#this is ill advice

[questionableadvice]

Historical medical poster collection, c. 1946-1950. Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University.

[crush-echoes]

sometimes i just get hit with the feeling

i wasnt supposed to make it this far

also what do i do now

[imbecominggayer]

Writing Advice: How To Trauma

In seeing the recent explosion of my "How To Write Trauma With Humanity" post, I have decided to jump back into this topic!

This cute post will be covering how to write complicated individuals with Trauma. From the good, the bad, and especially the ugly since people tend to assume that victimhood is inherently seperated from assholehood

A) Being A Person And Afraid

In my experience, the majority of people with trauma have simultaneously existing fears and desires that often contradict, complicate, or outright hurt themselves.

I call them "fear combinations"

It's these fear combinations that cause people with trauma to often act in ways that seem confusing to outsiders.

For example, the person that's always on the hunt for a relationship but whenever an opportunity for romance strikes, they create relationship havok so the relationship can end

Or a person tries to always sincerely bring attention to themselves but whenver the attention is on them, they just shrug it off as not being worthy of it

This behavior seems kinda weird until you stop to take a closer look at their psyche.

Example 1 is based off of my character, Monday Vũ who has a tendency of jumping into relationships with a sincere desire to find romance until the honeymoon period ends as Monday realizes that if the relationship continues they might have to settle down, forgo their entire identity, and all of their freedom. Then they sabotage the relationship under the guise that it's a selfless endeavour.

Example 2 is based off my character, Niko Preyr who uses grand public gestures and his friendships to prop himself up as a person to be known but if you ever spoke to him then you would quickly see one of the most insecure yet attention-hungry individuals you have ever seen.

"Fear Combinations" are an excellent device in making your characters complex. In my opinion, the trauma-writing scene is just a little bit too neat in it's displays of trauma. It's too logical. It doesn't feel real to my personal experiences.

"he has trust issues because of trauma" What if he also had issues with being clingy to people he sees as trust-worthy?

What if your characters weren't so easy to understand? But I hear you wondering.

How? How do these people manifest such confusing behavior? Why should I add this into my characters?

I'll tell you

B) Instinct Vs Terror, Fighting Against Yourself

In my opinion, "fear combinations" are either caused by the distortion of a human fear or the event in which an intrinsic desire is contrasted against a "survival method".

Humans are born with certain "intrinsic" fears and desires. Humans are born with a desire for belonging, a desire for vulnerability, a desire for self-fulfillment, a desire for independence, a desire for security in themselves.

And with desire comes the fear of "missing out". The fear that you want something that everyone wants but for some reason you won't be able to get it. The fear that you'll loose it. And the fear that your desire might put you into danger. What if you get rejected? What if you never find that group? What if you never find freedom?

In not-traumatized individuals, while it may take some introspection, people can and often do reconcile their fears and desires in a movie-montage when they're children with the help of a strong support system.

In traumtized individuals, what tends to happen is that either the fear of lose and the fear of gain tend to be increased to unpredencented levels

Either that, or a lack of a strong support system doesn't allow the child to safely confront their fears in order to get what they want.

This causes "fear combination"

Niko Preyr has the natural desire to be validated as "good", as "special", as "worthy". A desire we are all born with. However, his upbringing convinced him that he is underserving of what we all need. This causes Niko Preyr to use attention as validation. However whenever he receives this attention, his gifted fear that he is undeserving causes him to reject the attention. But he continues searching for attention to serve that need for validation. A hellish cycle.

Monday Vũ has two understandable fears that we all have. The fear of losing two necessary things: indepedence and security. Monday fears being abandoned, fears being engulfed into relationships. While children and adults can often reconcile those fears in their childhood through a strong support system, Monday never had that. Instead she had her father who emotionally left her and her mother who literally left her. Monday only had herself to rely on, at least thats how she felt. And now, as an adult, Monday wants to fulfill that desire we all have. To be loved. To be connected. But she's afraid. Afraid of being blindsided. Afraid of not having the last laugh. Afraid of being apart of something.

What if that loner wolf found someone who they think is perfect. Someone worthy of their trust. Do you really think that all those years of yearning for love, for connection, are just going to be smothered when they have the perfect person to unleash their childish, half-developed, horrifying emotions onto?

