#the amygdala does a lot of shit around emotions and emotional processing which like. ok interesting ianthe wtf!

[vaguely-concerned]

...the 'almond room' thing in the unwanted guest IS a reference to/play on words on amygdala, right? (amygdala comes from the greek word for almond!) I didn't read that wrong? it is stupid sexy Ianthe coyly inviting Palamedes into a different chamber of her brain, as it were?

(also the pieces of meat -- the feeding or kissing, it's hard to say which of it all -- being present right from the beginning... ianthe DOES know exactly what has happened to her, doesn't she. palamedes is just cutting his way through her layers of denial and repression all merciless and scalpel-like to get her to admit it. or, she knows subconsciously at least -- each person comes in and feeds her something that she's helpless to stop from becoming a part of her even in her coffin, with bloody kisses. oh baby love is feeding me bad meat and I have no choice but to swallow it down. like yeah I suspect that is how human contact can feel when your sense of self and boundaries developed to be a specific kind of Fucked Up lol. that shit could make a person dream of being a diamond in a glass of wine; perfect, inviolable, untouchable, eternally separate and safe. In the words of Andrea Gibson in Prism:

They say the womb is where we learn love is knowing the cord that feeds you could at any moment wrap around your neck

that is quite literally ianthe's first introduction to love -- her sister, a cord around her neck. Corona is Ianthe's other self, a second soul running around outside of her body, and she seems to consider herself as responsible for (and entitled to) the preservation of Corona's soul as her own. the way this mirrors that growing up, Ianthe had to be two necromancers in one body to let them stay together. (twins and ghosts all the way down I guess.) she's still just trying to do the same thing, I think, she's simply put on some bigger boots about it. the central problem of lyctorhood, self vs. connection/love, rears its head once again -- Ianthe existentially wants total self-contained self-sufficiency, perfect control, sovereign sway and masterdom over her soul... but she wants that at the same time as being in uninterrupted (uninterruptible!), eternal and indelible intimacy with her sister, whose soul also cannot be allowed to change. which, you know. freedom and love don't coexist the way you want them to, Ianthe, no matter how clever you are there won't be a way to get what you want. (especially not with a sister whose idea of what love is seems to go more towards being consumed, made one, by whatever violence necessary -- 'she could have taken me'.) man. Ianthe is a spectacular and ongoing piece of work, but sometimes it's hard to see how she could ever have turned out otherwise considering the conditions she was born and raised under haha.

the two-way street of the horror of digestion, whether you're the devourer or the devouree. part of you in me, part of me in you, whether either of us likes it or not we're both changed by this. bad news: you can't get out of interconnectedness by finding the cleverest loophole around it, ianthe. nice try, though)

[convervative-blog]

