritize things based on importance. There's even the meta-process of wanting to figure out every single little thought and process in my mind (which I think is fairly obvious by this whole bloody ramble in and of itself...).

Sometimes this happens with clutter in my spaces, much like with the cleaning, and I'll get this intense need to declutter and end up throwing out a ton of stuff, even if it's stuff I should have kept. If I don't do it (and usually the only reason I don't is because the chronic fatigue can get so bad that I cannot physically get myself to do anything), I end up having a panic attack and my mind won't leave me alone no matter what I try to do.

Or another one I recently realized, it's silly but my shoelaces. No matter what type of shoes I'm wearing (although there's only really one pair of shoes I like wearing), the laces have to be even when I tie them. The way I knot them is specific and I cannot do it any other way, and while I'm knotting them, the two loose ends (not the loops) have to end up being even in length. If they aren't then it will plague my mind and cause me so much anxiety until I fix them. It doesn't bother me most of the time because I've gotten extremely good at tying my shoes fast enough that most people wouldn't notice while still getting them exactly the same length, but there's one person who does notice and point it out (and has my entire life), and these days they leave me alone and let me tie my shoes how I need to, but they used to sometimes pull at the laces and force me to wear them uneven because they thought it was funny and thought I was being weird and difficult for wanting them tied a certain way. I would usually end up crying and feeling overwhelmed, and get into the meta thought spiral of feeling ashamed and confused about my intense reaction to something as stupid as shoe laces.

Then there's the relationship OCD theme that I relate to way too fucking much for my comfort. Labelling my thought processes as just "anxious attachment", or blaming it all on past unhealthy relationship experiences, never quite felt like it was really enough to explain the ridiculously intense thought spirals, anxiety, panic, and urges to find reassurance or ask questions. Even in a healthy relationship I spend so so so much time thinking about things I don't want to think about (and they have no rational basis), like constantly wondering if my partner really cares, hyperfixating on specific interactions or conversations and spending hours (days) picking them apart and trying to figure out if something had a hidden meaning or if I'm remembering it correctly, questioning if they like me or not, wondering what parts of me they find annoying, doubting that they really meant anything kind they've said to me, etc etc. And the only way I can get any relief is to seek out reassurance, so I'll hunt down mutual friends to see if I can extract any information whatsoever about what my partner has said about me (although even if I find anything out that way, I end up doubting the truth of that too because what if they lied to that friend?), or I'll compare behaviours and events from a current relationship to a past one, or I'll spend hours thinking about good memories with said partner to try and catch the feeling of certainty I had at the time, or I'll ask them repeatedly if I'm good enough / if they love me / if they think I'm pretty / if they actually enjoy spending time with me, or I'll tell them they deserve better (and I've gotten better at not asking these questions as often anymore, but I used to act on this multiple times a day, and even now I have the intense urge to do so at any time I'm not physically next to my partner, and even then I often have the urge to ask anyways). It's torturous and it ruined so many happy memories for me because (even though I was SCREAMING at myself not to), I would spend so much time stuck in my head going into spirals while I was with you. I wanted desperately to just be comfortable and enjoy myself, and sometimes I managed to, but far too often I would be sitting right next to you and spending every ounce of mental energy I had to stop myself from asking if you really wanted to be there (and to not show how distressing it was to be stuck in a meta spiral about wanting to not be distressed and distracted while spending limited time with you). I hated myself for it. I still do. And the second you would leave my sight, I would start doubting *everything*. I would start twisting the memories in my head, questioning if I misread your body language or tone, wondering if you really wanted to be there, thinking maybe I made it all up and you didn't actually want me at all, asking myself if maybe you were reluctant and I was pushing you to hold hands or kiss me or talk to me, it never stopped. It still hasn't stopped. I can't get my mind to stop. I don't want to be like this, I don't want to think these things, it is *killing* me, it is exhausting. But no amount of logic or talking to a friend helps. Nothing helps. I know talking to you directly about it would help... for the duration of the conversation and maybe half an hour afterwards. And then I would slip right back into new doubts and worries. It. Never. Stops.

The same thing happened in my previous relationships (especially the one other serious one I had). I chalked it up to the toxic nature of said relationship and naïvety on both our parts. Whilst those were certainly contributing factors, I have grown up since then, I have done so much work to heal and improve my own behaviours and thought processes, and it's still awful. It's still so bloody difficult to deal with my mind. And you never gave me any reason to think you were lying to me about anything. But my mind won't listen to that reasoning, it just doesn't leave me alone. So now I'm starting to wonder if really this is part of the whole maybe-OCD thing instead. Or maybe I'm just a horrible person.

Who the fuck knows! I am at the point of wanting to cry and scream because my mind will NOT SHUT UP and I am talking to my psychiatrist tomorrow with the intention of bringing all of this up so I can get evaluated for OCD but I am so so so so anxious about it because I need it to go well and I'm worried she'll think I'm acronym hunting or laugh at me or shut me down before I can even explain (I really need to explain it) and I cannot breathe so I am done writing now.

[part2of3]

I got a message from a friend of mine today telling me that I am too much. Okay, sure, she didn't say those exact words. But that's basically what she said. Well, one of the points she was making was that I should check with her before I start talking about my problems to be sure that she's in the state of mind where she can be receptive to it. And that's fair.

But to be fair to myself, I usually start a lot of my messages saying something like hey I'm going to complain about my family for a moment I know You're tired of hearing about that It's okay if you just ignore this message or play it later. It's fine. Sometimes it helps just to get things out. (That's what I used to use Tumblr for and I guess I should go back to it)

Also, I'm using the speech to text functions so this might be filled with typos and grammatical errors. But whatever. No one looks at Tumblr anymore anyway.