But what next? After we have our character's contradictory fears and desires, after we have the justification for why they feel like this, what's next?

It's this:

C) Self-Destructive Habits: Why We Understand And Can't Change

Let me tell you, unless in very specific conditions such as certain personality disorders and so on, people tend to understand that their behavior is foolish, illogical, and hurting other people.

Monday knows that betraying other people, hurting their trust and faith in their relationships, and entering relationships when she understands her history is bad. It makes her a bad person.

Niko knows that their habits are actively hurting their chances at finding worth.

That "Lone Wolf" understands, deep down, that no single person can handle the high expectations and emotions.

They know it because they can see it. Many times. Monday can see that characters in movies who have their relationship history tend to be casted as the antagonist. Niko can hear the gossip. That "Lone Wolf" can see the way that their loved ones cracked under the pressure and guilt.

So why do they do it? It feeds into their idea of the world. It feeds into what they want to be perceived as. It feeds into their stagnancy.

If Monday can ignore how they hurt others, then they can live under the Martyr label for the rest of their life without having to come to term with the fact that this isn't selflessness, it's called being pathetic.

If Niko can ignore how deep that hurt goes, then they never have to actually make the effort to change. To take that potential and make themselves into something. To be responsible.

If "Lone Wolf" can ignore how nobody can meet their expectations without crumbling down, then they use everyone's failure to feed into their cynical, self-hating notion of how nobody's trustworthy. How they don't have the responsibility of being considerate.

[hamptersadness]

Everyone needs this

[suntails]

accolade

[spread-positivity-everywhere]

[kabukiaku]

caved and put aside what I was doing to draw terzo getting hickies from omega. this ask prompted me to do so.

[lifewithchronicpain]

If you don't need a cane, but you get one to signal disability because sometimes you get faint and need to sit, or whatever, as a cane user for years, go ahead. Please, if it makes claiming accomodations easier for you, even if you don't need it to walk, I don't care. This is your permission if you needed it.

Can I suggest that you can get a foldable one at CVS (they're great) so it's there when you need it? Shits fucked up, do what you need to do. Just beware there are assholes that won't care about the cane. But overall, it does make things easier and is easily purchased. Go for it.

[the-archenlandian-court]

Things I wish I knew before I got diagnosed with a chronic illness

You’ll forget - Sometimes you’ll straight up forget you have a condition, that you have a disability, and that others don’t feel like you

Your most important job is to stay alive - Everything else is secondary, as long as you stay alive you have achieved something

It’s okay to cry - It’s normal, chronic illness is sucky, but don’t cry for too long or focus too hard on everything that’s wrong because it will make things worse

Your body is in a war, be kind - Your body is constantly fighting against itself, give it time to rest and heal, eat food and drink, do what you can to aid in the battle

If you feel like you can’t do it, you can - Have a cry, eat some ice cream and have a nap, when you wake up you’ll find the strength to keep going

Some advice from younger me; January of 2021 (I just found it stashed away)

[mikajunie]

rediscovering shame and giving yourself compassion (how to deal with shame as someone with ADHD)

this is directed towards my fellow ADHDers who have trouble with reoccuring shame while leads to hindered productivity.

signs that your productivity is hindered by shame (compiled by my own experiences):

you feel negative physical symptoms when you think about your responsibilities

you find ways to avoid the responsibilities

every time you make progress, you feel like you don't ever wanna touch it again

when you present your progress, you feel ashamed of yourself because it's not finished (on time & according to ur standards).

you feel like you are a constant failure. you never win, despite achieving good things here and there.

you are a walking ball of anxiety

you have a fear of being perceived

there's probably more, but eh those are just from my own experiences

below i will write down what y'all should remember, what you can do to help yourself, etc. this is compiled from dr k, my own journaling time, and my firsthand experience from having shame 24/7

some things u gotta remember

shame is what exists in the gap between your ideal self and where you are currently.

your ideal self doesn't have to be unrealistic, it can be yourself when you were at your peak or someone who is very similar to you.

shame brings negative thoughts, because it makes you see progress as a negative thing.