so, ptsd is the only dsm v recognized disorder which is classified as a psychiatric injury and not a congenital, inherited expression (ok blah ignoring that of course many things like bpd are now becoming known as typical complex trauma/abuse responses but thats not what this post is about, marsha linehan was robbed i will fight everybody...anyway...)  alot of ppl really seem to misunderstand what ptsd is. it is an injury to our brains, it is a psychiatric injury which clearly and visibly affects our limbic system, our amygdala, our hippocampus. it literally lights up how we process memories events circumstances. it activates our pons, the area in our brainstem responsible for controlling stress, our “lizard brain”, the part of our brain that instinctively knows when shit is wrong and reacts and slams the 10/10 button before u have time to think. the adrenal system, the part that floods ur body with cortisol, adrenaline, endorphins, epinephrine, your muscles tighten, your pupils dilate, you know you can put your fist through something if you have to, you know you can make a run for that closet and hide in it if you have to, you know you gotta do something because shit is going down motherfucker!!!!!!!!!!  ok so like some ppl with ptsd can be violent. we see this in media portrayals of ptsd all the time, the guy had a gun he was in iraq he went crazy. like thats the normal narrative, and ok within our community we really dont want to discuss how this is real and could be real for people. ok of fucking course that narrative is bullshit because most people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violent crime not perpetrators and we need more positive inclusive healing narratives of ptsd because we want to see representations of ourselves! but this isnt about that because weve seen those posts, weve done the discourse, were doing the discourse, so im gonna talk about something else. something thats gonna piss everybody off so buckle up cowboys yeet haw.  some ppl with ptsd become abusers, thats a fact. because some people cant deal with stress at all, they become hyperreactive and that reaction is fists, yelling, screaming, throwing things, becoming incoherent and nonsensical, etc etc. when your heart reaches 180 bpm (and it does with virtually any indistinguishable environmental or emotional trigger, it absolutely gets that high when your lizard brain takes over), you stop being able to think logically.  part of having ptsd for me was learning that this is me, i dont hit but when little things happen my brain completely sheds the part of my personality that is logical reasonable and calm. my decision-making part, my risk/reward analyzing part, my organizing part. frontal lobe? lol seeya. i immediately become enraged and if i do nothing else ill usually yell/scream at TOP VOLUME and then after about 30 seconds, 60 seconds, when it cools off ill feel bad about it. sometimes when im having a bad day and multiple little things have gone on, ill get progressively worse and storm around swearing and slamming things, simmering, trying trying trying to get it under control, trying to fight through the hormone surge to claw back my reason, my sanity. its something i literally cant control, i have tried my whole life. im not denying responsibility for it of course im responsible for it, but thats reality, its my reality. its my reality that the person i live with has secondary ptsd because of me because of my life because i was a sex trafficking victim from age 8 and i cant deal with dropping a cup of water anymore because of it. my brain is literally damaged, literally, literally, literally.  and i have hurt people because of it. maybe not physically but that doesnt matter. theres a person on this planet who is affected by the things ive done and will always be affected, and there is nothing i can do to fix that, or change it. as long as im alive it will be their reality as my caretaker (because atm im unemployable obviously for those reasons).  and you go to therapy and they say “try writing about your anger,” you know. “try focusing on what makes you angry.” nothing makes me angry its not about that, its not about that at all and it shows a distinct lack of comprehension of what ptsd is. ptsd is your brain being unable to deal with minor, mundane, ordinary stress. and ppl dont grasp what the word stress in neurological contexts means. it means novel, sudden actions. there are even good stressors and bad stressors. sex is a good stressor! lots of action! lots of cognitive shit going on! going on a date, going to a movie, riding a roller coaster, meeting a stranger, being startled accidentally, dropping/breaking things, running out of meds, being late for something. theyre all ordinary things that most ppl can deal with even if its inconvenient. people with ptsd cant. because our brains are conditioned to view every stressor response as a potential trauma.  funny thing is when trauma is actually going down our brains are pretty damn good at entering the fun zone, its that latent logical shit, ya know what i mean. everything gets slow-motion and youre able to shut down your emotions and just act and do the shit that has to be done, just clench up and freeze and let your eyes drift and you’re ready to endure.  when you spend your whole life like that, every little thing becomes something your brain assesses as potentially traumatic, potentially going to harm you, your brain doesn’t know the difference between the telephone ringing unexpectedly or a masked intruder about to rape you. its like the fucking tumblr algorithm. beige tones?????//? ThIs iS nOt My SAfe PLAacE?!!! bam adrenal response. and im not trying to justify abuse, this isnt my attempt to justify it, but it is a real issue that exists for alot of people? probably people who arent involved in our community bc this seems to affect ppl who dont have regular access to online resources proportionately more (there is a link between being well-educated on ptsd and being better able to manage your ptsd, shocker water is wet etc etc, but its not imminently an obvious correlation! i dont hit people or break down the doors specifically because ive devoted my life to learning about and understanding my disorder) but there are people. we dont want to talk about this shit bc its like an open fucking secret, some of us get crazy some of us go fawn-like and become people pleasers, some of us get violent (’violence’ as a word im using to refer to ppl who explode outwardly and impact their environment in some way, not necessarily physical 100% of the time, you dont need to hit someone to be a violent person) anyway just thought id rant about this good luck chiddlers