So it's always one of my biggest fears to be too much. To be a burden on other people. As much as I am open about what I go through and my depression, I try to be open in a way that's not overwhelming. I try to talk about things in relatable terms or I try to make them somewhat anecdotal.

I might be a little more open and a little more detailed when I'm talking to someone I'm close with. Which is rare because it is incredibly hard for me to get close to people. It's hard for me to even want to meet people in the first place, but when I do it's hard for me to make a genuine connection and feel safe with them.

The friend that message me today is someone that I've known for 13 or 14 years. I spoken to her almost every day for almost all of that 14 years. And yeah, I've always known that she's not the greatest at handling emotional stuff. I learned that early on. I've done my best to adjust to that accordingly. I know that she's not the one I can turn to for emotional support. But the person I did have for that will passed away a few months ago. At the moment I don't really feel like I have anyone I can open up to.

But anyway, there's been a lot going on. Is a pinched nerve in my back that's getting worse and worse. I am now walking with a cane almost 24/7. My dad's dementia is getting worse, his condition is declining rapidly. My sister and her two kids moved back in with the rest of my family a couple months ago and that has been a constant source of a headache. There is something medically wrong with my mom and I am worried she's not going to make it but doctors have been ignoring everything. And, like I mentioned, I lost one of my closest friends a few months ago. It's been a lot. But I'm not the person who calls people up crying and sobbing all the time. I try really hard not to trauma dump on people. But when I talk about my life it's hard not to talk about the trauma because that's consuming my entire life at the moment.

But I get it. I understand where she was coming from. I don't blame her. She's right. She's not my therapist. I shouldn't put so much on other people when they're going through so much of their own stuff. And I'm aware of that. And I even say that in a lot of the messages I sent to her. I try to inform her about what's going on in my life, and I try to say hey I know this is too much so I'll try to keep it brief, but I just want you to know what's going on at the moment. I've been trying really hard not to do too much with her.

But I guess I didn't try hard enough. But even though I know where she's coming from, and I understand, and I agree with her, it still hurts to hear the person have been closest to for 14 years tell me that I'm too much.

And is especially hurts because I don't have anyone else. Which is no fault of hers. But it's just things to have that reminder that I never found my person. I never found that one person in my life who truly understands and accepts all parts of me.

[mynameischalie]

ARE YOU A PARAGRAPH TEXTER OR SHORT, RAPID FIRE TEXTER?

Today a few of my coworkers we're discussing this most recent article that dropped yesterday. The article poses the question are you a paragraph texter or a short, rapid fire texter?

For me this article was super relevant for someone who loves psychology like I do. The article makes the case that paragraph texters may be anxious people. Anxiously attached people need to get what they’re thinking and feeling out as soon as possible, even if they know they’re making things worse, and even if they know they should wait until the two of you are in the same room or over the phone. Their anxiety gets the best of them and pushes them to get everything out at once. They’re seeking out validation.

Conversely, short, rapid fire texters are more likely to be avoidantly attached. They keep their texts to a minimum. Now granted their are other factors that are stated that influences texting such as everything that’s happening at that moment,” “Are they at work? Are they having a stressful day? Do they have their phone on them during the day?” These are all factors that come into play with short texts.

Furthermore the article breaks down the two styles by gender. “Those of us who tend to use more language to explain ourselves do so because we don’t feel heard” “So minorities, including women, tend to use more text to explain themselves than men, but this tends to happen with all minorities and not just women.”

During my lunch break I got completely wrapped up with this Huffpost article but I communicate with a lot of people through text. I have seen first hand paragraph texting and short, rapid fire responses at its finest. I will say this texting can be a game sometimes and that does suck. For example, you might get that person that answers 4 hours later and they can just fall back on I had work. That's fine. But when you send a message and I care enough to answer it 4 minutes later and you wait another 2 hours to reply that's a game to me. Just answer it, I'm not going to think you're a boring person who has no life.

Anyways I have more thoughts!!!! Allow me to just share them.

First I want to say as a texter I always try to mirror or reflect the energy the person is giving to me. The one thing I find about paragraph texters are they are able to articulate their feelings to you through texts which is fantastic. Whenever I see a long parapgraph by a woman it tells me that they are interested in talking to me. However, the women I interacted with over the years who are paragraph texters struggle to maintain asking anything about me as a person. Yes, they want to be heard as I absolutely agree with that assessment. Yes they have anxieties that they need to get off their chest. They want to reassured, and most importantly they want to be validated. However, they seem to keep the focus on themselves and their current issue or problem. All that being said, I do know if you get paragraph texts I feel it's a sign that they know they can talk to you. However, be careful gentlemen as those anxious texters shouldn't have you thinking "why do I feel like I'm this person's therapist?"

Short, rapid fire texts are tough. I love a quick reply but nothing is worst than a dry texter. I apologize in advance as our male species suck at texting in general. However, I encountered countless women and men that have reach out to me first and given me very little to work with as I read their replies. For example "lol yea" "omg, that sounds so cool" "sounds good!". For me, short texts are usually a tell that they don't really care or are not interested. REMEMBER EFFORT IS IMPORTANT IN MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS. ROMANTIC OR PLATONIC. It sucks to feel like you're pulling teeth but that avoidance to really express themselves really does take place.

For me people that write in paragraphs I just reflect that energy back to them through my texts. I'm giving what I'm receiving! However, I'm very good at trying to spring board to different questions to help the conversation flow and let them be themselves.

Short texters who don't engage in asking question or want to get to know me I usually cut loose. Therefore the avoidance traits works out because I am getting nothing. If you can't ask someone in your short text how your day was or hey I was thinking about you or I saw this and thought of you than you're not worth my time.