instead of being happy that u made progress, u grumble to urself and ask "why didnt i just do it sooner? im so stupid". it's a reminder of your failures, so u avoid progress altogether.

shame can become a part of you, to the point where you feel uneasy or vulnerable if you dont feel ashamed at yourself

shame doesn't do anything to ADHDers in the long run except self-loathing and hindered productivity.

what should u do?

basically self-therapy, but instead of stopping at why, i try to solve my shame one-by-one.

examine past moments where you felt a LOT of shame. this can go back to elementary. the stronger the emotions, the better. now, write them down. you're probably cringing, but that is good. feel all the cringiness running through ur veins.

why did you feel shame? why did it happen? what did you feel?

reframe your thoughts. instead of immediately running away from it, accept it and justify it. give it compassion. give it a hug. was it your 7 year old self? hug yourself. it's okay to fuck up and do silly things sometimes, and it's okay to have ADHD. it's not our fault.

remember that ADHD is a lifelong nerudivergency, you can't just push it away. coping mechanisms and tools help, but give yourself some grace when you screw up. it's our first time living anyway.

calm your body down. make sure your physical body is doing okay.

now... think of one thing you want to do but can't because of shame and do these steps carefully. think of the reasons why you might be ashamed, and reframe your thoughts.

WARNING!! TAKE IT ONE PRESENT ACTION AT A TIME. don't do this for every action you want to take, let your body slowly learn that it's okay to make progress despite the shame you feel, and you are allowed to feel compassion for yourself.

train your body to accept compassion slowly. life is tough with ADHD but it's even tougher knowing that shame will get in your way. give yourself a break, it's fine to fuck up, we all go through different things anyway. even if it's not fine, you will learn and make those mistakes a lil bit lesser in the future.

ok hope this helps.

[hypokeimena]

it makes me so so crazy when people are like the existence of magic means that you need to do science to the world harder. this is common in portal power fantasies and also i'm back to reading dogshit hp fic for the fascism essay and it's so common there too. but.

if magic is real i don't know why you'd double down on science (a worldview which doesn't account for magic being real) instead of trying to come up with something interesting to say

scientific rationalism is an incredibly modern worldview and while it's challenging to take yourself out of it bc it's how the vast majority of us were. raised and educated and acculturated. it does feel genuinely disrespectful to the. humanity of people who lived in the past, to me.

like there's plenty of things where historical people were incorrect about the causes or effects of things. but an attempt to make sense of the world that accounts for "things we don't fully understand" is maybe a reasonable approach to bring to things we don't understand yet. including things that are obvious metaphors with some component of truth to them. so like.

do i have ptsd bc of biological changes to my brain. do i have ptsd bc spirits are attacking me. is there a difference.

and it's not like people don't still engage in magical thinking all the time but they pretend it's based on science. like the way people (general people, popular science, not subject matter specialists) talk about chemicals in the brain is absolutely not supported by the actual science, which is a lot better at admitting when it doesn't know something than the popular imagination would like to believe. humans rely on metaphors and stories and things that Feel true in order to make sense of the world and we always have and we always will.

tl:dr you are not better than a peasant from the 1600s because you are lucky enough to have been required to attend a school that taught you the scientific method.

[writingpoorly]

me: *aroace* how do I write a date?

[huellitaa]

🤍𓂃 ࣪˖ if you can read this, it means you're still here! which is an achievement in itself. im so proud of you. <3

i have been falling back into some bad habits recently, and thinking about it a lot. i had a really, really bad night last night and this morning i woke up with puffy eyes and a messy room but i felt light.

imagine yourself in december this year. imagine yourself looking back on today and smiling at how far you've come. everything can change in one year. everything can change at any time.

there is a whole entire world for you. the sound of rain on the glass, the way the petals fall in the spring, the way the sun rises in the morning, that stranger that smiled at you on the street, that cute little dog you saw on your way to work or school or wherever you went to this morning.

there are people you haven't even met who are cheering you on. you have so many people admiring you from the sidelines because they're too shy to say it. i have been one of those people and still am. there are people who admire the tiniest things about you; the creases by your eyes when you smile, the cute little dimples on your cheeks, the way your hair gets so messy after being out in the wind, the way you hold yourself with such confidence, the way you try so hard to be better every day even if it's hard.

there are people who love you beyond belief that you've never even met yet. because there is so much to be explored, so much to be learnt, so much to see and so much to meet. 8 billion people. 8 billion. even if it feels like you're surrounded by people who don't love you, who don't want the best for you, who don't take care of you and admire you half as much as they should, they are not the last people in the world, and they never will be. there are 8 billion people! think about that for a second! there is someone who is wishing for you the way you are wishing for them! there are people who have so much love for you they haven't even had the chance yet to express!! that's so beautiful!!! <3

there are people who do love you beyond belief, even if you guys don't talk anymore. there are people who smile when they look back on you guys time together, from your childhood best friend to that girl you complimented in the street years and years and years ago. there are people who look back on your memory fondly and still love you and are so happy to see you flourishing.

its okay to be sensitive, its okay to get upset by things. not everything is going to be okay all the time, and neither are you. you can't have good without the bad, and the good always comes afterwards better than you'd ever imagined. life is feeling everything deeply and learning from it, no matter how hard it was or still is. you can always make it through because the most sensitive people are the strongest people.

there is so much life left. you are so young, no matter how old you are. there is so much you can do, so much you will do, so many achievements to be made, so many friends to meet, so many experiences you can learn from. you will get your happily ever after and you will make something beautiful out of your life because life is messy and imperfect and constantly growing and that is beauty.

please keep living, because there is so much to live for. even if you want to go back to that home of sadness you've built over the years, even if growth is messy and uncomfortable, even if things aren't going too great right now, even if it's not everything you thought it would be, you've survived your entire life with you helping you through it even if you've been alone.

you've picked yourself back up every. single. time. and are still making an active effort. that is extremely strong and you've done more than 90% of other people would do in your position and all the things you've been through. you've tried so hard and you should be so proud of yourself. and you should keep going for, because the life you're dreaming of is so close. please smile. please never give up. there is so much left to live for. i love you & you should do the same.

[teaboot]

FISH EMERGENCY

A few months ago I mentioned that my two tail betta fish, Loulou, had the fringe of his tail turning oddly opaque and white. I posted here to ask opinions, and ended up checking everything from new growth, to ich, to velvet, to fin rot, to regular wear and tear.

This was Lou when I got him, compared to about a six months later btw:

Out of my own depth, I went to an aquarist in town and showed them pictures, describing my concerns. They told me that it was most likely damage from something abrasive in his tank

Pics I showed them:

The thing is though, I don't HAVE anything abrasive in his tank??? He has a ceramic skull hide, which is a little bumpy but otherwise fine, and a smooth flat rock, and his substrate. All his plants are real and his water pump is protected by a sponge.

I left him in the care of a sitter about three weeks ago, and when I came back, his fins were noticeably shorter and far more haggard. I gave his tank a super thorough clean in case it was fin rot and told myself I'd go back to the aquarist later this week, when I'm not at work.

Then today I came home to THIS:

Photos are bad cause it's nighttime and he didn't wanna hold still for pictures despite treats but his fins have MULTIPLE broken spines and his upper tail is BLEEDING?

I noticed a bit of red on him the other day and mistakenly believed he was changing colours again, but it's DEFINITELY blood.

He has no other tank mates except for a few snails I put in there to handle the plants.

I thought maybe he was chewing himself or something but he cant reach the spots that are missing.

I'm sorry to post this here, but has anyone with fish seen this before??? I've had him for almost a whole year now and have not had this happen before

Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated, I'm taking everything solid out of his tank until I know what's happening.

Thank you

[aspiring-prototype]

Seeing all these posts on the DCA's bday and the 21st of September got me making this thing.

*sensibly chuckles to self*

Happy Reveal-versary to Sun & Moon and happy 21st Sept!

@crabsnpersimmons , thank you for the advice!

[desultory-suggestions]

Having a resurgence of insecurity, anxiety, or frustration around something that you forgave or that happened a long time ago is not wrong. Things we have forgiven can upset us, they can come back up and bring insecurity. You are not holding onto something unfairly by still being affected by it. There is a difference between shoving a past mistake in someone's face and saying that it still hurts sometimes to think about it.